AI Training Tuesday: Structuring for success

Picture it: Friday. It is a beautiful summer day out your window, and vacation starts at 5 p.m. You are a confident and meticulous creator, and you put the last period on your deliverable an hour before you can walk out the door. "What's next?" you ask yourself. The answer is simple: share your work!

Enter writer's block.

Our brains work in funny ways. Do any of these ring true to you?

• We do amazing things at work but write a terrible resume.
• We speak to a group but sell ourselves short.
• We create fantastic content that does get the recognition it deserves.

If you answered "yes" to any of these things, AI can help, and I want to show you how.

Hold up, Bill! I write in my unique voice!

Me too! I wrote this entire article with thoughts and perspectives I have curated in my [mostly functional] brain over time. I distill these ideas while working, cooking, walking, or chatting with others. Then, almost like a dam about to burst, I get a strong desire to write an article, create a training video, or record a podcast on the topic. Whatever method I use, writing the content still takes a lot of work, and you should write your content.

However, if you are great at writing the content but are not good at selling the content, you are missing out on opportunities to amplify your work and build trust with your audience of peers.

🎨 Summarize me this...

When starting the Agile in Action podcast, I hired a strategy company to focus on what I wanted to cover. He asked me, "What is this podcast about?" and I gave him a typical "Bill answer," which went on a good old-fashioned ramble that went something like this:

I want to help people learn how to improve teamwork, be more efficient, and deliver more value to their customers. I want to talk to a wide range of people across all industries who discuss these topics, and I don't want it to be solely for software developers and frameworks and methodologies. The podcast will be great for anyone just starting, but I want managers and directors to hear this and embrace the changes my guests discuss. And on and on.

The strategist said, "Someone once told me you need to sell the person on the nail, and then you can sell lots of hammers." If you know me and my capabilities with a hammer and nails (of which there are none), it took me a bit to figure it out. He was saying, "Explain the value and do it quickly."

After some back and forth, we landed on this:

The Agile in Action Podcast with Bill Raymond provides unique and timely views of the people working tirelessly to modernize teamwork.

It's more succinct. It was great having a paid strategist help me through this. Also, if I spend money for a strategist to help summarize everything I create, I won't make any money. But I can pay $20/month (or even nothing) for ChatGPT, Co-pilot, Claude, or some other AI to give me a helping hand.

Enter structured & templated prompting.

In a previous article titled Let's Take a Shot at Better Prompting, I shared three baseline prompt types: zero-shot, 1-shot, and few-shot. Today, I will share a great way to help summarize your content using structured and templated prompting.

🏛️ Structured prompts

A structured prompt informs the context and objective of your requirements. Since we are using this article as an example, here is the prompt. ⚠️ Did you know that almost all LLMs (ChatGPT, Co-pilot, Gemini, etc.) allow you to create multiple paragraphs? Press SHIFT+RETURN/ENTER on your keyboard! Okay, let's do this:

First prompt:

Here is some content. Say OK if you understand:
[paste a copy of this article]

Second prompt:

Context: Use the content of the article I just shared with you, which is an article I wrote about using structured and templated prompts using AI.

Objective: Create a LinkedIn post to engage business professionals interested in using AI to improve their work, encouraging them to read the full article.

If you are playing along using this article as an example, you might have received something similar to the screen capture below.

As you can see, the structured prompt covers the bases you would want. It shares the title and explains why you want to read the article, as well as a summary, bullet points, a call to action, and more.

Remember how we talked about not wanting AI to write everything for us? Well, this is why. It is pretty long and rambling. But I could easily paste this into my favorite writing tool, use some good bits, rearrange others, and delete the fluff. If I was experiencing writer's block, the AI might have helped me remove the block!

Now let's improve that prompt by adding some content guidelines to reduce the number of words and emojis, as I highlight in the improved prompt below:

First prompt:

Here is some content. Say OK if you understand:
[paste a copy of this article]

Second prompt with content guidelines added:

Context: Use the content of the article I just shared with you, which is an article I wrote about using structured and templated prompts using AI.

Objective: Create a LinkedIn post to engage business professionals interested in using AI to improve their work, encouraging them to read the full article.
Content guidelines: Keep it under 50 words and only use 2 emoji.

Templated prompts

Sometimes, you want more control over the look and feel of your structured prompt. A templated prompt is structured with clear-cut guidance on how you want the output to look.

First prompt:

Here is some content. Say OK if you understand:
[paste a copy of this article]

Second prompt with a template:

Context: Use the content of the article I just shared with you, which is an article I wrote about using structured and templated prompts using AI.

Objective: Create a LinkedIn post to engage business professionals interested in using AI to improve their work, encouraging them to read the full article.

Use the following template to craft your response:

A catchy one-liner hook specific to the episode's content. Use one emoji

✅ An important reason to read the article
✅ Another important reason to read the article
🎉 The most important reason to read the article

A short 2-sentence paragraph summarizing the article

Relevant hashtags

The URL

Here is a screen capture of what ChatGPT provided for me:

As you can see, the LLM gave us a much more manageable response with which we can work. We controlled the output and the structure and provided plenty of instructions to get a usable first-pass response.

More structured template examples

Structured prompts allow you to define the context and objective of the response, while templated prompts specify precisely how you want the content to be displayed.

Here are a few simplified templated prompts for various types of content. Remember, you can press SHIFT+RETURN on your keyboard to write multiple lines. The LLM will automatically know to fill in the text in [brackets]. Don't forget to paste all or some of the content first and then provide the prompt:

Prompt for a new article

📝 New Article Published! 📝

Excited to share my latest piece: "[Article Title]". In this article, I explore [brief description of the topic]. Whether you're interested in [related topic 1] or looking to understand [related topic 2], this read is for you!

📖 Read now: [link]
> #NewArticle #Insight #Knowledge #TechWriting

Prompt for a new product feature

🚀 New Feature Alert!

We are thrilled to announce the launch of [Feature Name]! This new feature will help you [describe the benefit]. Here’s what you can expect:[Key Benefit 1][Key Benefit 2][Key Benefit 3]

Update your app and try it now: [link]
#ProductUpdate #NewFeature #TechInnovation #UserExperience

Prompt for a new training video

📹 New Training Video!

Check out my latest training video: "[Video Title]". In this session, I cover [brief description of the training topic]. Perfect for anyone looking to [skill/knowledge gained].

Watch it here: [link]

Don't forget to subscribe for more insights!
#TrainingVideo #SkillDevelopment #LearnWithMe #ProfessionalGrowth