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Ep 43: Narrowing The Band - Limiting ChatGPT's Focus For Better Results
00:24:48
In this episode of The ChatGPT Experiment, Cary Weston reflects on insights gained during a marketing conference, where he led a breakout session about using ChatGPT. He focuses on the concept of "narrowing the band" to make ChatGPT more effective by...
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- [00:02]
Kerry Weston
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Co-host
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Kerry Weston
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- [00:30]
Grammarly Representative
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- [01:31]
Co-host
Welcome to the ChatGPT Experiment, a podcast where we take all that confusing ChatGPT stuff and break it down so even Grandma could understand. If you're a curious beginner, well, you're in the right place as we'll help you understand what ChatGPT is, how others are using it, and practical takeaways that you can use right away. It's going to be fun, it's going to be informative and maybe surprising when you find out how helpful ChatGPT can be. All right, let's get this thing started. Here's your host, Kerry Weston.
- [02:03]
Kerry Weston
Hey there you curious folks. How you doing? It is the middle of October and got back to the office. Wanted to record today's episode because I'm in the middle of a marketing conference here in Bangor, Maine called Mainstay. Now this is a two day, it's an annual conference. It's a two day conference and the whole purpose is to deliver practical and tactical takeaways to help businesses create strategies, think differently, find ways of personal branding, business branding, whatever that may mean for the business or the nonprofit, and One of my breakouts today was on ChatGPT, specifically how to make it talk like you. And had a great room, had a great discussion, and a couple things kept resonating even amongst those that classified themselves as very familiar or very comfortable. And I wanted to bring these back and talk about it right now while it's fresh, because I think it's important that we understand that there are some very simple, simple ways that even if you are using CHAT on a regular basis to remind yourself and fine tune yourself so you can get more value out of what you're doing and how you're doing it with, right? So first of all, I hope everybody's doing great, hope you're doing well, and I hope you are experimenting or if this is your first time listening to the show, welcome. I appreciate it. We've got a pretty supportive community here. We've got about 200 people at the conference today, day one, and I was amazed at how many people came up and said that they listened to the podcast, they listened to the show, referenced actual either lines or episode numbers. And I got to tell you, it kind of is a labor of love. And to hear that there's value that people get out of it, it really feels good. So I appreciate that very, very much appreciate the feedback, but more importantly, I appreciate people sharing that they're taking some of the things that we're talking about and making their own, which is really what today is all about, is how do we take a few lessons that seem to be resonating and increase the scale, share them with you in case they are meaningful to you. Okay, so I'm calling this narrowing the band because that seemed to resonate today with beginners and what we'd call regular users as well. So that's what I want to talk about with you. So the first thing I want to say is narrowing the band as I described it. If you could hold your hands up in front of your head right now in front of your face and just go wide, maybe as wide as you possibly can, a big old bear hug kind of wide, right? That is representative of all of the data, all of the information available to ChatGPT. So if you can imagine as far as wide as you can get your arms to be, that is the data set that you are pulling from each and every time you ask chat to do something for you. Could be tell me a joke, write me an article, give me some ideas, can be brainstorming and oh, by the way, had six students in the room from Husson University that were Attending the conference and. And it was fascinating to hear them talk about how they use it for ideation and how they are using it to brainstorm their own skills and how their professors and teachers. And this was the best part. Oh, by the way, if you haven't brought your arms down, you can do that now. I was just trying to create the visual. But how they're actually encouraging them to use the tool and teaching them how it's being used in the real world. So kudos to the folks at Husson who are encouraging their students to utilize this tool as you learn, because it is becoming part of the everyday. Okay, so let's go back to our arm. We got our arm out wide, right? Whether you're doing it now or did it before, you understand, you get the picture. So we've got this wide, wide array of information and data and availability of resources and all that. So what we really want to do is take your hands and bring them as close as possible. We want to narrow that range. Right. As much as possible. And the more that you can narrow, the more effective and specific the work that you do with ChatGPT. And I think this is probably true of any other iteration of a learning model. But again, we talk about ChatGPT. That's the one I'm most familiar with and that's the one we talk about. But as we narrow that band, what we're able to do is tell chat, hey, let's not pay attention to the other stuff. I only want you to pay attention and channel yourself in this very, very small slice of information and resources. And when we do that, we allow chat to be valuable to us in a very specific way. Right. Okay. So if you get the analogy of the hands being wide and the hands being narrow, how do you do that? Right. Well, pretty simple, really. You talk to it. Right. And by the way, as an aside, one of the workshop takeaways was people still are not doing or not using conversations with as much as possible. I can't tell you how many people come up to me and said, I can get ChatGPT to do this, this and this, but then it can't do this or it doesn't do this. Right. How do I fix that? And I say, have you asked it? Well, no, I've never thought to ask it. We'll go ahead and ask it. So this is really a learning model by default, where it's learning what you're asking it and it's learning to do better for you. And again, that narrowing the band is going to Allow it to be even more valuable as it's learning to do that. Right. Okay, so the first thing we want to do is we want to give Chat a purpose, okay? And we do that by saying, well, by role playing, essentially. Right? I want you to be this. Okay, so let's go to a conversation I was having with a city planner who is looking at updating municipal ordinances for the sake of including new regulations and laws and whatnot around solar power installation in the city. Very specific, a real conversation. I just came away from here in Maine State today, and. And she said, I've been using ChatGPT, but not really getting much out of it because it's not really giving me any worthwhile information. So the first question I said is, have we narrowed the band? Have you given it a specific purpose? And the answer was no. And here's how you do that. You share with ChatGPT exactly who you want them to be. So roleplay, if it's a character, if it's a person, if it's a. A skill set, if it's a profession, right? And you can be as specific as possible. And the more specific you give it, the more detail you give it, the more narrow you're making that band of information and its focus. Right? So in this case, I shared with her, ask Chat to be a land ordinance expert, specifically in the area of updating municipal ordinances for solar installations, both commercial, community, and residential. And then I said, we want to make sure that it understands that you're going to be doing work with it, and its position and role as that specialist is going to help you get more out of the work together. Right? So however you want to say that to Chat, the more specific and detailed, the better, but give it the role, okay? So instantly you were telling it by doing that, that all that you know about bubble gum and all that you know about chicken gumbo and all you know about auto repair is irrelevant because I only want you to focus and specialize on this specific track. Okay? So there's your arms going from wide to narrow, okay? And then we can get narrow even more because we can make it be our assistant. Right? So how do we do that? Not just a focused assistant, but we can make it be our assistant. Now, in this case, what I asked her was these ordinances that you are asking Chat for help updating, have you fed it to ChatGPT? She said, no. I said, okay, so it's starting with a blank canvas. And because we haven't narrowed the band, and because we haven't given it related resources, it's really just kind of guessing at the moment or doing its best. Best, right? So we can control that and we can at least limit the guessing by giving it its personality, giving its focus. But I assume in this case that the ordinances you want to update, you have readily available. And she said, yes. I said, great, so here we go. We're going to feed those ordinances, the ones you are looking to update, into ChatGPT and you are going to tell ChatGPT that this is part of the ordinances. These are the work that you need to do. These are the things that we are going to update and modernize. And a light bulb clicked a little bit. She said, that makes sense. So if I'm working to update a document and the person that I'm working with can't see the document, then we're not playing from a level playing field. And that's exactly right here of chat. So if you are assuming something that ChatGPT does not know about, then you are at a disadvantage in working together, right? Because you have knowledge that it doesn't specifically in relation to what you're looking or hoping to do. Okay, so we're narrowing the band, we're giving it very specific personality directions and what you want to focus on. And then if you have your own resources, you are going to personalize this. Now, let's say that your goal is personal. And by personal I mean you're looking to write something or share something or create something that's going to come from you. Right? This is where we go back to. I think it's episode 10. Voice, tone and style is you want to present it with more information about the way that you write the words that you use. Right? That kind of thing. So you want to make sure that you are using and go back and listen to episode 10 because there's some details about creating your Persona, your voice, tone and style that you can load in. As you narrow the band, you can then add to it specifics about you. Right? So now we are. We are creating a very specific set of skill sets, perspective, as well as layering on top of the things that you want to present. And you're really creating this highly customized partner, right? And then the last thing you want to think about is are there style or structure consistencies that are important to you. So here's the borrowing again from a conversation from this municipality. There are certain ways in which an ordinance must be written. There are certain ways in which the structure of the headings and whatnot might be written. So as you give the document to ChatGPT for information, you also want to make sure that you mention that structure is important too. So pay attention to how things are presented, how the document is laid out, does it use headlines, does it use bullets, does it reference certain things, do you call titles certain ways? Right? Because the more, again, the more detail and structure you can customize it to make it yours, the better the output is going to be. So narrowing the band really became a relatable phrase for getting something done. Now in the room today, we had someone that was writing for code, they were writing. We had one that was. We had someone that was doing video scripts. We had folks that were using it for resume creation. We had someone that was writing articles for Tourism magazine. And in each one of those cases, they could apply the narrow the band, providing resources and personalizing the experience with our own writings and voice, tone and style to their own goals. So I hope that as you listen to this, there's a position, there's a situation that is relevant as we talk about getting specific and, and narrowing the band. And here is another point that seems to resonate with folks. In the process of creating, there tends to be three phases. And these three phases are not equal usually in terms of time and effort, right? So the first phase, we'll just call it the strategy phase, the planning phase. Now, if you're writing, this could be, you know, the ideation phase. This could be the outlining phase, right? This could be the purpose and thinking about all the things that you need to do. If you're woodworking, right? Nothing you do with ChatGPT, but if you're woodworking, this would be the blueprints, right? This would be actually picking out the thing that you're going to build, building the schematic, finding the design, right? It's the layout, the preparation. It's getting ready to do something, do the work, however the work is going to be defined. So that's phase one. We'll just call that planning. The second phase is the doing. It's the busy work, isn't it? It's the actual getting something done. And could be writing, building, designing, coding, whatever it is. It's our fingers, our hands, our brains doing the actual work. It's the bulk of the time in most exercises, it's the bulk of the time that we give to a task. And it's a lot of times repetition, or it's a lot of time assembling things that exist in other places, or it just could be labor but oftentimes in an office environment, in a writing environment, in a work environment that does not include creating something physical like metal or textile and lumber. When we're talking about paperwork and content and proposals and all of the office life that we live in, the work that we do is pretty repeatable or scalable, right? We're doing things over and over again. And yes, there's variations, and yes, there's details that change, but for the most part, we have a lot of redundancy and the work tends to be redundant. And we seem to be doing the same thing over and over again. And we spend most of our time doing that in this second phase. And then the third and final phase tends to be the fine tuning, the editing, the finalizing, right? And so the ability for us to see what we've done, trim it down, edit it, make it right, make it final, right? So that we're happy with it. So those three phases typically is what a project looks like. The ideation, the planning, the actual doing, and then the refining, editing, and finishing. Now take a look at something that you do on a regular basis that's repeated. I would be willing to bet, if you are like most people I talk to, that those three phases are not equal in terms of time, length, and perhaps even effort or attention that you give it. For most folks, I would say that that second phase is at least 60 to 70% of where your time, effort, and focus is spent because you have to do it right. And I would say you probably have somewhere between 10 and 15% in both first and third pieces, right? Something like that. And you can make the numbers work to your, you know, so it equals 100. But I'm just saying that most of the work is done. Effort and time is done in that second phase. And because of that, because it takes so long to do things over and over again, we give less and less time to the first and the third phases. We end up rushing, right? Because we know all the work that has to be done. And as we narrow that band with ChatGPT, what we're really able to do is take that middle section, section two, that requires most of our time now, and shrink it. We shrink it. And when we shrink that, that middle piece, what we end up doing is, is we're putting more time, more energy, and more resources that are available for the first and the third phase of a project. Now, I would argue that the first and the third phase of a project are probably more important than that middle piece in terms of value, insight, and differentiation. That you put into it. Because that's really where your experience comes into play. That's where your expertise comes into play. Your skill comes into play. The middle section tends to be redundant, almost mind numbing at times. The collection, the writing and whatnot. So if in fact that's true for something that you can identify and we could take that middle piece and drastically reduce the time, the effort, the mental energy that you have to put into it, then again, your expertise goes to better use in that first and the third phases. And when we talk about narrowing the band and giving it purpose and personalizing it and showing structure and style, what we're able to do is allow people that have repetitive processes to make the most out of the experience and the expertise, right? And the character that they have so that they can do more work in less time, but have better work, more meaningful work, have better insights and give more thought and meaning to perhaps the stuff that's going to make whatever you're producing more valuable. So those are two pretty important, I think, takeaways from today's conversation at Mainstay 24, which is narrowing the band. And while you do that, give it Personas and purpose and specificity. And taking a look at the three phases of a project and figuring out how I can use a tool like ChatGPT to decrease the least valuable component of my time so I can put more time and effort into those first and third phases, right? The planning, the strategy, the editing, and the finalizing. So I share all that because I left charged up every time I talk to a group and I get their feedback on what they're doing and what questions they have and what they wish they can do. It typically does come back to how can I use it better? And I get jazzed when people see opportunity in the light bulbs start going on, right. And their idea treadmill start spinning. So I hope there's something here for you. I hope that there's a challenge, there's an opportunity, there's something that you've been looking to do that you could do better if you narrow the band and then pay more attention to the first and third phases and allow ChatGPT to do this, to do the heavy lifting in the second phase of that project. Right? Okay, so a couple of things I want to share with you. That's coming up first. I've got a couple cool episodes on the way. I've got an educator that I recently interviewed that is using ChatGPT to create online resources, almost like a self serve, self teaching guiding tool that will Allow students in design and arts to self pace their work and their learning environment through the work of the professor that they're doing work with. Right. So he can spend more time in the classroom personalizing his experience. And then the lessons being online are taking you through a journey. And he's able to use ChatGPT to customize those lessons and create checklists and work in work books. And the important part is customizing the lesson to the skill, ability and resources of the student. I think that's really cool because I think the more I talk to education, the more I see that this is something that is not yet understood. ChatGPT I'm talking about, or AI in particular, how to introduce it into the school. So when you start seeing people become creative in how they're teaching and sharing resources with CHAT for the betterment of the education experience, it's really cool. And this particular person, as I was interviewing him, I'm going to wait for the meeting that I'm about to tell you now to happen so I can get the update and put it in the note notes when I post the episode. But not only is he doing this with students, but he was teaching this week a class of teachers, so he was putting together curriculum to show teachers how they could use it as well. And then the other one that I have on the way for you is really cool and it involves custom GPTs. So it's the story in an interview of someone who is creating custom GPTs and then having them both work together. So having multiple chatgpts work together and in this instance there's a content creation GPT and there's a strategy GPT that he is using together. So he'll model writing in one GPT and then ask his strategy GPT to review it, give him feedback, and then once that feedback comes in, he's able in the same conversation to ask the content creation GPT to review the feedback from his strategy GPT and revise. So I'm going to tell you the story of what he's doing and how it's being built and what he's finding and how he's using it. But I'll spoil the ending now is I taught him how to do this on a Friday and he told me that he spent the next two or three days at his computer because he had created a monster. He was using it left and right and of course loving every minute of it and came up with a fantastic list of resources and whatnot from this exercise. So having two chibi T's talk to each other and how he's doing it. I think it's going to be a really good feature rich and an idea generating episode. So there you go. Mainstay 2024 Day 1 is in the books. I'm going to go back tomorrow, we'll do another exercise on chat GPT and again another set of conversations and there might be some ideas that come from that, but I love getting and talking and learning and interacting with people to see how they're using it and I invite them onto the show and so I'm going to do the same for you. So if you've got a way that you're using it, if you've got a story, if you've got a cool outcome and you think sharing it would be valuable to the community that we have here, please do reach out and I'll get you some information on how we can get you on interview and share your story on here. Okay, but so good. Yeah, stay curious, right? We always talk about curiosity being probably the most important element of not only learning chatgpt, but life itself. So I'm glad I get to share these things with you. Hopefully they're valuable. Let me know if you have questions and if you want to come on the show, I'm here to talk to you. Okay, so that's it for today. So until we talk again, stay curious. Talk soon.
- [25:38]
Co-host
All right folks, that's a wrap for today's episode of the ChatGPT experiment. Thanks for hanging with us and diving into the world of ChatGPT. We hope you found it helpful and fun and informative. And speaking of helpful, we'd sure appreciate you taking a moment to rate and review us on your favorite podcast platform. By the way, five star ratings are our favorite. Until next time. Keep experimenting, keep learning. And remember, ChatGPT may be smart, but it can't make a decent cup of coffee yet. See you soon.
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Kerry Weston
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