Introduction

Who I Am and What We Do

So about myself, I'm a part -time Mindstone contributor employee.

I run this event for them in Geneva, and we even opened Zurich.

But in the rest of my time, I work for this company called We Make Change.

We Make Change focuses on, basically, we specialize in remote work.

So what we do is we specialize in remote volunteering,

where we match people like you, it could be anyone,

who wants to volunteer for the causes that they believe in.

So whether it's an NGO, an impact startup, a social enterprise, what we do is we create a free platform where you come in with your skills.

Let's say you're a data scientist.

If an NGO in Malawi is looking for data scientists part -time, our volunteers, they give between 4 to 10 hours of their time per week for missions that on average are between 3 to 12 months.

So this is really for people who are committed to making change happen, trying to push the SDG agenda or at least make change happen or impact.

So it's for people who are very committed.

They identify as change makers.

It could be developers.

We have designers.

We have lawyers.

We have accountants.

But they're not going to quit their job.

They want to remotely help a cause they believe in, maybe a country they believe in, but not leave and do what those change makers are doing.

So we matched them.

From Free Volunteering Platform to Corporate Workshops

And the company was like this for six years.

Company was like this for six years, everything was free, no subscription,

so you wonder, how is it that you make money?

I agree.

That was a very good question, because obviously they hired me long afterwards,

and I very much have a little salary.

I mean, it's a good salary, I'm not going to diss them.

But the idea is, in my job, what we discovered was the product that we could make money from

was that corporates, so big companies, they have a volunteering need that they're not delivering,

where, for some reason, it decided to put itself on...

It never does.

No, it doesn't.

Okay, fair enough.

Corporates, they have to deliver on volunteering opportunities for their employees.

Most employees don't use them,

but theoretically, you have 20 % of your time

in most, let's say, companies over 1 ,000 employees for sure

that you can give or provide to your employees

for them to volunteer for a cause.

So this is to explain in broad lines what we do.

Designing the Corporate Volunteering Experience

For corporates, we created a workshop.

It's three hours where we use our startups,

like they provide a challenge based on the skills of the corporate change makers we match them

together it's all on zoom or on butter or on on teams they work together a little bit like a

a little bit like a mastermind they work on a challenge bunch of employees on a specific cause

the change maker gets supreme help and everyone's happy now the problem my job is

is, since we started as a job platform, because it's a job platform, the reason, the way we

used to recruit startups, we were not necessarily expecting them to interact with corporates.

That didn't exist five years ago.

And the corporates, they came in later in the game.

So they came in because they were willing to pay for a volunteering experience, but

we have no control, for example, on who's participating to the workshops we're doing.

The Startup Relations Challenge

So, in my job, my job was significantly different because I'm in charge of startup relations,

so I have to accept, let's say when you apply on a platform as a startup, as an impact startup,

as an organization, I welcome you because you fit the criteria, so as in your impact

is real, what you do is really good for, like you can prove your theory of change, what

it is that you're trying to do, that's great, but you are looking for volunteers.

volunteers.

At core, your only research is more you're looking for help.

You're not looking

for corporate help.

It's not, we advertise it on the website.

So, for example, on the

website, there's a page where, for example, we tell companies where to go.

So, companies

understand what it is that we offer them.

But if you're a startup, you're never going

on this page.

So, you're barely aware.

You might know us as a volunteering platform,

but you're not aware that once you're in, you also have this opportunity to participate

to these workshops.

From an intellectual level, this is super simple.

This is as simple as I can

explain the core of my problem.

Defining the Core Problem

The core of my problem is twofold.

The first one is startups come

because they're looking for help.

They come in, they post a job, they find help, then they walk

away.

They love us for having found someone for free, qualified, that actually helps them.

So we

have a strong, let's say, emotional link with our startups, but once we need them to come back

because for example we need them to participate to a change day which is you

know the name of the workshop we've realized that they are not aware that it

exists especially if they were our older startup they're not aware because we

never mentioned when we launched it as a almost like as a test we never then

circle back to our startup saying hey I know you come in for like volunteers but

come back frequently because we have other opportunities and on the other

sides I discovered that the corporates it's a volunteering opportunity for them

so the problem is they come in they we deal with our corporate partner like an

HR manager CSR manager like a corporate social responsibility he pays so they

pays they decide how much employees they want to participate we design we do the

whole thing but then employees come in willingly so they volunteer to

to participate.

Skills Mismatch and Participation Dynamics

My problem is I need them to volunteer and I can't tell them, listen,

I'm looking for marketing people.

You are a lawyer.

Why are you applying to a marketing change

there?

So it's a problem of skills.

On one side, I never know what skills I will have for those

workshops.

On the other, not only are my startups not aware, but when they are aware of what it is

and what it's for, I have another issue.

New Expectations for Startup Participants

All of a sudden, I need to care about the interaction

action, because it's a collaborative conversation.

It's like collective intelligence.

So all of a

sudden, we went from, we need you to just be an impact startup, to all of a sudden, we need you

to be an impact startup.

Yes, but we also need you to be coachable.

We need you to be able to

hold a conversation where you're vulnerable, where you're able to clearly explain your problem.

All of a sudden, it's almost as if I had a new platform.

Like, it's two different jobs,

two different worlds but it makes sense it's still volunteering problem is my

users on my platform they were not educated or trained to understand the

capabilities they need to actually deliver to like to be able to get value

from the other side so that cord that's my issue that's my issue as a I'm in

Operational Role and Constraints

charge of like this to the overall production it's still a matching so I'm

in charge of the marching and like for example once I have my volunteers I will

make sure everyone knows where to go, like produce the whole thing.

That's fine.

That's easy.

It's

like events.

It's easy.

That's my core.

It's what I do.

It's like bringing you here.

That's fine.

But imagine that I needed you all to be like AI versed or at least like versed in AI.

Then maybe I would have to accept or reject people based on their understanding because

otherwise you won't understand me.

Well, that's the issue I have in this company.

Where AI Fits In

Now you would

say where does ai fit in all this technically in many places but we had a conversation with our

board last week a board member was explaining to us i was saying that we're starting to now

evaluate the performance of our startups during the workshops not so much on the outcomes but

all because the outcomes is based on you know we have facilitators in the breakout rooms with them

it's based on what comes out of the conversation but to improve the outcomes we started realizing

that we needed there was a certain personality type that would perform better during these types

of workshops a little bit like if you've been to an accelerator program before you kind of know how

to be coached by accelerators from coaches from accelerators so you will understand the change

if you've never heard about these things coaching might be too far off or your version of coaching

might be too far off and even if you do know some personalities are not coachable they're not used

used to being open, to take feedback and things like that.

From Personality to Trainable Capabilities

Our board member said, I get that you have a personality need, but personality cannot

be trained.

He was saying my problem that I have with your notion of personality, even though I

can describe the personality I'm looking for, he said the only thing you could train and

eventually evaluate would be capabilities.

So things that potentially you can not only rate, but eventually you can help someone

become better so at this point my problem was i'm not necessarily versed in educational science

i know some things but not all things i'm not like i'm a marketing person but not so much

like i'm not into psychology i remember i wanted to study psychology by the way

and i went to the like information session it was at the uni here i fell asleep went to marketing

so what i'm saying is it's not my thing it's like it's much more scientific than it seems so

Turning to ChatGPT for Structure

So, like most humans now, what did I do?

I asked Chad GPT.

Now, I asked Chad GPT, but the problem was I needed Chad GPT to understand what I was going to tell it, so the prompt,

and what I'm not saying in the prompt that is implicit to what I do and everything I just told you,

which would be impossible for me to convey in a prompt.

so I was like I need the outcome to be what's the mission that our board member gave us to do a

capability mapping so figure out the capabilities map them out but whilst not necessarily being able

to do it myself and then explaining it to LLM to an LLM that was the world I was in last week

so I figured Charger PT and I were really close we're tight you know I mean to be honest like I

I have a very good relationship with it.

Like we, over time, I feel like we, we, we reach a

consensus in our relationship.

And so let me see if I have here.

Yeah.

So I went to it.

We talk a

lot.

And also I remember one of my co -founders, so the co -founders, I'm not a co -founder of a

company.

He told me, but like, don't give it critical, sensible information about a company.

Right.

I was like, okay, the test is I'm not going to give it something to like, I'm not,

i'm just going to give context so out of everything i just told you the context is here at the top

okay i know it knew about change days so i knew i knew about it because i asked him multiple times

about it i knew it was going to be fun but what i asked was as we make change we're trying to

Building a Capability Map with AI

define what makes a great change maker participant for change days and the ideal founder so this is

my problem my problem is exactly what i described i need because at some point we also will want to

figure from the companies who they should send us.

Not just any employee, it's employees with

skills, but also maybe a certain personality.

So it was a double -edged sword, right?

We aim not to focus on personality traits, as I mentioned, but more capabilities that we can

identify, measure, and train if necessary.

My goal is to figure out what these capabilities are

and if there are commonalities between both parties.

So between, if I could overlap both

between change makers and founders knowing that during a workshop one is

helping the others receiving help so they're not they don't have the same

objectives my goal is to figure out a lot regarding change makers where we

already tell them during the change day that what we test with them in terms of

skills in terms of capabilities is communication critical thinking solving

problem solving teamwork and leadership and then maybe maybe they are what I'm

looking for, maybe these were the capabilities, but I want to extend my scope.

So this is all I

said.

Nothing else.

I gave no documents, no base, because deep down I realized it was first about

understanding the logic, and then I would figure out, I realized something basically as a non -technical

profile.

I have the expertise in what I do.

I just miss structure.

A lot of us, that's our problem.

Like, for example, if you're going to do something you don't know how to do.

For example, let's say

you can't cook your problem is not so much just that you can't cook is that you might not know

where to start so you need the recipe you might need the right tooling you might need the right

products most times on the issue with ai that's my issue i know what i want as an output but i'm

always lost as to how do i get to the output and once i have it it's like copywriting right you

write an email then you know what you want in the email you just want the base so this is exactly

what i told it all right obviously it's being nice to me good direction blah blah blah okay great

So what did it tell me?

Clarifying Goals and Expanding Capabilities

The first thing it told me was,

it made a recap of basically what I said.

It understood that the changemakers were volunteers

that were skilled professionals

that would collaborate with impacts.

That is the simplest, simplistic view

of what they do during a change day.

Founders are social entrepreneurs

participating in the changes,

and the goal is to identify capabilities

that lead to great collaborations and outcome.

You already list five.

These are excellence.

What we could do now is expand,

expand and then eventually see what are shared okay so at this point i was curious but imagine

at this point this is all generated right there's a bunch of text below i had just discovered what

a capability map was so in my mind my issue was how do i get it and i didn't even remember the

name of a capability map i had the conversation two days before but i didn't know i knew what i

needed as an output that's what the board member asked us but i was like how am i going to get it

to something that I barely remember what it was.

I just knew what it looked like.

So, it started drawing some capabilities.

It came up with a few.

Some were share capabilities, explain the concept of it,

and then some were, for example, collaboration and co -creation,

because indeed they do work on something common.

Another one was, for example, empathy,

because obviously, for example, on a change -making standpoint,

they understand the founder's mission,

so there is a part where they need to understand what the business is,

what their problem is.

They need to empathize with them, their limitations.

And then the final is to understand the users, which are the change makers, the communities,

the volunteers, and everything.

So I was looking at these.

They came up with eight capabilities, basically.

You see facilitative communication, strategic focus, resourcefulness.

I was like, OK, there's quite a few growth mindsets, which also we care for.

I was like, OK.

And then it mapped out in the same prompt.

It mapped out the overlaps.

It was like, okay, which are overlapping and how do they overlap?

In collaboration, one is bridging skill sets.

For founders, it's integrating diverse inputs, blah, blah, blah.

I was like, okay, interesting.

At this point, I had accepted that there was no way I could do this myself.

From Concepts to Rubrics

Like I said, there was no moment.

So I didn't answer anything at this point.

I was literally just saying, it got what I said.

But in my mind, I was like, wow.

So I wonder what else they put.

So they went further.

It was like, okay, here are your next steps.

The next steps are, you basically validate, like, so you use real observations, you design rubrics, I was like, wait, what's a rubric?

Okay, I'll start it with that.

What's a rubric?

Integrated training, blah, blah, blah.

I was like, okay.

And then it was like, okay, would you like to start with those?

Would you do a capability map document and a self -assessment framework?

I was like, I think I remembered the word.

I was like, wait, I think that's it.

I was like, about the rubrics, could you design them based on the scale of one to three, because

that was a recommendation from a board member.

So, so far, I'm still not understanding what's happening, but I knew it was in the right

direction.

So, then it kept going.

It was like, okay, fair.

Here I am.

So, basically, it's like a scale.

So, it's a scale to see if you have the capability to say if someone is, for example, emerging,

so it's there, but it's like the lowest level.

It's developing, like if you evaluate whether it's, like it's progressing, it's for someone

to evaluate, right?

And then the third one is, it's exemplary.

Behavioral Indicators Across Levels

there's nothing to test it's perfect okay so for example they took back the capabilities that they

showed and i was like okay for example emerging fatigue collaboration works individually dominates

the discussion and which is something that actually happens during change day now at this

point i didn't tell it i was like okay smart limited adaptation to others ideas it's like

yeah okay so that would be the lowest level if you were rating it was like yeah they did that

like since we have facilitators in the breakout rooms they evaluate this development would be

contribute constructively and listen to others has some ability to integrate diverse perspective

again you can measure it but you need someone to observe third would be actively co -creates

builds on others inputs blah blah blah so it's the same for all of them i was like okay wow

so in my mind i was like okay it's probably let's say it's like 10 a .m i'm like i've done this for

like five minutes i'm like wait what mind you if you're doing this normally this would be day 15

for me that was okay so he does it for everything again so it based them it did you did that part

i was like okay great then it gives me additional emphasis for change makers maybe there's some that

Creating Practical Outputs and Next Steps

are more important and then we're like would you like me say that was a funny one would you like

me to take this for my rubric and one page visual and then i was like yeah sure please do you know

like keep going like i'm not going to stop you i mean you know it's like it's like having a genius

is telling you how to do so indeed same did basically the whole thing and it came down to

a point where i can show you like the final output but basically then it explained to me how the

scope so when you take it out it's basically a table because once because obviously it's something

that someone evaluates right and at this point i'm still telling myself what did i actually tell

it for it to understand specifically what i barely understood how i was going to do on my own

and it's interesting because for some of you this is actually like this is logical this is normal

they know the frameworks they know that this they have the information but for someone who doesn't

talk about their job to other people outside of their bosses in your mind you're like i knew what

i needed i knew what makes sense so what didn't make sense obviously then we we work together as

a team we challenge for example some of the wordings because that's your expertise that's

basically what you can do but as a company like for someone if i was given this task in a normal

traditional company i would currently be in day number nine of saying trying to figure out maybe

just the capabilities and then ping -ponging because then you can automatically ping -pong

i ping my boss saying what do you think about those all of a sudden we move forward

i ended up showing let me see i think i have it here i ended up showing it

there so it came out this was now this is the longer version but i think that that still works

i think there's a short below i ended up showing it so and then you take it out obviously simplified

From Framework to Implementation

it looked it up the goal of this for us was to make a feedback form where we could have our

facilitators be able to track behaviors that we want or change makers that participate to have

since we have changes at the moment for example I have one in two weeks I have a

briefing call tomorrow so we were in time press to eventually go from here to

basically implementing a form which I think is one of them is here where this

is another inter iteration of it but where we basically this all this work

work for me where it's kind of like i'm not going to say magical because obviously there's certain

nuance i have to read through i have to go for it it all came from a prompt where i still feel like

i gave nothing to it i gave just enough and maybe i learned from everything else because a lot of

the other chats are about change days there's a lot of other questions that i asked over time

and then i could show you like the actual form that we're going to test out and roll out

to see if it actually first of all makes sense to the facilitators but this was

Deadlines, Forms, and Real-World Testing

my Monday morning and this is why when I was on Monday so I lost a speaker on

Monday which didn't die she just you know just couldn't that's what I mean

you know I'm just saying and so I was like you know what for some so not

necessarily also for some of you were like verse in this and building these

things and making local ones and this and dealing like giving talks and shit

that's not the idea it's finding that balance of it's not about gaining time

is that to a certain degree it kind of helped me complement the learnings that

I had or they said say the shortcomings that I had in terms of learning to get

my work done because I'm very much aware of what makes sense in the like

suggestions of content that they do like I know what makes sense I recognize it I

can edit it I could finish it but there was no way I could deliver this work in

two days especially with everything else that I had to do it all comes down to if

Reflections on AI and Expert Work

if this was a theoretical talk, I guess what I want to say is there are so many, I've seen so

many postures now, so many people who have different opinions on something replaces you

all into it, like entirely because they, they're smarter than you.

They know what you're doing.

They know what you're thinking.

They know this.

And others are saying, no, you need the human

mind because blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

I'm like this, you know what?

At the end of the day,

I was like, you're still the expert you are.

You still know the output you hope for.

You know where

you're trying to go.

That is always a certainty.

What is uncertain is that it's like in anything.

Context, Common Language, and Collaboration

It's like in a conversation, right?

I work in public speaking for a living.

Most people don't

understand it.

If you don't have context, you don't understand matter.

You don't understand

the subject if you're not given proper context, which is a problem that we have during change

days.

We tell people who don't know each other to work on something they just discover that the

other barely understand.

And until they understand each other, and sometimes they don't speak the

same language, they're not from the same countries, they can't address the problem until they speak

a common language to me commonality of language comes from it's the same thing basically i had

to change it with chat gpt i had the challenge i needed the skills but i knew very well what

i wanted to achieve and i feel like many people sometimes are still like toying with what's the

balance the balance is what do you need done for me for example for me as a non -data scientist

Finding the Human-AI Balance

engineer whatever it's what do you need done and then how can you pick up the work obviously we

dream about for someone that does the work entirely for you.

But even if you have assistants, employees, or interns, if you ever had one of those,

even in that world, you still need to actually pick up the work at some point.

And that, just for the time I gained, I figured this was something I wanted to show because

it's like a direct link between a case that I won't explain to anyone and a topic that

speaks to a lot because we're here as an AI meetup.

So there you go.

Conclusion and Q&A

So this was what I wanted to show you.

happy to take some questions if you have some but it's really as I said it wasn't

meant to be something super technical but it was meant to show that in my

reality like it's almost like this is my extra colleague or at least the best

intern at well the best intern I ever had already had her and she was amazing

okay I can't say that but the second best intern ever had