How I Hacked yesterdays Linkedin Newsletter

Greetings Linkedin'ers,

In today's newsletter, I want to share how I created yesterday's newsletter to save myself (and Connor Deasey ) a lot of time by using Descript and AI.

What was the Newsletter about and why was it going to be slow?

In the past, my typical workflow for developing a newsletter of this kind of "show-how-we-do-something" was slow and painful.

If the process I want to share isn't something I do on a daily basis I need guidance from one of the team. Yesterday's Newsletter was intended to share how Jon and Connor produce their weekly live Collab365 Weekly Digests, which I have very little involvement in.

To write the newsletter, I'd normally pop one of the team a message such as:

But, this time, Jon M. simply said "You should have a call together". When I first saw that, my mind went to, "That will probably take more time out of Connor's day, then him blasting me a bunch of bullets".

In reality, it was MUCH faster than me going back and forth. Plus, the level of detail I got was far more comprehensive than Connor scribbling some notes down.

So that's when I had the ...

"Lightbulb Moment"

What if we simulated a live interview to draw out more details upfront and then use AI to summarise it into the Newsletter? Also, by having a fluid Teams conversation, I could ask Connor to expand on key points in real-time, meaning no "Teams Tennis".

Integrating collaborative technology into this discussion allowed me to innovate my entire Newsletter workflow.

Here's the interview.. (It's not at all "polished" as we both had no idea we'd pop it onto YouTube, but I wanted to share exactly how the discusion went).

Step 1: Capturing Our Chat

We recorded the Interview using Microsoft Teams.

I then downloaded the video and loaded up Descript to:

1. Grab the final transcript (after editing out the waffle)
2. Enhance audio quality using "studio sound". (I was just using the Macbook mic which isn't stunning).
3. Remove gaps and "filler words". Descript does a brilliant job of this.

Step 2: Summarizing Key Themes with AI

I then fed the post-edited, cleaned Descript transcript into ChatGPT and prompted, something similar to this:

"This is the transcript where I interview Connor on the team about creating a "Weeky Digest" Video that is a live webinar that goes out to Collab365 Academy Members. I now want to turn that into a "behind the scenes" newsletter. Give me ideas how to structure it."

Note: If you do this yourself you will want to give ChatGPT / Copilot way more background and context about you, your style of writing and your team and / or process. I don't have to because I created a "custom GPT" which already has that included.

The AI analyzed our chat and crystallized the core insights and ideas.

Step 3: Drafting Our Narrative with AI

Armed with the summary, we prompted ChatGPT:

"With these key points, can you help draft a compelling newsletter narrative that captures our innovative approach?"

The AI integrated our conversation into an engaging story, showcasing our new process.

Step 4: Personalizing with AI Assistance

I fine-tuned the draft by asking the AI to personalize the content for me and my readers. The AI made it more interactive and highlighted the efficiency gained.

After about 5 to 6 iterations, I then spent around 30 minutes editing the final output to my preferences.

The Tech Toolkit Behind Our Breakthrough

• Teams: Our platform for creative collaboration
• Descript: To polish our chat audio and grab the edited transcript.
• AI: To analyze our dialogue and generate an engaging narrative

Our new workflow solved some key pain points and streamlined content creation. Now over to you - please share your own tech tips and innovations!

Eager to take your skills up a level? Check out the Collab365 Academy workshops.

Let's keep exploring,

Mark Jones