Communication and Technology

-How AI can help and hurt your pitch or talk

This week I enjoyed a great presentation on AI given by my good friend Karl Hartley. There were six of us on either side a boardroom table, with Karl in front of his PowerPoint showing on the wall at one end and at the opposite end there were three people on screens attending via Zoom.

This was the internal team of Epic Learning the company Karl and his co-founder Nat started several years ago. Karl is always an early adopter, always surfing the bleeding edge of a wide range of technology, Epic Learning epitomises this philosophy by constantly playing with and adopting new technology to enhance the training and engagement of those we build training products for.

Our team is comfortable with AI, and it had become a core component of our work streams. To the degree that Karl messaged me after last week’s newsletter. He’d taken my feature article on disinformation and had ChatGPT rewrite it as a story for a child. Karl told me this was something he did sometimes with dense text, and it gives him a different perspective on the material and often results in a deeper understanding and greater application of what he learned.

Although I bristled at the description of ‘dense text’ in reference to my writing, I could see the implications and potential benefits. So I have included the ChatGPT version after this piece so you can compare it to the last issue for yourself.

Using AI effectively

Karl gave the same presentation the previous week to the Learning & Development team at Hamilton City Council, to a positive response. Honestly, it was a treat just to watch Karl work, he is one of the most engaging facilitators I have ever come across, and he deftly got input from those in the room and those on Zoom and wove answers to their individual questions into the content of the presentation as he went through it.

Karl’s focus was on the effective use of the technology, its limitations and its benefits. He also explained a key component that I had not heard of anywhere else, which will fundamentally change how the team uses AI going forward. I can’t really share that here, but there were some nuggets that I thought were very pertinent to the Compelling Communicator.

Firstly in response to a question, Karl described the standard ChatGPT output as “Waffly, perfect grammar, Soulless”. This struck such a chord with me that I wrote it down. For many of us who want to build better engagement with our audience, AI is a shiny new toy that can write a decent quantity of coherent-sounding content in a very short space of time.

AI is not creative. It is reflective

Often if we are struggling to express an idea, feeding the disjointed information into AI can result in much more articulate, clear communication. This feels great, and it is objectively amazing. But the danger is that we make the mistake of believing that the AI is thinking. That is not the case. It reflects back what we give it in a structured way following the rules of language it has been taught.

This is important because if you feed it simple, common, or limited concepts, it can make those sound better than you might be able to, but they are still simple, common and limited. It is like the empty nutritional value of a bag of Cheezels. It feels like you are eating something, but it really does nothing for your body. This is important to keep in mind if you are getting AI to help you with writing your talk or pitch.

This is why I liked Karl’s description so much. Although AI can give us perfect grammar, if it doesn’t have the context and some complex content, then all it can do is spin the language. i.e. waffle. And so far, the language models are not at the point where they can really engage or connect with the audience, so it feels soulless.

Unfortunately, that is the way most people are using AI right now. The good thing about that is the opportunity this presents to use AI in a different way to really stand out. Instead of focusing on the productivity/output aspect of AI, those who focus on using AI for enriching and texturing their content will see huge benefits.

How do you use AI to enrich and texture your talk?

If you are preparing a pitch or a talk, you don’t want to get AI to write it for you. But you do want to use AI to help you to research aspects of it. Play with ideas. Ask AI to play the role of someone, ask it questions and reflect on what those answers represent.

Karl did this when he put my article from last week’s issue into AI and asked it to write the content as a child’s story. That output might not be great content to share, but if it gives you a different perspective on the subject, then it is valuable to you.

Reading that output may lead to new ideas, insights and better, more accessible language to incorporate into the original article. (I encourage you to read it after you have read last week’s post to see what different insights it surfaces for you).

What I find AI does best is to give me answers to questions I never thought to ask. Through this ‘conversation’, AI will often reference something I hadn’t thought of, and I can then pursue this thread and often come up with new insights.

This is the point that Karl put across to our team and to the team at Hamilton City Council. By finding a way to use AI to enrich your content, you will become more engaging and, ultimately, more compelling in your communications. Instead of getting AI to write something for you, see AI as a mirror that reflects back what you want to say in a different way, and play with that reflection until you see something you really like. Something that engages you is far more likely to engage others.

But AI isn’t the only technology to keep in mind

The team was buzzing at the end of Karl’s presentation, the zoom people quickly left, but those of us in the room chatted on for a while before one-by-one blinking out.

You see, while Karl did the presentation live last week at the offices in the Hamilton City Council building, Epic Learning is a remote company with employees all across the country. Our meetings are virtual. And while we are on Zoom daily catching up on this or that project, every employee of Epic Learning has an Oculus, and we regularly meet up in Horizon workspaces in a virtual meeting room.

It is hard for me to convey what it feels like to be in these virtual meetings. It feels far more ‘real’ than meeting on Zoom. While everyone is an avatar (some sort of 3d character), the sense of spatial awareness from directional sound in the headset makes it feels real in a sense that overcomes the graphic environment.

Talking to Karl afterwards, he said it felt pretty much the same presenting in VR as it did presenting live to the Council team. Much more engaging than presenting over Zoom or other 2d conferencing platforms. In fact, Karl said the hardest part was to ensure that the 2d people on Zoom in the back of the room felt included. (One was out of town without their Oculus, one had forgotten to charge it, and one didn’t want to be in VR that day).

How I want to prepare for the future

It may be some time before these headsets are so widespread that meetings like this will be common. But I can easily see the day when conferences or pitches are held in virtual spaces. In the meantime, I am keen to start a mastermind group for people across the globe, meeting and training to present in VR regularly, as I want to be ready for when VR presentations are mainstream.

I believe that in the coming years, to be a compelling communicator, we need to be comfortable and effective in communicating in VR and through video, audio and text.

I would like your thoughts on AI, VR and this article. Please comment and let me know what you think.

ChatGPT’s “Story Version” of Last Week’s Feature

Once upon a time, in a land filled with stories, there was a young girl named Lily. Lily loved to share her ideas and thoughts with others, but sometimes she faced a challenge. Some people already believed in things that were not true, called "make-believe." This made Lily sad because she wanted everyone to know the truth.

To help Lily, her wise grandmother gave her a special book. It was called "Dealing with Make-Believe." Inside, Lily learned that she needed to prepare before sharing her message. She had to be clear about what she wanted to say and who her audience was.

Lily discovered that people had different levels of make-believe beliefs. Some had just heard something and believed it without questioning, like a light make-believe. Others had thought about it a little more and had stronger beliefs, like a moderate make-believe. Then there were those whose beliefs were deeply tied to who they were, like an important part of their identity, and those were the hardest to change.

With her grandmother's guidance, Lily learned different ways to overcome make-believe. She could ask questions, share facts, and use imagination. Lily found that engaging people's imagination was a powerful tool. By telling stories and helping them imagine a better future, she could plant seeds of new ideas in their minds. Over time, these seeds would grow and help people see the truth.

Armed with knowledge and a big heart, Lily set out to share the truth with the world. She knew it wouldn't be easy, but she was determined to make a difference. One person at a time, she would help them see through the make-believe and discover the beauty of truth.

And so, Lily's journey began, filled with hope and courage. With every step, she brought light to the darkness of make-believe, spreading knowledge and understanding wherever she went. And the world became a better place because of her bravery and her unwavering belief in the power of truth.

Snippets is a section where I take some interesting text I have come across in the previous week and comment on it.

This week’s Snippet was this meme image someone shared, and it really struck me. It highlights the unexpected nature of something and illustrates a fundamental of communication that can be incredibly effective if used intentionally.

The idea is to include some element that appears somewhat unimportant until being revealed to be pivotal in some way. The best example of this is its use in stand-up comedy. Termed in comedy as the setup and the punch, it is a formula that consistently creates engagement in the audience as the reveal delivers a dopamine hit as the realisation, the punch hits the audience.

This can be built into any communication, whether it be a speech, an educational talk, a political address, or an inspirational message. The thing to do is find a perspective that might be a little surprising or unconventional and, then structure things in a way to reference the perspective you want obliquely and early, then find a way to do the reveal with impact.

It could be said that I tried to do this with the pivot from AI to VR in this week’s feature piece. In this case, I think it could have been done more effectively, which highlights the point that these things take time and effort to craft to the best effect.

Unpacking Wisdom is a weekly section where I dive into a famous (or not so famous) quote and explore how this can apply to the Compelling Communicator.

This week I am using a quote from one of my favourite authors and favourite people. I find it interesting that this quote seems as true today as it was almost 40 years ago when it was said.

But the point I want to make is outside of the philosophical point of the quote. Rather I want to focus on the concepts of Knowledge and Wisdom because I believe if you want to deliver a powerful pitch or talk, you MUST include both.

Knowledge, we can think of as facts, techniques or tactics. They are fairly black and white. They can be simple or complex, but in isolation, they are predictable.

Wisdom, we can think of as contextual, situational or strategic. It is the overarching picture of the situation and the decision-making process as to which tactics, techniques or facts to employ.

It should be evident that these must work hand-in-hand. Wisdom without Knowledge is impotent. Knowledge without Wisdom is directionless and potentially dangerous.

Your audience is not stupid. If you give them one without the other in your pitch or talk, they will notice it. They may be unable to pinpoint exactly what is wrong, but they will feel you have given them an incomplete picture of your subject.

Always check to ensure you have a balance of Wisdom and Knowledge, and you will avoid this pitfall.

What I am up to this week…

Professionally:

I have been swamped with Instructional Design work, which is good for the bank account and is challenging and satisfying.

Recreationally:

At the weekend, looking for some downtime, I played Rocket League and watched a couple of hours of the Oceania tournament.

What I am reading:

I started re-reading Who Not How by Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy. I also took a trip down memory lane and listened to a Willard Price book, Amazon Adventure

What I am watching:

I haven’t had time to watch much but I saw the western Diablo. Not sure how much I really liked it. It was well-made with a decent twist, but…