Introduction

From Chaos to Capacity

Thank you from MindStone for hosting this AI meetup for what was noted as an AI meetup for normal people.

I am definitely a normal person. I do not have a technical background, but I'll tell

you a little bit why I became passionate about AI and the tools that are available now in such a commonplace way.

So this story is going to be about how I've turned my chaos into capacity. Capacity means for me being able to be a force multiplier, being able to orchestrate presence for the things that matter most.

Why Voice-Driven AI

And the aspect of AI that I'm going to focus on in this presentation is voice -driven AI to orchestrate my personal, professional, and tactical life, the glue that brings it all together.

AI as a Human Amplifier

Now, one thing that I want to just highlight before we get into the actual presentation itself is I think we can all agree that AI is moving so fast.

And what I also think is that once you learn how to tap into the skills that of whether it be prompt engineering or context, you know, orchestration, various buzzwords, those skills have been transferable to help me and my life not cut through the noise and see how AI is replacing humans, but actually using AI to amplify my human experience. experience.

A Tool You Can Use Today

And so with that, one of the things that I'm actually going to leave you all with today is a tool that you could put right onto your phone so that you can have voice to orchestration just as I'm going to show you here today.

About Me and the Problem Space

So first, let me introduce myself. I'm Erica Macmillan. I am a mom of three beautiful girls under six.

I have been in the medical device space for the last 15 years, specifically doing capital sales and implementations at enterprise hospital systems, specifically for disruptive technology, AI powered technology.

I work and cover four states. I sometimes travel two to three days a week, sometimes less, sometimes more.

I just finished a home project that took It took 18 months, and I will not be hiring a contractor anytime soon.

I go to the gym. My friends are my lifeblood.

Now, that's just a little bit of an outline of my invisible mental load. I would invite you all to put yourself in your shoes and what that picture looks like for you. And that's a little bit of the problem that I tried to start solving when using the power of AI.

I would need to highlight, though, my anchor is definitely my husband and the support system I have around me.

The Old Way: Sticky Notes and Mental Load

So historically, it's been that support system married by the old way of doing things, the analog way, the sticky notes that were all over my office or taking random notes on my phone through Siri or shooting myself a, hey, a quick email so that the next time I sat down at my computer, I have a stray email letting me know that I needed to take care of something.

Real-World Support: Meet Ruth

That was my old way until about three years ago, I also incorporated a Ruth. Ruth is my mother's helper.

She is someone who comes to my home two to four hours a week, helps with laundry, helps make sure that I don't have socks that are sitting on my counter, and just helps to support the physical chaos of a life of a working mom who travels a lot with three young kids.

Ruth has really changed the way that we live in a calm environment in my household.

Designing a Digital Ruth

So it made me wonder, what if I could build a digital Ruth? What if I could use the technology

that AI has brought to be commonplace to help me organize some of the chaos into an invisible system that works behind the scenes and helps me to be able to multiply my capacity and enables me to get out all of that mental clutter in a way that it's organized and I can set it and speak it and forget it.

Human-Centric, Simple by Design

One other thing I want to talk about with AI, and I alluded to this earlier, is that I do believe believe the importance of it being human centric and it being simple is that if my philosophy is that if I can't articulate what a process could look like, I can't expect AI to be able to do it for me.

So being able to architect something simple before I automate has been a philosophy that I have adopted as I've implemented my my voice system.

Mission and Objectives

So my mission, it's to reimagine how I work, live, and deliver impact.

How I can take chaos, figure out what I want to eliminate. If it's not a hell yes, how do I make it a no?

And for the things that are left over, that's my clarity.

And ultimately, the objectives that I've been targeting through this initiative is to, again, force multiply my capacity and to be present for the work, the people, the teams

The New Way: Voice to Orchestration

in my life that matter most so here's my new way it's actually really interesting

when I did this presentation I've done it to four or five different people I got the same feedback every time they were confused because it was so simple

One-Button Capture on iPhone

which is interesting so my new way here's my phone and I'm going to talk you through it before I show you is I actually does that anyone have the new iPhone the new one there's a side button that you can essentially activate with

what you want it to activate and so I activate it to a microphone I speak tasks content I want to post on LinkedIn something I don't want to forget for a pre -call meeting truly what what's ever on my mind I have actually done an

Under the Hood: Make, GPT, and Notion

eighteen -minute presentation I just chatted and then what happens is it goes into make .com it transcribes my audio and then automatically goes it actually transcribes my audio through chat GPT it goes into my notion database which to be

clear this process can happen whether you have notion or email so whatever you're using to manage your system is the output can go to that location so So the idea is not to add more technology for the sake of adding technology, but to add the technology in a way that makes sense for you, or in this case for me.

Route Once, Use Everywhere

So it goes from my voice, right into my Notion database, and using a routing guide, it may go to my tasks, it may go to my content, it routes to where it needs to go.

So I think it, I speak it, it's captured, and then when I want to handle it, it's there for me to handle without having to wake up in the middle of the night and wondering why I forgot to do something.

Live Demo

So here's how it works.

Setup: Notion and Make

Okay, so very quickly, before I actually demo this for you, here is my Notion database.

It has, you know, the seven different areas that I really bucket for my life, career, community, family, relationships, financial health, my home home environment personal growth and so this is specifically the task log

portion of my notion database underneath it here is my make calm let me just lower this just a teeny bit so you can see both things happening in real time

so what's going to happen is I'm going to click this button on my phone which again is just simply a microphone and then you're gonna watch when I finish speaking you're gonna watch down here it's gonna show you how it's processed then it will show up both in my log and the new activities are gonna show up

Capturing Tasks in Real Time

here I am at the MindStone event for every task that you capture for the purposes of this demonstration put MindStone in front of it make sure you

get milk for the way home make follow up with any of the contacts at MindStone on on what you talked about with them.

Follow up with your customer on the redlining documents.

Make sure that you call Becca and let her know how this presentation went.

And oh, by the way, you want to post this on LinkedIn and capture any of the clear insights that you had from this MindStone event and share it for content in your next post.

I tap my screen. It's gone.

Processing and Audit Trail

now what's happening is you can see this scrolling the Dropbox is capturing the whole transcript for for you to find chat GPT is transcribing it notions processing it and then you just stop all of you folks in healthcare saying well how do I track that how do I audit that it's there

up here my mind stone event and all of my actions that just got loaded into my family etc so now this system has been in place that all I needed to do was speak to my phone and it's somewhere for me to handle now this is scalable and I'm going to show you the ways that it's scalable.

Scalable Across Life and Work

whether it be for my career whether it be for getting milk on the way home for

How do I get rid of that? Okay, so it's the same frame. I'm going to go back one. Perfect.

Tactical Uses and Automations

So regardless of how I just used that voice feature, it can be used in so many different ways. So tactically, right, I just spoke a bunch of tasks.

Priorities, Due Dates, and Smart Views

If I had said this is a priority or gave it a due date, it's gonna show up in a spot on my phone I have this like down here all my it will automatically open so I don't have to go searching my notion database it actually opens to all my priority lists and when my due date is in order now

Location-Based Reminders at the Right Moment

here's a cool thing sometimes all the time my husband would say is that I forget to get milk or pick up the prescriptions when I'm past when I'm by

CVS so what I did is I set a location when I get off the highway so that when I get off the highway it automatically opens this on my phone so that if I was supposed to go get milk it actually reminds me before I get home and I have

to go back out again so you can use some of these tools to help reduce what I'm finding is that I'm reducing my mental clutter by actually putting in

Professional Workflow: From Voice to Presentation

automations that help remember for me I've also used this in my professional life I think I may have highlighted a little bit earlier is that I was asked to do a presentation at work and I think it was like three days notice I didn't

have a presentation baked out and I went and took a walk 18 minutes I recorded that that voice note what I wanted to present on the impact that I wanted to have the outcomes what I wanted to show I went home I then processed that

through a well -crafted prompt that had a role context and the outcome that I wanted that presentation to have once the presentation actually was built I used my voice note again to go through the presentation I said I like this I

don't like this it brought me to 98 % I made two edits on that presentation so rather than sitting down at my computer and figuring out what I want this bullet to say and this bullet to say and what icons and shapes should I use to deliver

the content the focus was on the content itself so I think that's the beautiful part that's the impressive a part about AI it wasn't that AI created the presentation but that AI enabled me to focus on the strategic work on the actual work and not on what it looked like at the end it did that organization

A Personal Story: Chapter Book for a Birthday

for me just from voice to execution personally this is one of my favorite stories and for the I see Amy in here and I know that she's seen this story

before but I was driving home from Maine a few weeks ago it was my daughter's sixth birthday and it was a her birthday was in a couple days I was taking her to New York City and I didn't really have any toys or anything for her to open but

she's been a big fan of chapter books so my three -hour drive home from Maine I I popped open my voice memo. I told my voice what I spoke, what

our itinerary was going to be. I said, I want you to make a chapter book. Highlighting each little specific spot of our itinerary is a special moment.

Do it from the point of view of a six -year -old girl on her birthday and her American Girl doll going to New York City for the first time.

And out popped a 13 -chapter children's book on our trip to New York City she opens this book she says cool mom we're going to New York City and then for five nights in a row we read a 13 chapter

book and that's how she found out about her trip and at the end of it she said mom that's the best book I've ever read like I'm not making up this story and so

what would have been a lost windshield time of my three -hour drive from Maine home became a moment where AI again not impressive because AI created the story but it created a deep human connection that would have been lost in my three

Climbing the AI Adoption Ladder

hour commute but I think AI it's the adoption ladder is so vast and I think

about where I was I think about where I I am now and where I'm going and so if

Starting Simple: Manual Steps that Still Save Time

you're sitting there thinking like oh man I don't know how to create make make .com or I don't use a Notion database. That's actually where I started.

I told you that I first started by taking random notes or trying to just remember checklists in my head. Well, then when I

started to apply AI, I had voice to save. I would save that transcript, copy the transcript, paste it into a project, manually move it into Notion. Now, all of those things were manual steps,

But yet, I still was saving a ton of time because I was focusing on the strategy, the work. And so this was sort of my first step into it, my first step on that AI ladder.

Vision: Living Simply with AI in the Background

Where I think I'm going is my future way to use AI is I want to live in the 90s. I want to live where life is simple, where I'm not glued to my phone, where I am connected to what's present in front of me. And my capacity, I want it to be focused on the high stakes.

So this is sort of my little vision here as me hanging out with my daughter and my AI working in the background to support my clients to order my groceries to be predictive and say hey by the way we just switched from Halloween into Christmas and these are some of the hottest toys and this happened this year is I actually didn't get the dollhouse that we wanted because because I missed out on it.

So having AI actually work for you behind the scenes, and then have my home system. I actually come home, put my cell phone down,

and if there is a customer that needs to reach out to me, or rather that I'm waiting for, rather than picking up my phone and searching for it, that my Alexa just says, hey, Erica, that email that you were waiting for from Mike is now in your inbox. box.

So I view it more as my new landline, right? Is that it knows what I want to have come to me and I don't have to search for it.

Bringing It Together: Systems, Not Just AI

So this takes me back to the mission.

What is made possible through systems? Because it's not just AI alone.

It started with elimination and getting clarity into what I want my life design to look like.

And then it's applying three levers.

Three Levers: Invisible Workflows, Outsourcing, Habits

the AI invisible workflow which is really what we focused on here today strategic outsourcing my Ruth right where can you outsource where the ROI far outweighs the cost and then lastly that

leaves a new environment for you to create habits around right why try to create habits around something that's chaotic but if you can get those things organized kind of like

cleaning out your closet you take it all out you edit it down and you put the things back into it and in an organized fashion that's sort of how I viewed this architecture before automation and ultimately what my hypothesis is is that

Outcome: Multiplying Capacity and Presence

in doing this I'm not only going to be able to multiply my capacity but I'm going to be present so that it doesn't just feel that presence for me, that my stakeholders feel it, that my husband, my family feel that I'm present and that

I'm not thinking about work emails while I'm sitting and playing a game, that my team feels like I'm sitting in the room not distracted by anything else, and that my customers feel like every communication is personalized even if I've set up a method in which that organization can happen for me.

Get Started: Voice-to-Email Shortcut

so with that I would say let's connect I want to hear your story what's working for you in terms of your own personal AI orchestration where you're stuck and I

have two QR codes here the one on the right hand side is my LinkedIn and connecting but the one here is voice to email so if you so feel like you'd like like to have voice to capture, please go ahead and put the QR code here.

You're going to have to put in your name and your email address.

Your email, you're going to get an individual code. This is important.

So when you get that email, you're going to see a code specifically to you and a link to download your shortcut.

When you open up your shortcut, there's going going to be a spot for your code. No spaces, no enters.

I'm going to be here and I can help anyone do this. There's actually instructions in the email as well.

Try It: Capture Your AI Pain Points

And what I'd invite you to do is the first time you use this, actually put in your pain points. Say, these are my AI pain points.

That's the only thing that comes to me as I specifically was interested in hearing about pinpoints.

Otherwise, these are going to go right to your email if it's tasks, if it's a LinkedIn story that you want to capture, you're just going to have to press your button and it will go right to your email.

Iterate Toward Automation

It may not be the version that you end at.

You might have a Notion database or something else that you do later on, but this gets you somewhere between capturing your thoughts through random notes and actually getting to a place where you're automated.

Conclusion

Thank you very much for your time and attention.