Structured Thinking

Loop Lesson: If you’ve ever read something and thought, “This was written by AI,” or seen something and thought, “This was created by AI,” most likely the creator didn’t understand how to actually use AI. Anyone can get a result. Far fewer people know that unless your goal is to just turn out content, you should rarely accept the first result AI gives you.

One of the basic principles of AI is: Interaction with AI is iterative. In other words, AI is a refining and improvement tool for your thoughts, plans, strategies, and problem-solving. The real power of AI comes when you engage in a back-and-forth exchange that allows the refining and improving to take place.

Imagine yourself walking into a brainstorming session at work with a room full of people who are ready to brainstorm a solution. Someone shouts out the first answer, and the group leader stands and says, “Ok, that was great. Looks like we’re finished here.” That would defeat the whole purpose of getting all those experts in the same room to begin with.

Accepting the first answer from AI would be the exact same thing. AI is just a tool and the more you and the tool iterate, the more you participate in pushing and challenging each other, the better your solution gets.

Not everything needs to be touched by AI. Just because something can be automated, doesn’t mean it should be.
That may seem at odds for a company dedicated to training people how to think with, govern, and direct AI tools, but it’s true.
Often, in our rush to automate and simplify, we ignore the very things that make what we create valuable.
Each of us is unique, with different talents, viewpoints, and life experiences that create a kind of fingerprint on everything we do. The goal of AI should not be to erase that fingerprint. It should be to help you apply it more effectively.
Sometimes the value isn't found in efficiency. It's found in human judgment, creativity, and perspective that only you can provide.

Loop Lesson: Depending on the situation, experts estimate that 60% - 93% of human conversation is nonverbal. Facial expressions, gestures, posture, eye contact, pitch, volume (the list is long, but you get the idea) all play a major role in the context we get out of conversations with each other.

One of the mistakes people make when using AI is thinking, “AI already knows…”. The truth is, AI doesn’t know because it doesn’t have access to any of those visual and emotional cues we are hardwired to deliver when communicating with other humans. It’s just a tool, not a psychic. If you are not specifically and directly providing AI with exact instructions and literal content to draw context from, your outputs and results will suffer.

Next time you’re using an AI tool, remember this important principle: “Sufficient context beats polished incompleteness.”

In other words, AI will almost always perform better with more context than with polished, but incomplete input. Sometimes it’s better to take all those messy thoughts and type them out instead of trying to organize, edit, and structure them first.

Loop Lesson: AI Literacy is NOT Tool Literacy

If someone becomes highly skilled with one AI tool, are they automatically AI literate? That certainly seems to be the social media craze.

If that statement were true, then anyone who becomes skilled using a phone camera is automatically a great photographer. How many digital photos do we have sitting on our phones to prove that's not true?

Tools change. Interfaces change. Features change.

Literacy is the ability to understand, evaluate, and apply technology effectively regardless of which tool happens to be popular at the moment.

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Had a blast at the Summer Showcase with DFW Network Magazine !

If you are not already registered to attend, why not? Food, Fun, Networking... and PRIZES! We will be there along with some Structured Thinking Buckets of Summer Fun being raffled off. Remember, the event is FREE but you must pre-register on EventBrite. See you Sunday!