How to Use ChatGPT to Boost Your Productivity
How to Use ChatGPT to Boost Your Productivity Unless you have been living under a rock, you will have heard of ChatGPT. In short, ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence (AI) powered chatbot that can help increase productivity in your small business. ChatGPT burst onto the scene with a bang in late 2022 and has quickly established itself as a major player on the world stage at the forefront of a new technological wave of innovation. Personally, I am obsessed with ChatGPT and AI. My two career passions have always been IT and Writing. These two worlds have now collided in spectacular fashion and I cannot get enough of it. I now use ChatGPT (prior to that I was using another AI tool called Jasper) daily. Jasper was a subscription model and I loved using it, but ChatGPT is free (for now) so bye bye Jasper. In fact, I have got to the point with AI that I cannot imagine life without it. With frequent use and practice comes expertise, and while I would not consider myself an expert, I have developed a level of expertise that has increased my productivity in so many ways. With the help of AI (of course), I am writing a series of articles to help you, as a business professional, business owner, or just as a curious person, discover some of the ways you can use ChatGPT in everyday life to boost your productivity. Why you must get on board with ChatGPT Now AI simply cannot be ignored and if you are a business owner or a business professional, you need get on board asap or get left behind. One of the great things about AI, is that it is low-cost or NO cost. This means that there are no excuses for ignoring it. Those who embrace this technological wave will benefit from increased productivity, increased efficiency and effectiveness which will leave their competitors scratching their heads in the dust cloud you leave behind. Read my article about the dangers of being a technology laggard here. Getting started with ChatGPT – No Cost! Currently ChatGPT is FREE. There is also a paid version, however the free version is more than enough for the average user to reap benefits. Limitations of ChatGPT Please be aware that AI is not completely reliable. On their own website, they state that the product has the following limitations: May occasionally generate incorrect information May occasionally produce harmful instructions or biased content Limited knowledge of world and events after 2021 Are there any risks with AI? Yes. The technology is new and evolving. There is evidence that the writing output is not always accurate. There are also concerns that Google and other search engines will penalise websites (with a lower ranking) that use AI written content. How do you avoid these risks? You must fact check your content. You must rewrite your content to a certain extent to ensure that the tone and message you are conveying is genuine to your brand. My recommendation: NEVER take 100% AI generated content and use without editing. The content tends to be a little verbose and bloated and often is not that great to read without a tight edit. Your content must beinteresting, relevant and informative to your audience or your will lose them. What are Prompts Before we get stuck into the ways to use ChatGPT right now, we must cover off what is meant by a Prompt. So who better to ask, than ChatGPT itself, what a prompt is: 10 Areas you can Use ChatGPT in Your Business Right Now For some of these I have included examples and some I haven’t. If you are curious as to what the output might be, go ahead and try for yourself. What I have done though is added a note for each item that discusses ‘What to Watch for’. ChatGPT at this stage of its evolution is quite a raw product and the output can be unreliable. My comments for each item highlight how ChatGPT can fall short of your expectations and the risks of accepting the output verbatim. 1. Up Your Customer Service Game with more FAQs ChatGPT can generate responses for frequently asked questions (FAQs) or provide support for common customer inquiries, helping small business owners provide timely and accurate customer service. What to watch for: content will be general in nature and you need to customise the output to be in alignment with your policies, procedures and business services. 2. Email Templates ChatGPT can generate templates for various types of business emails, such as sales enquiries, order confirmations, or customer follow-ups, saving small business owners time and effort in composing professional emails. Sample Prompt: Sample output: What to watch for: The output from ChatGPT for letters and emails tends to be very formal in the layout, introductory text and summary text. This one is not too bad, however I feel that the sentence ‘As you know, we discussed…’ would get a bad reaction. ChatGPT does not do feelings very well and this is a good example. Does anyone remember the scene in Terminator 2 where Arnie asks young John ‘Why do you cry?’ This is about where we are at with AI right now. 3. Blog Post Ideas ChatGPT can generate creative ideas for blog posts or articles related to a small business owner’s industry or niche, helping them consistently produce relevant and engaging content for their website or blog. What to watch for: This is a good example of a poorly written prompt. The results are relatively interesting magazine article headings, but a little too broad for most businesses. For example, if I was looking for blog post titles for Amerex Renovations, I would rephrase the prompt to let ChatGPT know that I am a home renovation builder, and let it know what type of projects I specialise in e.g. Second Storey Additions, Home Extensions and perhaps even put a profile of my ideal customer. Can you see what else is missing? One word, keywords. If you are writing blog articles for your business website, you will know that the keywords or key phrases related to your niche are important. If
ChatGPT vs Jasper AI: What are the differences? Which is better?
Jasper AI and ChatGPT are two of the world’s most popular conversational AI platforms right now. They both offer powerful solutions for businesses and marketers to engage with their customers in a more personal and interactive way. However, there are some key differences. Let’s break it down. GPT – The underlying tech GPT is the language model underlying software such as Jasper and ChatGPT. Both Jasper and ChatGPT use the language model GPT 3.5. What is Jasper? Jasper is a software tool designed to essentially perform as a robotic writer. It provides a software layer between the user and the GPT backend by providing templates for common business content. For example, you can use a template to generate content for: Blog topic ideas, Blog post outlines, Long form content for the web Perfect headlines SEO Meta Descriptions Product Descriptions Content Improver Facebook & Google ad headlines and text Social media captions – mult-platform Sales letters, persuasive copy and cold call emails AIDA framework – Attention, Interest, Desire, Action Feature to Benefit and much more You will notice that there is a decidedly marketing flavour to the above content and you would be right. Jasper has been designed with marketers in mind, allowing them to easily create and manage content with the help of templates, recipes and commands. The main advantages of Jasper Essentially, Jasper is a robotic writer that can help produce content 5 times faster than your average person. One of the main advantages of Jasper is its ease of use. The platform is designed to be intuitive and requires little technical knowledge to get started. This makes it an ideal choice for marketers or solopreneurs who want to create content quickly and easily, without having to rely on technical experts. What is the cost of Jasper? The ease of use with Jasper comes at a cost and their new base level cost is currently at around $US39 per month for Starter mode which is sufficient for most people. For individuals, smaller businesses or startups with limited budgets, ChatGPT could be a better option while it is still free. However, you can claim a trial offer of Jasper that allows you to generate 10,000 words for free. With an average page containing about 500 words, this can go a long way if you are using it to generate short form marketing content such as social media captions, blog titles, blog outlines, etc… What is ChatGPT? ChatGPT can do anything Jasper can do, but you need to provide very specific instructions. These instructions are known as ‘prompts’. If you write poor quality prompts, you will get poor quality output. As such, there is a steeper learning curve with ChatGPT to get the right type of output. For many this will be a major deterrent if they don’t have the time or interest in learning. ChatGPT is available for free at the moment, making it a much more desirable product than any of the other paid AI options for many. Jasper and ChatGPT Comparison Which one do I prefer? I used Jasper in 2022 before ChatGPT was released and loved it. Much of what I learnt with Jasper has helped me learn about how to write strong prompts when using ChatGPT. I am not so sure I would have used ChatGPT so effectively without having used Jasper first. I have been playing with and using Jasper for over 6 months before ChatGPT came onto the market. I remained loyal for a while, but after playing with the FREE version of ChatGPT, I have been able to apply some of what I learnt in using Jasper to create effective prompts and get the same type of results with ChatGPT. In 2022, Jasper was charging $80 per month as their lowest price. They quickly started to lose market share to ChatGPT at the start of 2023 and introduced the limited $20 option which is much more affordable. I highly recommend Jasper for first-time users and for anyone working on the marketing for their business, or perhaps you are about to start a major marketing overhaul or project, or if you work in marketing full-time. You simply must try it and experience the difference it can make to generating ideas and boosting productivity in a way that will blow your mind. I recommend using the trial version of Jasper and if you like it, pay for at least a month and learn as much as you can. If you are confident after a month, you could cancel your subscription and jump over to ChatGPT and see whether you can get the same sort of results. However, once you have seen how easy it is to use Jasper, you may find ChatGPT less friendly and more difficult to achieve the same polished outputs. The only way you will know what suits is to try both. AI is a Genuine Disruptor AI a genuine disruptor in the world. It is going to impact our lives in a bigger way than the internet. As a business professional and even as just an everyday individual, you cannot afford to get left behind. Catching up after the world has already been around the block a few times will not be easy for technological laggards. The AI wave is moving very fast. It is time to get on board, even just as a dabbler. Adapt or get left behind. How and what do I use AI for? Currently I am in sponge mode. I am learning as much as I can by reading about AI, but I am also working with it every day and learning something new every day. I have always had a love of learning and there is just so much to learn right now. We are on the cusp of a new technological wave and I am here for it!
The Five Stages of Technology Adoption and how AI fits in
Where do you fit in the Technology Adoption Model? Have you ever wondered why some people or businesses jump on new technologies right away, while others wait until everyone else has adopted it before trying it out? Which is the best way to go? Do you sit back and wait until a technology is proven or do you dive straight in? Well, there’s a framework for understanding this process called the Five Stages of Technology Adoption. First Wave of adopters are the Innovators The first group to adopt a new technology are the innovators. They’re usually the adventurous risk-takers who get excited by new tech. They’re important because they’re the ones who experiment with new technologies and create a buzz around them. This is generally a very small percentage that the model estimates at being around 5 to 6 percent. Early Adopters The second group, the early adopters, tend to be more practical than innovators and adopt new tech for strategic reasons. They’re important because they provide social proof that a new technology is worth trying. The size of this group is edging up towards 15 percent. The Early Majority The third group is called the early majority. They tend to be more cautious than early adopters and need to see the technology working well before they adopt it. They represent the tipping point in the adoption process, because once this group starts to adopt a new technology, it becomes much more likely that the technology will become mainstream. In my opinion, this is the sweet spot for those individuals and businesses that want to keep up, but don’t want to make any missteps or invest time and money on something that is not yet proven. This accounts for about 34 or 35%. The Late Majority The fourth group is called the late majority and curiously they represent the about the same size as the early majority. They’re often skeptical and need to see widespread adoption before they try a new technology. They can be a significant hurdle in the adoption process because they’re resistant to change and can slow down the adoption process. Many old school managers and long-term business owners (we have always done it this way!!) fall into this category, which is why (I believe) it is important to have young energy and diveristy of age and skills in your business. The one group you DO NOT want to be in – The Laggards The last group is called laggards and are an alarmingly 15 or so percent. They’re the last to adopt new technologies and tend to be resistant to change, only trying new tech when they have no other choice. COVID forced many laggards to get on board with services such as Zoom, cloud computing and other services that support working from home. This is a dangerous group to belong to as you are risking giving your competitors to much of a head-start and may start to fail the expectations of your customers which means your loyal base may start to shrink. The Tech Adoption cycle is getting faster all the time The speed of the early stages of technology adoption has increased in recent years due to the rise of social media and other online platforms. Early adopters can quickly spread information about new technologies, and this leads to more rapid adoption by the early majority. As a result, businesses that adopt new technologies early can gain a competitive advantage over their competitors, but there are more and more jumping in at the early stages than ever before in history. The dangers of being in the Laggard group Let’s take Kodak and print magazines as examples of technological laggards that did not adapt to new technology fast enough and went out of business. Kodak was slow to adopt digital photography and as a result, lost its dominant position in the photography industry. Print magazines that were slow to adopt digital publishing have struggled in recent years, while those that adapted early have been able to survive and thrive. With tech changes and the rate of change happening faster and faster all the time, the longer you remain a laggard, a dangerous place to dwell. Understanding the five stages of technology adoption The five stages of technology adoption are an important framework for understanding how individuals and organisations adopt new technologies. The early stages of technology adoption are occurring faster than ever before, and businesses that adopt new technologies early will gain an competitive advantage. The risks associated with not adopting new tech soon enough is exposing some businesses and leaving some sectors open to major disruption. Businesses and sectors that are slow to adopt may find themselves left behind by their competitors and threaten their very survival. How does the tech cycle affect you and your business? Think about your capacity for risk and where you have sat in the tech adoption framework over the years. Think about a technology that you were an early adopter of, or a technology that you were resistant to until it became mainstream. Good examples are how quickly or slowly were you to try out Facebook, Instagram or Twitter or other social media. Does your business still use desktop installed software or have you moved to cloud computing? I am sure you can think of plenty of other examples. Have you moved from one category of the model to another over the years? From what I hae observed, when people start to gain benefits from learning new technology, the faster the fear of change starts to drop off and confidence builds. This makes them more likely to adopt the next new ‘thing’ faster next time, potentially pushing them from a late majority to and early majority. How Does AI Technology fit into this model? And now, with the rise of AI technology, where do you see yourself in the adoption process? Are you excited to experiment with new AI-powered tools, or are you more cautious and waiting to
