Author: Lana

When to use Gemini vs. Notebook LM

| Lana

When it comes to webinars, you can strategically leverage both Gemini and NotebookLM to achieve your goals of creating recaps and getting insights from the source materials like transcripts, chats, and the presentation.

When to Leverage Gemini

You should leverage Gemini for tasks that require direct content generation, rephrasing, summarization, and quick, concise answers.

  • Recaps: Gemini is excellent for drafting engaging and concise recaps by providing the raw content like an anonymized transcript and presentation. Ask Gemini to:
    • Summarize key discussions or presentations into paragraphs or bullet points.
    • Rephrase technical information into more accessible language.
    • Draft compelling introductions, conclusions, or social media posts for the recap.
    • Generate discussion questions for future engagement.
  • Concise Insights: For quick insights, Gemini can:
    • Extract specific answers to questions or highlight key pain points that were discussed.
    • Summarize the core takeaways of a long discussion into a few sentences.
    • Help you rephrase existing text to be more impactful or for a specific audience (e.g., leadership).
  • Ad-hoc Queries: If you have a specific question about the content (e.g., “What was the main concern about Feature X?”), Gemini can quickly process the text and give you a direct answer.

When to Leverage NotebookLM

You should leverage NotebookLM for tasks that require deep analysis, synthesizing information across multiple documents, identifying themes, and maintaining a structured knowledge base for ongoing internal reference.

  • Collecting Insights for Leadership Teams: NotebookLM excels here because you can upload all your materials for multiple sessions over time. It can then help you:
    • Identify recurring themes and pain points across several webinars on related topics (e.g., common challenges mentioned across all sessions, not just one).
    • Synthesize customer feedback from various sources to create a comprehensive view of customer needs or sentiment.
    • Track evolving insights over time by adding new documents to the same notebook.
    • Generate structured summaries that pull out key insights, trends, and actionable takeaways for a summary brief.
    • “Chat with your sources”: You can ask NotebookLM open-ended questions like “What are the common challenges attendees face with X?” and it will pull relevant passages from all your uploaded documents.
  • Structured Knowledge Base: Use it to build an organized repository of all your webinar content. This makes it easy to revisit past discussions, find specific information, and build a long-term resource for your team and leadership.
  • Preparing for Strategic Discussions: If you need to brief leadership on customer sentiment or knowledge gaps related to any topic, NotebookLM can help you consolidate evidence and arguments from various sessions into a cohesive narrative.

Combined Workflow

  1. Preparation (Gemini/Manual): Initially use Gemini for quick tasks like pulling initial summaries from individual documents or drafting quick recaps for social media.
  2. Deep Dive & Synthesis (NotebookLM): Upload all raw materials into NotebookLM. Use it to conduct deeper analysis, compare insights across multiple sessions, and identify overarching themes for internal leadership summaries.
  3. Final Output (Gemini/Manual): Once you’ve synthesized the insights in NotebookLM, you can then use Gemini to help draft the final, polished leadership brief or internal report based on those aggregated insights.

I used Gemini to help shape this post so I could spend less time writing—and more time putting these concepts into practice as a community manager. See Smarter Community Management: From Prompt to Practice.

Prompt: When should I leverage Gemini and when should I leverage Notebook LM? I create external-facing recaps and also would like to collect insights from webinars to share internally with leadership teams. I upload the transcript, chat, and presentation.

Why Gemini: I preferred the Gemini response over the other AI tools since it understandably had more insight into itself and NotebookLM as Google products.

How I Grew San Francisco Regional Mensa’s Gifted Youth Program 36% in One Year

| Lana

When I first stepped into the role of Gifted Youth Coordinator (GYC) for San Francisco Regional Mensa (SFRM) in 2024, the program was small with no events supporting gifted youth. SFRM spans a wide area – from Santa Cruz to Novato (100 miles) and San Francisco to Livermore (– 60 miles) so hosting in-person events would be difficult since GYs were spread apart.

However, I knew two things were essential: consistency and community.

I wasn’t sure what the year would bring, but the GY program ended strong with 7 other member and parent volunteers and a GY membership growth of 36% by the end of our fiscal year in March 2025 from 132 kids to 180!

I started simple by hosting Zoom meetups to slowly build momentum. As the weather improved, I shifted our focus to in-person gatherings, even with a modest $400 budget. I leveraged existing SFRM events, like the group-wide picnics, to maximize our reach. While support for the Gifted Youth (GY) program from some parts of leadership wasn’t always strong with some unconventional rules, like limiting family-friendly picnics to one parent per GY. I held firm to a core belief: families are the foundation for growth. So, I started inviting whole families, not just the kids and one parent. The result? No more wasted food, and attendance began to soar.

Over the year, we hosted three major picnics, and after each one, the number of Gifted Youth attending and GY volunteers increased. I also used these events to promote our Regional Gathering (RG), which proved to be a pivotal moment because we had programs not only for the gifted youth, but also for their adults.

Despite initial doubts from the RG planning committee, we emphasized the GY track and welcomed families since every registered child required one registered adult. The turnout was incredible, leading to a $5,000 surplus – the first in nearly a decade. This success, largely thanks to families registering together, completely shifted how the Executive Committee viewed the value of the GY program.

Beyond Events: The Power of Connection

But our growth wasn’t just about events. I prioritized staying connected. I send short, friendly emails or messages to GY families two to three times a month, sometimes just sharing other relevant events. This regular contact builds familiarity and trust. I’ve had parents tell me they attended the RG simply because I personally invited them. That kind of personal connection truly matters. At one point, I even had families drive three hours each way – from Fresno to San Rafael and back – just to attend an event.

During the RG, I held an impromptu unconference for parents. My experience with other gifted organizations taught me that parents often need as much support as their children. I made sure to build out programming for GY parents, often through dedicated sessions or by connecting them with valuable resources, even if their children weren’t yet Mensa-qualified.

Inclusive Planning and Smart Recruitment

When planning events, I generally aim for family-friendly rather than GYP-restricted gatherings. This simplifies logistics – no need for individual permission slips or allergy forms – and promotes inclusivity. For more intimate events, I limit attendance to GYs and their siblings. For larger gatherings, like playdates or game days, we welcome the entire family and even their friends. We’ve recently created WhatsApp playdate groups, including one for parents of teens so that members can self-organize.

When it comes to program growth, my focus is on recruiting the parents since they’re ultimately the decision-makers. My messaging emphasizes exclusive opportunities for Mensa GY families, like service, leadership, and college resume-building programs, which are particularly compelling to families from academically driven backgrounds. Word-of-mouth has been our most powerful growth engine; when one Davidson family finds value in our program, they often share their positive experience with others.

Learning from What Doesn’t Work

That said, I’ve also learned what doesn’t work. Social virtual events, like online board gaming, have consistently low attendance likely due to screen time limits. However, academic-focused virtual events, like our Career Conversations for Gifted Youth or math sessions, draw more interest.

I realized that mixing age groups can be tricky. In one event, younger GYs sought more attention from the speaker while older kids became impatient and a little snarky in the chat. Now, I’m more deliberate about splitting events by age to better match emotional and social development.

TL;DR: My Growth Strategy

I grew SFRM’s Gifted Youth Program by focusing on:

  • Consistent communication and personal outreach.
  • Leveraging existing Mensa events to maximize a small budget.
  • Prioritizing family-friendly gatherings over kid-only programming.
  • Centering parents as key decision-makers and community members.
  • Learning from what didn’t work and adapting quickly.

Early on it was a challenge, but every step was intentional. Now with with more volunteers and consistent programming I’m excited to continue building on this momentum to serve even more gifted youth and their families in the San Francisco Bay Area in the years to come.

Smarter Community Management: From Prompts to Practice

| Lana

Inspired by Hilary Gridley’s Making AI a Habit, I’ve started using AI tools like ChatGPT and Gemini to explore ideas on community management and work through different angels before putting them into practice. Like with any tool, AI works best when paired with critical thinking – much like trying on four shirts in a dressing room and walking out with the one that fits.

In each post, I’ll share which tool(s) I used, my preference, and the actual prompts that guided me. I’ll always refine the AI’s output so that it’s helpful and actionable.

Essentially, this series is my AI personal toolkit for community management. So let’s get started!

Stakeholders vs. Partners: Key Differences for Community Managers

| Lana

It’s important to understand the difference between a stakeholder and a partner since each role has their own level of involvement, commitment, and engagement. This allows you to develop your relationships with each role appropriately through appropriate communication, decision-making, and strategic alignment.

Internal stakeholders are teams who are interested in your community because it affects them in some way. They want to know about your community’s outcomes and may give resources or share their opinions, but they don’t get involved in the day-to-day activities. These are teams you keep informed about your community metrics and other outcomes. Example: Sales

Internal partners are teams that are just as interested in your community as stakeholders, but these teams roll up their sleeves and work closely with you on shared objectives. These are teams that you directly collaborate with on projects and goals. Example: Product and Support

Knowing the difference between an internal stakeholder and partner gives you the ability to manage your expectations and build stronger relationships by understanding the level of

  • Communication and engagement – Partners will be more collaborative and involved while stakeholders will prefer a high-level summary.
  • Resource management – Partners are involved with your projects with shared goals which requires more resources while maintaining the level of support from stakeholders who aren’t as directly involved requires less.
  • Strategic planning – Partners will be more influential when you’re setting goals and project initiatives while stakeholders have a more indirect influence

The difference between a good and great community manager is recognizing the nuances between internal stakeholders and partners. Knowing how to approach each group using the right communication strategies, along with resource expectations and weaving them into your strategic plans not only builds stronger relationships, but also significantly contributes to your community’s success.

Try This

  1. Label each team in your organization as a stakeholder or partner.
  2. Identify your level of communication, engagement, and their involvement.
    • How often will you give updates?
    • What will you share with them? If metrics, which would be most beneficial and why?
    • What is their level of involvement and expectations?
  3. What are their goals and initiatives, how do they align with yours and vice versa.

Linkedin Recap: Proving the Value of Community

| Lana

In this LinkedIn post of Rich Millington, he shared a case study of proving the value of a community by estimating the value in a statistically valid way since running a controlled experiment wasn’t feasible.

My Takeaways

Below are some of Rich’s examples:

  1. Compare the generated revenue of active (> 1 post) vs. inactive members
  2. Determine the revenue contribution of members who posted 1+ posts
  3. Correlation of logging in at least once to revenue increase
  4. Replying to a post and the probability that they will sign up for an additional course
  5. How creating a new thread and is related to new course enrollments

Epic Quote

The takeaway? Not all engagement is equal.

The most valuable actions weren’t just any interactions. They were starting discussions, sharing resources, and responding to messages.

This insight led to a clear strategy:
→ Encourage thread creation.
→ Provide more downloadable documents.
→ Increase engagement in direct messaging.

– Rich Millington

Supporting Brilliant Minds as a Gifted Youth Coordinator for Mensa

| Lana

Imagine being a kid who is crazy about math, but has no one to talk about it. That’s where a Mensa Gifted Youth coordinator steps in to help make those connections.

As a local and regional Gifted Youth Coordinator (GYC) volunteer for American Mensa, I get to create fun spaces where gifted kids can show off their intelligence without feeling judged and connect with others like them. These awesome kids need more than just challenging schoolwork – they need a supportive community that really gets their unique perspectives and what excites them.

When I started this role in 2022, I was the regional GYC across 7 states in the Pacific Intermountain Region, overseeing close to 300 gifted youth (GYs) where a little over one-third of those GYs were from my local group, San Francisco Regional Mensa.

Fostering GYs as a regional vs. local GYC have their unique challenges, but it’s totally doable. In this article, I’ll share tips on how to get started as a GYC in your local group or region.

Step 1: Learn the Do’s and Don’ts as GYC – Review the GYP handbook

Working with children, safety is really important which is why you should review the Gifted Youth Program Handbook that’s included in your onboarding materials. I worked with my Regional Vice Chair (RVC) at the time to make sure that all bases were covered to keep the kids safe.

Step 2: Understand Your Gifted youth – Send a Questionnaire

Before planning events, understand your audience by sending them a questionnaire to see what their interests are. When you introduce yourself to your GYs, include a Google Form link with questions like:

  1. What’s your favorite subject in school?
  2. What do you do for fun?
  3. What events interest you the most?
    • Speakers or demonstrations
    • Activities to make friends
    • Book or TV/Movie discussions
    • Field trips, museums
    • Other

Be sure to not make the form too long – have 3 to 5 questions max. Over 80% of submissions wanted activities to make friends which made it clear about what type of events I should plan and I suspect your results will be the same.

Step 3: Plan your first event – Keep it simple

Now that you have an idea of what your GY members want, it’s time to plan your first event! If you’re a local GYC, leverage one of your local group’s events like a picnic or something that you think GYs and other families will enjoy. That way, you don’t need to worry about collecting permission slips (required for GYP-specific events).

When you’re a regional GYC, hosting an in-person event isn’t always realistic so consider hosting a virtual Zoom event. Just make sure that you have another parent present per the GYP handbook. Ask another parent or GY volunteer to join you. Give yourself about a month’s lead time for promotion.

For added security, I like turning on the Zoom registration option for my events to ensure that the event link is not open to the public.

Step 4: Stay connected with other gyCs

Mensa has great support for GYCs on Mensa Connect in their GYC group. A lot of other GYCs share links to their virtual events there so you can share them with your GYs if you’re not yet ready to host your first virtual event. The most important thing you can do as a GYC is to stay connected with your GYs and their families so they always know that someone is in their corner.

Recap: Automation and AI in Online Communities (Community Roundtable)

| Lana

This recap is from Community Roundtable’s Community Conversations podcast on “Automation and AI in Online Communities”

Hosts Jim Storer and Shannon Abram chat with Jessica Langston the Senior Director, Community at Autodesk about the ways automation and AI can benefit online community programs, including language translations and localization, filtering and analyzing community data and automating repetitive tasks.

Listen to the Podcast

My takeaways

Use cases for using AI in the Autodesk Community:

  • Filter through data to create themes of what they’re hearing in the community
  • Language translations for localized content
  • Repetitive jobs (administrative and operational) to focus on relationship-building in their community

On community evangelism:

  • Awareness efforts to amplify what’s in it for customers
  • Add value proposition in messaging
  • Look at the ones who are evangelizing – strong with customer engagement and getting them in the community, speaking at events, writing about it. It’s a team effort.
    • Grassroots vs. marketing campaign

Notes to self

  • Look into using AI to filter through data to find common discussion themes
  • Look into community evangelism program ideas

Mastering ChatGPT: Top Tips from Wired Magazine

| Lana

Part of my Thought Follower series:

Here are my 5 ChatGPT takeaway tips from Wired Magazine’s 17 Tips to Take Your ChatGPT Prompts to the Next Level written by David Nield:

  1. Get a response for your intended audience
    Takeway: Use prompts tailored to your audience like “explain quantum physics as if you were talking to a 12-year old”
  2. Create prompts for other AI engines
    Takeaway: You can ask the chatbot to add more detail to sentences, role-play as another AI tool and refine answers as you add more information.
  3. Explain difficult concepts
    Takeaway: Copy and paste text from different sources and ask Chat GPT to explain it to you
  4. Ask for feedback on writing
    Takeway: Paste your text and ask ChatGPT if your title is effective or to check your spelling, grammar, tone, readability, and more.
  5. Potent prompts – specificity and refining
    Takeaway: Detail and specificity is important when generating prompts and helps you get a better response. Additionally, giving ChatGPT a starting point lets it finish it off – and you can always refine the response.

My Action Items

  1. Use ChatGPT for article titles and editing
    While I may not agree with every suggestion, it’s like having a personal writing tutor.
  2. Write specific and detailed prompts
    Quality prompts result in quality responses.
  3. Consider my audience
    Ensures my content is relevant and engaging.

Renewing my Thought Follower Pledge in 2024

| Lana

In January 2022, I shared that I am a proud thought follower and had planned to summarize podcasts and articles to share them here. Little did I know that 2 months later, tragedy would strike and I’d be laying my fiancé, our hopes, and planned future together to rest. With the help of friends, family, Zuora co-workers, and other communities who rallied around me, I’m back!

The industry has changed since 2022 and so, my thought followership tales will focus on these 3 topics:

  1. ChatGPT Tips – getting the most from generative AI chatbots
  2. Community Management Math – allow me to dispel the mystique
  3. Communities Across the Lifespan – helping all ages find their tribe

And as with most tales there are side stories so you may see some other topics as well.

Let’s continue!