- Confirmed Achiever
- Posts
- Slack AI - a creative way to enhance daily working
Slack AI - a creative way to enhance daily working
Confirmed Achiever Volume II, Issue 4 – April 2024
David Radin
April 20, 2024
“Thinking will not overcome fear; but action will.”
Image generated by ChatGPT 4 using prompt by David Radin about taking action to overcome fear
Thanks for subscribing to Confirmed Achiever!
In today’s issue:
Time Management in the Age of A.I. - a keynote or workshop for your organization
Salesforce Introduces Slack AI - creative ways to increase productivity every day
Windows Tip: Turn talk into type ANYWHERE
Using Action to Overcome Fear
News, Need-to-know, and Stats:
Microsoft introduces deep fake videos
Taylor Swift breaks another barrier
Unions organize in VW Tennesee
Big Four’s big cut - 50%
Please share this with your friends so they can subscribe too!
Time Management in the Age of AI
Time management has been one of the largest differentiators of success since the beginning of time; and amazing frameworks have been created by the likes of Stephen Covey, Dale Carnegie, Brian Tracy, David Allen and others to tame time and create new levels of success.
But not every framework works for all roles or in all industries; and Artificial Intelligence is changing the game completely.
“Time Management in the Age of AI” is a unique framework/methodology that helps your team assess existing frameworks and currently-used methods to combine them, enhance them with A.I. and personalize them for your own needs.
It’s a compelling way for each member of your team to get them most from the time management techniques that fit their specific roles and ways of working — allowing them to increase success and make their days easier. That is, it’s the perfect way to align and combine organizational success with personal desires & working preferences.
Time Management in the Age of AI is presented as a 2-3 hour workshop for teams; and can also be utilized as a keynote for group meetings and conferences.
Time Management in the Age of AI is a trademark of Confirmed & M. Masters Corp.
Slack AI Introduced with Cool Features to help Slack Users
As thousands of AI products hit the market, many of which are similar, it’s a breath of fresh air to hear about a product that has unique advantages and leverages specific needs that the AI provider already addresses.
That’s why we’re optimistic about the recently announced Slack AI product.
If you’re a paid Slack user, you can add Slack AI to leverage what you’re already doing with Slack to increase your productivity and reduce your typical burden. Among the announced features:
Channel recaps — so new users to a Slack channel don’t have to guess about what happened previously on the channel.
Ask a question to get a concise answer based on threads that have already been discussed within your Slack environment
A daily digest of discussions that happen within the channels that you’re following in your slack account.
In other words, if you’re already using Slack as a primary communications channel within your organization, Slack AI should help you get more out of it and increase the odds that the right info gets to the right people in a usable way.
Slack’s new AI should be a productivity boon for Slack users
We’ve seen similar features in Zoom; but frequently have been less than impressed. (For instance, the summaries in Zoom often focus on the wrong info — such as if a personal ice-breaker starts the meeting, Zoom’s AI often over-emphasizes it in their summaries.). So while we’re optimistic about this feature, it still has to prove its usefulness in real world situations.
We have included a daily snapshot for time management within Confirmed for about a year, and it has proven popular; so we anticipate the daily digest in Slack will be similarly useful, albeit in a totally different way. If it is done right, we can see it easily being a productive way to start each day.
Like with many AI products, there’s a premium to get it. It’s not available to those who currently do not pay for Slack; and if you have a paid account, it will add $10 per user to your monthly invoice. You’ll also need to purchase it for every user in your organization; Salesforce (Slack’s owner) is not allowing you to license it for subsets of your Slack org.
Yet, for many organizations, this is a smart upgrade.
Upgrading to Slack AI? Let us know how it works, what you like and what you dislike, so we can share it with our readers.
Turning Talk into Type in Windows
You’re probably getting used to using dictation or getting transcripts. And for most people, talking is faster than typing.
So it’s only natural for you to use the dictation feature in Windows to take advantage of dictation more often.
To invoke it, simply hit the key combination of <Windows logo key> + H to start your Windows 10 or 11 computer listening for dictation.
Once you’re done with your dictation, click the microphone icon or say “Stop listening” to turn it off.
On some level it will feel like you’re talking to Alexa or Siri — so if you use either of these products, it will feel comfortable. But the result is different, because you’ll end up with a document that you don’t have to type to create.
As somebody who types at stenographer speeds and still uses voice dictation for many documents, I suspect it will take you some time to get used to this — and you’ll probably end up using a combination of typing and dictating, even after you learn it well. But that’s okay. It’s a new tool in your holster and will have the opportunity to use either type based on situation.
Overcoming Fear
The W. Clement Stone quote shown near the top of this letter summarizes one of the top ways to deal with one of the most obstinate obstacles to success: Fear.
Does fear keep you from opening doors that have success on the other side? Image generated by ChatGPT from David Radin’s prompts.
Very often, fear keeps people from even attempting an activity that is likely to have great results. Examples:
Sales people not contacting a prospect because they’re afraid to hear ‘no’
Technical people using email exclusively because they fear talking directly with their peers.
Executives and managers not firing poor performers because they’re afraid they may become ‘the bad-guy’.
Study after study has proven that fear dissipates the moment you start to take action to do whatever it is that scares you.
I have conducted many workshops at large & small organizations and at universities that help their constituencies get over the humps that are caused by fear - and the results are often astounding.
Not only does taking action help with the specific fear you currently face; it also helps you create the habit of acting in the face of fear.
Confirmed helps you reclaim that time by offering you a better way to set up your meetings on the road — using A.I., of course.
News, Need-to-know, and Stats
The last word
Follow Confirmed on LinkedIn for more interesting business/technology stats, info and tips.
You’re receiving this because you signed up directly or for a related Confirmed ALL*STAR Event on LinkedIn or asked us to send this to you.
Please let us know what you’d like us to cover in upcoming issues.
Your colleagues can subscriber here.
Get help from our team or find a great tool to achieve every day here.
Unsubscribe or change your profile at the bottom of this letter.
BTW – If you have a team, confirm a conversation here to explore how you can customize a skills-enhancement program that gives each person the topics and levels that are matched to their roles.
David