Day 2: I don’t know… what opportunity AI presents to supercharge progress

This morning I was diving into planning the Community Explore programme which is a programme CAST is delivering with the brilliant Power to Change and some fabulous partners this Autumn. Our aim is to support community businesses to develop community technology.

I started my day reading this great report from Power to Change and Promising Trouble on The Case for Community Tech. It defines community technology as this:

The term “community tech” means any hardware or software that delivers benefit to a community group, and which that community group has the authority to influence or control. A community group may create a piece of technology for their own use or use by other groups, or to be governed or adapted by other groups

Building our knowledge

One of my first milestones is to build my knowledge of the needs of community businesses. I am working my wonderful colleague Joyce to design and deliver the Community Explore programme and we want to design the best possible user journey. This morning, I reviewed the current user journey for the programme, read the report, and looked at the notes Joyce and I had taken when recently interviewing stakeholders about the project.

I started adding my reflections to a knowledge board in Miro. Here as some examples of post-its I added:

• We know a small number of very large companies seem to dominate the digital landscape but the Internet is full of alternatives and possibilities — of people making and sharing things for collective benefit
• We think we know some useful tools and examples of best practice for community-led decision making, and that we can bake these principles into the programme so that communities have a say in the development of community tech on the programme
• We don’t know what role AI could play to support delivery of the programme, or the role it might have in supporting community businesses to deliver their user research and develop their projects

Community Explore knowledge board using Miro (sorry this is so tiny!)

We don’t know what role AI could play

Artificial Intelligence also came up in a discussion during our team meeting later this morning, it seems all roads lead to AI today! So I decided to zoom in on this “we don’t know…” statement and asked myself a couple of questions:

Why do you think AI is necessary for this project? What challenges will it help to address, and how?

1. Understanding the needs of participants on programmes is a manual process. We learn more about what digital support they need through 1:1 calls and the questions we ask during the application process. This takes time and is essential to use designing a useful programme. It is also important to spend time getting to know eachother and building human connection. How might we use AI tools to synthesise the needs of participants? How might AI help us nurture the strong relationships we need for success?
2. Programmes are fast paced and participants experiment with a range of new user-research methods and collaboration tools — from writing research briefs, running their own ideation session, and prototyping. How might AI tools support participants to grow in confidence with innovation and digital practices?

From here I could start to see how I could shift from “we don’t know what role AI could play” into some “I think we knows…”

For example I added these post-it notes to the knowledge board:

• I think I know that AI tools can help with synthesising needs in the onboarding phase of programmes
• I think I know AI tools could support participants to grow in confidence with innovation and digital practices

Next, I asked myself who is already experimenting in this space that I could learn from? I started to make a list:

• I have been experimenting with the Board of Innovation’s AI Toolbox for Innovators — there’s a brainstorm buddy and an tool for generating interview scripts
• In the CAST team, Tori has been experimenting with using Notion AI to synthesise user needs
• Elsewhere at CAST, David and Natalie are running a TechJam at the end of the month to help us explore how we are feeling about AI as a team, and what tools we are experimenting with

Photo by Girl with red hat on Unsplash

What actions can I take to move forward?:

• Set aside 1 week to experiment with the Board of Innovation toolbox then reflect on this experience — what can I learn from applying these to my own work that might help me introduce them on programmes? Thinking about the resources we have on the programme, how do these AI tools enhance the experience? Where do they best sit in the user journey, if at all?
• Run an experiment to synthesis notes and applications from a previous programme using Notion AI. What can I learn about the opportunities and challenges this presents?
• Speak to the team to see what you can learn — I’ll be dropping Tori a message to hear how her AI experiment has been going (thanks Tori!)

I approached this thinking specifically about AI, but you could you could try it out for another type of technology you want to explore.

Hello! I am running a 30 day experiment in open working to help me understand the benefits and challenges, so I can get better at supporting social impact organisations to work in the open. I would love to hear your comments, ideas and feedback! Thank you, Ellen