July 30, 2026 - FUTURE Kickoff
Notes from our Kickoff session!
Building Capacity for the Future
Kickoff at the Future Meeting
July 30, 2026
We’re Underway
Thank you for helping us launch Building Capacity for the Future with such energy, openness, and practical thinking.
We began with a simple premise: Do not start with an AI tool. Start with work worth improving. Together, we explored recurring work that creates friction, looked at what a thoughtful person would need to understand before changing it, and considered where AI might make a useful contribution.
The result was not a list of AI ideas. It was something more valuable: a way to connect real chapter work, human judgment, and small, responsible experiments.
What We Explored
Start with the work
Broad challenges become more useful when we identify the recurring work underneath them. Instead of beginning with “How could we use AI?” we asked:
- What work happens repeatedly?
- Where does it slow down, lose quality, or depend too heavily on one person?
- Who experiences the friction?
- What useful result should exist at the end?
- What must remain human?
Context shapes usefulness
AI does not automatically know your chapter, your audience, your priorities, or what a good result looks like. A useful request makes three things clear:
- Context: What does AI need to understand?
- Task: What work are we asking it to support?
- Output: What usable result do we need?
Human judgment surrounds all three. People decide what context to provide, how to define the task, what a good output looks like, and whether the result is accurate, appropriate, and ready to use.
Look beyond a single task
Capacity often comes from connecting tasks rather than improving one isolated step. One output may become the starting point for the next activity. Seeing the whole workflow helps us identify where information is lost, work is recreated, follow-up breaks down, or a process becomes dependent on one person.
Explore before deciding
The Capacity Opportunity Canvas is a tool for inquiry, not a form that must be completed perfectly. A blank space, question mark, or missing perspective can reveal what needs to be learned—and who else needs to be involved—before a project moves forward.
Examples From the Room
The apron exercise: the same product, different people
Our three volunteers made Context–Task–Output visible. The right design depends on what they needs to be done, what information is needed for completion, and what a successful result looks like.
The same is true of chapter work. AI cannot produce a useful result unless we help it understand the person, purpose, pain points, constraints, and desired output.
The lesson: Better context creates a better starting point—not a finished answer. Defining output up ensures you get the right format
Email for different physician audiences
We explored how the same communication goal changes when the audience changes. Medical students, residents, early-career physicians, experienced physicians, employed physicians, and independent physicians may care about very different things.
The strongest segmentation is often based on career stage, practice setting, current pressure, and relationship with the sender—not age alone.
An effective email quickly answers three questions:
1. Is this for me?
2. Why should I care?
3. What do you want me to do?
The goal is not simply to shorten the same email for every audience. It is to change the reason that audience should care.
From meeting minutes to a connected workflow
Meeting minutes gave us a practical example of how individual tasks connect. The opportunity was larger than “draft the minutes faster.” The recurring workflow included:
- Capturing the meeting
- Creating and reviewing minutes
- Identifying decisions and action items
- Filing the official record
- Adding actions to a tracker
- Communicating key follow-up items
- Using a consistent process across committees
AI might help summarize information, turn notes into next steps, or create a reusable template. People still need to protect sensitive information and review accuracy, tone, member privacy, political sensitivity, and the official record.
The lesson: Improving one task can save time. Connecting the tasks can create a more dependable process.
Beginning the guardrail conversation
We used public, fictional, or de-identified examples during the session and began considering where AI use may be appropriate, where additional review may be needed, and what should remain off-limits.
The answer depends on the combination of:
- The information
- The task
- The AI tool and account
- Chapter policies and agreements
- The human review required
We will turn this starting point into practical chapter guardrails on August 18.
Resources from the Meeting
Future meeting slide deck
The complete slide deck from our July 30 launch session.
Link: File
Capacity Opportunity Canvas
Use the canvas to move from everyday friction to a small, safe AI-supported test. It is designed to help you understand the opportunity, current workflow, people affected, context needed, possible AI contribution, human judgment, risks, and next step.
Link: File Download
AI Readiness Checklist
Use the checklist to review your individual setup and your chapter’s readiness to begin experimenting responsibly.
Link: [ADD WEBSITE FILE LINK]
Email best practices for busy family physicians
Review the research-informed guidance we used to explore email structure and audience differences.
Link: File download
Practice management title example
See how the group refined a broad request, responded to what worked, and then adapted titles for physicians at different career stages.
Link: File download
Preparing for August 18 Virtual
Responsible AI foundations
Our first virtual session will focus on the practical foundation chapters and individuals need to move forward responsibly.
Together, we will:
- Apply the Green–Yellow–Red framework to realistic chapter situations.
- Identify uses that are ready to explore, questions that require clarification, and boundaries that should be clear.
- Begin developing reusable individual and chapter context for AI.
- Decide where individual and shared AI resources will live
- Prepare for coaching and the project-selection work ahead.
Advance preparation
Plan for approximately 15–20 minutes of preparation.
1. Watch What Is Safe to Share with AI? [COMING SOON]
2. Watch Give AI the Context It Needs. [COMING SOON]
3. Review the AI Use Guardrails: Chapter Working Guide.
4. Identify one AI use that seems clearly Green.
5. Begin your Individual AI Profile. [COMING SOON]
6. Consider where your individual AI materials and your chapter’s shared AI resources will live.