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Tag: AI

AI Applications After 300 Episodes with Brandon Burton

Miles Burdine Chamber Chat Podcast promo image.

Below is an auto-generated transcription. Because this is auto-generated there are likely some grammatical errors but it is still a useful tool to search text within this podcast episode.

Feel free to join our Chamber Chat Champions Facebook Group to discuss this episode and to share your own experiences and tips with other Chamber Champions.

Brandon Burton 0:00
This is the Chamber Chat Podcast, the show dedicated to chamber professionals to spark ideas and to get actionable tips and strategies to better serve your members and community.

Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m your hosts Brandon Burton. And it’s my goal here on the podcast to introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community.

Our title sponsor for this episode is Bringing Local Back. Remember when your community could turn to a local TV station or newspaper for the latest updates and affordable ads? Those days may be fading, but the need for local connection remains. That’s why we created Bringing Local Back, a game changing platform that restores the local visibility and advertising power to your community. It’s more than just tech. It’s about driving engagement and creating new revenue for your chamber. Ready to see the future visit bringinglocalback.com to schedule your demo today. This is the future of local commerce.

For this episode, I am the guest. This is a solo episode. It’s one of those milestone episodes, as it is, episode number 300 of Chamber Chat Podcast. When I started the podcast about six years ago, I I imagined I would be doing it for a while, but the idea of having 300 episodes now is something else, so I wanted to spend some time on this episode, just talking a little bit about some of the things that I’ve learned with the leading up to 300 episodes, but I wanted to spend a lot of time on what I’m learning, what I’m finding, to apply in the field of AI to make processes a little easier, a Little more effective marketing with AI and just some real applications, and hopefully y’all are starting to dabble with AI to some degree. So I plan on diving in with this episode, a little bit of some of those examples of ways that I’ve been utilizing AI and how it’s really just made the process of producing the podcast and and all my responsibilities just a little bit easier. So we’ll dive into that much deeper as soon as they get back from this quick break.

Are you looking for a year round affordable and timely shop local campaign for your chamber or CVB Look no further build a custom each shop play mobile app with App My Community by visiting appmycommunity.com/chamberchat. App My Community mobile apps are not just simple membership directory listings. They provide many more capabilities to engage with your community. Provide your residents with a robust events calendar partner with a local fare festival or Farmers Market provide a schedule map and other resources to promote the event. Run a Small Business Saturday campaign any time of the year using built in scavenger hunts allow your membership to communicate directly to their customers via push notifications. Your app my community mobile app will be a unique member benefit allow you to generate non dues revenue with sponsorship opportunities and best of all provide a valuable resource to your community please visit appmycommunity.com/chamberchat now to receive 10% off your first year of an App My Community mobile app.

App My Community creates mobile apps that allow you to engage directly with your community. Enhance chamber membership by providing a unique advertising and communication channel to residents and visitors. Not just a member directory, App My Community has the tools to be useful to residents on a daily basis. Learn more at appmycommunity.com/chamberchat.

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Visit ChamberNation.com to learn more.

All right, we are back. So 300 episodes. When I started this in February of 2019, AI was not on the scene yet, and everything I did was very much manual processes. And there still is quite a bit of manual process to the podcasting and editing and editing and so forth. But it seems like every week, there’s some new innovation in the realm of AI that is really making everything a little bit easier and more efficient. So this episode, I’m going to dive in on some of those things that I’ve. And utilizing and see what could make sense at your chamber, and see how you might be able to utilize some of these tools as well. So first of all, probably the longest running type of AI that I’ve been using is a software platform called otter, and that provides transcripts for each podcast episode. So as I record the the episodes, I take that mp three file, I upload it to otter, and it does a transcription. Now I will say the transcription is not 100% so as I use that in show notes for each episode. I have a disclaimer at the beginning saying, these are auto generated transcripts, so it’s not perfect, but I do try to skim through it and clean up some of the things that I know it misses. For example, the title chamber chat podcast, I would like it to be capitalized, and it doesn’t capitalize it all the way through. So I have to go through and and it’s easy enough to do a search on the screen and see where it pops up. There’s other times where it doesn’t recognize the words correctly. So for example, chamber chat, podcast, it might hear it as chamber tap podcast. So when I do a search, it misses it. So as long as you don’t need 100% accuracy with the transcript, but you need something relatively good that helps us search engines. It really is a great option. I like that. It breaks up who’s speaking, so you can type in, you know, the names of who, who’s speaking, and it matches it to their voice, and it provides a little transcript summary. So the next step with the AI production is, I’ll, I’ll put the uploaded file, the mp three of the episode, into otter. I’ll get that transcript with the automated summary, and then I go over to chat GPT. I take the summary and I feed it into chat GPT to give me social media posts that highlight what the episode’s about and to try to encourage people to to get on their podcast player and give it a listen. So within chat GPT, it’s important to tell chat GPT how you want it to act. So I’ve got a command that I’ll use, and I’ll say, act as a social media expert and take this transcript that I provide to you and and put together a potentially viral Facebook post. I usually start specifically with a Facebook post, so it’ll generate the the posting, you know, tailored towards Facebook. And then I have another software that I use to schedule my postings, called Metro cool. So with Metro cool, I can go in schedule the Facebook post on when I want that to go live or when I want it to hit the scene, so to speak. And then I’ll take the And granted, the auto the AI generated social media posts. I always tweak them. I never just copy paste, because you get all the extra characters that it puts in there, hashtags that don’t necessarily make sense, things like that. So I always make some edits to it before I just post it out there. But then I’ll take what I use on Facebook and within metric cool, it has an AI component to it where I can say, optimize this for social media platform. So I can say, optimize this for Twitter, and that way it takes it and compresses the amount of characters so it fits within, the requirements of Twitter. So that’s a neat tool that I use, saves me a lot of time, allows me to really batch a lot of the production process that I do, but also schedule things to go live when I want them to go live.

Another use case that I’ve used AI for is a lot of you are familiar with the bringing local back platform that we released just a few weeks ago, and with that so there’s AI built into that platform to help build out your members websites and business listings and coupon codes and all the different things that are related to their business profile, and that’s within the bringing local back platform. Now, when we were preparing to launch bringing local back, I thought, let me put chat GPT to the test. So I went to chat GBT explained what it is that we’re doing with this, this new platform and launching it. And I told chat GPT to act as a marketing professional and to create a content calendar to promote and to solicit registrations for webinar, for bringing local back. And along with that, I gave a list of resources. I said, I have an email list, I have social media followings, I have a podcast, I have a website, you know, all these different ways that I can use to market and promote the platform that we were getting ready to launch. So I put that into ChatGPT, it spit back out me a nice marketing plan. It had email campaigns, the structure to them, what the topics would be. It had ideas for podcast episodes. It had email and social media campaign, so it was all right there. I thought, This is great, but the only way I’m going to really make this be effective for me is I need this to be some sort of a calendar, some sort of a checklist that I can go through. So I asked ChatGPT to export that social media calendar to an Excel sheet so I can check boxes along the way as I go. I had no idea if it would do it or not, but a couple seconds later, it gave me a file to download that had an Excel file with everything there. Now from there, I did do some customizing, because it had all of the email campaigns grouped together all the social media strategies, grouped together all the podcast stuff, grouped together. So I did mix it up so it wasn’t all heavy email for two weeks and then heavy social media. So I wanted to be a regular campaign where it kind of intermingled all of those different platforms. So that actually got really good response, lots of good registrations for that platform, for the the webinar launch. And I was very, very pleased with how that worked, so much so that I’ve, I’ve leaned upon it in other areas to to create marketing campaigns and and things of that nature. One thing that I’ve been doing lately is trying to automate some processes. And I’m sure at your chamber you have some systems and processes that you would like to automate. And just going to ChatGPT and saying, I have an idea to do X, I want it to do, you know, ABC, and have the output be XYZ, and ask ChatGPT, what do you think? And is there a way to do this? And it will give you back step by step answer on how to implement whatever it is that you’re trying to do. So it’s just a fun exercise. Even if you just have an idea of something that you want to try, it will generate a roadmap that will help you understand and to see how it may be possible. So I’ve done this. I’ve been using chat GPT very heavily for the last several weeks in trying to extract code for Google Apps, App Scripts and things of that nature, to again, automate processes. So take an idea, plug it into chat, GPT, and see what happens. It’s kind of cool. Another new tool that I just learned about this week, and I thought I’ve got to give that a try, is it’s called notebook LM, and it’s a AI language model from Google. And it really you can put all sorts of different data resources in it, and it will compile the data resources it’s meant for. If you think, think about going, you know, taking a college course or something, and you take notes in class, or you, you’ve got your your notebook and and notes from the teacher and whatnot, and if you wanted to put all of that into notebook LM, then it will give you different feedback. So it can give you quizzes. It can give you, you know, just different different formats, question and answers, where you can kind of really digest the the information in different ways, but one of my favorite things about notebook LM is it will create a podcast so you can give it the information that you want it to extract information from, give it a little bit of context, and within a couple of minutes, you have a podcast episode. It blew my mind, so I had to give it a try. I’m going to insert this. It’s just a couple minutes of a podcast episode that was totally generated by AI, by notebook. Lm talking about this being the 300th episode of chamber chat podcast. So here it is.

Unknown Speaker 15:21
Can you believe it? 300 episodes, 300

Unknown Speaker 15:24
it’s incredible, isn’t it?

Speaker 1 15:26
Seriously, when we started Chamber Chat, I don’t think either of us imagined we’d hit such a milestone.

Unknown Speaker 15:31
It’s really something special.

Speaker 1 15:33
It really is. And you know, it’s all thanks to you the listeners. Absolutely,

Unknown Speaker 15:36
this deep dive is really a celebration of you guys.

Speaker 1 15:39
It is. And what better way to celebrate them by looking back at the incredible journey we’ve been on together,

Speaker 2 15:45
totally. So what makes Chamber Chat so special? Well, for

Speaker 1 15:51
me, it’s about making the chamber world a little bit smaller. You know, chamber pros are busy. People busy. They wear so many hats. Yeah, it’s hard to find the time to attend every conference, read every article, connect with every

Speaker 2 16:03
colleague, exactly, and that’s where Chamber Chat comes in,

Speaker 1 16:06
right? It’s like a well, it’s like having a cheat sheet right, a direct line to the best practices and innovative ideas from across the chamber industry. And

Unknown Speaker 16:16
you don’t even have to leave your desk exactly,

Speaker 1 16:18
whether you’re on the treadmill or, you know, stuck in traffic,

Speaker 2 16:21
or even just taking a break from planning your next big event.

Speaker 1 16:25
Exactly, Chamber Chat is there ready to inspire and equip you with the tools you need to

Speaker 2 16:30
succeed? It’s true. And you know, when I think back over the past 300 episodes, what really strikes me is the sheer diversity of voices we’ve heard. Oh,

Speaker 1 16:39
absolutely, CEOs, young professionals, rural chamber leaders, big city folks, we’ve had it all.

Speaker 2 16:46
We’ve explored everything from membership growth to advocacy to what was that one episode building community resilience? Oh

Speaker 1 16:54
yes, that was a powerful one. I think it was. Wait, was it? Michael Johnson from the small town chamber,

Speaker 2 16:59
yes, him talking about bringing his community together after that factory closed, talk about resilience, right?

Speaker 1 17:05
That’s what I mean. Chamber chat isn’t just about theory. It’s about real stories, real challenges, real triumphs from the front lines of the chamber world.

Speaker 2 17:13
And let’s not forget about the man behind the curtain, Brandon Burton. Oh

Unknown Speaker 17:16
my goodness, Brandon, where do we even begin?

Speaker 2 17:18
I mean to dedicate yourself to documenting the voices and experiences of so many chamber leaders 300

Unknown Speaker 17:24
episodes. That’s dedication.

Speaker 2 17:25
It’s remarkable. He’s created something truly special. And it’s not just about the podcast itself. It’s the community he’s fostered. The

Speaker 1 17:34
Chamber Chat community is incredible. It’s a place where chamber professionals from all walks of life can come together to learn, to share, to support one another. And

Unknown Speaker 17:43
that’s something really worth celebrating.

Unknown Speaker 17:45
It really is.

Speaker 2 17:45
So as we celebrate this 300 episode milestone, I think it’s important for us to ask ourselves, How can we, each of us, take action exactly,

Speaker 1 17:54
what can you do today with the insights and inspiration you’ve gained right

Speaker 2 17:59
dive into the Chamber Chat archives. What resonates with you?

Speaker 1 18:04
What challenges are you facing that maybe, just maybe, someone has already addressed on this show

Unknown Speaker 18:09
exactly, and you know, don’t keep it to yourself, right?

Speaker 1 18:12
Share what you’ve learned with your colleagues. Connect with other listeners. Let’s

Unknown Speaker 18:16
keep this incredible conversation going.

Unknown Speaker 18:18
Here’s to the next 300 episodes.

Unknown Speaker 18:19
Cheers to that.

Brandon Burton 18:20
All right, so what did you think that was kind of cool, right? Having the conversation. These are two AI bots, so to speak, talking back and forth, really, just I fed them my website, chamberchatpodcast.com, and that’s what it came up with, which is pretty amazing, but I really like what they talked about at the end, about let’s take action, right? So hopefully, as you’ve tuned in and listened to chamber chat podcast, you’ve heard from different chamber leaders, people from you know, different walks of life, different experiences, that are bringing things to the table that can help make your job at the Chamber better, that can help you better serve your members and your community. That’s the goal of the show. So it’s my hope that as you take these things, implement, do your rip off and duplicate your R and D, Please share the show with somebody who you know, who may be new to the chamber industry, if you take a minute and think about especially over the last couple of years, since 2020 there’s been a lot of turnover in the chamber industry. And if you think of anybody that’s new to the chamber world that could benefit from hearing from a documented resource of over 300 chamber leaders at this point and extract value from that to help jump start their career. Please share chamber chat podcast with them and encourage them to subscribe and listen to it regularly, because there there really should be great takeaways, great value that anybody especially. Those that are new to the industry can take away and really help their career get off to a great start. So I want to say thank you for being with me, for listening to the podcast, for sharing it with others, for paying attention to sponsors of the podcast. That’s what makes us keep going, is having sponsors. I know as a chamber leader, you understand the value of sponsors, and having people act on that to continue having sponsors. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I can’t do this show without you, and 300 episodes is really a testament to being able to have a great fan base, a great listenership, and it’s my goal to just keep this going and keep providing value. So please share it out. And I’m always happy to hear feedback or ideas of potential guests as well that you think would be good for the show. People you see making a big impact, let me know. But anyways, that’s all I’ve got for this week, and I’m just incredibly humble and grateful to been able to be at this for nearly six years now and 300 episodes. So it’s been quite the journey, and I look forward to a lot more. Thanks a lot.


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Chambers Leveraging AI with Kaytee Lorentzen

Miles Burdine Chamber Chat Podcast promo image.

Below is an auto-generated transcription. Because this is auto-generated there are likely some grammatical errors but it is still a useful tool to search text within this podcast episode.

Feel free to join our Chamber Chat Champions Facebook Group to discuss this episode and to share your own experiences and tips with other Chamber Champions.

Brandon Burton 0:00
This is the Chamber Chat Podcast, the show dedicated to chamber professionals to spark ideas and to get actionable tips and strategies to better serve your members and community.

Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m your hosts Brandon Burton. And it’s my goal here on the podcast to introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community.

Our title sponsor is Community Matters, Inc. With nearly 20 years in the chamber industry and over 100 media awards presented to their chamber partners, community matters provides the R&R that every chamber needs, revenue and recognition.

When it comes to publishing a Chamber Map directory or Community Guide, Community Matters has a trusted experience to help your chamber accomplish your goals. With different advertising sales models and publication styles, Community Matters will help you create a non-dues revenue machine!

Let’s hear from Becky Womble, President of the Bastrop Chamber to hear about her experience with Community Matters.

Becki Womble 1:03
I’ve been using Community Matters for probably six or seven years now. And in a previous life, I sold commercial printing so I can highly recommend Community Matters because it’s a complete turnkey job for any busy chamber exec and it’s a wonderful, beautiful printed product whenever you’re finished. And I just I’m very sold on Community Matters. And with a printing background I just big endorsement from me.

Brandon Burton 1:44
To learn how Community Matters can support your chamber with your next publication. Please visit communitymattersinc.com/podcast To request your free media kit and request a proposal to find out what kind of non-dues revenue you can generate.

Learn how you can partner with Community Matters, Inc. to produce your next Chamber Directory, Community Guide or Map.

Our guest for this episode is Kaytee Lorentzen. Kaytee is the Director of Communications and events at the Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce. She spearheads the Chamber’s multifaceted marketing communications initiative engaging with a diverse array of stakeholders including Chamber members, the public media board and staff members. Her role involves closely collaborating with every department to craft coherent and compelling communication and marketing materials that cater to their unique needs. Beyond communications, she meticulously organizes and oversees the myriad of events that the Chamber orchestrates ensuring that they align with the organization’s objectives and standards. Kaytee has been a part of the chamber team since May of 2021, initially as a marketing and communications coordinator before stepping into the role as marketing and communications manager in January 2023, and subsequently evolving into her current position in September 2023. Before joining the chamber as a staff member, she was a member of the chamber with her photography business for four years. Kaytee holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism with a concentration in photojournalism from Ball State University. She’s a graduate from the Indiana chamber Executives Association, who’s your chamber Academy in June 2022, and is currently pursuing a master’s degree at Purdue University. And Kaytee, I am very excited to have you with us today here on Chamber Chat Podcast. I would love to give you an opportunity to say hello to all the Chamber Champions that are out there listening and share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better.

Kaytee Lorentzen 3:37
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much, Brandon, for having me on. I’ve been listening to your podcast ever since I have been a chamber professional. So I was super excited to get this opportunity. You helped me grow into this position. So I appreciate that. And everyone that’s been on the podcast as well. Just a little something interesting about myself. That isn’t in my bio. If I had a you know, a separate universe life, then I probably would have been a detective. I love true crime stuff. It’s kind of weird. Much I Love it. But even growing up I was, you know, doing forensics, trying to figure out fingerprinting and putting clues together. So that is what, but I would be in a different life. That’s

Brandon Burton 4:21
That is interesting. And there’s something to that the thrill of solving a mystery. You know, my my wife, she works at our kids elementary school. She’s the front desk receptionist and every now and then she’ll come home from work and say, I should have a detective badge. Like my GED today, you know, usually it’s some you know, kid in the neighborhood that’s caused some mischief, and they get caught on a ring doorbell camera or something. So the police will bring it to the school and say Do you recognize this kid? So she solves the mysteries. But there’s there’s something to that at the thrill of solving a mystery for sure. Oh,

Kaytee Lorentzen 4:55
yeah, like watching it on television shows I’m all about okay, I wonder if this happens. Next. Right,

Brandon Burton 5:01
right. Well tell us a little bit more about the greater Bloomington chamber just to give us an idea of the size staff scope of work. The tight you know, what kind of work you guys are involved with just to kind of set the table for our discussion. Yeah,

Kaytee Lorentzen 5:14
absolutely. So the greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce is located in Bloomington, Indiana. We are the home of Indiana University. So go Hoosiers, which is very ironic considering I go to Purdue University for graduate education. We Are Rivals so that’s really fun to be a part of. But the greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce, we have six full time staff members and one part time staff. And all ton of interns. Currently we have one high school intern to undergrad scholar intern. So they’ll be with us for all four of their undergrad years, and two grad fellows which are also going to be with us for their whole grad program. So that’s how many we have a ton of people here. And we have about 850 members currently, Bloomington itself, the size is about 80,000 people. And then Monroe County, which is the county that Bloomington resides in is about 140,000 we say we are the greater Bloomington So yes, we do have a lot of Bloomington businesses but also more Monroe County and surrounding.

Brandon Burton 6:25
Very good that that definitely helps to give some perspective and even going through your bio just in the marketing communications as you’ve had different roles, shows you guys are you’ve got to you’ve got a good amount of staff and get a good team there to work with. So that’s awesome. Well, our topic that we’ve settled on for today is very relevant and timely for all the buzz that’s going around right now around chat GPT and AI and generative AI and so we’re gonna dive in deeper in that discussion today. Katie has done some some great presentations on this at different conferences. So we’re going to kind of tap into her her wealth of knowledge to be able to share some of that, with all you chamber pros as we as we move forward in this conversation. We’ll dive into that as soon as they get back from this quick break.

Are you looking for a year round affordable and timely shop local campaign for your chamber or CVB Look no further build a custom each shop play mobile app with App My Community by visiting appmycommunity.com/chamberchat. App My Community mobile apps are not just simple membership directory listings. They provide many more capabilities to engage with your community. Provide your residents with a robust events calendar partner with a local fare festival or Farmers Market provide a schedule map and other resources to promote the event. Run a Small Business Saturday campaign any time of the year using built in scavenger hunts allow your membership to communicate directly to their customers via push notifications. Your app my community mobile app will be a unique member benefit allow you to generate non dues revenue with sponsorship opportunities and best of all provide a valuable resource to your community please visit appmycommunity.com/chamberchat now to receive 10% off your first year of an App My Community mobile app.

App My Community creates mobile apps that allow you to engage directly with your community. Enhance chamber membership by providing a unique advertising and communication channel to residents and visitors. Not just a member directory, App My Community has the tools to be useful to residents on a daily basis. Learn more at appmycommunity.com/chamberchat.

Are you looking for a way to grow and manage your chamber of commerce more effectively? Look no further than Chamber Nation! Our innovative software provides everything you need to streamline operations, engage members, and increase revenue. With features like event management, membership directories, advanced membership tools, mobile apps, community kiosks, and financial reporting, Chamber Nation makes it easy to run your chamber like a well-oiled machine. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to take your chamber to the next level. Visit www.RichardsCalendar.com to learn more about Chamber Nation today!

Visit ChamberNation.com to learn more.

Donna Novitsky 9:03
Howdy. It’s Donna Novitsky here, CEO of Yiftee. Fun fact about local businesses, did you know that small businesses employ 57% of the US is non government workforce. Many of these small businesses are your Chamber members, we are here to help you help them. As you heard last week, we do digital gift cards for 500 plus communities and we call them community cards. Our chamber partners get a custom gift card branded for you that works exclusively in your member stores. The program is free for you and free for your members. We even give you reports so you can tell them how much business you brought them. Sign up for a live Zoom demo with me or one of my teammates yiftee.com/demo or email sales@yiftee.com. That’s why yiftee.com. That’s it for now back to the show.

Brandon Burton 9:57
All right, Kaytee, we are back And so I’m excited to learn how you’re using generative AI and just AI in general, as a chamber professional, where you see the use cases and where it’s helped to save you time make your job easier. And does it save you time at this point? You know, or is it just the learning and everything, but it ends up making your job easier. I’d love just to hear how you’re integrating this. And hopefully spark some ideas for listeners maybe want to explore some of these aspects of utilizing AI at their chamber.

Kaytee Lorentzen 10:32
Absolutely. So first and foremost, like artificial intelligence is just this plethora of things. So it pretty much all ultimately is intended to make computers do things that when done by people are described as having indicated intelligence. So I was very skeptical at first, I’m not one of those people who typically jump on bandwagons. So in November of last year, or sorry, to it would be November 2022. At that point, when it came out, I was like, I don’t know about this chat. GBT, it kind of seems a little not in my realm. Then I tried it. All I did was just asked a few questions. And I was like, wow, I just opened the door to something that’s going to make my life so much easier, just by asking it simple questions. And the more I’ve been using it, the more I have learned how to write the prompts that are necessary for it to generate the kind of answers that I’m meeting. So for example, the one thing I use it a lot for is just rewriting a lot of our website copy. It sounds very dated, and some of its not customer focused. And that’s more of what it needs to be. You want it to say, like I asked it, this is what we currently have on our website for our membership benefits. Can you rewrite this in more of a customer focused realm or point of view, and also give some examples of why it’s important for somebody to join the Chamber of Commerce. And they will give you a full list like, a lot of the time, if you ask it for list, it’ll give it to you. And now that I’ve used it so much, it thinks that I like list all the time. So it will continuously give me list until I say please stop putting into the list. I just need a paragraph. Yeah. And then it typically apologizes. It goes, Oh, I’m so sorry. Let me fix that for you. Right, right. The big thing that I’m doing right now is just rewriting a lot of our website copy. I’ve also used it for social media copy. I’ve even asked it to create social, like a social media plan. Small Business Week was something I was like, Okay, I want to do something different. I don’t just want to say, yeah, it’s Small Business Week, let’s celebrate small business. Let’s actually make some sort of content with it. And so it was able to give me five different days of social media content that all I had to do was just pretty much copy and paste and find some graphics and photos to go with it. Yeah.

Brandon Burton 12:59
So talk to us a little bit more about rewriting the website copy. Are you literally are you copy and pasting paragraphs from your website, login in chat? GPT? Are you able to give a link to the website and say, scan this page? And tell me how how does that interface work for those listening?

Kaytee Lorentzen 13:15
Yeah, it depends on what program you’re using, and what version of the program you’re using. I know, some websites will do that. But not all of them, like I primarily use to actually btw and chat GPT for. So I use the paid version. But I don’t put a link in there. I literally copy and paste the exact information so that way I like because a lot of our content is pretty long website page. So I just was like, No, I just want this section rewritten in this point of view, and then obviously, the main thing is, I always say, double check, it’s work. Because you never know what is gonna pop out and you want to edit it. I don’t ever think that you should copy and paste directly from whatever chat GBT or you know, whatever generative AI system you’re using, you need to go in and, like have oversight, it gets you 80% of the way there. But you need to go in and edit and finesse it and make it more your voice.

Brandon Burton 14:16
Yes, so you shared your experience in November of 20 I guess it’s 2022 right when chat GPT was made public and available for everybody to use. And I remember going to Thanksgiving dinner my brother in law was like Oh, you gotta check this out. And he’s he’s a very loud in your face kind of person anyway, so he’s shoving his phone everybody’s facing you ask it a question and just very excited about it and like, Okay, calm down. You know, so I asked him a few questions and and really the responses I got back because I was asking business related questions. You know, how can I create a social media posts from my podcast or tell me about a chamber of commerce, like what Chambers of Commerce do and just that feedback I was getting from it initially. You needed to verify, you know, the stuff it was kicking out. And granted, this is Chad GBT three. So it wasn’t it hadn’t scanned, you know nearly as much of the of the web and things like that. But an example of just this last week, I’ve got a daughter in fifth grade, she came home with a math problem in her homework that she wasn’t able to figure out. And my, I think it was my son who’s a senior single as chat GPT. And, like, first of all, it seems like cheating or, and then your homework to plug it in. But like, we worked through the problem, got the answer? And then I’m like, I’m gonna try this, you know. So I asked chat GBT exactly how the question was on the homework. And immediately it spit back an answer. And it wasn’t the right answer. So I gave it some clarifying, you know, prompts along with it, then it apologize, spit back and other answer, and it never came up with the right answer. And after verifying, like more and more of the criteria with it, it kept apologizing, but then we kept giving me the same answer over and over. And like, okay, and this is still catch up three GPT 3.5. So it wasn’t the paid version, maybe that would have gotten me better results, but goes to the point of you need to verify you can’t just trust everything that it puts out as being doctrine, like you got to, you got to really read it, you got to make sure it’s accurate. And some may say, Well, does that really save you time then? So how would you approach that with if you need to verify everything? How does that aspect work and time saving, or you know, the application into real world scenarios?

Kaytee Lorentzen 16:36
I think it varies on what you’re planning on using chat GPT for so if you’re using it for research, that can definitely still take you some more time, it hasn’t been able to scan everything, and it’s still learning, it’s still, you know, it’s still a child, and it’s learning new tech. Yeah, it’s still a baby, it’s still trying to figure out what it’s doing. But for me, I use it more for things that I know are fact based, like hard numbers type of thing. I use it more for like the colorful language. For an example, there was one way someone emailed us and I was trying to explain to them, I don’t think you understood what I was trying to say. But also saying it in a much better way. Because right, there are some times where your brain just you know, when that clicker icon just keeps going on a blink word screen. That’s how I felt with this. I was like, I don’t know how to say this. So I just asked chat GPT. And it gave me a much better way of writing it. That actually was exactly what I wanted to say. But I just didn’t have the words or the sound mind at that point. I think it was like 430 on a Friday or something. And it put it all together and flowed nicely. So that was something I more use it for is earliest for chatty BTW I use it more for that aspect. Even if you asked it to give you a source, sometimes it makes it up. So but at least if you can look up and see if that source even exists. And that sometimes works. I think I’ve only used it a few times with statistics. And then what I’ll do is I’ll just copy and paste this statistic that it gives me and look up where it is in Google. Yeah, just to verify, make sure that’s fine. But yeah, it varies, because I’ve also heard similar situations with homework, where someone it was I think it was NPR that I was listening to. And they were saying, Well, my daughter was doing homework. And they and I’m a history major. And it asked if this particular person in history was pro separation of church and state or against it, and it gave the wrong answer. And they were like, That’s not right. So I if you ever ask it fact, based information like that, then I would at least just copy and paste what it gave you and ask it as much question as you can to get where they got it from, quote unquote. And then you can find it on the internet pretty quickly. So

Brandon Burton 19:10
is there a value to giving it feedback to say that’s not a correct answer? Or yes, I’m gonna challenge the answer a little.

Kaytee Lorentzen 19:18
I think so because it’s learning based off of what you are giving it as well. So like if you there’s even after every single prompts that it gives you, was this, what you were looking for? Was this not and then there’s a thumbs up, thumbs down and you just put that in there it actually is teaching it. That’s another way that it’s learning on giving the correct answers. So if other people start asking similar questions or something like that, it’s it’s now learning based off of our responses, right, right.

Brandon Burton 19:49
And I think you know, although some of the information you get may not be totally accurate need to verify if you’re having some writer’s block going on or looking for ideas Just to be able to put a prompt in and receive, you know, a ton of ideas and, you know, pretty much instantaneously, things that will get those creative juices going in your mind, again, that I’ve heard it said that it’s not to replace your own thinking in your own mind, but it’s to supplement it’s to add to what you’re already doing. Yes. Yeah. I know, in an example that I had, there was a chamber professional that I mentioned, how much they enjoy the podcast, and you know, very nice email about what they have appreciated. So this is great. Would you mind putting this as a review on Apple podcasts? And they try it and try it couldn’t figure it out? Like, can you tell me how to leave a review? Like, let me ask Chet GPT. So I just did, how do you leave a review for by and just copy and paste it? And I could have typed the response and said, Here’s how you do it. But to look up each, you know, the website and give a link and here and there and back and forth? Just that plug it in chat? GPT it was all right, copy, paste, send and it was done. And it was easy. It was easy.

Kaytee Lorentzen 21:05
Yeah, as long as you just review it and be like, Yeah, that’s exactly how you do it, then you can just copy and paste, which is nice. And that’s kind of what I’ve done. Even for scripts for videos that we do. I’ve asked it to make it you can even ask it. Can you make this more of a TED Talk style, and it will completely read rewrite it? I did that actually the first time I presented this at the Indiana chamber Executives Association Conference. Hi, how do you write my intro? I didn’t like how it was like, have a we tried TED Talk style? Yeah, very different. It was, it almost felt like when you were reading it out loud, exactly how it starts. Right. Any TED Talk? So

Brandon Burton 21:50
maybe let’s talk about that a little bit about the prompts that we put into to any AI, generative AI assistant. What kind of things do we need to consider? Because I think we’re very much a lot of the public is very much still in the mindset of Google, right? You put in? What is this? He put in a question, get a response. So talk to us about a prompt, and maybe becoming a prompt engineer, so to speak.

Kaytee Lorentzen 22:17
Yes, yes. So that is something I’ve definitely been trying to hone my skills on, is learning how to create the best prompts. I always say, garbage in, garbage out. So whatever. If you give it like subpar information, it’s going to give you a subpar answer. So you want to make sure that it has as much information as you can possibly give it. Like if you’re trying to make a all do something pretty simple, like a social media post, if you tell it your audience exactly who it’s supposed to cater to, you can even tell it more of like your customer persona, it will give you a much better answer and a less generic answer, it’ll become more personalized. So that’s a lot of the time why I copy and paste a lot of our content when I’m asking it to rewrite it. So I say take this and move it to something more like this other thing. So that could be you know, saying it needs it needs to have more colorful language, can you make it sound more professional, this needs to be more towards small business owner, not necessarily the big business, so you can change up exactly what you’re wanting it to do. But the more specific the better it is.

Brandon Burton 23:37
Yeah. So as you’re given that response reminds me I had recently read a book called The AI whispers method. And it it’s a, it’s an AI generative fiction novel. So it takes the whole hero storyline and plugs it into to teach you how to use AI. And it talks a lot about generating prompts. And even asking, like, for example, with Chet GPT, to act as a math teacher or act as a math professor to give me an answer to this problem or act as a sports historian and tell me why, you know, this scenario is happening or so being able to get that context of act as if or act as a different, you know, expert in different fields, it’s able to tap into different resources and really understand what it is that you’re looking for. So as I played around with that there’s a lot of power in the act as prompt when you plug that into chat. GPT

Kaytee Lorentzen 24:45
Absolutely. That’s actually something I do for our customer journey type of thing. I said to chat GPT act as if you are a brand new business. You’ve never heard of the Chamber of Commerce. You We are interested in it because someone mentioned that it’s a great thing to join, why should they join? What are their pain points? What are their objectives? What are the rebuttals to those objectives? So you can really start tailoring your content to better address their pain points and why you’re the solution to their problems.

Brandon Burton 25:19
Right. I love that. So let’s, let’s maybe circle back a little bit more to the generative AI. Discussion. So you mentioned you, you’ve used it to rewrite website content, you use it for social media posts. What other applications are you seeing in the chamber world, specifically for using generative AI? That

Kaytee Lorentzen 25:40
is a fabulous question. So for me, I have been using it more obviously, for the marketing aspect of it. I’ve even asked it to write event descriptions. So what makes people come into the event more? What makes it more appealing, besides just saying, you know, come to this chamber event at this day, on this time at this place, we look forward to expanding your network hope to see you there. It sounds the exact same every single time. So how do I change it up and make it sound more exciting? What makes that chamber member have to be at that event. So I use that a lot for to change up the descriptions. I’ve also asked it to make correct like full social media campaigns, not just the captions itself. Also, like I mentioned earlier, the market research different emails to members. So like how, like, if you’re saying I want people to fill out this survey, what makes someone fill out this, if you ask to attribute it, right, this email, enticing people to fill out this survey that doesn’t. Obviously, we’re all nonprofits, we don’t have a whole lot of money to give out as an incentive. So without incentives, I’m creating different types of plans for customer journeys. The one that I’ve used the most often is writing up ours, we have a sponsorship book that we do all at one time, kind of like why GM does. And so I’ve asked it to rewrite our sponsorship book and why people should sponsor it and why it’s important to sponsor it. And then lately, I have noticed AI disclosures on your website, writing a disclaimer for your website, we actually didn’t have quite a few like the privacy policies, those things that you’re supposed to have on your website. And so I was like, I’m gonna see if Chad GPD can come up with something very like simple and then obviously run it by our lawyer, just to make sure everything sounds great. But it really helps take out a lot of the guesswork for us. We didn’t have to do you know, how many hours of research trying to make sure that what we had in there? Would it be? Sound for us to use, even if it’s just like a blanket one? I think ours is our AI disclaimer is probably two paragraphs, just saying, you know, we use AI, there are things that may be generated by AI that come out here, but there’s always human oversight, ultimately, is what it says but in some more legalese term. Yeah.

Brandon Burton 28:15
Like that. So I guess that brings up a good talk at a good point to talk about as well, where I know I’ve been at chamber conferences and breakout sessions you you lead some these breakout sessions, where we talk about AI? And the question always comes up as far as the legality, the copyright issues if you’re especially like image generation, right? So if you’re asking generative AI to produce an image for you, who owns the rights to that, is there copyright issues if you’re bringing in certain elements into that? So if you would speak a little bit to the legality and regulations around AI and what we need to kind of be aware of and kind of look out for as we kind of navigate through this new world of artificial intelligence?

Kaytee Lorentzen 29:03
Absolutely. This is definitely something we need. As chamber professionals. If you’re using AI just to keep up to date on there are quite a few websites that you can track legislation. And there’s a lot on AI. Currently, right now, as of August 30, of 2023, the US Copyright Office issued a notice of inquiry in the Federal Register on copyright. And AR pretty much just means they’re going to be studying it to see kind of whether legislation or regulatory steps are even warranted, and also just steps to advise Congress on any legislation that does come through. But anything right now made by something other than human is not protected by copyright. So if I like the API disclosure I was talking about I can’t if someone else wanted to copy and paste it and use it, they legally can. And I can’t cry that that’s copyright. So that’s it. One thing that we have to look at, right now a lot of people are getting frustrated with the image portion of it, I haven’t used that aspect too much, because I still feel like there is a lot of stock photo that I can use in that aspect. And I don’t need to just create an image that we don’t have. But other people are saying that it’s very unfair to the artists, which I do, as someone who’s a photographer, I get that completely. And it takes, you know, scanning my work to use someone else’s yet that’s not exactly something I’m a fan of. But I am interested to see where that’s going to be going and legislations and any what Congress is planning on doing on that. And I do think that they’re in a very interesting position right now. And I think they do need to take that whole issue very seriously, that AI is here, and it’s going to, it’s, you know, people are still scared of it. But it was very similar to like, when the internet happened, it, everyone was scared of it, it was this big thing that everyone’s like, this is going to change the world. It did. But now if we look back, if you don’t have a website, you’re not really relevant. Or you’re not considered trustworthy. So if that’s something similar what AI is gonna do, that’s, I’m just very interested to see where it’s gonna go, what regulations we’re gonna have. So just keeping up to date, making sure that we are using it legally, then that is something that we do need to do, and do our due diligence on it, as you know, people that are in the community seen as a trustworthy and leader.

Brandon Burton 31:42
Yeah, for sure. Now, it’s definitely important to keep that on the forefront with any legislation that comes out. But I think to your point with the internet, you know, if you didn’t adopt the internet and have a website, now, you’re kind of irrelevant. And I see a very similar course with AI. And just the AI technology has been adopted quicker than any other technology in the history of mankind. I don’t know, besides like the fire, maybe I don’t know. But. But as far as the technology goes, it’s been adopted very quickly. And I could easily see in five or 10 years maybe doesn’t even take that long, that there’s going to be two types of chambers, right? There’s going to be the ones that use AI and the ones that are no longer around, essentially, because they’re not relevant. And they’re not able to really leverage the power that comes from Ai, especially when you’re dealing with limited budgets, and being nonprofits and all that. There’s a lot of leverage. Yeah,

Kaytee Lorentzen 32:38
and I completely understand why it would seem intimidating or scary at first, because I was in that same exact boat. But as soon as I tried it, I was very surprised at the fact that I felt like it was something that anyone and everyone can use. Even if you’re just asking simple questions like, can you give me a recipe for a very simple meal like something, it’s something you can just play around with and have fun. And the more you use it, the more you find things that you can use it for? Yeah,

Brandon Burton 33:09
I’ve heard people will take, you know, just random ingredients they have in the refrigerator and say I’ve got these seven ingredients, give me a recipe of something, I can make it it’ll do it. So where would you suggest somebody gets started with a journey in AI and just kind of getting their mind wrapped around it? Yeah,

Kaytee Lorentzen 33:28
I would say just pick up like one or any of the generative AI tools that we have available. Google’s version is Bard. And then there’s chat GPT. There’s all just, obviously, Google, because Google or cert, go in your search engine, and ask it for a generative AI tool, and just start asking it questions. And the more you do it, the more you’ll get better at asking the I don’t want to write questions, but better questions, you refine the questions, you refine the questions to get the answers that you’re looking for. And then you start, that’s when your wheels start turning and figuring out where can I apply this in my professional life? Right.

Brandon Burton 34:10
So I didn’t give you a heads up that I was going to ask you this question. So if we need to edit it out, we can but I’m curious. What are you excited about on the forefront that you see coming with AI in the next weeks, months years?

Kaytee Lorentzen 34:24
I’m just excited to see the evolution of where it’s going. It just reminds me of like when the first iPhone came out, like and just seeing how it evolves and where it’s at now that it’s pretty much a part of our daily lives. If you’re an Apple user, obviously. It’s something that I am just excited to see where it’s gonna go. I’m excited to see how our legislation will take this and you hopefully use it for the good obviously, there’s always some bad actors, but I think Oh, For all this is going to be something that’s extremely well received in, in our world. Right?

Brandon Burton 35:07
I think there’s just a world of opportunity available. And quite honestly, I don’t know if legislation can keep up with the trends and the way things will develop. But we need to be plugged in and not be burying our head in the sand pretending like it’ll go away because it’s not going to go away. Well, Katie, as we look to the future, actually, let me back up before I ask that question for a chamber who’s listening who wants to take their chamber up to the next level, what kind of tip or action item might you share for them to try to accomplish that goal?

Kaytee Lorentzen 35:42
I would say, the tip to use is embrace playing. I know that sounds so weird, but embrace that it’s something new embrace change, it will make a world of a difference. Because I can even tell you even in my office, as soon as people started embracing this tool, it was a game changer. Like our membership director, she now uses that a lot to help personalize each individual sales email, instead of just having like this copy and paste mentality of the same type of email, she can personalize it a lot more saying, this is the industry this person is in. And now she says that she really can’t go without it. Our operations manager uses it to help create some Excel documents, like it’s different things, the more you play with it, and embrace the change that it can bring, the better I think we’ll all be.

Brandon Burton 36:41
Absolutely, it reminds me. Last year, our church, we were putting together a fundraiser for our youth program at church. And I was trying to get the text together for the flyers that we’re gonna go out and promote on social media and everything. And I was just having the hardest time trying to make all the words fit on this flyer without being crowded and like telling what we’re trying to accomplish. And I told my wife, this Super Chat GPT will say I plug it in, give it the prompts, and it spit back and answer those beautiful, perfect, and we use that going forward. Like if I would have just done that from the beginning, it would have saved me so much time and headache and just beating my head against a wall trying to figure something out. That wasn’t coming to me. And it was it’s a great tool. So I would encourage everybody to embrace the play and embrace the change. Because I think initially, you and I both had this similar initial reactions I get I’ll know about this chat GPT steps, the more you get into it, you see more and more applications where it can assist you and make your life a little bit easier. So as we look to the future of chambers of commerce, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

Kaytee Lorentzen 37:53
You know, it’s funny as I was like, you know, how do I answer? Because I knew this one was coming, right? Because I hear from everyone. So I asked chat GPT what they thought. And it gave me a gave me a list of nine different things. But I would like to kind of summarize what because a lot of it is things that I thought of but I was like how do I make this sound? Great. I do see a lot of the future of chambers using innovation and technology adaptation, obviously, for me using AI and GPT. I do see that. And I think with that we will become leaders in the business space in general. I think it will bring forward I’m trying to think of the correct word that I want to use. But it will bring forward this leadership of how the standard should be set on business and how they can embrace it as well. And I think that we’ll have a lot of Gosh, I’m trying to figure out

Brandon Burton 39:04
here, but you can plug it as chat GPT

Kaytee Lorentzen 39:09
Pretty much yeah, just focusing on the technological changes focusing on small business and it’s going to just help leverage that and just, you know, promote this business atmosphere that I think will be that will occur encourage all of that.

Brandon Burton 39:33
Yeah, I can definitely see that and we need to be embrace the innovation that comes with technology. Yes.

Kaytee Lorentzen 39:43
You pretty much said exactly what I was wanting to say. All

Brandon Burton 39:45
right, well, whether you know it or not, you said it at some point in there because I wrote it down and he said well, Katie, I want to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for listeners who want to reach out and learn more, maybe Do you see some of the slides or anything you’ve shared at different conferences or whatever you’re willing to share and help out with them? What would be the best way for someone to reach out and connect?

Kaytee Lorentzen 40:09
The best way is probably through either email or through LinkedIn. So my email is just klorentzen@chamberbloomington.org. And my LinkedIn, you can just find me, Katie Lorentzen, and I spell it differently. So I’ll spell it here for you guys. It is Kaytee and then my last name Lorentzen. And either a message on either of those are typically the best way to get a hold of me just because I am all over the place. And my phone is always on me. So those two apps right there for me.

Brandon Burton 40:45
That’s perfect. And we’ll get that in our show notes too. So people can pull that up and have easy access to reach out. But I appreciate all the value you offered to listeners today here on chamber tap podcast for sharing your experience of exploring and being innovative using generative AI and I just, you know, it’ll be fun to look back at this episode a year from now and be like, Wow, things have really advanced in the last year. So I know I’m excited. Yeah, but thank you for being with us today. This has been a fun and enlightening conversation. So thank you.

Kaytee Lorentzen 41:18
Thank you for having me.

Brandon Burton 41:19
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