Need Ideas on How to Use AI? Here are 18 Easy Ways to Get Started.

This is a simple list of my experiments with GenAI over the last 14 months that I've shared here on LinkedIn. If you're a nonprofit leader, evaluator, program officer, or other type of consultant/knowledge worker, you'll find many of these useful for your day-to-day work. A much more detailed post is forthcoming in my Substack [subscribe here!: https://missionbloom.substack.com/?r=2xt39r&utm_campaign=pub-share-checklist ]

My tip sheet infographic is available here .

For all of these experiments, either ChatGPT (3, 3.5, or 4, depending on the timing) or Claude were used.

1. Manuscript Refresh

• LinkedIn Post
• AI Use: Used AI to identify recent research advances and integrate them into a shelved manuscript.
• Lesson Learned: AI can help overcome writer's block and cognitive bottlenecks in academic writing.

2. Revising a Bio

• LinkedIn Post
• AI Use: Employed AI to revise professional bios for specific audiences.
• Lesson Learned: AI can effectively highlight relevant experiences for different contexts.

3. Client Prospect

• LinkedIn Post
• AI Use: Utilized AI to generate ideas for solutions and outline proposals based on discovery call notes.

4. Meeting Facilitation Agenda

• LinkedIn Post
• AI Use: Used AI to design meeting agendas and generate discussion prompts.

5. Concept Spanning

• LinkedIn Post
• AI Use: Leveraged AI to explore synergies between different frameworks like emergent learning and design thinking.
• Lesson Learned: AI can help bridge conceptual gaps across different professional approaches.

6. Simplifying Concepts

• LinkedIn Post
• AI Use: Used AI to generate simple explanations and activities for explaining complex concepts.

7. Fun with Anthems (or Poems)

• LinkedIn Post
• AI Use: Employed AI to summarize a three-day coaching intensive into a memorable poem.

8. Logic Model

• LinkedIn Post
• AI Use: Experimented with AI to create a logic model from a policy document.
• Lesson: AI can help make implicit thinking in documents more visible and structured.

9. Survey Item Scale Refinement

• LinkedIn Post
• AI Use: Used AI to revise survey response scales for clarity and effectiveness.
• Lesson: Even brief AI interactions can significantly improve data collection tools.

10. Infographic Conceptualizing

• LinkedIn Post
• AI Use: Leveraged AI to organize ideas and generate concise content for an infographic about AI use.

11. Presentation Outline

• LinkedIn Post
• AI Use: Used AI to synthesize information from various project stages into a coherent presentation outline.

12. Metaphor Magic

• LinkedIn Post
• AI Use: Explored various metaphors for systems change concepts using AI.
• Lesson: AI excels at generating creative metaphors to explain complex ideas.

13. Outlining a Scope of Work

• LinkedIn Post
• AI Use: Employed AI to break down a winning proposal into a detailed scope of work.
• Lesson Learned: AI can help transition from big-picture ideas to concrete project steps.

14. Breaking down tasks

• LinkedIn Post
• AI Use: Used AI to break down project phases into specific, actionable tasks.
• Lesson learned: You can specify levels of granularity and output type to accommodate your preferred project management system and create an easy to import file.

15. Discovery Notes to Proposal

• LinkedIn Post
• AI Use: Leveraged AI to transform discovery call notes into project proposals.

16. Strategic Communication of Findings

• LinkedIn Post
• AI Use: Utilized AI to categorize and prioritize recommendations in stakeholder-friendly language.
• Lesson: AI can help tailor communication to resonate with different stakeholders' perspectives.

17. Crafting a Job Description

• LinkedIn Post
• AI Use: Used AI to generate a job description based on a scope of work.

18. Incorporating Feedback for Continuous Improvement

• LinkedIn Post
• AI Use: Asked AI for feedback on a session design by providing facilitation notes and end-of-program survey
• Lesson Learned: AI was able to highlight specific areas of improvement within the design guide.