A friend asked me about hackathon: instead of explaining what it is, she encouraged me to walk her through the journey in a story, making it visual and memorable. I came up 3 characters, a participant, a mentor, and a judge and talked about their interactions. Well, it didn’t impress her, more accurately, it’s more a telling than showing, not quite a story. I went back to the drawing board: reviewing notes from story-telling book and class and working on a new story.
The next day morning, the friend said she has a gift for me; she handed me her phone. On the screen, I read a story about an aviation tech company facing challenge and reaching out to MIT, together they came up a hackathon to seek ideas and innovators, then implement the top idea that creates significant values. The story was colorful, interesting, and well representing the essences of hackathon…written by ChatGPT. Guess how long it took, in collaboration with my friend? About 15 minutes.
WoW! It’s not ChatGPT shall do our work, rather how can we ask the right questions and creatively leverage its amazing capabilities to explore new areas, augment our skills, and expand learning.