Digital Skills

ZOOM HELP TOOLS

How To Attend A Zoom Meeting

This short three minute video explains how to join a Zoom meeting from a regular digital device such as a chromebook, windows or apple computer.  

Note: Ignore the reference to the Waiting Room as we do not have that feature implemented for our classes

How To Join A Zoom Meeting on your Phone

This short three minute video explains how to join a Zoom meeting from your phone such as an Android phone or an iPhone.

GOOGLE WORKSPACE PRODUCTS & OTHER TOOLS

COHORT CONTACT LIST:  Use this Contact List Form to share contact information, email, phone etc with your other Cohort participants. Suggested by Jacqueline

A quick overview of Google Workspace which is a suite of applications and collaboration tools that you can use to organize your business and accomplish most of your day-to-day business tasks, like emails, meetings, spreadsheets, and more. The most popular app in Workspace is Gmail, but there are other apps that you might not know. In this video, we are going to give a quick overview of the most useful ones. Pay special attention to the first 15 Apps, as you will need to know how to use them for the Entrepreneurship training.

A quick overview of SLACK 

Slack transforms the way you work. Get started for free: https://slack.com/get-started 

To join the YWCA Entrepreneurship COHORT 3 Slack Team Click Here

Suggested by Sonja

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TOOLS

PERPLEXITY.AI

 Perplexity AI is an innovative AI-powered research and conversational search engine launched in 2022, based in San Francisco. Perplexity AI provides concise, synthesized answers to queries rather than just a list of links. It uses natural language processing to understand questions and generate relevant responses. Start using Perplexity.ai at at https://perplexity.ai

Claud.ai 3.0 (A Constitutional Based AI System)

Learn about Anthropic's commitment to responsible AI design, ensuring Claude's 3 models are ethical and trustworthy. Get ready to witness the ultimate AI chatbot revolution with Anthropic Claude, as it sets new standards in the industry.  Sign up for Claude.ai at https://claude.ai

Chat GPT (A Chat-based generative pre-trained transformer model)

ChatGPT, its prototype AI chatbot that has gained a lot of interest among the public for its human-like, ability to answer questions and write content for websites, emails, sales & marketing correspondence and business plans etc. Check out the video for how to sign up for Chat GPT and here is a link to get started with the free version: https://chat.openai.com/auth/login.  It can be a useful tool to help you generate ideas and content for your new business products and services.

Google GEMINI (A Chat based version from Google)

Gemini is Google's experimental, conversational, AI chat service. It is meant to function similarly to ChatGPT, with the biggest difference being that Google's service will pull its information from the web.  Sign up for Gemini at https://gemini.google.com/

Copilot (Your everyday AI Companion from Microsoft)

The new Microsoft Copilot offers you reliable, up-to-date results – and complete answers to your questions. It also cites the sources. You can try Copilot here: https://www.bing.com/new

Futurepedia the largest AI Tools Directory: https://www.futurepedia.io/

Prompt Engineering: Here is the formula for a perfect prompt. Watch the video here

[Context] + [Specific Information] + [Intent/Goal] + [Response Format (if needed)] = Perfect Prompt

Let me share two different examples with you and fill in the formula.

Context: "I'm a beginner cook"

Specific Information: "trying to make Italian cuisine"

Intent/Goal: "Can you provide a simple and easy to follow recipe"

Response Format (if needed): "Write it as a step by step list?"

Perfect Prompt: 

1. "I'm a beginner cook trying to make Italian cuisine. Can you provide a simple and easy to follow recipe for spaghetti carbonara? Write it as a step by step list"


GRAPHIC DESIGN TOOLS

Canva is an app that lets you design professional visual materials without needing much in the way of graphic design skills. The tool can be used to create social media posts, videos, presentations, slides, posters, art, drawings and many other visual assets — and a wide range of customizable templates and royalty free images is provided to help you do this easily. Canva has also recently introducied a series of new features, including a suite of AI-powered tools, and a new Brand Hub. https://www.canva.com/

Canva Animation: If you can get past the really bad acting in this video learn how to startup up a motion potion with Canva's animation creator. With Canva Pro, you can easily add instant animation to social posts, presentations, or anywhere else you need to make a stunning visual impression. Simply click once to animate, then download as a GIF or video format. https://www.canva.com/pro/animator/

How to use Polotno Studio Alternative to Canva for Designs:  https://studio.polotno.com/  Afree online design editor. Create images for social media, youtube previews, facebook covers and more.

Microsoft Designer is a web app for creating visuals and graphics available to Micorosft 365 subscribers. It can generate images and designs using AI to assist you in creating unique content such as items like signs, invitations, logos, social media posts, website banners, and much more. Using your own images or Designer’s AI option, you can get started easily and customize any design. https://designer.microsoft.com/

Create Your Logo at one of these Sites

Smashing Logo, Brand Crowd, Canva

Remove.bg - Remove backgrounds automatically in 5 seconds: https://www.remove.bg/

Word Art one of many free Word Cloud generators out there : https://wordart.com/

Jason Davies Word Cloud: https://www.jasondavies.com/wordcloud/

WordClouds.com: https://www.wordclouds.com/

SOCIAL MEDIA TOOLS AND RESOURCES

GENERAL BUSINESS TOOLS

Setup a free Phone Number for your business using Google Voice: Voice (google.com). You can forward this number to your personal cell phone which avoids having to use your personal phone on your website.

WEBSITE CREATION TOOLS

Set up a completely free website and maintain it yourself using Google Sites.  This is the first in a series of videos that will guide you through building a simple website.  Upon the completion of each video you will be able to move on to the next video in the sequence.

Work on a Style Guide for your Website and Print Media by following these simple directiojns.

Set up a custom theme for your google site for color, font, layout choices etc.

Set up a Google Form on your website so that when the form is filled out it is automatically forwarded to an email.

BUSINESS PLAN WRITING TOOLS

Business Plans that Work: Great 90 minute presentation from the Northern California Small Business Development Center.  Here also is the PowerPoint Presentation that goes along with it.