Parenting Smarter: Using AI to Create Everyday Magic

Tim O’Connor:

Well, Hi everybody and welcome back to Kindrel Commons where we believe AI is for everyone and the way we Do that is by showing you real people around the world on how they’re using AI To help their lives be easier, smarter and sometimes a little bit more fun. I think that’s gonna be one of the ones we’re gonna have here today talking with our guest. I’m Tim O’Connor and sitting next to me virtually is my partner. That’s Dr. Adam Pah. How you doing?

Adam Pah:

Doing great. I’m glad to be here with you.

Tim O’Connor:

Well our guest today is somebody I’ve known for quite a while. I’ll let her introduce herself Kelly Middendorf in a second. But what she’s done is helping to use AI to help her create events and activities with her son and I think it’s just really fascinating because it’s very personal what she’s done. When you hear her talk about the improvements of using AI to help versus not AI I think you’ll find that this is a really interesting concept. I think in terms of the easier, smarter and a little more fun I think she’ll talk a little bit how she’s been able to do things that are a little bit more fun. But Kelly welcome to Kindrel Commons.

Kelly Middendorf:

Hi everybody. It’s so nice to be here. My name is Kelly Middendorf I have a five-year-old son and it’s been a lot of fun learning to use AI to help make our days a little bit more efficient and a little bit more personalized for his needs

Tim O’Connor:

But before AI you were creating activities for you and your son to do at nights and weekends, etc Tell us about the process that you were doing there and some of the limitations that you’d have associated with that

Kelly Middendorf:

Sure So as my son got older right, you know. We got kind of out of COVID times and we’re able to leave the house a little bit more I was so excited to start doing more things with him. So think like, you know, it’s cold out. We’ve been cooped up for a while. I want to go to an indoor playground. I know we’ve got exactly two hours because he needs a nap. So, let me find something that’s within driving distance and let’s hope it’s open.

Let’s hope it’s not sold out all the things. So I spent a lot of time Googling asking friends looking around in social media. I’m just trying to figure out what my son might be interested in I also signed up for a lot of newsletters within Connecticut, which is where I live to just try to understand, you know Hey, these are different activities that are going on that are age-appropriate for your for your son. I found a lot of the time that it was really time-consuming. Then sometimes also the information wasn’t necessarily correct, right?

Because what’s on a website might not have been updated for a million years and what is existing out in a newsletter. Might actually just be related to an event that I didn’t pay enough attention to as far as the dates and I got there and it. Was just a normal day, right? It’s just those types of things that especially when you’re multitasking and trying to sit with a kid who wants to get out of the house. You’re just trying to find something quickly It ends up being really inconvenient to just end up searching around a lot and trying to find stuff to do

Tim O’Connor:

Now when you were doing that at some point you decided to say let me look at ai So what was the spark that occurred?

Kelly Middendorf:

It was when I used google to try to find an indoor playground. It was showing us open we drove all the way there. I hyped up my kid. I’m like, hey, it’s gonna be so much fun. We’re gonna get there.

It’ll be great. We’re gonna get out of the house. Guess what wasn’t open you can imagine with a three-year-old that that was that was quite the earth-shattering moment for him, right? Then I’m sitting in the car again trying to google and figure out where the heck I’m gonna go and how I’m gonna keep him happy. At that point the ship has kind of already sailed right because I’ve got another 30 minutes under my belt of driving there and trying to figure out where I’m gonna go next to kind of have lost that window before he needed to take a nap and try to figure out what to do next. After that, I ended up just taking him to an outdoor park We got home and I was like there’s got to be a better way than what just happened. So I was sitting on the couch thinking about my day. I tend to do that at night and I was like, you know what?

I wonder if I just used Chat GPT and asked it a couple questions if it would have been able to give me. More accurate information and so I basically asked it the same exact questions. I had asked google in my line of questioning and it gave me more accurate information than I had been able to find I love it.

Adam Pah:

I’ve actually never thought about this in the day-to-day people always talk about it in like vacation planning and it’s like, oh I’m going on this trip like I want to see these things create an itinerary for it, but this is everyday life and it’s really just about like your situation has changed right you now have a kid. That’s you need to do things for the first time. It’s actually a lot more analogous to many other situations like as you were talking it just occurred to me. I was like Oh, that’s how it was moving to Atlanta for me like I was here. I have to work all the time and you know where nothing is and so like you have a couple hours every night in the weekend and you’re like I don’t know where anything is I don’t know how long it takes to get anywhere.

I’m exhausted and I have no time and you I just gave up this idea never occurred to me.

Kelly Middendorf:

So I’m feeling that’s exactly what it felt like right I felt like a almost Baby bird of a mom trying to figure out how to navigate the world with my toddler Yeah been cooped up for so long and I’m like how do I do this and how do I make sure that I’m, not going to be in the car with him for a long time and and things like that, right? So I had to use so many different tools to figure out the answer to one question as opposed to How do I make this more efficient for myself and have it be more dependable? You know I’ve got the my child can’t be in the car for longer than 30 minutes at this age, right?

Factor in the traffic do all these different other things and that becomes a lot of work when you have to use a bunch of different tools and Know what to look up know where to go think about the things that might freak him out, etc Right.

Adam Pah:

There’s just there’s just a lot that comes along with planning even just a simple day of activities with your kid. Do you remember like one time that it like really surprised you or blew you away with how good? The activity or itinerary was right?

Kelly Middendorf:

It could have been. Did it just go even worse than what you’ve done on your own besides the playground being closed Yeah, yeah, I’m gonna fast forward a bit because I would say that I you know learned a lot over time right some of the things that I just said about like What’s the traffic gonna look like we live in connecticut, right? You could you could be in for a 15 minute ride You could be in for a 45 minute depending on on what time of the day you leave, so I learned a lot like understanding the traffic patterns and learning how to ask Chat GPT those questions and it kind of evolved over time where I would then tell Chat GPT to save a profile for my son I just created a little folder of all the activities and things that I’ve been doing with him. Over time I would you know, I essentially had his name right and I would talk to that particular chat and I would say Okay, the latest thing he’s into is monster trucks, right and it would go.

Okay great or the latest thing kids have phases Right. They have lots of phases that come and go and his current fixation was monster trucks or He loves going to the beach. I need ideas, right?

He’s going into kindergarten Uh, and so this is years later after after talking to my folder of all the things about my son, right? Years later before he was starting kindergarten. I wanted to have a special night just me and him before he went into school I knew about how much of a budget I had I knew about how much time we had, and I was struggling with whether or not I wanted to do an overnight because again that involves a lot of packing and planning and all the things Or if I wanted to just do a day trip somewhere So I asked chat gpt for a couple different ideas. Again living in Connecticut for fun exciting things that my son might want to do within a reasonable traveling distance that maybe felt a little bit more novel at that moment His fixation was boats.

So it knew that and it suggested that we went to Port Jefferson, which is a ferry ride across from Bridgeport, which is the nearest city to me, right? You get on the ferry right across you go to Port Jefferson. Then I was like, do I want to spend the night?

Or do I want to do a daytime trip? So I went back and forth with it quite a bit and it put together the most Fun day trip itinerary it possibly could have for me within my budget and then added in by looking up accommodations that were available at that time How that would look if we were to do more time and I went back and forth with it and it suggested, you know Hey, I really think you should stay overnight because I think you guys are going to have a lot of fun and also There’s a really cool room available if you’re willing to fork out a little extra money, right? So it just worked with me in a way that felt almost like an assistant in planning this trip and kind of giving me additional ideas and putting together a reasonable itinerary for my son to play on a playground, go to a science center and go to the beach. Go on the ferry. It told me where to sit on the ferry and how to talk him through it. It was so much fun. That was one of the best memories we have together before he started kindergarten because I used that tool to help me get there

Tim O’Connor:

I’m, really glad you brought this up because this is what I wanted to explore with you. You mentioned a couple of things like you had a folder of Including his background so it knows What he’s interested in and you’re interested in and what you’re not interested in. Let’s just start on that one. How did you do that?

So that it could start to really know what the two of you like to do what the two of you don’t like to do. So I had that folder where I would just start a separate chat, right?

Kelly Middendorf:

So I had a I had chat where I just talked about the current things that my son was into his again his current fixations and phases. Different things he was was scared of like he’s a little scared of the dark right now and I would just kind of update it continuously and then what I would do is go back into that folder and start a new chat for the activity that I wanted to do for that day, right? I would say hey I’ve got all day. I want to take my son out on an adventure today reference the chat of his name to look at his latest interests Right and help me come up with ideas for it to kind of put together the different activities and likes and dislikes that were currently appropriate for him uh, so by creating essentially a project folder and having those separate chats within it it learned how to understand what I needed what my son liked and what I didn’t like and when we would do an activity I would go back to the chat and tell it what worked or didn’t work if I remembered a lot of the time I didn’t but when I did it would it would update its memory right and say okay Maybe that was a little too far or maybe my maybe my uh, My estimation on traffic wasn’t right because I was looking overall and it’s a summer things like that, right?

But it was it was really interesting because it learned over time how to help direct me Based on his interests and my tolerance for certain things, right?

Tim O’Connor:

Now in in that you’re built you built this profile then of you all and you have the conversation tell us about the conversation because one of the things that Adam and I have clearly learned as we’ve spoken to people Is conversing with an LLM is an uncomfortableness for many people because it’s to really have the effectiveness you have to have this conversation with with the the computer and almost like the computer isn’t a computer.

It’s as if it’s a you know, it’s a tour guide sitting next to you.

Tell us tell us about that how do you do that because it is a big barrier for a lot of people.

Kelly Middendorf:

At first it was a learning curve, right? But the more you do it the more comfortable you get over time, especially when it learns from what you’re telling it, right? So one of the things that I would do is, you know again in that folder that I had I would come back in and say hey Today is saturday.

I would like to take my son over to lunch. We would like to go to a playground. He also has been interested in science lately. What can we do and where can we go? It would come back and suggest a bunch of different things and then I would go. Did you check to make sure everything’s open and it would go?

Uh, let me look right and then it would look again and it’d be like just kidding Okay, wait, I noticed one thing is closed or it might be sold out and then it would reduce the list Right, and then I would train it and say I don’t ever want options that aren’t open. Then I told it the story of that one time I drove my son somewhere and then it wasn’t open. I was like, please don’t do that to me again, and it was like I got it, but I talked to it more like a More like an employee I guess in a way. Then, more like an employee than I would talk to like, you know, a human that I’m in a close relationship with does that make sense? I have expectations for it.

It understands that I need certain things and the way that I speak and teach it, it has been something that’s been helpful to learn over time only give me things that are open Reference my son’s interests to make sure that we’re using something that’s going to be fun, you know insure we’re looking at traffic patterns. I’m not going to get stuck in a million in a million line. Just help me utilize this particular moment as a way to have fun with him based on what we know right now right and it and those types of conversations with it over time really taught it what I was expecting. When something went wrong, I came back and told it that something went wrong again, it’s almost like an employee relationship, right?

Like I asked you to send me here and something went wrong. Here’s what happened. How are we going to do better next time? Then it would usually give me a corrective action that it would take right?

Oh I’m going to do this differently next time, so I think that if you just understand that you’re teaching it something right. You’re trying to teach it what you need and how you would like to go about your particular task you’re asking for. It gives you much better information over time.

Adam Pah:

That’s such an Interesting point to raise and it’s not for like the totally off-kilter question. Have you ever had an Alexa? Yes It’s gonna start talking if you’re not careful. Are you in the camp of like you always say thank you to it?

No, not me either. I yeah, I found that there’s like two types of people, right? There’s like the ones that always say like Alexa.

Thank you. No matter what, that’s my wife. Then there’s the group of people where I’m just like Alexa bad bad Alexa. She’s like don’t don’t they’re going to take over like she’s going to learn that you’re not nice to her and like I it does not matter it didn’t do the right thing It did exactly the wrong thing. So I don’t care and that really does get into like this this kind of relationship of how you you talk with it and treat it and what you get back, right?

Because a lot of people talk about like, oh, it’s so effacing it’s so like congratulatory to me and everything it says all the time. I’m like, do you get that? I mean, is that something you’ve trained out of it by treating it like an employee?

Kelly Middendorf:

Yeah, I’ve trained, I’ve trained that out of it. I mean you could probably tell by my communication style I don’t really have much time for fluff with it, right? I don’t want to hear.

Oh, that’s a great idea Let me give you all the different things that you know, no Uh, give me give me the list I’ll tell you what I like about it and what I don’t like about it and then that’s when we typically start being cordial with one another for a lot of a better way to describe it right another I don’t know but, it’s it’s learned over time that until I get the answer I want I’m going to be direct I’m going to ask it very pointed questions and I’m going to correct it. But I also come back and teach it what it did. Well, and I think that’s really Important point to bring across is that In order for it to understand what you need and how you would like to go about your you know interaction with it while you need to correct it You also need to teach it what you like, right? What my son liked and the things that worked and the things that didn’t work. Because the time that you take to do that. Results in a much better end result As you go, right?

So it’s essentially like a step ladder you start at the bottom you work your way up and over time. It’s learned what I need and what my son needs As you’ve trained this concierge, if you will Yeah, right, right, right.

Tim O’Connor:

Yeah, because if you go to a concierge, let’s say a fancy hotel they know some of these rules already. They’ve built over time. You’ve added these rules and you’ve built these rules. Have they changed as your son has gotten older?

Or is it or his interests have changed? I mean, how do you how do you assure that his interests that are there now aren’t good? It’s not going to be influenced by something that he had an interest in let’s say two years ago or you know the concept of that of who is he now and who are you now?

Kelly Middendorf:

Yeah, you know, there were I think monster trucks is a great example, right? He became fixated with monster trucks after my husband saw that they were coming into town, and they were it wasn’t it. It wasn’t a far ride.

But I didn’t I’ve never been to a monster truck show, I’ve not you know, I have no idea what it’s like to go to one of those things I wasn’t sure what we needed to do to prepare him or like honestly What even what clothes to put on him was like are we gonna be walking around in mud? I have no idea, so it’s it’s funny. It understands I would say based on all of the information it has available What’s what should be an appropriate answer when you ask? Hey, I’m going to bring my four-year-old to a monster jam show. Are there certain things I need to know about how to make this a fun time?

It’s going to be at this particular venue, what’s the bag policy things like that, right? So I ask it kind of all the things that I need to know to navigate those particular instances. I bring that up because one of the things that I didn’t teach it Now that he was four and we were bringing him to a monster truck show. I don’t need a diaper bag anymore I was just asking about my purse, right?

I was asking whether or not I could bring snacks in and things like that. I didn’t necessarily need to know whether or not I could bring a diaper bag in right? so there’s a certain amount of logic that it understands, but it also I would say tends to personalize based on the information that it had available within that that project that I talked about So I never went back and told him we didn’t need a diaper bag anymore But then when it said, oh, yeah, your diaper bag is going to be fine.

I was like, we don’t need that anymore But thank you, so it’s funny, it’s I would say you know when it thinks about how We understand how we navigate the world it looks at things like that and information like that. But the information that it returns a lot of the time is based on common sense. Or the information that I’ve given it, and that has been really interesting that I have to remember to go back and say I don’t need a diaper bag anymore We’re not into this particular youtube carrier character anymore, but thanks for bringing it up, right? I like those types of things so it updates its memory and it understands that he decided that you know paw patrol isn’t that cool anymore and we’re not going to do that. We want to do monster trucks, right?

Adam Pah:

How long did it take to actually train it out of thinking? You still needed a diaper bag. Was it could you get it instantaneous or was there still more reminding down the road?

Kelly Middendorf:

It would it would ask, uh, that’s a good question because it would ask things like oh, are you bringing a backpack? I was like, did you mean diaper bag? No, so II would say things like that right to just almost kind of ask the question back. Yeah, it never really to my memory never really suggested anything like that again, because I just made it clear we didn’t need it and I also made it clear that he was an only child right there.

We just we don’t need that, so it was funny it It almost had a congratulations Associated with that update too. It was like, oh, that’s great.

You don’t have to carry that around anymore, but it was really funny because humorous interaction where it was like that’s awesome. You don’t need to do that anymore.

Adam Pah:

Okay anthropomorphizing and you’re like chatty, right? It’s like oh, thank god.

Kelly Middendorf:

That was such a pain in the ass to plan for exactly like now we now I don’t have to worry about it when I’m looking at like where can I send you right? I never thought about that as it related to its planning ability in that having a giant bag that I had to bring in places obviously reduced the amount of things so that it could suggest for me, right?

Tim O’Connor:

So if you imagine this like if you’d hired three people, right? They all have different personality styles, right? So we all know about myers-briggs and all kinds of different 360 personality styles. So you have this portfolio of things you’ve done with it. How over time have you been able to?

Educate it so that the way it speaks back to you Is in a personality style that you want because it could come back and be You know all the same information But how it speaks to you could be entirely different. Have you done anything with that or just let it just evolve into whoever it wants to be I’d say a little bit of a mixture, right?

Kelly Middendorf:

It’s evolved over time based on how I speak to it and what I think I’ve made clear that I expect and would like as far as the information that it gives back to me, but that’s secondary To the personality which is I think you know kind of a secondary thing. So I asked it not necessarily in relation to any of the chats that I had going about my son. But I asked it what my communication style was like, and if it could summarize how I like to be spoken to. What does that look like right? I used that, you know kind of information to go back and forth with it a little bit, and I let it know I’m okay with a little bit of sarcasm and if you want to try to make me laugh. That’s funny. Like let’s look, you know, we can do things like that, right?

I would prefer that over kind of that, hey great idea almost uh weird congratulations, right? Uh dark humor and sarcasm that’s gonna go a long way with me, right? I think that’s why it was so funny about the diaper bag because it was like that’s great You don’t got to do that anymore, and I appreciate that so when it when it has moments where It communicates me into a way that makes me laugh, right or it communicates in a way that gets a giggle out of me or it feels like it understands me I’ll note that to it and I said that that’s funny.

You could do that again, right? Then it kind of it saves that to a certain extent, if you’re if you’re in a in a pattern where you’re trying to figure out where to take a toddler and it’s an exhausting experience to your point earlier Adam, right? It is it’s a lot.

It’s a lot to take a kid out of the house. I think that once it understood that it could kind of use that tone with me. It made the whole experience lighter and more fun to me.

Tim O’Connor:

I think I remember you telling me that when you shared the boat trip with some of your friends. Yeah, they had some interesting You know reactions. Can you share that with us?

Kelly Middendorf:

Sure, so I was actually out to dinner with two of my longest girlfriends who have the I would say similar age group children, right? So one of my friends has a five-year-old girl. One of my other friends has a four-year-old girl and both of them have younger boys and so I explained you know how we were just talking about how we go out and the different things that we do and how we find? Different activities we were all trying to figure out how we could get the kids together. So I pulled out my phone. I just started typing in the normal things that I typically do right and I said, oh look. Well, this looks like an idea. They got really curious about what I was doing when it came up with fun ideas and kind of provided different thoughts about it. So then I started talking a little bit about exactly what we’re chatting about now, right how I do that how I use Chat GPT and other ai tools to To learn and and try to find fun activities for my son and Then we transitioned into talking about that day trip and overnight trip that we took out to Port Jefferson. That’s when their minds were blown because I went back in the chat history and I just showed them. Hey, I had to put almost no mental energy into this other than giving it the basic rules of operating right?

When you are a mom, especially with a kid that needs a lot or two children. That need, a lot of the amount of brain space that you have to plan something like that Is I think the biggest advantage and what what really stood out to them that they didn’t need to take the extra effort. The extra time and energy to really put into that that there’s something that can help them do that already

Adam Pah:

and I think I mean just to kind of go with that. I mean you’re talking about having toddlers but yeah No, I mean, uh, my mom loves my niece and nephew.

She has been around for their entire lives and has such an amazingly close relationship with them. They when When my nephew was like a baby they would watch them all weekend because my sister and uh brother-in-law are nurses so they did three twelves in a row over the weekend and so my parents would watch him during that and It’s always been part of her like the trips right because they’re not you know, they’re not toddlers. They’re not staying over the weekend but they’re they’re 15 going on 16 You know 13 going on fourth the evolution in the last four years of what they are willing to do and spend time with my mom has just so drastically changed Yeah, I can feel it it’s like I feel like she’s just like I don’t like this is the one thing I can think of that will keep everyone happy. So like they keep going to the great wolf lodge because she’s like it’s It pleases everyone which is just like I don’t like, it just feels like this is like a lifelong thing. Right to try to update the preferences and keep getting new ideas. Because you know, the reality is is most things end up being a strikeout, you know, especially as they get older yeah, just you know, it’s not that and so I mean, how long do you think you can keep this going or how long do you think you’re even going to try to keep it going?

Kelly Middendorf:

I don’t see a universe where it won’t apply in some way right as long as I am parenting and I see that broadly not just in activity planning, but I also think that it’s It’s even just logistical questions I have an acute memory of being about 14 or 15 and telling my father I don’t want you to walk into the movie theater with me anymore, right? I want you to just let me go find my friends and I remember him being like oh, you know. There’s I think everyone hits a phase Where they’re a teenager and all of a sudden you don’t want to be seen with your parents, right? Why I don’t know I assume it’s developmentally appropriate but to that point That evolution and how I changed as a child Is something that I would likely have a conversation with it for my son to be like, okay So he told me this now and I want you to know that there might be scenarios when we plan things Where I need to go park in the parking lot.

So let’s find places where I can go park and things like that, right?

Adam Pah:

There’s a start considering amenities that are nearby but not there while I wait, right now.

Kelly Middendorf:

He’s right now. He’s glued to me and that’s great, right? But I think that there’s going to be a day where he’s going to need different things. I’m going to need different things and I’m going to need to understand how to navigate my parenting relationship with him differently so being able to have those conversations as he grows and as I evolve I think will be Helpful for the foreseeable future. There’s a lot of energy that goes into parenting and especially trying to plan fun things with your kid and and being able to Utilize that to spend more time and quality time with him In an understanding of what he needs is An invaluable resource to me right now

Tim O’Connor:

Now this may be a question that there isn’t an answer to but I’m curious about it. So if you think about the evolution of technology, so let’s start with like emails so all this this history of emails if you’ve done Right, and they’re on servers someplace Right work in personal servers Then over time there’s all this Activity that you’ve done on search. You’ve got google google knows everything like if you if you’re worried about google knowing what you’re doing While you’re 30 years too late, right? It knows everything you do and tracks everything, right?

So there’s data, but there’s these finger points, right? Right, but a lot of that is and you can do this with like pictures as well. But a lot of this is kind of I’m going to call it one dimensional right this on the other hand is bi-dimensional you’re having conversations back and forth. Here’s this history of your son You know and you’re building all this history and it’s in there this Bi-directional type of thing and one day he wants to run for president of the united states.

He’s got my vote by the way But now there’s all this history about have you ever thought about the uncomfortableness of that history being built up or deleting it over time or I’m just curious again, it may not have an answer to it right now, but this is a different world that we’re we’re in Yeah, I am.

Kelly Middendorf:

I’m fiercely protective of the information that I give it right. There are certain things that I will never disclose to Ai and that is more a product of my paranoia, I think then and maybe realism right in that exact understanding with having a marketing background that once things are out into the ether they live there I consider the information that I give my chat kind of in the lens of If this came back to him, would he be upset? Right and there’s an important protectiveness.

I think that needs to be inherently approached in anything like this, and especially as it relates to data collection, but I think that if you think about it in in kind of the If I printed out a book of all the different facts that this particular chat knows about my child Would I be okay with him reading it? Right and right now I am and I think that that is something that I have to just make sure that I’m careful of safeguarding and make sure that I’m careful of the information that I provide, there’s plenty of times where I start typing something and I’m like Okay, I’m gonna back that up Right. It doesn’t need to know maybe about one thing that he’s having trouble with from a behavioral standpoint or something like that, right?

It needs to know that he can’t handle being in a loud environment right now, that’s it, right? I don’t need to tell it the whys behind that it I have to just be careful about the amount of information that I give it and when you think about it from a protective parenting lens That’s the safeguard to me.

Tim O’Connor:

That’s a wonderful answer. Thank you. Kelly that you’re thinking about that stuff. So, we’re kind of near the the tail end and of our of our interview here so if somebody came up to you one of one of your girlfriends and. They had a question about doing something with ai or whatnot. What might you tell them?

Kelly Middendorf:

I’d ask them what they wanted, right? I’d ask them to think about what they wanted at the end of the conversation, right? Think about what your end goal would be so I want to drive to an indoor playground have it be open and have fun, right?

Then I would tell them how to navigate that conversation over time right in that you can give it the information you want you can give it the budget you want you can give it all the things that you would do to plan a day right and think about getting to that end goal. If you start with the end goal and back into the questions that will help you get to that end goal. That’s how you get to the information.

It’s just thinking about how you look at putting together The conversation a little bit differently. It’s almost working backwards instead of forwards, right?

Tim O’Connor:

Adam do you have a nice way of kind of, summarizing in terms of suggesting people to do something do this one thing anything and anything come to mind on your end about that?

Adam Pah:

Oh, absolutely. I mean I actually, this has been a really inspiring conversation for me. I know that we’re talking about toddlers here. But I think the only thing I really wanted to take away with this is I might as well be a 40 year old toddler Yeah, right, right there’s Just being in a new place.

I’m exhausted by trying to think of what to do that’s new and novel and tries to get something nearby learn something new Just try this for ourselves right, I think that so often we on our own without some kind of impetus like having a child to care for, we we don’t think about how we could use this tool to help explore our own local area and I think that’s the best idea I’ve heard in such a long time because You have so much time while you’re living there to experience so much you don’t need the suggestion to be the absolute best suggestion possible like when you’re taking vacation right I could see people being like, oh, I don’t want to use it to plan because I want the best of everything for the five days I’m in Greece or savannah, georgia or wherever you are, but like you’re at home every single weekend How can this help you do something new and not go crazy

Kelly Middendorf:

Right, right, right.

Adam Pah:

I think that’s that’s one or my child go crazy. Yeah Oh, I mean, like I said, I’m a 40 year old toddler. We went I got tickets for a show on a Thursday night It took us an hour to drive the three miles from work to where the show was and I was having a temper tantrum in the car. I was just like I can’t I never want to do this again I never want to do this again I get it.

Kelly Middendorf:

I get it, right? It’s a convenience factor that if you think about it the right way can really really help you navigate life. You know, there was a phase where my child was only eating beige food for instance, right?

It was like parmesan cheese pasta bread things like that, right? So I would tell it go to the beige food list right and tell me where we can go get lunch, right? You are eating at noodles and company. Are there saltines on the side that’s always going to eat right like it’s just those are the types of things that it just you know when you think about the ways that to your point about having a temper tantrum, right?

Are the things that inconvenience you or the things that just make it a little bit more difficult to navigate the world? It doesn’t necessarily have to be that way if you go around go about it the right way

Tim O’Connor:

Well, Kelly, I tell you what we’re just so appreciative of you joining us and sharing your story because there’s so much here that a lot of people can learn from and can use from I love adam you say like hey How about us just as individuals reminds me of like how many times people live in a city and they’ve never even seen the city. Then they move and they find out they never even saw the city they lived in. Yeah, you know, but Kelly, thanks so much.

I think there’s a lot here to help people, and, we thank you very much. So, thank you as we do our closing to you.

Kelly Middendorf:

Thanks. Thank you.

Tim O’Connor:

It’s great to have you here Adam, always my partner. We can’t do it without both of us, Here’s another great story to share with people. Well, thank you for your time.

Adam Pah:

Well, thank Tim.

Tim O’Connor:

I hope this one has an immediate impact for everyone. I think that’s a great way to kind of put the explanation point on an immediate impact for everybody. You know again here everybody at Kindrel Commons. We believe that AI is for everyone. Not just elite not just for tech people but it is for everyone and it can make an impact on your day today. One of the ways to do that is to see people like Kelly and how she uses AI to make her life easier with her son, smarter with their son and a little bit more fun with their son. I think you hit all three of those really well Kelly. Thanks so much everybody and, we look forward to seeing you again on Kindrel Commons all the best