Human Edge in AI: Leanne Shelton on Balancing Tech with Heart

Nigel Rawlins: Welcome, Leanne, to the Wisepreneurs podcast. Could you tell us something about yourself and where you're from?

Leanne Shelton: Sure. Thanks, Nigel. I'm based in Sydney, Australia. I've had a copywriting business, copywriting slash content marketing business, uh, for almost 10 years and, um, I basically started up to have flexibility around my young family. I had a nine month old and didn't want to go back to a full time work.

Um, and, uh, you know, but they were cramming in full time work in a part time hours. So yeah, started my business cause writing has always been my passion since I was a kid myself, but then more recently I've moved into the AI space kind of, accidentally fallen into it, but I'm loving it. So, now I'm just following my way through and trying to teach other people how to use AI with the human touch.

So I started my business Human Edge AI Training earlier this year. And yeah, basically the plan is to keep running workshops, and my mission is just to ensure people are using that effectively. And not getting fearful, like getting over that fear and just finding the opportunities, but also understanding the limitations.

Nigel Rawlins: Mmm. Now that sounds really motivating. So copywriting business for 10 years, so tell us something about that. How did that start? you mentioned that you had a young child, you didn't want to go back to work, but why copywriting 10 years ago?

Leanne Shelton: So when I was on maternity leave, I became the editor of a sports e newsletter and, um, for a community group and I thought, Oh, okay, maybe I could start a business. I always knew I wanted to have a business just didn't know what, and I thought, Oh, well, maybe I could do newsletters for businesses.

And that was actually my intention when I started and very quickly realized that's not enough of a driver, like for business owners, but I met a website designer and said, hey, could you write website content? And I thought, yeah, sure. Why not? So I learned all about SEO and how to write, um, for online and it kind of took off from there.

I also learned about blog writing, like, Oh, I, you know, had done freelance journalism before, and I thought, well, okay, I can write articles and website copy. And they became my, my main offerings and I really enjoyed it, because I realized writing just comes very easily to me, but for the majority of people, especially business owners, it often is like a weak spot for them.

So I figured, well, I can use my skill to help others. And it always felt so great when they'd be like, Oh, thank you, this sounds perfect. I could never written this myself. And I think about five years ago, I started changing the briefing process in terms of interviewing them on zoom and then getting a transcript and then literally writing from their words.

And that made it even easier to really capture their voice. And yeah, I've really enjoyed it. Yeah, probably about around the five year mark, I brought on some subcontractors. So it wasn't just me doing all the writing and these days I'm just basically the project manager and have my team doing the writing, but the, the copywriting has dropped off because of AI, which is kind of one reason why I moved into it.

But also because this new space lights me up so much, I've probably lost a bit of passion for the copywriting, but all that experience now comes into what I'm doing because I realized prompt engineering with AI, it's all about words and I'm a words person. So that's kind of where I figured, I'm sure there's a space here for me, uh, to follow my way through and help other people with getting the words right for the prompts to then get the quality content they want.

Nigel Rawlins: I think you're on the ball there. That's, that's really good. I want to step back a little bit there. You mentioned about five years ago, you started bringing on subcontractors. So obviously your business was evolving, so how were you getting clients at that point? And what made you decide, I can't do this all on my own. I want to outsource some work as well. And how you manage it. Tell us something a bit more about that.

Leanne Shelton: Yeah, well, I never did any paid ads or anything. Uh, it was all organic, did a lot of networking, um, and often it was referrals or people came through my website. Honestly, it was always very, like, I might meet someone who then, I might do one job for them, they refer me to someone else, someone else, and sometimes just the pathway of how I got clients was very unique.

And what I found was, you know, I always said, because I've now got, yeah, two daughters, um, and I'm, you know, married and, and I'm like, okay, family life is important. I didn't want to work weekends. I didn't want to work nights. And I just realized I reached my capacity. I wanted to say yes to all the work, but I literally couldn't do it or do a good job.

And I had joined a online copywriting community, which, once I got over that fear of them being my competitor and I realized, Oh no, we all have different areas, expertise and different niches and that's fine. So I actually invited some of those copywriters from that community to become subcontractors.

And I have very high standards, so some didn't quite meet that. And I found myself rewriting a lot of it and it didn't really solve the problem, but I'm now got, yeah, I think there's about three or four who I use regularly. I know, I'll maybe make, minor tweaks, but I feel really comfortable with what they've done.

And that's the whole point of getting someone to help me. I don't want to be rewriting it all constantly. And, um, yeah, so I, I project manage, I love doing the, the client facing briefing, get the excitement of what they're all about, and then I get that transcript, I brief my subbie, they do a really good job, and then I liaise with the client.

I did attempt earlier in the year to do a copyright job myself. And I just. realized I'm not very good with taking feedback when I've written it. I take it too personally. Cause you would know this, Nigel, you put all your heart and soul into your writing, and if you get some sort of negative feedback, it's very hard not to take it at heart.

So I found that having that distance. It's the subcontractor notes the project, even if I had reviewed it, I'm like, yep, cool. I take on the feedback and I pass it on and I just keep the project moving along smoothly. The copywriting projects have been dropping off. The conversions have been a lot harder than they used to be.

I'm an extroverted, extroverted copywriter, if you can't tell. So I was always very comfortable getting on the phone and like 80 percent of the time I converted people from getting on the phone. But then I found out beginning of last year that wasn't even working. People would just go, Oh, look, there's ChatchPT, which is free.

Why would I pay you thousands of dollars to do X when I can get this thing to do it for free. So that's part of the reason why I went into it. I thought, well, they're going to be using AI anyway. At least I can use my copywriting skills to teach them how to use it properly. And, I have been running training for about five years.

Kind of a side thing on content marketing topics from LinkedIn to webinars to podcasts, to all of this blogging. And I thought, okay, AI training can be my next thing.

And. It's yeah, obviously it's taken over everything now.

Nigel Rawlins: Yeah, look, I think that's a fantastic explanation. The interesting thing you're saying there is the copywriting jobs are dropping off because they think ChatGPT will do the job. What do you think of that?

Leanne Shelton: Well, this is a lack of education, I think. And this is part of what I'm trying to teach people. Um, once people realize a fair bit of work goes into prompting ChatGPT or similar to get decent output, a lot of people realize, Oh, okay, it's not as simple as smashing out a one liner like you would in a Google search.

And, a lot of people at first go, Oh, this is really good. I can never write this. Not realizing because they're not looking from a copywriter's eye, that it's actually very surface level. It's doesn't have the depth. It doesn't have facts. It doesn't have stories. It doesn't have that human touch. And that's what I'm kind of seeing.

A lot of people just pumping it out. And I think it might take a little while for some people to realize that they're affecting their brand because a lot of us can pick up on these AI terminology, words and things that it uses. Um, And yeah, so a lot of people don't even realize that they're doing it incorrectly.

So there could be very well within, I don't know, a few months. I've still actually had some copyright jobs come in this last couple of months too, that had otherwise not been there earlier in the year, people were realizing, Oh, okay. I actually do need to hand this project over to the expert. I don't have the headspace to try and work at AI and write the content and edit it, and I don't know what I'm doing.

And yeah, so it might come full circle and resurge of, of the need for copywriters, but I think all copywriters as well need to understand prompt engineering because it's the way of the future. We can't dig our head in the sand and think, no, no, it's okay. They'll always want us. Accountants are still needed and wanted, but there's accounting software, their role has changed.

You just have to be prepared to change as well.

Nigel Rawlins: I think that's a great point you've just made there. The people are going to have a go at doing it themselves because they think the ChatGPTs going to do the work. Many, many years ago, I worked with a former marketing manager from a big American company. We worked together. I was the marketing service guy.

He was the strategist. We worked with a government organization, that was doing fabulous work. And when we went to this organization, all the people in there who are doing the specialist roles, working with people, wanted to do marketing with us. And we had to tell them all off. We had to say, no, you help your organization by doing your particular specialist area, not by sort of coming to meetings and talking about marketing and neglecting your, your, your customers, your clients. And this is probably, what I'm thinking that you're seeing that there's people in organizations that, Oh, I can do that. I'll just use Chat GPT and, and putting out rubbish. Okay. Let's talk about prompting a bit. One of the interesting things you said there is how you actually tell GPT, what you want it to do.

So, it's called prompt engineering, but you also, I think. hit it on the nail too with it's how you actually prompt it. So let's talk a little bit about good prompts.

Leanne Shelton: Yes. So I think what a lot of people did, and look, I did, I'm guilty of this too, when I first opened ChatGPT the first time, a lot of people see that message bar at the bottom, the same way they see a Google search bar, which I kind of touched on before. Uh, but it's not a matter of just shouting demands at it.

I want this information, give it to me. I tell people to treat ChatGPT or other generative AI like an assistant, like an intern. Think of it as another human that you need to give a really thorough brief to therefore do its best job. Just like an intern, it can search the internet. It knows how to do that, but it doesn't know about your business.

It doesn't know about your customers. It doesn't know about your brand voice and all that kind of stuff. So you have to teach it. It's been pre trained, but there's biases involved there and you don't know what sources it's used.

And if it hasn't been trained on your business, it doesn't understand it. So the very, very basics I teach is about first of all, training it up on this is what my business is. This is what we do. Here are our services. Here are all the links that you need to know. And here's my customer. Or can you help me work out my customer based on what questions can I answer? And then here are some samples of my writing. Can you do analysis and tell me what my writing style is. Now, can you always write in this style? And I teach this just basic groundwork because that is going to straight away in improve your output tenfold or maybe even more so.

And then when you do any prompts, you say, I treat it like a person. So I say things like, please. And thank you. I think that's very important one for just for maintaining a sense of humanity. And two, I've actually heard that because it's trained up to be human, like in its responses, humans respond better to manners, so get in the habit.

I have seen AI people, enthusiasts who just go, write me this, shouting demands. I say, today we're going to work on this together, could you please, I just, I'm just kind. Um, but yeah, so I, you think about this way, if you had an internist next to you, knows nothing about your business, would you say, hey, can you go write me this article on this topic?

They'll be like, okay, they're a paper pleaser, like ChatGPT will say yes, but then it'll come back and the draft is rubbish and they have to go redo it and redo it and you get all frustrated. Same thing can happen with ChatGPT. So what you're going to do is say, okay, pretend I'm sitting down with a person.

How much information would they need to do a proper job first go? And it will never be perfect because they're still learning. Just like ChatGPT is like a baby. Um, but you would say, okay, here's everything I know about this topic. Here are the sources I want you to use. Make sure you're using this brand voice, blah, blah, blah.

Do you need anything else from me? Is there anything unclear? And this is then you have a bit of a conversation and quite often you don't realize if you've been vague, until you get the output and realize, Oh, that's not what I wanted. Okay. I haven't been clear enough. And then you go to the next step. So you can't say prompts, as the same thing as maths equations, there is no exact prompt. And you know, I bought one of those thousand prompt guides for $57 when I started, there are no exact prompts. It all comes down to context, comes down to your business. If you just speak to it, cause there is actually an option to a microphone option too.

If you speak or write to it as though you're speaking to an intern, you're going to get so much better, uh, output, then if you just said, go write me this,

Nigel Rawlins: Now that is wonderful. Basically, you're saying you can have a conversation with your ChatGPT to get to the point where you can then ask it to do an output. And yes, um, having good manners is also important. So having had 10 years in the industry of copywriting, now one of the guests, Cedric Chin on episode 58, writes about tacit knowledge and getting that tacit knowledge out of people's heads, now there is a system he talks about to get that knowledge. Now, if you've been in copywriting for 10 years and obviously, were you a journalist before that?

Leanne Shelton: I've done freelance journalism. Yeah.

Nigel Rawlins: So you've also got that tacit knowledge of how to create good writing. And when it comes to copywriting, where you're being paid to create a particular output for a brand or a business or an organization, you've got an awful lot of tacit knowledge that you're putting into your prompts. Now, the normal everyday person who's working in a job and said, yeah, I'm going to use ChatGPT won't have any of that knowledge. So you're teaching, it sounds, like here are some of the things that I know through my experience and then putting it into prompts. So you're running sessions. Where and how do you teach people?

Leanne Shelton: Yeah, so I have a few different offerings. I run workshops, so for teams, uh, especially when you've got the innovators in the teams and those who haven't even touched it and get everyone on the same page. My focus is on marketing teams, I can branch out if you really want your team to get some support.

Um, and I also do like one on ones if anyone just, If whether you're just a business owner on your own, uh, and really help you understand how to train it up and be specific with examples of projects that you want to work on. And then I also have the AI DIY Club, which is a membership and we experiment and explore with prompts every week online.

We have a different theme every month. So right now we're working on webinars as our theme. So looking at AI tools, looking at our prompts for script writing and everything like that. And I'm big on getting your hands dirty. I don't just run sessions where you just go smile and nod. Yeah, that sounds good.

I'll now find time and experiment. I always get people to experiment with prompts then and there and see its capabilities, understand the limitations, because it may not give you the word count you wanted because maybe it's repeating itself because there's not enough content based on what's been trained on.

Or you might realize, no, I know a lot more on this topic than it does. And so then you challenge it a little bit. So that's the thing you should use it as a tool, bring all your skills and expertise to the table. So as a copywriter, I have like, this is why I can do really good marketing projects and content with it.

Cause I know what good quality content and strategies look like. So when it gives me rubbish. I can go, no, and then I'll kind of say a bit more like this, or when it's good, I'll recognize going, Oh, I can see from past experiences, yeah, that could work really well. Oh, that sounds really good. So whatever industry you're in, you can bring that to the table and then say, okay, help me with this project.

So say you're in customer service, you know what a good email should look like. It will give you something you go, no, actually I want a bit more of this conversational feel, I want a bit more of this nurturing or, um, problem solving, or I want this to be the outcome. You know, what a good customer service call, how that would end up.

So you kind of want to work backwards. So there's a lot of strategy involved with it that a lot of people don't realize that it's like, Oh yeah, bit of that laziness go, Oh, we're not laziness. I think it's just like a knowledge just going, Oh yeah, cool. Oh, they gave me this. Great. Um, and I think part of my frustration is I have heard of at least two examples of companies firing their copywriting teams, thinking, you I don't know who, maybe their admin assistant can just pump out the blogs or the website content or whatever, or emails, but they don't know all that background knowledge.

They don't know what makes a good email, what makes a good article. So they may end up rehiring those people down the track.

Nigel Rawlins: Oh, I think they will. I think it will spin back because once this is mainstream and people are realizing, well, it does take work, um, and they're neglecting their duties. Just like I mentioned about this organization we went into that, All the staff in there thought it was going to be sexy to do marketing.

And we're saying, no, get back to your jobs and look after your clients. You know, you're paying us to do this and we're good at what we do. And it's going to take us one fifth the time it's going to take you even to get to the meeting. And then they'll have the meeting and never, they'll just end up having meetings. I think it will spin back, but I think it will spin back to the people who are very au fait with using ChatGPT or AI, plus having a depth of knowledge like you have in terms of your copywriting and knowing what's good copy, because I'm assuming that when you're doing your briefings, you're seeking out quite a lot of information that if they're a novice, they don't even know that that's important.

So let's go back a little bit to your briefing, your briefing skills when you were doing your copywriting. Do you use some of those skills when you're teaching a group about using prompts? Because I'm assuming that fits really well.

Leanne Shelton: Yeah. Cause a lot of the things that I need to find out from a client, it's the type of stuff you need to plug into ChatGPT. So it's all about really getting a thorough understanding of who you're speaking to, why is this project important? The brand voice, like I said, cause that's what makes you more unique and not sound like every other person out there.

Yeah, a lot of that is exactly what I would ask in my, my briefings. And that's now what I'm asking myself to therefore put it into ChatGPT. And I have used, you know, AI to, to write some content for clients. Some get a bit, Oh, Oh, hang on your AI training. Oh, are you just going to use AI? Honestly, yes, I will use it, but I know how to use it and ensure that it's supporting the content. It's not going to make it sound really robotic and generalized. I know the techniques to make it support me. So you don't question the, the graphic designer who uses InDesign, Photoshop or Canva and you don't question the accountant who uses QuickBooks Xero or calculator, basically now ChatGPT can be seen as a tool that copywriters can now use to enhance what they already know. And this is where I get a bit concerned about, yeah, people being replaced, that's a bit of fear mongering that's still happening. Media jobs being replaced. I think it's actually a matter of upskilling right now and understanding how this tool can be used for your role.

My husband works in sales and in the trades industry. He's like, I don't think AI is related to me cause it's the online space. But he came to me to edit a cold email. I said, okay, let's use this as a training exercise. Let's teach up on your company. Now let's put in your draft email and ask it to improve on it.

And he's like, Oh, I get it now because the whole training process he'd never realized. He thought it was purely, it's a one way communication. Like I'm just spitting out, just giving it demands, spitting it out and that's it. No, it's actually working together with it. A lot of people don't realize the potential.

Nigel Rawlins: That is a very important point. Because they think, yeah, they're right. There's putting in a prompt. Yeah, that'll do. Not realising, hey, how would this improve or ask some questions about it? Well, how would this appear? I mean, is this nice enough or, um, I'll be honest. I wrote a letter to the politician the other day and I asked it to be assertive, but polite and respectful, uh, and to use this source information. And the output was amazing. I thought, that's an almost an academic level because it was an important topic that I wanted to write about. And I was stunned. I mean, I still have to edit it, uh, which is an important part, but yeah, the output, if, if you ask the right questions and feed it, the right stuff is really important. So I can, I can really see the benefit for what you're doing there, especially have, I think, coming from that copywriting background and a marketing background and, yeah, I think you're in the right business.

Leanne Shelton: I mean, there's a lot of AI people who have got a real technical or IT background and I don't come from that. So therefore I don't talk the jargon. I still keep saying examples instead of use cases. I still stumble over what ChatGPT stands for. And so I think this is one of the reasons why I've connected so well with my audiences, because I can speak at their, their level.

I can speak their terms. Um, I can kind of tell as well from body language of concepts going over their head and take a few steps back and, and just explain it or just say, look, you don't need to worry about that technical stuff. All you need to know is this. And I think that's, that's what also puts me apart.

I'm, you know, I get people who actually, like I was saying before, experiment with it and really understand how it's relevant to them. Um, I, look, I took some theoretical stuff, like, overcoming your fears because it's, AI is going to become like electricity. Believe it or not. It's going to be embedded in our day to day lives.

So you've got to get on board with it. I talk about some of that theoretical stuff, but really it's just about making people feel comfortable with experimenting and realize it's not so scary and you don't have to use it all the time. Um, I'm not saying stop, you know, thinking for yourself, not at all.

And what I was saying before, like I'm actually thinking differently and I know there's also the fear with students and writing essays with AI and all of that. But what I reckon will end up happening, just like with your maths or science equations and formulas, you have to show your working out. That might be a way of the future.

Here's my essay. Here's my working out, here are my prompts. Here's my reasoning for those prompts. Here's the output. Here's how I changed it. And that's going to be where the human will come into it. We're going to keep being critical and keep looking at it. Um, and there's some AI tools I did not agree with because they take that human part away.

Like AI for sales, cold call sales. I'm like, I don't even like a human calling me. Why would I want a bot calling me? And I think that's a trap a lot of people get into, the shiny object, seeing how it benefits them. But if you're doing it for like business purposes or, you know, you got to think about how it's going to be received.

And that's, I think a missing piece all the time.

Nigel Rawlins: I think you're right there. I do read quite a bit of stuff. I don't like reading a lot of business books because I find them really, really boring. But one of the issues I see out there is to be able to communicate well with ChatGPT. It's good to have a more of a generalist education, or an arts education, or to enjoy literature, than having a business background. So, I know that sounds a bit strange, because we're talking about business here. But if you've got a more generalist, uh, view of things, you'll probably be able to write more human like prompts to get that human like outcome. What do you think of that?

Leanne Shelton: I actually read something similar about that. You know, don't get them to study medicine. Like I, it was actually, I think pretty sure that's what the article is saying. Don't send them to these specific things because. In the future, AI is going to play such a major part in medicine.

Doctors might be just there just so people feel like there's a human in the room. You know, you're better off sending them to do literature, philosophy all the subjects that make you think, not memorize stuff because AI is going to be able to memorize, memorize stuff for you.

You don't need to have that. I mean, even you go to the GP now, I said, I've got the symptoms. They're going, Oh, let me just look up in the system. So even now they're not going, or most of them off the top of their head, you've got this. They're going, let me just consult. So. I think it's so important about thinking for ourselves and this is where I get very passionate and riled up sometimes because I can see so many people using ChatGPT to write their, you know, social media posts or the comments to replies to comments and like, how is this serving you?

Like, are you even, are you even just, it may even be automating that process itself. I've spoken to people who do that and they're so proud of themselves. Oh yeah, I had this AI tool that reads all the posts on my feed and it automatically comes up with comments to respond. And then I just do a quick look and then it posts it out.

What is the point of that?

Like, isn't social media about the human connection? So there's a lot of this, and look, I'll probably die down because it's still very fresh and new and exciting. And look what I can do with this thing. It's so cool. But I think thinking for yourself and going, okay, what do I actually want right now?

What? Do I want to achieve with this project? What is the point? And then thinking backwards, that's going to keep us, you know, the human side, or I don't mind if you write some notes and then you get it to, you know, like submit that letter to the, you know, the politician, you've got the initial thoughts and then you get it to help clean it up and just get that clarity or remove the emotion if you're dealing with a difficult customer via email or, you know, big complaint and you're too close to it.

Get AI to help you do that stuff so you can move on with your day. I totally believe it all getting over the white screen of death. You procrastinate so long, but you need to get this thing done. It can remove that barrier to entry and get you started. So you're not wasting your creative energy on getting started.

You can then get started. Now I can put all that effort into building upon it. So, yeah, that's, that's where I think it needs to be used. But a lot of people don't realize like, Oh, look, it's, I can just cut corners. The word productivity is thrown around a lot and I think, yes, it will help you be more productive.

But a project that took you a week. Don't expect it to take five minutes with AI, it may take you a day instead. Still will save you time, but you need to be realistic with how much time it's going to save you.

Nigel Rawlins: Yeah, I think that's really important too, because the issue there is cognitive overload, or the cognitive demands of having to do something. But if you've got a sense of how you can work with AI, or ChatGPT, I think you can work, um, augment, I guess is probably the better word, augment yourself to, not only just be more creative, but be able to be more, uh, a better communicator. One, one of the people I I read on Twitter, actually I see him, and sometimes I think I see him on LinkedIn, is Ethan Mollick. He, he talks about, cyborgs and centaurs. If you came across that, uh, a cyborg is using AI all the time, so that's a person. For me, because I do a lot of marketing work and I do a lot of website work with WordPress.

And so I'm saying how do I configure my Google analytics and how do I get it to report this? Um, I'm in and out of AI, not just for writing. Uh, I do a lot of writing, but gee, I don't just use ChatGPT for just that. So that's a cyborg. And then Ethan Mullick also talks about centaurs. Now that's the half horse, half man. So what he means by that is that where appropriate, you'll use AI, but not all the time.

Leanne Shelton: Yeah. And I think that's, that's what I do. I know there's some AI enthusiasts who go, Oh, I use AI, this for my emails and this for this, and this for this. And, and it, it runs my life. And I'm like. Nah, I prefer to be still managing my emails because I just don't trust it to accidentally delete something or I don't know.

I don't have everything in my business automated, although everyone keeps, that's a buzzword, automation. Look, most of the time I'm using it for my training, to be honest. It could be in terms of help me come up with workshop plans. And I'm like, I know I want to cover these topics and these topics and have a game after lunch or whatever.

It's a full day one. Give me a plan. Great. I'll play around with it. Help me for my club, I'm going to talk about this, can you just write me a five minute script just to kind of introduce the topic just so I can move on with that, the prompt stuff and the, and I'm an AI trainer.

I don't use it all the time. It's not embedded in my world. I'm just using it to support me when I need it. When, even like, there's still some times I ask my husband a question, he's like, can't you just ask ChatGPT for that? It still doesn't occur to me, um, all the time to go to ChatGPT and get me to, you know, tell me how to fix the printer.

But yeah, that's, that's the thing. I think we still need to keep our sense of humanity. And that's, you know, once again, why I call my business Human Edge. I want us to keep the humanity. I don't want us to all turn to robots. You know, forget how to think. I think of the movie WALL-E. I don't know if you've seen that, that cute cartoon, but you know, humans are just sitting in these little vehicles and not even looking at the outside world.

Just it's telling them what to wear and what to eat and not even thinking. I don't want us to turn into that. I think so many people are like, that's cool, it can do this for us and do this. But why isn't a sense of humanity, like what sets us apart? I don't want anyone to lose that. Just go, okay, there are some ways that I can support me and there's some ways that it's really onto you.

Nigel Rawlins: Well, this is the thing about when I talk about independent professionals, these are the professionals who are working for themselves at home. I mean, the reason, hopefully, that they're working for themselves is they're still pretty excited about their, um, their area of expertise. And now we're talking about, well, bring in some AI to to augment or to help you with your thinking, helping with your writing and with your social media, because you can use it for everything. You know, the point you're making is the prompts have got to be, uh, good human like prompts. So what advice would you give to, say, an independent professional who's probably older? I don't know about you, but because I'm well, I am a baby boomer and I'm a bit older. We didn't have phones when I was a kid.

I don't even know if we had a telephone in the house. The TV was black and white. So people my age, um, now I'm probably a bit technical, but I do hire specialists do stuff if, if I can't figure it out, but people who've been happily working away in their business and getting work as an independent professional, cause they're an expert in their job, where do you suggest they actually begin?

With, um, ChatGPT or AI.

Leanne Shelton: Yeah. It's a great question. So look, I actually, in my club, there's a couple of regulars who are similar age to you, Nigel, so it's okay. And I think that's part of the reason I speak very non technical and anyone who didn't know technology, they can understand my explanations and things. But what I I'd say is first of all, don't get overwhelmed with all the AI talk of all the different tools and all the different things.

I say, just start with ChatGPT because if you can work out that and the basics, and if you do commit to paying for it, it is worth it, it's 20 US a month. Which, it depends on exchange. It's around 30 Australian. It's worth it because you get things like, can do the image creation. There'll soon be the text to video.

Other features will be coming more to it, so you don't have to go to all the other tools. But what I'd say in terms of getting started, first of all, get an account. Second of all, think of a project that you're working on right now. It could just be an email that you need to send out, or an e newsletter you want to create or an article you want to write.

Just think about something that's relevant to what you're doing right now. Don't think about, you know, the pie in the sky to-do list that you've always wanted to start, you know, always wanted to write that book. Don't go there yet. Start with something that you'd be doing later today. And you know, you have to write that email.

And so just think about what's the idea of the email, what's the point of it? Is it a responding to someone? Is it an outreach? Think about all that kind of stuff. And this is purely without even training it up, just experiment with then what it gives you. So say write this email for me, it's to this person, this is who they are, give some background. You can say write in a professional tone. And then say now rewrite in a professional and conversational tone and see how it changes. And then say like professional, conversational and quirky, and then see how that changes. And then you'll start to get a feel for how the prompts that you put in affects the output.

It's the same thing as you say, this is for a woman, a 20 year old woman. It will write a certain way. If you say it's for a 50 year old man, it will write a different way. So all this stuff is very important. So I would just say initially to start experimenting with it, the next step would be to train it up and properly understand, you know, your role and your company and the audience and all that.

That's the next step. I can help you with that. Just to begin with, just see what it does. And then put a critical eye over what it spits out and think, okay, what's missing here, what human aspect could I add to this? Um, You know, I still see for emails, I hope this email finds you well. I don't think many people write that now.

It's, it's caught up in that because obviously they won't be reading it if it, they didn't get it., but yeah, just have a think, have a little play around with it, or even if it's non business related, get it to help you write a travel, agenda for you, a plan for the weekend with the grandkids, with your own kids, with whatever.

Or you want to go on a holiday to a certain location, get it to suggest different locations to visit on a 10 day trip, and then you'll just start to realize what it can do, but also what it can't do. So yeah, just don't get scared. Just play around.

Nigel Rawlins: I think that's a great idea. I actually went to Vietnam last year and, uh, the doctor prescribed a whole range of stuff. So I listed it all out and said, what would I use this stuff for? And it gave me a list. Um, yeah. So it's, it, it is an amazing little tool. And I think that's fantastic what you just said.

Just start off by playing with it and, and see what responses you get. Would you suggest that they do any of the online training? And, and that's a bit of a loaded one because I've done a few and I want to say something about it, but, um, are there any good online trainings or places they can go?

I mean, obviously, um, if, if you're doing a corporate training, it would be good for them to go to that, but if, if they're at home and they're thinking, oh, well, where can I learn a bit more about it? What would you suggest they do?

Leanne Shelton: Yeah. The AI club would come in for sure, cause it's a low cost every month and it's uh, I'm toying, whether it's a two hour or one hour every week, I've been doing two hours of just experimenting with different prompts with a different theme every month. Someone once said to me, why should you even bother doing training when there's so many YouTube videos out there for free?

And I think it's because it's people want to be able to ask the questions and be able to experiment in the safe space and just say, I've done this, what's wrong with it? Like, how can I fix this? Or I've got this project. Can you give me some tips on that? You don't get that from just watching, watching videos.

And there's lots of courses as well. Some are, um, you know, cheaper than others. Some are really expensive. Uh, you need to be aware about the technical aspects of them, how technical they're going to be. And that's why, if you want to get your hands dirty, really just experiment in a safe, supportive space.

And that's where my club comes in. We have a Q and A session as well, as well as an AI playtime session. And those that are in it, they're loving it. They're just learning so much just from doing this stuff. One, one member, Margaret, for example, we were doing award writing and the grant writing last month.

And she's like, I'm still going to turn up because I'm not writing any of that stuff, but I always learn something new. And sure enough, there was some prompts that things just like, talked like you're talking to a friend, just a random little thing that popped up that was totally unrelated to the topic, but she still learned from being there.

And yes, everyone's really enjoying that. So it comes down to, I guess, your style of learning. If you do like to really learn by doing, which I think a lot of people do, Then you'll probably find the club really helpful. And then if you need a one on one, then obviously I can go that next level too.

That's all online.

Nigel Rawlins: Now that sounds actually lovely. I've done four courses now. One I did with some guru that I read on Twitter and I must admit it cost me a lot in American dollars and the thing was rubbish. Then I did a cheaper one with a New Zealand guy who lives in Vietnam. I did two of his ones which I thought were a lot more practical. And they weren't too expensive. And then I've done a fourth one now, which has blown my mind, but had I not done some of these other ones, I would never have understood this fourth one, which is a lot more technical. But I agree. I think an interactive, like you're discussing, is probably a great introduction.

I would actually recommend that over any of those courses that I've done.

Leanne Shelton: Cause were they all just watching recorded videos and then, or was there any live elements to it.

Nigel Rawlins: They were all recorded. So the first just like lecturing me and it was poorly put together. Obviously the person rushed into the space. They obviously had a really big following and that, that's a benefit of being in business. If you've got a big email list or a big followership, you can sell them stuff.

And, and, you know, if you only get a hundred out of your thousand people come through, you can make money. And that's what that person obviously did. So it was pretty, pretty ordinary to start with.

Leanne Shelton: Yeah. I've seen a bit of happening too. I went to one of those free or low cost, I think actually maybe I paid 50 bucks for it, one day event from a well known business entrepreneur and coach or whatever. And he was basically just pitching his bootcamp and just kind of throwing in AI.

Like here's some stuff, some cool things, my team told me about AI, but ultimately he was all pushing into his bootcamp, which all now we're doing AI. And it was very much jumping onto the AI bandwagon. And I'm like, Oh, no cringe. So I, look how I learned about AI, I listened to some different podcasts. I don't even remember which ones now, cause I stopped listening, but, just look up AI in terms of podcasts.

I had one for a few months called the AI Train and then kind of fizzled out. But yeah, podcasts are really good, especially the ones with updates, because then you can just, yeah, really get a quick update on what's going on. And also, for me, following people on LinkedIn that are in the AI space, quite often those bite sized, um, tips that they offer, including myself, I'm pretty active there too, that's how I'm doing most of my learning now.

I would just even start with that. And then you could, you know, once you put up the trust with them, invest in the courses and whatever, but yeah, I'm, I'm working on it at the moment. I think some sort of a course that would include. A live Q and a every week. So you might do it over six weeks pre recorded, but I'll always be there live to answer questions.

Cause that's the thing I just, and a lot of people purchase these courses and never actually watch as well or actually implement. And I'm so big on, I want you to learn something. I want you to have those aha moments. So yeah, that's where I'd start. Just listen to, listen to podcasts or following on LinkedIn, some AI people, and then, then you could probably go for the course option.

But yeah, all of the club, the club's good too.

Nigel Rawlins: I agree. Do not rush into a paid course, but yes, I would explore your one because it is going to be a live session and they can ask questions rather than a pre recorded one. I've spent hundreds of dollars and unfortunately they're all in American dollars, so it costs a lot more for Australians. But yeah, you're right. Though, I must admit the fourth one I've done, has certainly stretched my thinking about it all and how I use it. But yeah, I like that advice. Okay, so at this point we've probably covered everything, haven't we? Is there anything else that you can think of that we need to cover here?

Leanne Shelton: I think just in general, just don't be fearful of it. I think there's still a lot of fear around, you know, yeah, like I said before, it's AI replacing your jobs or, or it's just too scary or I just don't know how to get started. I think don't, don't get yourself all worked up. Look, I don't think jobs will be replaced if the bosses are in the right mindset.

I think unfortunately it's a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy. We're hearing about jobs being replaced, so therefore managers think jobs can be replaced. I would just, yeah, just explore it. And invest in the paid version of ChatGPT, just cause the output is better. You don't use up tokens within an hour of using it and you've got the whole day ahead of you.

I think, yeah, that's probably the main thing. And when it comes to security, there are tools around that now, I know Microsoft's Copilot has, uh, some sort of option to keep it private. ChatGPT has a temporary chat to keep it private. And just met someone the other day, they actually provide platforms that are purely, purely private.

It has been pre trained. It's not accessible to anyone else except your company. So I'll be exploring that and maybe being an affiliate for that. But I think that's the main thing. Just don't, don't be fearful. It is still only a baby. So just remember that it's not going to be great quality. It may seem really great at the surface, but when you deep dive into it, it's still a long way to go and it definitely needs the humans to run it.

It cannot run itself.

Nigel Rawlins: Perfectly said. So, thank you, Leanne. How would you like people to find you or connect with you?

Leanne Shelton: Yep. So you can find me on LinkedIn, just look for Leanne Shelton. You'll see my profile at the moment is I'm wearing a robotic outfit from a nap cord photo leap. And yeah, also my website is humanedgeai. com. So you can check that out and find out more about the AI DIY Club and my other services.

But yeah, LinkedIn is where I hang out. So that's, that's probably a good place to connect with me.

Nigel Rawlins: Oh, that's fantastic. So thank you very much Leanne, for joining me.

Leanne Shelton: Thanks, Nigel. It's been great.