AI for Public Sector Leaders

A digital companion to the physical playing cards

How to prompt like a pro

As you continue experimenting with different gen AI applications, you'll quickly discover the crucial role of prompting. Developing your prompting skills is essential for achieving optimal results and tailoring generative AI to your specific needs. The key to using gen AI tooling is to ensure you get experience prompting.

Below are a few exercises to get you started.

Try it: Hands-on with the Gemini app

Try your own prompts by going to Gemini and following these steps:

Create: Ask Gemini to write text for a new website for your product.
Summarize: Ask Gemini to summarize a long document or email you have to read for work.
Discover: Ask Gemini to research a topic for you.

Try it: Help desk hero

Imagine you're the manager of a public service agency, and your citizen request portal is overwhelmed. Your goal is to use the power of Gemini to categorize these tickets efficiently.

The categories are:

Fee/Payment Issue
Application Status Inquiry
Website/Portal Technical Issue
Service Improvement Suggestion
Information Request

The task

Open Gemini and classify this ticket using different prompting techniques below.

Here's the tricky ticket: "My portal account isn't showing the expedited processing I was approved for on my permit. It's still showing the standard timeline. Can you help?"

Zero-shot prompting

Imagine Gemini has never seen a support ticket. How would you phrase a prompt to get Gemini to categorize this ticket correctly, with no prior examples? Give it your best shot!

One-shot prompting

You decide to give Gemini some help. Provide one example ticket and its correct category to guide Gemini's classification. For example:

Ticket: "I can't reset my password." Category: Account Management.
Now, with this single example, how would you prompt Gemini to categorize the new ticket?

Few-shot prompting

Guide Gemini with example tickets and their categories:

Ex. Ticket 1: "I was overcharged for my property tax this quarter." Category: Payment Issue
Ex. Ticket 2: "I submitted a request for a new driver's license two weeks ago and want its status." Category: Status Inquiry
Ex. Ticket 3: "The 'upload document' button on the permit form is not working." Category: Website Tech Issue

Now, craft a prompt that uses these examples to guide Gemini towards the correct category for the new ticket.

Think about:

How does the number of examples influence Gemini's response?
What are the advantages and disadvantages of each prompting technique in this scenario?

This will help you see how writing effective prompts can be used to achieve desired outcomes.

Good luck, help desk hero!

Try it: Step into the role

Open Gemini and practice assigning a persona to an AI model, and observe how it influences the output. This exercise will help you understand the power of role prompting and how it can be used to guide AI models towards desired outputs. Have fun exploring different personas.

The task

Choose your persona. Select a role or persona that interests you. This could be anything from a leader or a scientist to a public information officer or a policy analyst.

Craft your prompt. Fill in the blanks to create your role prompting prompt: "You are a [persona]. Please write a [fill in the blank]." Consider tasks like drafting a policy brief on a new initiative, writing a justification for a budget request, or summarizing an incident report for an internal review.

Bonus: Try the same prompt as a different persona.

Try it: The chain reaction

Go to Gemini and experience the power of prompt chaining to achieve a complex outcome.

The task

Set a goal. Think of a multi-step task or a complex question that you'd like Gemini to help you with. This could be something like:

Writing a detailed grant application for funding
Planning an out of town site visit to assess projects
Designing an infographic to explain a new public program to residents

Start the chain. Begin with an initial prompt that sets the stage for your goal. For example, if you're planning a business trip, your first prompt might be:

"I need to plan a 5-day trip to Denver in October. My primary goal is to meet with our regional staff and attend my Conference. I'd also like to visit some key landmarks if time allows. Can you help me create a preliminary itinerary?"

Build the chain. Based on Gemini's response, ask follow-up questions or provide additional instructions to refine the output. For example:

"Can you suggest some suitable hotels near the conference center that offer business traveler amenities?"
"Can you also add some day trips to nearby cities?"

Observe and analyze. Pay attention to how each prompt builds upon the previous one, leading to a more comprehensive and nuanced result.

Reflect and share. How did prompt chaining help you achieve your goal? Share your experiences and discuss the benefits of this technique with others.

Try it: Prompting with NotebookLM

The task

Unlock gen AI with NotebookLM.

Open NotebookLM and upload the resources below.

Start chatting: Ask how you can apply a gen AI strategy to your organization or team.