Unlocking Your Productivity with AI
The ActivateAI session on the 15th January was a great success for both AwakenHub and the participants that took part. It brought together companies from a wide range of industries to explore the growing importance of Artificial intelligence in today’s world. Participants gained a clear and practical understanding of how AI works and how it can be used throughout different aspects of their business. The session also addressed the potential challenges and risks associated with AI, ensuring companies left with a balanced perspective.
Mara Bolis showed her expertise through an engaging session on Unlocking Your Productivity with AI. There were also breakout sessions led by Denise McQuaid, Sinead Crowley, Martin Spiller and Kelly Hoey, which allowed attendees to investigate specific topics and apply learnings in a practical way.
Unlocking Your Productivity with AI Session with Mara Bolis
The morning session ‘Unlocking Your Productivity with AI’ led by Mara Bolis was an engaging and practical session on all things AI. Mara Bolis is the Founder of First prompt, with over 20 years of experience in her sector across the US and internationally. Throughout the session Mara looked at the different types of AI, and which are the most beneficial and which are the best to use.
As part of her session Mara looked at the different types of AI platforms that can be used with in businesses and went into detail about each to show you which one would be the most valuable for the participants business. For example, Granola was an example of an AI platform that Mara went into detail about where she indicated how it is helpful for “automatic meeting notes, with identified decisions, and action items” whereas platforms such as gamma can “keep track of relationships with customers and prospects in one place.” All platforms run in a slightly different way but ultimately use AI to make the Founders business run smoother. The participants were happy with the examples of different Platforms and Louise Keenan Clark of Succeed With Confidence stated her positive feedback of the session saying she learnt about “a lot of different applications and platforms that I wasn’t even aware of yet”. This positive feedback shows the meaningful impact Maras learning has had for future Businesses. It also helps with the simpler tasks as James Gorman states that the learning from today can “help the customers that we deal with day to day,”
As part of her session, Mara gave the participants a challenge to find a task that they were ‘stuck’ on and use AI to help them. This included simple things such as a follow up email that you haven’t sent out yet that could positively impact your business or a draft document that you were putting off starting. This practical challenge showed the participants that the use of AI can be extremely helpful in encouraging you to take the first steps in completing that one task that you may have been putting off. The use of pieces of work like this can be very helpful overall in shortening your work time as Lynette Fay from Brick Row Media gave her feedback on the session and the valuable assistance it provides saying that AI is “going to basically half that time that is spent on basic tasks”.
The overall feedback from Unlocking Your Productivity with AI was successful and most of the participants claimed they feel very confident in using AI tools following the session with Mara Bolis. In the feedback survey participants were asked what surprised them about using AI tools during the session and the responses were positive stating “This is a lifeline I was looking for and needed” and “Save time on all tasks regardless of complexity.” This shows the positive impact the learning has on each participant and the use of AI for their business.
Deep Dive AI Implementation.
Following a networking lunch, participants were given the option of four tracks to choose from, selecting the sessions they felt would be most beneficial for their company’s needs. This allowed attendees to focus on the topics most relevant to their roles and industries.
Each track provided practical insights and real-world examples, enabling participants to engage with the subject and learn new ideas that could be applied directly to their businesses.
Sales – Simplify Client Follow-Up was led by Kelly Hoey and looked at things you need to chase up and complete to help with the prospect of your business, sending real follow ups and building a repeatable system. This session allowed you to look at one follow up that you have been putting off despite it being a good opportunity and then using AI to help you complete the follow up. Martin Dorman of FSL Scoreboards Ltd choose Sales as his track and he done this as to see “how AI can help us as a company to portray a more professional image”.
The second Track was Making Your Pitch led by Denise McQuaid and this focused-on building ‘a value proposition to fit your big opportunity’. The aim was to look at the importance of having an impactful and impressive pitch and how it can effect the outcome of your meeting or business plan if you are looking for investment, a partnership or to improve your business.
Operations – Document Your Best Process was led by Sinead Crowley looking at the things in your head and how you can use AI to keep a record of the ideas for the rest of your team. This track aimed to help participants use AI to keep track of all ideas and plans, so they aren’t just in your head and can be shared with the rest of your team to keep everyone up to date and aware of new plans.
The fourth track led by martin Spiller was based on ‘Strategy – Your AI Advisory Board’. This session was designed to help participants develop a structured approach to face their ideas and challenges, using AI as a research platform to help participants run their business more strategically. This approach enabled attendees to think more strategically about how they run their business, using AI to inform planning, problem-solving, and long-term growth.
The tracks were made up of solo and group sessions, giving participants the opportunity to explore AI in a practical way. During the individual sessions, participants researched how AI could be used to support and grow their business within the specific sector they had chosen to look at and then trial them in the groups allowing them to test how well AI can help them along with receiving feedback to improve their findings.
The day ended with key takeaways including looking at how AI is already being used within your business and how it can help along with being aware of the risks that it brings and the importance of checking that the information given by the AI platform is still correct and up to date in case any errors have been made along the way.
Overall, the day was very positive and highly successful. Many highlighted the opportunity to meet and connect with people from a wide range of sectors, all of whom were seeking similar learning outcomes and “can learn a lot from each other”. The participants showed the importance of getting to work together in the sessions and throughout the networking as this allowed people to see “how AI is being used in other businesses, I hope, can give us a different perspective on integration into our business practices.”
The next in person session will take place in Catalyst, Derry based on Sales Hacker & Investor Gurus with two sessions led by Denise McQuaid and Martin Spiller.
We will wrap up the ActivateAI programme in March with our Regional showcase.
The ActivateAI Regional Showcase will be an exciting chance to catch up with other participants and wrap up the programme on a high and It will take place at the Millennium Forum in Derry on the 25th of March.
This event will shine a light on the amazing work participants have done, showing how they’re using AI in creative and practical ways within their businesses. It’s also a fantastic opportunity to meet people from different sectors, share ideas, and get inspired for the next steps in your AI journey.
A big thank you to Ulster Bank for hosting the event at their venue, and to all the facilitators and participants for taking part.
