BUILD DAY FIELD GUIDE
Your working notebook for today. Everything you capture here saves back to the Decoded Futures team.
Build Day
Field Guide
Your working notebook for today. Everything you capture here saves back to the Decoded Futures team.
About you
So we know whose great ideas these are. Your responses sync automatically when you hit save in any section.
The Prompt Challenge
Draft a grant application for the (faux) $1M AI Grant. The goal isn't perfection — it's experimentation. Can you get AI to speak in your org's voice? Reflect your mission?
- Describe your organization and its impact (2,000 words or less)
- How will you use this grant to increase your organization's impact?
- How will you measure the success of your impact?
Copy it straight from your chat window — you'll want to reference it later.
Your structured prompt
Now rebuild your grant prompt using the three-part structure. Notice what changes in the output.
Give a Role and Goal
"You are a [expert] and your objective is to [goal]."
List Steps and Context
"Here's the context: (...). Follow these steps: 1, 2, 3..."
Describe the Output
"When done, write a summary paragraph plus 3 next-step bullets."
Let's make toast
Grab a piece of paper and draw the steps of how you make toast. Then share with your team and notice what was the same — and different.
Where did your team's drawings match? Where did they surprise you? What does that tell you about how differently we see the "same" process?
Map your workflow
Think through your workflow with a technologist volunteer or your team member. Narrow in on one node you can work through today. Then start building — a prompt, a Project, a GPT.
Which workflow did you pick? Which node are you building today? What's working, what's fighting you?
The Teacher's Assistant
You're a 10th grade English teacher. You just hired a teaching assistant to grade essays. Work with your team: what do you do to make sure they "do the right thing"?
Refine your prototype
Back to your build, sharper this time. Use the Four Questions and be honest about the tradeoffs you're making.
- What does success look like — for everyone?
- How will we know if it's failing?
- Who can raise an issue, and what happens?
- Who can change it or turn it off?
What changed in this pass? Which tradeoff are you choosing (speed vs. accuracy, consistency vs. flexibility)? What's your next test?
Submit your
Field Guide
One last save sends everything to the Decoded Futures team. Then take 5 minutes for the post-survey at technyc.typeform.com/nytwbuildday — and keep building with the Prompt Cookbook at tinyurl.com/DFcookbook.