This week, we are diving into Chapter 3 (~30 pages / ~35 min audio). Mollick introduces a key mindset shift for changing how we work: Always invite AI to the table, and treat it like a creative collaborator rather than a search engine.
This Week’s Discussion Prompts:
- Inviting AI to the Table: Mollick suggests giving AI a seat at the table for everyday work. What is one low-stakes task in your office this week (e.g., drafting a meeting agenda, brainstorming event themes, or editing an email nudge) where you gave AI a seat at the table?
- The Persona Experiment: In Chapter 3, Mollick emphasizes that giving AI a specific role or “persona” drastically improves its output. Try giving an AI tool a persona this week (e.g., “You are a friendly, encouraging Graduate Admissions Counselor addressing a stressed applicant…”). How did assigning a persona change the tone and usefulness of the response compared to a generic prompt?
👉 Action: Reply to this thread with your persona experiment results or a favorite takeaway from Chapter 3 by Thursday!
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2 replies on “Week 3: Co-Creating & Personas”
Looking at my extensive interactions with Gemini this week 🫣 – one low-stakes activity I gave it to do was summarizing my meeting notes with prospective students. It actually did a great job without me having to course-correct on the prompts I gave it! What about y’all?
I’ve started allowing an AI called Granola to listen to my calls and come up with meeting summaries for me so I can take those interactions and add them to the student’s profile. It took me a little while to trust the platform and its notes because it felt like more general information than something I’d write myself. Since this particular model is listening to conversations, it tends to get names, pronouns, and roles in the conversation wrong. I’ve continued to check over notes, correct mistakes and add things I found important myself. I think it just took someone reminding me that it’s not supposed to do everything perfectly or on its own, rather be a tool that still saves me time. They reminded me to still be the human in the loop and that in itself helped me feel more comfortable using it.