Google Cloud Platform Nuggets : Using NotebookLM and Mind map

I have earlier written about how I go about writing the bi-weekly Google Cloud Technology Nuggets. If you are new to this, the newsletter covers key announcements from the official Google Cloud Platform blog in a specific period. Subscribe here, if you’d like.

NotebookLM needs no introduction. I utilize this tool to generate the Podcast version of my newsletter. Do hear the latest episode in Podcast form and see how it compares to the text version.

How do I generate the Podcast version of the newsletter?

This is the process that I follow to generate the Podcast version. Ofcourse the hard work is done by NotebookLM, but here it goes:

1. I write the text version of the newsletter. This is not generated by any AI and do my best to understand and write about certain features announced in as simple a form as possible.
2. A final version of the newsletter for a specific period (say April 16–30, 2025) looks like this:

Google Cloud Platform Technology Nuggets — April 16–30, 2025

3. I print this out as a PDF file directly from medium.com itself.

4. I then launch NotebookLM and create a new notebook with a source that is the PDF itself. A screenshot is shown below:

The best part about this is also to see how NotebookLM uses it state of the art summarization to answer a few of the questions that I might have. This is another great way to learn about what I have written but by asking your own questions.

5. The next step is to generate a Podcast. On the right, you see the following:

Before I hit the generate button, I hit Customise with the following prompt:

- Focus on Google Cloud Platform only
- Assume that the listeners are beginner to intermediate Google Cloud practitioners
- Do explain technology terms if required to the listener

I’ll be honest that I haven’t really experimented a lot with prompts to see what kind of different content is produced. Maybe I should :-)

6. The next step is simply to generate the podcast by clicking on the Generate button. Once NotebookLM is done, the podcast is ready as shown here:

7. Click on the extreme right (3 vertical dots) and you get an option to download the audio file, which I then upload to Spotify.

That’s all there is to the process. I wish I had access to the NotebookLM API, I could have just converted this process into a tool that I could automate to a good extent. Hopefully that is coming in the future.

NotebookLM Mind map feature

I had read a bit about this feature being available several weeks back, but did not really explore well. I took a look at what it does with the Google Cloud Platform Technology Nuggets, that we have in this notebook and it was definitely interesting to see how well it did that.

All one has to do is the click on Mind map button in the main section and then wait for it to generate.

Once done, you can check out the Mind map, an example is given below for the April 16–30, 2025 newsletter.

In my opinion, it did a great job of summarizing and giving me the key points in each of the areas that I cover in the newsletter.

This is where it really shines well. This is not some static Mind map, but something that you can further click on and get answers on. For e.g. consider the section on Customers, where I covered two customer case studies : CodeRabbit and Lowes.com

If I click on Customers, it leads me back into the main UI of NotebookLM and composes a question for me, specific to the context and gets me the answers.

Hope this post was useful and helps you to revisit some of your everyday tasks and documents, and look at them in a different way.

Let me know if you have any tips/suggestions for me on this.