AI Fluency Workshop — Practice Materials
Bright Pivot |  AI Fluency Workshop — Practice Materials
Facilitator Reference  ·  bright-pivot.com
Context

Nancy's Fancy Pansies — Prompt Examples

Use these to demonstrate what happens when AI gets no context vs. full context. Ask the room what's missing from the first one before revealing the second.

✗ Vague Prompt
Draft an email to Nancy saying the shop will need to close Tuesday.
✓ With Context
Draft an email to my friend Nancy who owns a flower shop called Nancy's Fancy Pansies. She's won the award for botanist of the year! The award ceremony is Tuesday at the park on Main Street. After, she'll be interviewed by Fancy Pants – A Journal of all Things Fancy. They want her whole staff there, so she'll have to close the shop.
Context

Car Wash — The Hidden Ambiguity

Shows that context isn't just background — it's also precision. Ask pairs to spot the ambiguity before revealing the improved version.

✗ Ambiguous Prompt
I want to go to the car wash. It's 100 yards away. Should I walk or drive?
✓ With Context
I want to wash my car. The car wash is 100 yards away. Should I walk or drive?
💬 Discussion Point
Saying "go to the car wash" can have different meanings — walking there to get change, or driving your car there? AI doesn't know. Neither version of the question is wrong. But only one gets a useful answer.
Personalization

AI Memory / Profile Script

Copy this into ChatGPT's "Custom Instructions," Claude's Profile, or Copilot's "About Me" settings. Fill in the brackets — even two or three fields make a meaningful difference immediately.

📋 Copy & Fill In
My name is [YOUR NAME] and I work as a [YOUR ROLE / TITLE] at [ORGANIZATION NAME], a [TYPE OF ORGANIZATION — e.g., family-owned restaurant / regional insurance agency / nonprofit] in [CITY, STATE]. I primarily work with [WHO YOU SERVE OR WORK WITH — e.g., customers, clients, patients, vendors, a small team]. My day-to-day work involves [2–3 THINGS YOU SPEND MOST TIME ON — e.g., responding to emails, managing schedules, preparing reports, following up with clients]. When I ask for help with writing, I prefer a tone that is [e.g., friendly and conversational / professional but not stuffy / direct and brief]. Avoid overly formal language unless I ask for it. Please prioritize [WHAT MATTERS MOST — e.g., clarity and brevity / accuracy / a friendly tone / bullet points over paragraphs]. Recurring tasks where I often need help: - [TASK 1 — e.g., drafting follow-up emails after client meetings] - [TASK 2 — e.g., summarizing long documents into key points] - [TASK 3 — e.g., turning rough notes into organized action lists] Please avoid [ANYTHING YOU DON'T WANT — e.g., overly long responses / unnecessary caveats / starting every response with "Certainly!"]. If I ask you to review something I wrote, give me honest feedback. I'd rather know what isn't working than get empty praise.
Refine

Rambling Boss Email — Extract Action Items

Paste this into your AI tool and ask it to extract action items, due dates, and who's responsible. Try a follow-up: "Now rank them by urgency."

📧 Raw Email — Paste into AI
From: Gary Thibodaux <gary@thibodauxoperations.com> To: Team Subject: few things — READ THIS Hey everyone, Hope y'all are good. Quick update — my toe is doing better, still looks like a raw pork chop but the doctor says it's healing so that's something. Anyway that's not why I'm writing. So I was thinking about the Henderson account. Actually wait, before that — did anybody pick up the extra chairs from the storage unit? We need those for the Thursday thing. If not, somebody needs to do that Wednesday morning before noon because Randy needs the truck back by 1. Okay, Henderson. We need to send them a revised proposal. I think Denise was working on that? Denise, if you're reading this, the deadline is end of next week — so Friday the 14th. Make sure you loop in Marcus before you send it because he talked to their guy at the conference and has some notes. This is a big one, don't let it slip. Also — the invoices from March are still sitting out there. Kevin, can you follow up with Broussard and the two Metairie accounts? Just a friendly nudge, nothing aggressive. Try to get it done by this Friday if you can. My wife says I need to stop letting money sit like that. Honestly she's probably right — her potato soup alone is worth listening to. One more thing and then I'll let you go — the website. I don't love it. I know we just updated it eight months ago but something feels off. Can someone — maybe Tara? — just do a quick pass and write up what they think could be better? Nothing formal, just honest thoughts. No rush on that one, maybe next week sometime. Oh, and if anyone wants the leftover boudin from the Breaux Bridge trip it's in the fridge. First come first served. I put my name on the good crackers though, so don't touch those. Gary
💬 Suggested Prompts
1. Read this email and extract every action item. For each one, list: who is responsible, what they need to do, and the deadline if one is mentioned. 2. Now rank them by urgency — most time-sensitive first. 3. Draft a short reply from me (Kevin) confirming what I'll handle.
Organize

Messy Client List — Spreadsheet Exercise

Real-world messy data: inconsistent formatting, mixed capitalization, missing fields, and a mystery note at the bottom. Ask AI to describe what's wrong with it, then produce a cleaned version.

NAME  phone  Email Address COMPANY NAMELast Contact$ Value statusNotes / Follow up??
Nancy Fontenot985-555-0142nancy@nancysfancypansies.comNancy's Fancy Pansies3/15/25$1,200.00ActiveSend contract renewal
bob thibodaux9855550198BOB@THIBODAUXPLUMBING.COMthibodaux plumbingMarch 3rd800active
MICHELLE, LANDRY(985) 555-0167mlandry@gmail.com[blank]ASAP$450FOLLOW UPcalled twice no answer
Guidry, Ray985.555.0134ray.guidry@coastalrealty.netCoastal Realty Group1/8/2025$3,500.00Closed - WonReferred by Nancy F.
Jennifer  Arceneaux985-555-0155j.arceneaux@yahoo.comSelf EmployedFebTBDmaybe??
D. Broussard(985)5550122dbroussard@broussardhvac.comBroussard HVAC & Cooling12/19/24$2,100activeWants quarterly check-ins
leblanc, stacey m.985 555 0189Stacey.LeBlanc@LeBlanc-Insurance.COMLeBlanc Insurance LLCTBD$975.00New Leadmet at chamber event
FONTENOT JR, MARCUS985-555-0101marcusf@gmail.com[blank]4/2/251500Activeson of nancy f - referred
Trahan, Kim985.555.0177kim@trahanwellness.netTrahan Wellness & SpaMarch 22$650.00active
chris m.[missing]chrismoreau@Moreau Constructionsometime last month$4,200.00In ProgressBIG JOB - dont lose this one!!
Duplessis, Angela R.985-555-0144angela.duplessis@dpmail.netDuplessis Family Dental2/28/25$1,800Active - UpsellAsk about adding 2nd location
pierre(985) 555-0166pierre.boudreaux@outlook.com  Boudreaux & Sons Roofing  ??TBDcold?spoke at bni. forgot to log date
** updated by Kayla 4/10 **
USE THIS LIST FOR MAILCHIMP???
💬 Suggested Prompts
1. I'm going to paste a client spreadsheet. Before cleaning it, describe every formatting problem you can find. 2. Now produce a cleaned version: standardize names (First Last), phone numbers (XXX-XXX-XXXX), capitalize status values consistently, and flag any rows with missing or incomplete data. 3. Based on this list, which clients should I follow up with most urgently and why?
Rewrite

Dense Scholarly Article — Rewrite for Readability

Ask AI to rewrite this in a magazine or newsletter style — clear, engaging, no jargon. Then compare the two versions side by side and ask the room what changed.

📄 Original — Paste into AI
Organizational Adaptation Mechanisms in the Context of Generative Artificial Intelligence Integration: A Structural-Functionalist Inquiry Abstract The present investigation interrogates the extent to which generative artificial intelligence (GAI) technologies precipitate substantive organizational restructuring, with particular attention to the bidirectional interplay between sociotechnical affordances and incumbent institutional logics. Drawing on a synthesis of neo-institutional theory, structuration frameworks, and cognitive load literature, the authors advance a provisional typology of adaptive responses observed across heterogeneous organizational contexts. The latter addresses the former but fails to confirm in situ whether such adaptations constitute genuine transformational episodes or merely isomorphic mimicry in response to exogenous legitimacy pressures. Empirical grounding remains aspirational. Introduction Extant scholarship on the diffusion of disruptive computational technologies has, with notable consistency, foregrounded the deterministic proclivities embedded within techno-optimist discursive formations while concomitantly undertheorizing the agentive capacities of human organizational actors to negotiate, resist, or selectively appropriate technological affordances. The advent of large language model (LLM)-based systems — of which GAI constitutes the most commercially salient instantiation — has reanimated longstanding debates regarding the ontological status of organizational change and the epistemological adequacy of prevailing measurement instruments. It bears noting that the conceptual apparatus deployed herein is not without its critics. The operationalization of "integration depth" as a latent construct, while theoretically defensible, eludes consensual methodological treatment. Furthermore, the interstitial dynamics between human-AI collaborative configurations and pre-existing bureaucratic stratification remain underspecified in the available literature, a lacuna the present inquiry endeavors, if not to resolve, then at minimum to render more legible. The locus of inquiry thus gravitates toward three constitutive questions: first, whether GAI integration functions as an exogenous perturbation upon pre-stabilized organizational equilibria; second, whether the mediation of cognitive offloading through GAI systems modifies the phenomenological experience of discretionary labor; and third, whether the sedimented normative orders within which organizations are embedded constrain or, conversely, potentiate the velocity and directionality of GAI-induced transformation. Preliminary Findings Preliminary data, obtained via semi-structured interviews conducted across fourteen purposively sampled organizational units, intimate that adoption trajectories are non-linear, context-sensitive, and frequently contradictory. Organizations exhibiting higher pre-existing technological maturity demonstrated a markedly attenuated capacity for disruptive reorientation — a finding consonant with path dependency theorizations but discordant with vendor-proffered adoption narratives. Conversely, organizationally nascent entities, unburdened by legacy infrastructural sediment, exhibited pronounced receptivity to GAI affordances, albeit with attendant risks of uncritical instrumentalization. The phenomenological dimension of the inquiry surfaced a recurring motif: practitioners frequently characterized GAI not as a categorical rupture with antecedent work modalities but rather as a qualitative intensification of extant cognitive demands, particularly in domains requiring iterative judgment under conditions of epistemic uncertainty. This characterization, while resistant to straightforward operationalization, nonetheless warrants sustained theoretical attention. Conclusion The foregoing analysis, necessarily provisional given the nascent empirical base, suggests that the relationship between GAI integration and organizational transformation is neither deterministic nor epiphenomenal but rather constitutively mediated by the relational configurations and normative sedimentations specific to each organizational field. Future inquiry would benefit from longitudinal methodological architectures capable of tracking transformation over temporally extended intervals, as well as from greater attentiveness to the micro-interactional dynamics through which macro-structural shifts are enacted, resisted, or partially absorbed into pre-existing institutional grammars.
💬 Suggested Prompts
1. Rewrite this academic article in a clear, engaging style for a business magazine like Inc. or Fast Company. Aim for an 8th-grade reading level. Cut the jargon entirely. 2. What is this article actually saying? Give me the core argument in 3 sentences, in plain English. 3. Write a punchy 2-sentence intro that would make a busy manager actually want to read this.
Summarize

Meeting Transcript — Summarize & Assign Action Items

Paste this into your AI tool and ask for a meeting summary and a list of action items assigned to each person by name.

🎙 Transcript — Paste into AI
Meeting: Quarterly Operations Check-In Date: June 12, 2025 Attendees: Sandra (Operations Manager), Derek (Sales), Priya (Marketing), Tom (Finance) --- Sandra: Alright, let's get started. We've got a lot to cover. Derek, where are we on the Henderson account? Derek: Henderson is basically done — we sent the revised proposal Tuesday and they said they'd have an answer by end of this week. I feel good about it. The one thing I need from Priya is whether we're including that case study in the packet, because I told them we might have something. Priya: The case study is done but legal hasn't cleared it yet. I'll ping them today. I can probably have something to you by Thursday, Derek. Derek: That works. As long as it's before Friday morning. Sandra: Good. Tom, the March invoices — where are we? Tom: Still sitting. I followed up with two of the three accounts last week, but Broussard hasn't responded. I'm going to call them directly this afternoon. The other two said end of month, so I'll flag those if they don't come through by the 30th. Sandra: Flag me if Broussard doesn't respond by tomorrow — I'll escalate. What's the total exposure? Tom: About $18,400 across the three. Sandra: Alright. Priya, the website refresh — last month you said you were pulling together notes on what's not working. Did that happen? Priya: Partially. I have notes but haven't put them into anything shareable yet. I can have a one-pager to you by next Wednesday. Sandra: Let's say Wednesday the 18th. Derek, anything on pipeline besides Henderson? Derek: Two new leads from the chamber event last week — I'll have them logged in the CRM by end of day today. And I want to follow up with Trahan Wellness because Kim mentioned she might be expanding. I'll reach out this week. Sandra: Good. Make sure Tom knows about Trahan so finance can flag it for the forecast. Derek: Will do. Tom: One thing I want to flag — we're light on Q3 projections. I'd like to put together a one-page summary for Sandra by the 20th so she has it before the board call. Sandra: Actually, let's move that to the 17th — I want a day to review before the call. Tom: Done. EOD the 17th. Sandra: Anything else before we wrap? Priya: Just one — I want to grab 30 minutes with Derek this week to align on Henderson messaging before the proposal goes out. Derek: Yeah, just grab time on my calendar. Sandra: Good meeting everyone. Same time in two weeks.
💬 Suggested Prompts
1. Read this meeting transcript and produce a short summary — 3 to 5 sentences covering what was decided and what the main topics were. 2. Now list every action item. For each one: who is responsible, what they need to do, and the deadline. 3. Draft a follow-up email from Sandra to the full group recapping the key decisions and next steps.