How I AI with Peter Bartell

In this quick-hit episode, host Dave sits down with Peter Bartell, Employer Relations Partner III on the Career Services team at Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU), to talk about how he uses Microsoft Copilot and AI tools in his day-to-day work.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:09

Hey everybody, and thank you for joining us on our second episode of How I AI. This is a kind of quick hit episode, just talking with folks from around Southern Hampshire University about how they use AI in their day-to-day work and daily lives. I'm here with Peter Bartel, Employer Relations Partner 3 with the Career Services team. Peter, thank you so much for taking the time to join me today.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Yeah, no problem. Thanks for having me. And it's been good getting to know you and some of the work you all do in AI around Copilot the past few months.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

Peter has been one of our codies on the copilot rollout and has been just a tremendous asset. So we thought that it would be great to bring Peter into this discussion to hear a little bit more about how you use AI. So do you remember how you first got started using these tools? Was it the copilot rollout, or were you experimenting with them beforehand? And was there like a specific problem or moment that kind of kicked you into using these?

SPEAKER_00 1:10

I started when I was invited by Amy Ames and Denise Cave on the career team to be part of the Copilot. Um a moment that really got me started using it in my day-to-day work and kind of prompted the acceleration on how powerful all caps that copilot is was a session with Peg Aubin. Um, a lot of people know Peg is an Excel master, knows a lot of things with it, specifically as well around how to synergize it with Copilot. So the moment specifically within that training was figuring out that I didn't need to do a formula anymore if there were two cells I wanted to merge. So a single basic example for me was merging the first and last name columns that I had on a certain Excel sheet. Peg was able to coach us through how to merge them in like two seconds. And that's when I had that aha moment of like, okay, I should probably like really try to learn in my day-to-day how I can leverage this in my work and how I can help my colleagues leverage it in their work in components beyond just Excel and all things, all facets of Copilot, which as you know, it's in all Microsoft applications, pretty much Excel, PowerPoint, Word, Teams that SNHU has given us access to. So that would be the moment.

SPEAKER_01 2:35

Yeah, I think that's great. And you know, I think you we hear that a lot from folks, like these like little things that don't sound like like you know, merging column is not like this huge revolutionary thing, but sometimes like we get these, like a just a little thing that would take us, like be a little speed bump in our day, right? And like being able to the offload some of that to an AI tool, like you get that wow, I didn't know it worked like this. I didn't know I could do that. I think a lot of folks approach it to get started as basically Google, like asking questions. Okay, that's an answer. But I think when you really start to leverage it with your work, like you're saying, like you can start to see like the application of it, like, oh, okay, this is more than just a search engine. Because I remember using it in the same way. If I wanted to merge columns, I would go to whatever chat GPT and it'd be like, chat, how do I merge columns in Excel? And now it's a lot easier, right? You just go to copilot and you're like merge these things, and it's like got it for you, no problem. So now that you're you've been using it for a while now, I think. What does a typical day or a week look like for you and using it? What are some common tasks that you use copilot for or any of the other tools, right?

SPEAKER_00 3:44

So I have like bore and a half here. The half is what I'll start with, actually. And personalized instructions, and that's something Dave, you actually taught us in a co-pilot office hours session that codies were present at and non-codeys are able to be present at. But personalized instructions within the MS365 app allows you to prompt coach copilot anytime it prompts you in the future, or you prompt it in the future, to structure its output to you a certain way. And that's something I really appreciated learning from you. And not only did Dave tell us how to navigate to that and the benefit of it, but he also gave us a template that he used for his customized instructions. So I actually largely use that and was able to put it in there. And and that, for example, is things like I like my instructions and bulleted lists, right? If if I prompt something and ask something, or I don't like to use m-dashes, don't use that in the outputs, etc. And I'll tell you what, I I did that and it it has not given me m-dashes one time in like the you know, over a hundred times I've used it, prompted it now. So that would be the half, the holes. The first one is Excel. So going back to like Peg in the first part, she kind of prompted that acceleration for Excel use, way beyond now just merging two columns, right? But realizing that was the moment where I'm like, ah, this thing is super powerful. Let me now go to Excel for things that are more advanced in my work, like reporting, right? Like we work off of Handshake, which is a platform we coach students to for networking and a huge tool to attend events, meet with employers, get educated around the types of opportunities they have, et cetera. Within that, obviously, we get a lot of analytical data that we can use in certain ways. And we post a lot of resources on their social media feed on Handshake, et cetera. And being able to use Excel in that way to pull and see reports in different ways surrounding that platform and other aspects of my work has been very, very, very helpful. Another thing I like with Excel, and this is most, I think most of all, you can correct me, co-pilot tools. You can like tell it, show me additional prompt ideas, we'll call it. I don't know the best term, but that I haven't thought of that might be good based on what I've already given you that I might like to see. And that's really neat because it'll give you like five or ten additional. And I'm like, huh, I hadn't really thought of that, but it might be cool to see, you know, for my so handshake the posts, like how my Wednesdays are performing, how my Thursdays are performing in like different ways that use this or X or Y or Z topic. It's really intense. So, and I really like it, intense in a good way. PowerPoint would be the second thing, presentations and career services, we give them a lot. So, also being able to sync and use the SNHU brand guide with that template, which Peg trained us on a while ago in the office hours and how we can manually input that. And I know you guys are doing great work to auto-sync it as well at some point for SNHU career. But the PowerPoint and being able to use Copilot within that is tremendous. And as a disclaimer, like this is beyond like my main uses, but just to like like as advice I can give in my work is like use it as an aid. I don't use it in areas where I'm like supremely competent in or feel like I have it, right? Like crafting an email or a team's message. Like, I don't use it for that for the most part. But areas that aren't my biggest strengths where I feel like I could use an aid on enhancement, maybe like an Excel, right? I'm not a formula guru. Maybe things like PowerPoint, where I'm not the most creative. I'm pretty good at it, but I could use an aid, right? A little bit of assistance, maybe a different look. Copile is very helpful for that. So for PowerPoint, I like to type in word just like what I'm gonna say, right? In a bullet pointed list. And like I have six points, and I say, and then I prompt Copilot and say, Hey, give me this in a three PowerPoint slide deck, and it does it within like a minute max, which is impressive. The Copilot 365 app is super vital for me. I'd say I probably use this the most in my work, and I use this a lot. This is essentially Google, but internal to SNHU, as long as keywords you're using it in the work tab for SNHU, which is important. That means it's all internal, it's secured, and I can search like, hey, how many hours of PTO do we accrue every two weeks, right? There's an exempt and a non-exempt staff member if you were looking for that or faculty. Like, what's the mileage reimbursement rate, right? Like if you're using your professional development funds here at SNHU and you're trying to kind of calculate that, all of this stuff, there's a lot of things on there I like with the search because they're findable in SharePoint or somewhere else within SNHU, but it's a huge time saver. And also, I use the 365 Copilot app if I'm trying to recall a conversation I have with a colleague or a live meeting that I had with my team, and I can't remember exactly what was said or how I communicated with somebody or what we had decided on. I can literally, like I had a colleague the other day, I had to type in a company name and their name, and it just searched the compound, pulled it right up. Like, what did we decide on for X? And it told me you decided Z. Great. That's what I needed to know. And that was much more of a time saver versus pinging my colleague and then having to wait for them to get back to me, which is longer than a co-pilot prompt. And also I'm taking away them as a resource to the student and me as a resource to the student because at the end of the day, that's what it all centers around. If we can kind of consolidate that into a co-pilot use, which is what happened. Like I love that. So the co-pilot app that helps with my event descriptions as well. Using that app, we talked about the personalized instructions in career services, employee relations. We host a lot of events featuring employers to get in front of our students and alumni here at SNHU. And part of those descriptions, we can come up with creative titles and just descriptions in general that would be more catchy to students, right? Kind of like if you were doing a podcast or a YouTube or something like that. You can write SEO, right? For public knowledge. Well, this is largely internal for students and alumni, but that'll help to write descriptions and tailor it. And it even gives you like, do you want this catered more friendly towards SNHU students and alumni? Yes. You can just prompt that into the 365 and it'll give us like a paragraph description that we think looks pretty good, and we can fine-tune it from there. So those are the main uses for me in my day-to-day workflow.

SPEAKER_01 10:56

Well, those are great. I love kind of how varied they are. A lot of what you're saying, I would consider as best practices, right? Like not just using copilot for everything, using it for a certain set of things. I would say I do the same thing. Like I rarely use it to write emails or teams because that's something that I kind of enjoy doing. Like I don't mind that. But yeah, like you with Excel, like that's something I struggle with. And PowerPoint too, like I tend to be like a plain slide bullet point kind of guy, which I know is not best practices. So it's nice to throw it at Copilot and be like, hey, can you make this a little pretty? And it's like, yeah, sure, no problem. And most of the time it does a great chill.

unknown 11:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:36

Um, these are very great use cases. One last question for you. If a colleague at SNU were to come up to you today, tomorrow, whatever, and say that they're interested in starting to use AI, what would your recommendation be? Where would you start them?

SPEAKER_00 11:53

David, it's what you all gave us. I think you said 10 uses a week. Try to make that a goal or something around that. And that's what I've done to start. So when you start, uh do it for basic uses, like we talked about Excel, right? Like splitting a column, first and last name, and merging that column into one. But then like that allows you to get more comfortable with the product, which I think is the main goal, right? It's like if you get a new car, well, you know the car's new, but you really want to drive it five or ten times, figure out what the cruise control is, to figure out where the volume is on your sound, like all the mechanisms and the placement and everything. And once you ride it the 11th time, you're good to go. It's much more efficient. So then you can start diving into more intricate like reporting. Like, you don't need to use it for something just to get familiar with it. You can know how to use it now efficiently. So when you do need that in-depth Excel report, for example, you can prompt it that way. If you need a more creative PowerPoint, know exactly what you want, you can know how to be descriptive and prompt it. So 10 practices a week is what I would recommend. And just rinse and repeat. And on that, go to the office hours. If you can't make an office hours, they're all recorded. Consistency, all caps in that arena has been very helpful for me. I'll walk in with an expectation, maybe based on the topic you all are going to share, and I'll walk out with five other things in addition, which is great, because you all open the floor and it's just best and worst practice scenarios, mostly best, which is great. And questions and things that I didn't know and weren't intended by you guys or us, right? But we walk away with that, which is great.

SPEAKER_01 13:38

So I think that's a great, yeah, it's a great starting point. I love that analogy too of the car because I do think that, like, I mean, I've had new cars like to me, and you're the first couple times, right? But you're very much in technical mode. Like, where's the button to click? Where's the this thing is slightly distant than the car that I had before? And so I just really like that analogy because very much when you start using Copilot or any AI tool, it is very much like, okay, what do I click? How do I write this thing? You're thinking very technically, but once you get past that initial hurdle, then it becomes more of like a I guess like a flow. Like you're like, okay, this will work well for this work that I'm doing. And I already know how I'm gonna go about approaching this problem. And so then it just becomes built in. It's sort of like opening up email and Teams to start the day and checking your messages. It just becomes something that you do, it becomes a habit. And so I really love that analogy. I think that's uh I might actually borrow that in the future. So thank you. Sounds good. Um, Peter, thank you so much for taking the time. I know you're a busy guy, so I really appreciate you being here to chat today a little bit about your AI use. And I'm looking forward to seeing you at more office hours. And thank you for everything that you do.

SPEAKER_00 14:54

Thanks, Dave. See you soon. Bye.