We are creating our unique internal dictionary with a bit of help from our frainds

The SUMSUM Dictionary

As long as SUMSUM has been operational, we’ve agreed with the team that sharing knowledge about our different projects is key. Key to understanding what others are working  on, diving in head first, and discovering what it all ‘means’. That is why already 2 years ago, we wanted to create a SUMSUM Dictionary to help us understand our projects better ánd help to understand each other better.

But until now, all attempts have fallen flat on their belly. As usual, when the effort to do something is not met with an equal or more value addition, people usually stop doing it. It is a lesson well understood at SUMSUM since we are in the business of creating useful  applications. Thus, eventually, our need to have a dictionary fell short cause of the effort we had to put into it daily. You had to:

1. Create the reflex that ‘Maybe this is a concept I would like to go back atlater in time’ or ‘Would my team find this concept useful?’ and so on.
2. Then, you had to go on over to our internal document-sharing tool, in this case, Notion, to add the concept
3. Find a well-written definition of the concept OR write it yourself
4. Add useful content (videos, tutorials, articles, books, … )
5. In the hope that you or other team members would go back to it at a later point in time
6. End of effort nearing fast

Our best frainds

But then, the world changed. We met some new frainds, short for AI friends, of course. AI, which already eased and made many applications more pleasant on the back end, wentconsumer mainstream with an easy-to-use user interface, and suddenly even the most digital illiterate could join the club. ChatGPT was here to change how we will work. Maybe it will. Surely, it will have growing pains; who knows, it will become a fad. Not sure about thelast, though.

And now, we are using it to create our digital dictionary, customized to our team’s endeavors. Simply by using Slack, a messaging app that helps people communicate quickly and easily; Make, a powerful automation platform that can help you set up automated workflows;  Notion, a collaborative workspace that allows teams to create and organize their documents and, yes, ChatGPT, a conversation-powered AI assistant we are making sure that our internal dictionary is accurate and up-to-date. In short, you need to:

1. Type in any concept you thought of or want to know more about
2. You’ll automatically get a description
3. Ánd we’ll automatically take care of the rest by also adding it to our Digital Dictionary

So, you and others can consult it when needed; new members can catch up onwhat we’ve been doing, and shared understanding is more easily met.

It now bridges the gap between different teams and members that may not use the same jargon. It can provide everyone with a common language to use, making it easier for everyone to communicate. Additionally, having a consistent internal dictionary will help to ensure that everyone is on the same page and that there are no misunderstandings due tomiscommunication.

With the aforementioned tools, we now have the power to create and maintain our internal dictionary quickly and easily.

What’s next?

Add richness to our dictionary so you can also discover:

• Which books might help you deep dive into certain concepts
• Which videos might get you started on certain concepts
• Which other content could help you understand certain concepts better
• Add tags to each concept for searching purposes
• …

All by prompting some frainds (probably more Large Language Models overtime) to automate the input on these freshly created concepts so thatevery one of us can learn more by doing a lot less.

Are you also interested in creating your company’s unique Dictionary? Shoot us a message and we’ll get you started!

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