Today I did a Live to review my latest article on what to expect next for the HART Studio since the launch last week.
In this post I share the points I didn’t cover in the original post, including:
My new role as AI Solutions Engineer
Substack as an AI oasis
What does “building” mean?
Building up an AI portfolio
The newbies become the mentors
Your voice matters
Making friends with imposter syndrome
Upcoming Dates
Meet & Greet — June 18, 2–3PM PT (paid access)
Live Launch Session — June 19, 8:30–10AM PT (free, open to anyone, register here)
Group Tech Setup — June 19, 9:30AM PT (paid access)
Live Build Sessions — starting July 17, 8:30–9:30AM PT (biweekly, paid access)
For HART Builders (paid), the link to sign up for sessions is in the community chat.
My new role as AI Solutions Engineer
When I first entered the Live, I didn’t want to just jump into the HART Studio. I wanted to give folks a chance to arrive. So I made small talk. With myself.
I talked about how I started a new AI role, an internal transfer within the same company I’ve been at for the last three weeks.
It’s only been a week and a half, but what I’ve found so far is that the tools exist and people are bought in. The problem we’re trying to solve for now is alignment, especially around governance and ownership — who can build with AI, how will tools be managed, how do we make sure builds are safe?
While those questions are being asked inside of the walls of a workplace, I want to work with you out here. I want the HART Studio to be a place where we don’t argue about what to do next — we do it.
Substack as an AI oasis
Out in the world, the AI narrative is heavy. There are rightfully so a lot of concerns, fear, and legitimate questions being raised. That’s important, and we need those conversations.
At work, people are using AI on the job. Sometimes it’s exciting, but many of the shared conversations are still tinged with concern. Job loss fear is real. There’s a lot tangled up in what AI means, its impact, how to adopt it, and how to use it.
Substack is a different space altogether. People show what they’re building in public. They’re showing it in a way that’s celebratory, helpful, funny, and varied. You have people from different areas, like a coach over here or a writer over there, and they will mention how they’re using AI. You can just be a person who is trying to figure things out and share what you’re learning.
That’s the energy I want in the HART Studio.
What does “building” mean?
After I launched the Studio last week, I got a question from someone on how much was this about building vs. making something business ready.
My interpretation was this was asking about the distinction between prototype and production.
AI has a prototype problem — it’s so easy to make something quickly. But it’s hard to move an AI-built solution from prototype to production. Production means that the solution is robust, well-planned, and easy to manage and modify. When AI gets involved, the build can become so tangled that the solution becomes brittle and unreliable.
In the HART Studio, my focus is on giving you the experience of building with AI, period. We’re not going for the planning-first production-ready builds. We’re planting seeds.
We are getting over the first hurdle of getting your feet wet, of feeling confident you can jump in. I want you to get your hands on the keyboard, talk to the AI, and get an output.
This means the builds are going to be messy, and they might not work. And that’s okay. You’re going to learn from them, and we’ll learn from them too.
I want you to be able to build up a portfolio that shows — here’s what I can build. I know how to go through this cycle. And that will create a foundation to create better more robust builds.
Building up an AI portfolio
One idea I have is that every HART Builder has their own HART Studio GitHub repo which houses their AI portfolio. It’s something you can add to every session and holds all the builds you made. Then if you ever need to show someone what you can do, you have a way to shows your builds, that you know how to use version control, and your process.
I’ll also build one, and it can serve as a template for any HART Builder. That way if you miss a session or you’re new to the Studio, you can make a copy of my repo (called forking), and pick right up where we are.
The newbies become the mentors
One thing I’ve thought a lot about for the HART Studio is onboarding. While the barrier to entry for building tools, products, and services is lowered because of AI, it still requires training and support.
The first group of HART Builders will get the most amount of support to start us on a strong foundation. For example, the first three sessions will be dedicated onboarding from learning the building cycle to creating your own project. There will also be dedicated support for tech setup.
Going forward, there will still be support for onboarding and tech setup, but not to the same degree. At that time, video recordings will be a good resource to get onboarded, as well as fellow HART Builders.
Because that’s the beauty of the HART Studio. At the very beginning, we are all at the start, we are all figuring this out together whether it’s how to build with AI or how to build a community.
But as we get more mature, the beginners at the beginning will become the experts and the mentors. You can bring the newcomers along, and you can still keep pushing yourself forward.
Your voice matters
The HART Studio is about two things: Building with AI; and Community.
Most of the above is about the building. Now let’s talk about community.
I want to create a space where you feel comfortable sharing what you’ve created and what you’ve learned. The core of the HART Studio is these live build sessions — virtual sessions on Zoom where we gather together and see what each other is building in real-time.
But not everyone feels comfortable coming off mute or sharing openly what they are doing or thinking about, especially people I expect would be drawn to this community. And that is completely okay. I want you to show up in the way that feels comfortable to you.
That being said, there is a benefit to putting your voice out there, to practice talking out loud about AI.
The first is to build up your own confidence in your ability to use and talk about AI.
The second is — many of us come from backgrounds that have been underrepresented in tech. I’ve mentioned I’m building this space to support women in particular. This doesn’t mean you’re not welcome if you’re not a woman. It just means that I’m going to name explicitly, this is a space that is meant to support people from many backgrounds, especially those that have been left out of tech.
There’s a term we use in cultural psychology to describe the way of being that has dominated how our current world, society, and technology has been constructed — WEIRD or Western Educated Industrialized Rich Democratic contexts. They only represent about 20% of the world.
They are the ones who produced the data AI models were trained on and the ones who have are most represented in AI building today.
So by showing up, by sharing your voice, by building things, you are changing what this world could be. You are creating products and services that are unique and represent different experiences.
Making friends with imposter syndrome
I talk with a lot of people about how they use AI.
When someone tells me what they built, I will often tell them, “You should share this!”
And quite often, they will immediately say, “Oh no, it’s not a big deal.”
That’s the imposter syndrome talking, and it’s real. And it can keep you silent because you think you aren’t good enough.
I’ve stopped trying to “do anything” with my imposter syndrome when it pops up its head. I’ve made friends with my imposter syndrome.
I like to interpret imposter syndrome a different way. To me, imposter syndrome means you’re trying something new. It also means you’ve taken in so much that it’s become your baseline — and now your skills and experiences feel neutral to you, so much so that when you add something new, it feels like you’re starting with nothing. That’s not true.
And I’ve seen time and again that imposter syndrome is the true imposter. Because when I see what people build that they think is “small,” most of the time it’s anything but. Most of the time what people build surprises and delights them. And when they share it with other people, they think the same thing.
And that “ah ha” moment, that moment of “I made something really cool and I’m excited about it.” is the feeling I want in the HART Studio.
No build is too small. Whatever you bring into this space matters.
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