282: AI Conference | Using Gemini to Create Presentations, Handouts, and Online Courses with Dr. Terica Pearson

Transcript

Is your small business growing faster than you can keep up with? It might be time to grow your team, document key processes, and make sure you’re using the right technologies to scale up operations. In other words, your company might need business infrastructure. At Equilibria, Incorporated we specialize in building business infrastructure.

Equilibria is proud to sponsor this special season which features an AI audio conference to advance your knowledge of business infrastructure. We hope you enjoy this episode!

It’s Season 22 here on the Business Infrastructure podcast. I’m Alicia Butler Pierre and on this show, we share operational tips,  strategies, and tactics to help you cure any backoffice blues you might be experiencing.

It’s hard to believe that our AI audio conference is almost over! We have two more sessions for you before this season ends. This episode features our final demo and it comes from my good friend and colleague.

As you listen to this episode, keep in mind our disclaimer – the nature of AI technology is changing fast, so it’s possible some of the information that you hear in this episode might be dated since the original recording. We encourage you to learn what you can, test it, and most importantly have fun! And now for our next presentation….

This is Episode 282 – Using Gemini to Create Presentations, Handouts, and Online Courses with Dr. Terica Pearson.

Hello, everyone! How are you all doing? Thank you, thank you! Please, sit down. We’re not done yet. Almost, but not quite yet. This is our last demo for  the conference and it features none other than Dr. Terica Pearson or Dr. T as she is affectionately called.

I’ve known her for 19 years and today she’s just as passionate about small businesses, insurance, technology, and education as she was when I first met her. In fact, this computer programmer turned entrepreneur recently launched a new business called Business Blazers as a spin off from her other company Pearson Consulting Group. It’s dedicated to a wholistic form of entrepreneurial training that shows the interconnectivity of things like business insurance, accounting, and operations.

So with that in mind, she’s also built a state-of-the-art training classroom and podcast studio. And it’s at that studio, where we pre-recorded the demo you’re about to watch here on the big screen. So, please, we ask for your full attention as I play this prerecording for you. Thank you.

 

Welcome to my demo. My name is Dr. Terica Pearson. I am the CEO of Pearson Consulting Group. And today we’re going to talk about how to use Gemini to create business presentations . Let’s get started.

And we are here live inside Dr. T’s studio. Terica, I’m so proud of you! It’s so beautiful! When we first met you were working as an insurance agent and look at you now. You have a thriving insurance agency. How long has it been?

We started in 2015. So this is nine years that we’ve been in operations. We specialize in really catering to our small to mid-sized businesses, making sure that they’re properly insured, making sure they also have resources beyond insurance, like accounting, understanding business banking, understanding how to get your company ready for business credit. So it goes beyond just the insurance. With the insurance itself, we want to make sure that you are properly covered and understanding your particular business to create a business coverage package that’s solely created around your particular business and what you do. Because every business is different.

They’re unique, so they need different types of coverages. And sometimes some of our entrepreneurs don’t even know what coverages they need. So we always start with educating first to let them know, Hey, this is the insurance that you need. Even if they decide to get
insurance with someone else. Make sure that you have these main coverages to protect your business, because it’s all about  transferring the risk.

How much of the risk that you want to be responsible for and how much of the risk do you want the insurance company be responsible for? And that’s how you have to look at it. But that’s my passion is making sure that our businesses are properly protected. Not only that, protecting the owner with insurance, with retirement, as well as protecting the employees with the same thing with insurance, retirement. Still continuous education of making sure that they understand certain things and certain processes. So that’s what I’m mostly excited about.

And that’s one thing I’ve always appreciated about working with you – it’s that education piece. Speaking of education, I know you stay on the cutting edge of technology. How did you discover Gemini?

Thank you. I am a techie, but also I like being simple. When we start hearing the trend or the buzz about AI the first thing really coming out was Chat GPT? And I was like, I know it has to be other ones on there. I checked out Chat GPT when it first came out. To me, it was complex a little bit as far as making sure that you have to be succinct in the command that you gave it?

That is true.

Yeah. And although I have these degrees and everything, I still like things simple. I’m not into all the technical words and things like that. And so I was just on Google one day and I saw Bard, and it was still in the beta testing phase. And so I said, “Let me go in here and play with it.” And it was just a simple thing where I was like, Create a definition for insurance, something simple as that. And it gave the definition and so many other options for it.

And I was like, Okay, this is cool! Let me play with it a little bit more. And I was like, Create a presentation to teach entrepreneurs on the importance of standard operating procedures. And it created what each slide should discuss. But now the difference between the two is that Bard was very thorough with it, where Chat GPT just said, You maybe want to talk about this. You maybe want to talk about that Bard now Gemini actually created the presentation.

So, let me get this straight. Chat GPT only told you what to consider including in your presentation, but Bard, excuse me, Gemini, actually told you what information to include in each slide of your presentation. It sounds like Gemini interpreted your command literally.

Yeah, with AI, you have to give it a command. Even with Chat GPT, you have to be specific. I haven’t used it since then, but I heard it has grown and updated a lot, and so I might check it. But I love Gemini.

So, are you using Gemini to primarily develop training for new clients or existing clients?

Existing clients as well as the community as far as presentations to educate them. Where for productivity and for time constraint, I’d rather use that and you still have to check the work to make sure. But so far when using Gemini, it has been, I would say, 80% accurate.

And is it that you come up with a topic for a specific training and then you invite your existing clients to participate in a live or pre-recorded online webinar?

Or we actually have a workshop here at the office. The presentation is already made. So let’s just say cybersecurity. I want to talk about the background, probably get some stats on there. So what I would do is I’d go into Gemini first and say, Provide an overview of a breakdown of the percentage of cybersecurity attacks within the last five. Do it, create it as a presentation.

And it affects all businesses – the importance of having cybersecurity coverage, insurance coverage for a business.

Okay, that’s the key! The specific prompt to create it as a presentation.

And with that, what probably take me about 3 hours to do, to do all that research and put it together. That would do it in like a matter of seconds. Because that’s that gen AI where it’s getting data that’s already out there and bringing it to you.

It just blew my mind. Well, then I put it in PowerPoint and then start designing in PowerPoint. If you ever done PowerPoint, they do have design ideas in there where if you wanted to give you certain ideas to spruce up your design to make it more professional and  things like that.

And this is an AI tool in itself – PowerPoint’s ability to make design suggestions. Can you show me how you use Gemini to create a presentation?

Okay. So we’re going to do it on cybersecurity. How about that?

That’s a good idea because if it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have known to get cybersecurity insurance for my business. I didn’t know it existed.

It’s called cyber liability. So say here that I’m here.

Make sure you log into your Google account so it can save your history. So you can go back to it, um. I’m going to type in just to give you. I’ll probably just type in Gemini. Gemini, Google, see what comes up. And then I come here to the Click here for the Gemini chat. And they do have an upgrade one. I used a free one.

Create a PowerPoint presentation of cybersecurity discussing cyber attacks. In the past five years for businesses. And I’m going to do this include what statistics and let’s see what comes that.

Whoa! That was fast! Before we go on let me explain what you just did…for those of you watching or listening to us, Dr. T just did a search on Google Chrome for “Google Gemini.” There we saw the website for Gemini.Google.com. She made sure she was already signed into Google, but if you aren’t then the main screen of Gemini will prompt you to do so. You must be logged in to use Gemini, even if you’re using the free version.

Once logged in, that’s when you’ll see the clean user interface you’ve come to expect with Google. There’s a button that says, “Chat with Gemini.” That’s what Dr. T clicked to type in the prompt you just heard.

Terica…I was going to joke and suggest we play the Jeopardy! theme song while we waited on Gemini to respond to your prompt, but it produced the results so fast!

It’s so fast. And so you see how it gives us cyberattacks on businesses the past five years. They also give you the title slide…threat cyberattacks on businesses in the past five years. A graph that depicted the rising trend. Where you can find that graph also gives you speaker notes.

Again, for those of you watching us and/or listening to us, Gemini not only gave recommendations for how the information should be organized on each slide of Dr. T’s presentation, but it also suggested a title for each slide of the presentation as well as images to consider including. And check this out – it even provided speaker notes! This is incredible!

It gives you speaker notes, also gives you the common types of cyberattacks, phishing, ransomware, malware. And this has a graph showing. So it tells you probably want to put a graph here and then a graph showing a decline in trend. But one of the things I like about this, too, is that that’s one draft, right? They give you about three drafts, and so you can look and show another draft. You can look at draft two to see if that’s one you want to look at. It looks like that much didn’t change. Do you see it has, like, the data in here.

Terica, give me a moment to describe what you just did. I see the words, “Show Drafts” in the upper right corner of the results that Gemini produced. You clicked those words and then a second draft of results appeared on the screen. This draft included actual numbers or statistics. And that’s what Dr. T means when she says there’s data in this version. Now, Terica, I’m curious when you typed in the prompt, did you also include the number of slides you wanted for your presentation, or did Gemini come up with that on its own?

No. It just came up with that on its own. And this one is a whole one. The growing threat of cyberattacks on businesses in the past years. Then you see it has the amount.

Yes.

You see it already has the graphic on there for you.

Now, why is it that this draft includes the graphics, but the original draft that you saw did not? 

Because you probably want to get your own, your own graphics.

Okay, so it’s giving you different options?

Exactly. Giving you different options. So then what I do is I take this information, copy and paste it, and put it in PowerPoint.

Okay, so you opened Microsoft PowerPoint, and copied suggested information from Gemini, per slide, and then pasted it into PowerPoint. I have a question for you – do you first come up with a rough outline of what you want to talk about in your presentation? I’m asking because my educated guess is that you want something longer than five slides if you’re training others. Does that outline include broad topics and then you do a search in Gemini on each of those topics and then you have a more comprehensive presentation that’s maybe 20 to 25 pages or slides?

Right, so with this I use it more for research and to give me ideas of how my bullet points should be. And then what I do is I dissect it and take out and use the information that I know is going to be important.

Ah, got it! That makes sense. Does Gemini provide the source of the material that it drew information from?

I haven’t noticed it, but let’s see if we can say, Create a PowerPoint presentation discussing cyber, cyber attacks can include sources. So it’s all about giving it commands to get the output that you need for it to happen. See right here? It has that source.

Yes, I can see on the screen where it cites the source of information in the Speaker Notes section. This is important because, as you know, plagiarism is a very real, very serious threat as a result of these generative AI tools. The New York Times recently filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Open AI (the makers of Chat GPT) and Microsoft. So, to be clear, unlike Perplexity AI, Gemini will not automatically cite the source. You have to prompt it to give you the source.

Because it mostly use gen AI, where it’s just pulling data and information and images and things like that. And so you have to like tell it, Okay, include the source. And still, again, I still make this disclaimer, you still check the source to make sure that even if it gives the source, just check to make sure that it’s accurate as much as you know it should be, because this is still what computer?

It’s not going to be 100% perfect or accurate. Again, I use this tool mostly to make sure I’m being more productive and decrease my time on it. So it’s not taking me a couple of days to put together these presentations where I can maybe an hour or two, because I’m still going to look at the information and see if it’s something that pertains to what I’m doing. But it doesn’t take me as long as to put that presentation together and to make sure that I’m using my time more wisely.

Speaking of using your time more wisely, let’s talk about the people aspect of business infrastructure which as we both know is a system for linking people, processes, and tools to scale in a repeatable, sustainable, and profitable way. You’ve shared your process for creating a presentation as well as the tools you use. I’m curious – did you have any assistance in putting together your presentations before you started using Gemini?

No.

Okay. So, you were doing it all yourself. Now you have this digital assistant, if you will.

Exactly.

And anything that frees up our time is an opportunity to focus on revenue-generating activities.

Also, I meant to tell you too, you can also create handouts in there. Handout exercises. Yes.

Really?

Right. You can say, Create a learning exercise on such and such. That’s particularly for entrepreneurs, and they can just break down the time it’s going to take to do it, the materials, all of that.

Can you quickly share with us what those commands would be?

Create a learning exercise for a particular topic that you wanted to do.

For a blank, and then the other one was…

Create a handout for a particular topic.

Just when I thought there’s nothing else that could wow me, you’ve managed to prove me wrong! Okay, to be clear you have  demonstrated three commands: 1) Create a presentation for… 2) Create a learning exercise for…and 3) Create a handout for…. This is excellent! I understand how this can be useful if you’re creating an online course too.

Yes.

Oh, I just got a warning from our production crew here – our time is almost up. Before we close Terica can you share with us the resources you use to keep your finger on the pulse of AI technology?

I have a subscription to Apple News, so I subscribe to certain magazines on there. Also, I do some Google searches as well. See what’s going on. It’s a thing that you can subscribe to where Google sends you weekly updates on certain alerts. Google Alerts. I use Google Alerts as well as magazines about IT, Insurance, business that comes in the mail as well as when I’m out networking.

I just don’t network for insurance. I probably go to a networking event that’s talking about the latest technology. I love going to those – Chamber of Commerce. But most of the time in the morning when I’m up, about 03:00 in the morning, I’m mostly on Apple news, reading stuff. What I’m following right now is Fox Business, Barons, Entrepreneur, Inc., Fast Company.

Again, that’s what I love about you! You remain curious and open to learning new things. And then you try out those new things and share that knowledge with others.

Right. But that goes towards my thing – Educate, Equip, Engage and Empower. So, educate myself, engage myself to apply it and then equip…then engage other people and then empower them. Hey, try it. Be open to it,

Before we go, please talk about your company, Pearson Consulting Group. Where do you offer insurance services in the U.S.?

For business insurance, we operate in all 50 states.

it depends on the type of business, but we can mostly write in every state for business insurance. To learn more about upcoming workshops, you can go to our website, pearsonconsultinggroupllc.com. Also, our actual training website is businessblazers.com. And
you can actually go there now to be put on our email list for updates on businessblazers.com.

Terica, Dr. T, I can’t thank you enough for allowing us to film and record here in your beautiful studio! And thank you for the Gemini demo. I really appreciate it!

Thank you. Thank you. This was fun!

Okay, everybody…what did you think? That’s pretty cool, right?

Well that concludes the demo portion of our AI audio conference. We have our closing keynote speaker up next. But before you leave the room, please make sure you also check out Dr. T’s podcast. It’s called the B Lounge. We’ll have links to that and the other resources she shared available for quick access at BusinessInfrastructure.TV. Again, that’s BusinessInfrastructure.TV.

Thank you for listening and attending! If you enjoyed this episode, if you enjoyed this demo, then please subscribe and give us a five-star rating and review.

As a reminder, the next episode will feature the final speaker of our AI audio conference. She’s also a technologist and what she’s going to share how she and her team built their own AI tool. She’s also going to explain how you can build the right team to help you do the same thing.

Make sure to come back to the place wherever you’re listening to this episode, so that you don’t miss this closing session! Until then, remember to stay focused and be encouraged. This entrepreneurial journey is a marathon and not a sprint.

This episode was produced by me, Alicia Butler Pierre. Audio editing by Olanrewaju Adeyemo. Voiceover by Kenya A. Moses. Original score and sound design by Sabor! Music Enterprises. Video editing by Gladiola Films. A special thank you to Grant Revilla for creating the show notes.

This is the Business Infrastructure – Curing Back-Office Blues podcast.