How to Use AI for Organizational Innovation

How I'm using AI tools today. This could be a fun new series where I show you what me and my AI team are up to. In a week I'll be visiting with schools across Central and South America for a 2-day workshop on AI Literacy and Leadership. Me: I do the initial empathy interviews with the organizers to design the vision for the workshop experience aligned to the needs of the group. The rest is a mix of me and my AI team. Because as they say ideas are worthless unless executed and this is where having AI tools as members of my team is a game changer. 1️⃣ We're using the survey that comes inside our AI Leadership Toolkit to have each leader collect data on how their organization has been using AI. ChatGPT helped me draft a subject line and email text they can use as they share the survey. ⏳ This doesn't just save me time, it saves them time, and makes it easier for them to share⏳ 2️⃣ During our first day, they'll use ChatGPT4 to run a series of prompts on the data they collected. We'll get to cover so many areas through this one exercise - from prompting to PII to consumer vs enterprise of use of AI tools, and so much more. 📊 This exercise not only sets the tone for what's possible, it allows the group to have conversations based on data vs assumptions 📊 Having AI tools as members of my team allows me to create experiences, videos (like the one here that we sent to participants), and resources, that otherwise would have drastically increased the cost of the workshop. We're not only working smarter, we're working faster towards our goals and outcomes. We're doing in two days, what might have otherwise been 2 months. P.S. If we had an international audience, in minutes I could have taken the same video and translated it, to enhance the personalization with HeyGen. If you want to take a look inside our AI Leadership Toolkit, head to the comments or DM me or Stefan Bauschard to learn more. #leadership #k12education #education #technology #innovation #futurism

AI's hype is everywhere, but its practical application is what truly matters. !! Unlike the self-driving car hype of a decade ago, AI's implementation in the real world is uniquely different. Over the past year, I've witnessed firsthand how AI can augment our capabilities at SJ Innovation. It may not replace our jobs, but it does serve as a powerful assistant, handling numerous tasks efficiently. Since OpenAI introduced the "OpenAI Assistant," we've created over 250 specialized assistants within our organization. Upon reviewing these AI assistants, I've come to realize they haven't replaced any jobs. Instead, they're akin to having a team of interns, each adept at performing specific tasks, saving us 10-15 minutes each time. If you're leveraging 5-10 such assistants, that's a savings of 1-2 hours per day — a significant boost to productivity that will only improve over time. Here are some unusual and small assistant example: 1) Attendance Analysis: Develop AI solutions to analyze attendance data across multiple files, generating comprehensive reports to identify patterns and optimize team schedules. Create and Used by: Admin/Hr department 2) Quality Assurance Report Review: Assist QA teams Assistant manager by tracking project hours versus contracted hours to prevent burnout and ensure optimal productivity. 3) QA/Test cases for Client Project: Upload client project data, past test cases and input new requirements. Result new cases 4) Convert my code to old Version of Cakephp: Client running an application with old version, write code and it convert to old version of cakephp 5) RFP helper: Upload All document about project and old RFP document and now it can help write based on client requirements and our past RFP My advice? Get involved. Sign up for ChatGPT premium, create your own GPT, or if you're leading a team, develop your own assistants using the API. These digital helpers could become your next competitive edge, much like an diligent interns, ready to streamline your daily tasks and workflows. #AIAssistants #ProductivityTools #Innovation #OpenAI #Teamwork #SJInnovation

Can AI help with daily work tasks? It may seem a strange question for someone in an organization that works with AI all the time. But like everybody else, we had to think about adoption for these new tools. Here are a few things that worked. 1. Starting with Leadership: Our initial focus was having the leadership team experiment with AI. This approach wasn't just about mastering the tools; it was about setting a precedent. By experimenting with our leadership team first, they naturally pass their knowledge and enthusiasm to their respective teams. Leadership training has a leverage power. 2. Leading by Example: Our leadership team didn't just learn about AI tools; they actively incorporated them into their daily workflows and openly shared these experiences. When you see that your leadership team is using AI in their day-to-day work, you feel like you can do that, too. 3. Fostering a Culture of Sharing: Gradually, what started as leadership sharing best practices evolved into a collaborative environment where everyone exchanged insights. It wasn't just about successes; we also encouraged sharing 'worst practices'. Learning from less successful AI uses prevented repeating mistakes. This is particularly powerful when leadership does it: "I tried to use AI for this and it didn't work, this is what I learned." This helps everybody in the team see that experimenting and failing is ok, especially if you learn and can help other people learn. Overall, we found that using AI tools helped us be a lot more efficient in our day-to-day. And this is just the beginning, and we are still learning. If there's anything that worked for you or your organization, I'd love to know!

One of the most effective tools for AI adoption? Storytelling. Telling the stories of your early wins and explorations can humanize the work, model how change can happen thoughtfully — and inspire people to embrace new ways of thinking and working.   I’m often struck by how many interesting stories of AI-driven advancements are hidden within an organization.   I was speaking about this at an event when I was approached by an engineer who had used Anthropic's Claude hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS) for a workflow to support a resource-intensive process. It had reduced the time it took the team to manage the work from weeks to hours — and they loved it because they were now able to use their time for more strategic business development. I asked who had heard this story. The answer? No one outside of her group.   Her journey to thoughtfully pull AI into process improvement, how she thought through data privacy and security, and worked closely with end users to deliver more value to customers represents a treasure trove of fantastic behavior to model for others . . .  and an inspiring moment of grassroots innovation in support of the company’s strategic objectives. It was a story that needed to be told.   Stories work because we connect to them emotionally. And these stories can be found all over large organizations. Find, articulate, and share the stories that are happening in your organization. Show how work can support your existing strategic objectives. Share what was hard about the process — and use this as an education moment on how to think about responsible AI, data privacy, security, and governance questions.   If your work identifies issues that need to be resolved, view that as a positive outcome — you've learned something important. Then, work to create a proper process for addressing those issues, which can become part of the ongoing story and learning experience.   Marketers have long used storytelling and use cases to bring the “possible” to life and inspire action. The tough — and unique — pressures of AI change demand a rethink of how we inspire change. Capturing and telling stories make abstract change initiatives more tangible for employees, help them visualize how they can contribute, and counteract fears and concerns. It’s also a way to celebrate and recognize successes. ***** What do you think? ****** >>>> Have you used storytelling to support change? >>>> What have you found to work best? ________ Hi 👋 I’m Alison McCauley. I’ll be diving more into the challenges and opportunities of AI change in future posts. Follow me for more on being human at the AI crossroads 🙋♂️ 🤖 💡   #aitransformation #changemanagement #storytelling #responsibleai