The journey into leveraging AI effectively is iterative and strategic. Here are core principles and actionable tips to get the most out of AI tools while navigating potential pitfalls:

1. Iterate & Refine – Don't Expect Perfection on the First Try:

•  AI as a Starting Point, Not an Endpoint: Treat AI-generated content (text, summaries, ideas) as a strong first draft (aim for 80% done by AI). Your expertise is crucial for the final 20% – refinement, nuance, and strategic alignment.
• Ask "What If?" & "What Else?": Continuously prompt the AI with follow-up questions. "Could you elaborate on this point?" "What are alternative perspectives?" "What's a more creative/conservative approach?"
• Small Steps, Big Impact: Start with simple tasks and gradually increase complexity. Learn how the AI "thinks" with one tool before trying to orchestrate many.

2. Actively Seek Criticism (from AI itself!):

• Challenge the Output: Don't just accept the first answer. Ask the AI to critique its suggestions or find flaws in its reasoning. "What are the potential downsides to this approach?" "Are there any biases in this summary?"
• Request Counterarguments: "Could you argue against this proposal?" This helps uncover blind spots and strengthens your final output.

3. Leverage Multiple Tools Strategically (The "AI Toolbox" Approach):

• No Single "Magic Bullet": Different AI tools excel at different tasks.
  • Example: Use PerplexityAI or a similar research-focused AI for initial information gathering and source identification. Use Claude or ChatGPT for drafting, summarisation, and creative brainstorming. Use Google AI Studio for robust content generation and prompt refinement. Use Canva AI for visual creation.
• Combine Strengths: Take the output from one tool and feed it into another for further refinement or a different type of analysis (e.g., research from Perplexity -> summarisation & structuring in Claude -> critique in Google AI Studio).
• Be Mindful of Data Flow: Understand how information is passed between tools, especially if dealing with sensitive data.

4. Prioritise Data Privacy & Anonymisation:

• Understand Tool Policies: Be aware of how different AI tools (especially free versions) handle your data. Does it become part of their training set?
• Anonymise Sensitive Information: Before inputting client-specific or confidential data into public AI tools, rigorously anonymise it. Remove all company names, and specific project identifiers.
• Use "Placeholders": If you need to work with a structure that involves sensitive data, use generic placeholders (e.g., "[Client Name]," "[Project X Revenue]") when prompting the AI, and then manually insert the real data into the AI's structured output outside of the AI tool.
• Explore Secure/Internal Options: For highly sensitive data, advocate for or explore secure, on-premise, or private cloud AI solutions where data control is paramount.

5. Context is King – Feed the AI Rich Information:

• Don't Assume Knowledge: AI doesn't "know" your specific project, client, or internal context unless you provide it.
• Provide Background: Give the AI relevant background information, your desired tone, the target audience, key objectives, and any constraints. The more context, the better and more relevant the output.
• Use Your Own "Best Practice" Examples: Feed the AI anonymised examples of your own high-quality work (reports, emails, proposals) and ask it to learn your style or use that structure as a template for new content.

6. Fact-Check & Validate – AI Can "Hallucinate":

• Critical Thinking Required: Always critically review AI-generated facts, figures, statistics, and especially references. AI can confidently present incorrect information.
• Verify Sources: If an AI provides sources, double-check their validity and relevance. AI has been known to invent citations.
• Your Expertise has the Final Say: You are responsible for the accuracy and integrity of the final output.

7. Build Your "Prompt Library":

• Save Effective Prompts: When you craft a prompt that yields excellent results for a specific task, save it!
• Categorise & Share (Internally): Create a personal or team library of effective prompts for common project management tasks (e.g., "Prompt for summarising meeting notes," "Prompt for drafting a risk mitigation plan"). This accelerates future work and shares best practices.

8. Start Small, Scale Smart:

• Automate One Annoying Micro-Task First: Identify one small, repetitive, slightly irritating task and see if you can automate part of it with AI (e.g., drafting a standard follow-up email, categorising feedback). Success here builds confidence.
• Resist Over-Complication Initially: Avoid building highly complex, multi-tool AI workflows until you're comfortable with individual components and have a clear value proposition for the added complexity.​

​

👉 Listen to the episode on:
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dae-dwf3rag
Your favorite podcast platform: bit.ly/3LMcV6b

Ticket Volume says:
“ When it comes to sustainability, there´s an urgent call to action. Climate change and its consequences are real and already impact every sector (even IT!). 💻

Let´s be honest: It is true that, in today's society, we can´t live entirely sustainably. But the good news is that there are many ways to contribute as individuals, and that we can start today.

Sustainability is also about being more human at work. It´s about being conscious of our impact on the environment and its consequences. In other words, it´s about living in harmony with nature. 🌱

How can we become more sustainable? Which are the best practices we could adopt?

Listen to it from Tuuli Bell, Senior advisor at The ESG Institute and dedicated to fostering resilient and sustainable enterprises.”

I am thrilled to share an exhilarating update that aligns with our collective pursuit of excellence and intelligence in our field.
Our highly anticipated whitepaper, a testament to our commitment to innovation and sustainability, is currently in the final stages of editing. We are meticulously refining every detail to ensure it embodies the highest standards of quality and forward-thinking insights. This whitepaper not only encapsulates groundbreaking ideas but also underscores our dedication to equality and inclusivity in the future landscape of our industry.
We are on track to make this invaluable resource available to you within the next 12 days. Your patience and continued support are immensely appreciated as we put the finishing touches on this significant project.
Thank you for your unwavering commitment to innovation and excellence. Together, we are shaping a brighter, more intelligent, and sustainable future.

- Dr Tuuli Bell

ps. Join the waitlist for the Sustainable ITSM whitepaper & share with your friends (https://www.sustainableitsm.com/)

Every year, the world generates 4,500 Eiffel towers worth of electronic waste (e-waste), enough to transform into 125,000 life-size jumbo jets [1]. Looking at such numbers can be numbing, so let’s change our perspective and focus on solutions. If there’s anything my SPIN training (sales training, not the cycling sort) has taught me, it is that behind every pain lies opportunity.   
The citizens of this world are taking action [2]. Consequently, governments are increasingly making it a legal requirement for companies to care about sustainability. Triple bottom line (TBL) that includes social and environmental metrics in addition to financial ones, is no longer an optional extra for large companies in the UK [3,4], for instance. 
​But what is the role of IT and digitalization, not forgetting all that e-waste, in a sustainable future?

Frameworks help organizations to make sense of data, processes and complex structures. Sustainable IT is no exception. The natural frameworks for sustainable IT include ITIL and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
As a very short introduction to ITIL [5], it is a framework that helps manage service lines in your organization. ITIL was originally developed for managing internal government IT services. Albeit still a favorite amongst IT professionals, ITIL is equally valid for pure business services. Personally, I find it very exciting how ITIL as a framework has been successfully evolving; and continues to do so with the latest incarnation of ITIL4. The earlier referenced book ITIL4: Sustainability in Digital and IT, AXELOS, digital edition, 20211 demonstrates the power of the framework and its adaptability to new domains. 
Similarly, the United Nations (UN) SDGs [6] were created for developing countries and their governments; aiming to bring equity to our world’s citizens. Each of the 17 goals concern Environmental, Social or Governance (ESG) aspects. Again, pioneering companies have adopted the framework into business environments. They are helping the commercial sector, at the very least, become more sustainable and with any luck, drive the green revolution [7]. 
Put together, the aforementioned frameworks give a solid foundation for sustainable IT. IT can help get to the UN Goals faster, e.g. enabling dematerialization through digitalization [1] (SDG 12: responsible consumption and production) or bringing equity and supply chain transparency through blockchain1 (SDG 8: decent work and economic growth and SDG 10: reduced inequalities). 
However, the influence is two-sided: sustainability can also drive IT innovation. An example is SDG Monitor [8], a visual dashboard tool that helps companies analyze and communicate their ESG impact to and of their suppliers, employees and customers. Similarly, the need for paperless processes combined with automation helps FlowForma reduce their customers’ carbon footprint [9]. Importantly, pioneering companies such as Fl@tWorld have built low energy usage into their platform [10] without compromising functionality and security. 
Sustainability has inspired a wave of new thinking and SDGs can be adapted to technology-driven areas such as sustainable presales [11], tourism [12], watch-making [13], construction [14], biodiversity valuations [15], or e-waste [16], to name just a few; pushing the boundaries of creativity, process innovation and technology. 

In summary, sustainable IT is about working to make the world a better place through technology. The work can be direct such as creating low-energy usage applications and paperless processes; or indirect such as building sales organizations that support sustainability customers. Whichever way we choose to influence, it is all about taking action, measuring progress and focusing on outcome. 
What can we all do to make the world a better place? One of my favorite resources is the Lazy Person’s Guide to Saving the World [17]. For those into technology, Giki Zero [18] is a tool that helps you track your personal goals easily. Ellen MacArthur Foundation [19, 20] provides in-depth guidance about circular economy, a way of living and working sustainably.  
Amidst the climate change emergency and biodiversity crisis, we should remember that as a community of humans, we are capable of near miracles. As a society, we have come to appreciate community, mental wellbeing, and helping of others in unprecedented ways. By building positive distractions and bite-size learning, we can influence behavioral change across communities. 

And truly, change the world.

How can we simplify sustainability, so that we can explain it to everyone? What are our specific actions in 2021 and 2022?

I am delighted to be a co-organiser for a live Q&A with Esteban A Guerrero on 20 October at 5 pm BST where we discuss sustainability for businesses. You can book your place via Eventbrite.

Deriving subject matter from Esteban’s articles and wider circular economy research around breaking down the concept of sustainability so that it can be explained even to a 5 year old, he will be the lead speaker, taking prompts from the following 3 headers:-

1. What can ordinary citizens do?
2. What can corporations do?
3. How do we generate more talent?

Please note that the event is a Zoom meeting, to allow participants to join in the discussion. The event will be recorded and shared with those registered to the event. If you'd rather not share video with other participants, please switch your video off on joining the call. Thank you!

The event is organised by Aaron and me, founders of the Circularity: Embracing the new economy LinkedIn Group. You can request to join the group at https://www.linkedin.com/groups/9064155/.

Sustainable presales may sound great, but what is it exactly? As a pioneering consultancy, we get this question on a daily basis. Personally, I’ve even been asked if it’s a bit too niche, combining presales (already a niche) and sustainability (still a bit of a niche, but changing). A fair point.
 
Sustainability as an underlying principle is still evolving. I feel strongly that sustainability becomes ‘real’ only once embedded into daily business practices. Sustainable presales is a prime example of adopting sustainability in your organisation. That’s also when the magic happens: that’s when sustainability brings the aspired business benefits combined with a happier world.
 
So, let’s dive into what sustainable presales is, as defined by – well – us. If you have alternative definitions available, please do suggest them in the comments, as we need collaboration to make a systematic change possible.

There are many more ways to incorporate sustainable presales practices within your organisation. Depending on your current sustainability agenda (or the lack thereof), the journey can start with small steps such as starting a conversation with your manager about sustainability, or more concrete, such as creating a sustainability plan.

Finally, we cannot wait for customers and governments to tell us to change. Volunteering for Ethical Reading has made me realise more deeply that change comes from within. A large-scale shift in corporate culture is taking place, as leaders are more aware of their responsibility for their environment and their employees.

​Process waste, electronic waste (e-waste), digital waste, packaging waste. Wasteful practices, time wasted, wasted resources. There’s a lot of waste.

Yes, waste is bad. And there are numerous ways to make waste visible, and lots of ways to reduce waste, most notably through Lean or Six Sigma practices.

This is a tough one, but hold on tight – it brings us to the concept of circularity.

It is evident that we cannot live like this forever: so that we can continue to enjoy material products, we will need to listen to what nature has to say and help, not hinder, its natural cycle of birth and death. It might sound a bit dramatic, but to be honest, we need something on the radical side to change our businesses.

​To help re-organise the world’s use of resources, circular economy is model that is becoming ever-more mainstream. Circular economy and its butterfly diagram by Ellen MacArthur Foundation is a great way to start learning about it, if you’re new to it.

At its core, circular economy re-thinks the product or service that is created and focuses on the outcome using a circular supply chain. I’ve simplified the idea below: highlighting the blurriness between producer and consumer. The product or service cycle will evolve over time, but essentially you’re looking to increase the usage of the product lifecycle (length / intensity / utilisation) and find alternative ways to source the materials. Collection of ‘end-of-life’ product is a key part of waste management.
 
The same principles apply to service-only companies, and those selling only digital products.

I hope you enjoyed this blog post. Sustainable presales is still in its infancy, and ever-evolving until becoming mainstream over the next couple of years. It’s a very exciting time to adopt sustainable practices for your presales and sales team. It would be great to hear your comments: what, if any, sustainable presales practices have you adopted?
 
If you’re curious about how to embed highly attractive sustainable practices within your presales or sales team, why not book a demo with us. Not quite ready for a demo yet? Stay up-to-date with the latest news instead.
​

​*B2B – business to business: selling products and services to businesses
B2C – business to consumer: selling products and services to consumers
C2C – consumer to consumer: a platform that enables consumers to sell their products and services to other consumers (there is debate if Consumers should be referred to as Citizens instead but that’s a topic for another blog post)
D2C – direct to consumer: an evolution of B2B organisations selling products directly to (business) consumers (which may be used as a route for B2B sales)
e-commerce – electronic commerce i.e. buying and selling online
q-commerce – quick commerce: a developed version of e-commerce to meet consumers’ expectation of receiving services and products near-instantly
O2O – online to offline: companies that attract online consumers to shop in-store

SDG Monitor and Tuuli Bell Ltd are announcing a partnership to help technology organisations change their working practices to reach their financial targets and their sustainable development goals (SDGs) in harmony.
 
Dr Tuuli Bell, Founder and Management Consultant, says: “SDG Monitor is one of the first sustainability measurement software companies that is very suitable also for SMEs. As the first sustainable presales and sales consultancy in the world, it was natural for us to partner with SDG Monitor. We look forward to expanding the positive impact of SDGs to companies across the UK, Finland and beyond. In our experience, adopting the right SDGs for your business to accelerates the sales of the right products and services. Our partnership with SDG Monitor enables us to serve our existing customers more holistically. The partnership also helps a larger number of sustainably-minded, tech SMEs to find us more easily.”
 
Tuuli-Anna Tiuttu, Co-founder & CEO at SDG Monitor, says: “Our partnership with Tuuli Bell Ltd strengthens our partner ecosystem through its locality in the UK, and its founder’s expertise in technical sales processes. We are excited to grow our impact on SDGs, sustainability and data sharing. As our partner, Tuuli Bell Ltd helps us to provide our customers a local point of contact in the UK. Importantly, they have the ability to demonstrate the capability of our product to a wider range of clients and analyse its suitability to prospects as an independent consultancy.”

Tuuli Bell Ltd is a sustainable presales and sales consultancy. We help sustainably-minded, tech SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) reach their organisational goals: financial, environmental and employee expedience. We believe that presales teams can and should lead the green industrial revolution by combining their technical, environmental, and sales knowledge. We help our client organisations understand how their presales teams can be at the heart of the revolution. We help our clients change their businesses to be cleaner and more efficient through embracing circularity and by understanding their key SDGs. Our work methods include engaging, elevating and entertaining workshops and talks; small group training; and presales/sales contracting. Tuuli Bell Ltd is also a publisher of the Art of Presales book series. Learn more at https://www.tuulibell.com/.
 
SDG Monitor started from our common interest to help United Nations to reach the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. Agenda 2030 is a government level contract but companies are in a crucial role realising it. Our flagship product, also called SDG Monitor, consists of all the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals, 169 targets and 231 indicators, formulated so that they better suit for business purposes. SDG Monitor helps your company or organization to measure the SDG performance and shows where you are making progress and where you are falling behind. Learn more at https://www.sdgmonitor.co/.
 
For more information about the partnership, please contact [email protected].

Thank you for taking your time to read through the post, and I hope it gave you ideas and inspiration for organising your next event. If you are curious about participating in a novel art-networking event, sign up today to secure your place. Look forward to seeing you there!

​ProjectTransformations is an art workshop creating a safe, immersive space where participants can create in a vulnerable and explorative state. ProjectTransformations is ran by Elizabeth Jenner and Dr Tuuli Bell.

This week I had an interesting conversation about the future of charities. Of course the world is changing incredibly fast and I have to ask if they will still exist in their current form once the dust from Covid has settled? My personal view is that many won’t. Ironically there is a greater need for help now than there has ever been. But many are just too large and thus incapable of moving as quickly as society’s requirements. Another part of that conversation was about brand, and what it stood for now? Do organisations still do what they were set up to do? Or have they got side tracked into fundraising machines? My personal brand is about authenticity, integrity and honesty, which will never change!

Today I wanted to share an interview I did recently with the wonderful Dr Tuuli Bell (@TuuliBell.) Talking about my charity, what it does and why we exist. Also what we can do about improving the ‘digital divide.’ Thank you for your time Tuuli!

ProjectTransformations is an art workshop focused around its ability to Create, Transform, and Connect its participants within a safe and immersive space.

Thursday, 18 February,
5.30pm – 6.45pm GMT
Online interactive workshop (includes art supplies)