AI Quick Tips 15: Use open-ended prompts to generate ideas

One of the more common and useful ways to use tools like ChatGPT is to brainstorm.  

If you don’t know where to start with something or if you want to see if there are ideas that you didn’t think of, this is a good way to stimulate creative thinking.

When using ChatGPT to come up with ideas, it’s good practice to ask open-ended questions.  Open-ended questions are questions that do not have a “right” answer.  They are not yes or no questions.  Asking this type of question will allow ChatGPT to explore different possibilities and scenarios.  

Note - sometimes the answers are a little too “out there,” but it’s easy enough to ignore those.

Here are some examples of open-ended questions

• What are exciting water-based activities for a family of four that will be visiting Australia for 3 weeks in the summer?
• How could we market our new widget to our primary avatar - 40-plus year old males that live in the Southern US and served in the military?
• What are 5 - 10 ways that we could raise money for our non-profit turtle rescue company?
• What career fields are available to someone with an interest and background in psychology, chess, and competitive badminton?
• What are some of the global issues that, if solved, would have the greatest positive impact on humanity?  What steps would you take to solve the top three?

You can always ask follow-up questions for any answers that interest you.  For example - “Tell me more about …”