🤖 10 Things I learned while using ChatGPT for Innovation

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If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the thought of ideation and creating something new, don’t panic! I’ve been there too. Through my years of facilitating innovation workshops and ideation sessions, I’ve learned that having a strong foundation of ideas is essential for product innovation success.

The problem with traditional ideation sessions

Unfortunately, creating really ‘good’ ideas isn’t easy! It’s hard work! It involves multiple iterations of generating ideas and deciding which ones are most interesting to continue to work on. Any innovation team, especially the ones where team members aren’t hard core creative types, can have a difficult time of it.

Coming up with novel options and keeping track of all the new ideas simply take their toll. The brain bandwidth left to push the idea further becomes limited. Mental fatigue and cognitive dissonance can easily take over, and we settle for something less than memorable, less than exciting. And that’s dangerous.

Why you really need a strong outcome

In innovation and business, there are many forces pulling you in the direction of business as usual, boring results. The job of the innovator is to resist that pull. If the outcomes of ideation, where you haven’t met any real-world feedback and constraints yet and have all the freedom in the world, are not right there at the edge, then the rest of the process will only make it, well, more boring.

So, that’s why I always loved to have a tool that takes some of the burden of idea generation off the team’s plate. This would allow them to focus on pushing the envelope. Wouldn’t it be fantastic to boost creativity and produce top-notch ideas, and do it in a fraction of the time? Well, with Generative AI it’s now within reach!

ChatGPT to the rescue

It wasn’t until ChatGPT came around that we truly saw the potential of generative AI come to life. ChatGPT is a revolutionary new conversational AI model developed by OpenAI that shows us how we can effectively collaborate with an AI. I‘ve been using it (and it’s little brother, GPT-3) for ideation for a few months now, with great results. And the best thing is, it is super easy!

To work with ChatGPT and GPT-3, you simply ask questions or give commands, and it (seems to) understands what you want and replies — in plain english (or any language of your choice). These questions and commands are called prompts. Much (but definitely not all!) of the expertise and know-how needed to get the most out of this shiny new toy is in writing good prompts.

Here are 10 things I learned about writing prompts while using ChatGPT for Ideation:

1. Be really, really specific: The more specific and detailed your prompts are, the better quality responses you’ll receive. Include information about what you expect as a result, but you can also specify the length of the output and even formatting.
2. Take incremental steps: Don’t try to do too much in one prompt. The beauty of ChatGPT is that it remembers the conversation, so you can build on earlier results.
3. Try and try again: When your prompt doesn’t give you the result you want, rephrase your prompt and try again. (Tip: you can also ask ChatGPT to rephrase your prompt!)
4. Experiment: Test out a variety of prompts to see what kind of responses ChatGPT generates.
5. Edit and refine: ChatGPT’s responses may require some editing and refining, but the initial output can still provide valuable insights.
6. It’s a starting point: ChatGPT’s responses should be seen as a starting point for further exploration, rather than a final solution.
7. Be the creative director: In the back-and-forth between you and ChatGPT, assume the role of the art director. It’s your job to nudge ChatGPT into the direction you’re interested in, and to take the creative decisions. ChatGPT is great at generating ideas and options, but you still need to be the one deciding on the direction.
8. Give new input: While ChatGPT is great at generating ideas (if you give it good prompts!) you can help it create even better ideas by adding your own input and ideas along the way. Simply create a prompt where you ask ChatGPT to rewrite the idea it came up with including the part that you want to add.
9. Collaborate: Use ChatGPT to generate ideas in a collaborative setting to spark further ideation and innovation.
10. Validate: It’s really important to remember that ChatGPT is just another tool that will give you input for your innovation process. And while it can give you results that look really plausible, it can’t give you the truth. So always, always validate your innovation ideas with real people!

And, as a bonus: Keep track of your prompts and results! ChatGPT keeps a record, but sometimes can go off kilter, and GPT-3 only saves what you tell it to save. So if you want to go back to earlier results, or if you want to re-use prompts from earlier sessions: it’s always a good idea to keep a logbook! This way, you can learn what really works for your case.

Besides this short list of 10 tips, there are of course many more tips and tricks to get the most out of Generative AI in ideation. How about techniques to get more unique ideas? Or to build and test-drive validation interviews? In fact, many more than I can list here! So, I created a downloadable e-book with an example ideation flow. In the e-book, I use ChatGPT to design a new concept from idea stage right through initial validation and a value proposition. The e-book includes all the prompts and thinking steps in between and shows how you can use ChatGPT in the ideation stage. If you want to start experimenting, this e-book is for you!

Get the ebook here

In conclusion, ideation is an essential process in innovation, and having the right ideation tools can make a significant difference in its success. ChatGPT is fast becoming my go-to ideation tool, and it can be an excellent partner for ideation — if you use it right! So why not give AI-Assisted Ideation with ChatGPT a try? It just might be the key to unlocking your next big idea!

– Erik

Do you want to know more about AI Assisted Innovation and AI Assisted Innovation Workshops? Want to experience ideation using ChatGPT, Midjourney, GPT-4, and other tools? Follow this link and sign up, and I’ll get in touch!