“Integrating Technology into Youth Drug Prevention: A Conversation with James Foley”
[00:00:04] Jake White: Hello, and welcome back to Party Talk where we empower leaders in youth drug prevention. Today, I’m chatting with James Foley. And I wanted to invite him to the show, because this guy is the tech guru who you want on your team. He’s somebody you wish you had in your office to help you with all things design websites, AI integrating, making things look amazing. So I was like, “Hey, James, will you chat with me? Will you talk a little bit about what you do and prevention, and then how you integrate technology into it?” So welcome, James to the Party Talk podcast.
[00:00:40] James Foley: Thank you. I’m super excited to be here. Hey, everyone. My name is James Foley. I’m a prevention educator and graphic designer at on Virginia’s Eastern Shore, and I’m part of our community services board, which is one of 40 boards across the state. And so it’s been awesome seeing the prevention space grow over the years. I’ve been here for a little over six years. And it’s been awesome seeing things go from direct services, and switching into that whole piece where you’re actually providing services to people as programs. And it’s been great to see the different things you can do with it, different avenues, and different awareness the ways you can create awareness. It’s been brilliant.
[00:01:16] Jake White: Awesome. And before we dive into some of the tech stuff, tell us a little bit about the prevention experience the presentations, or anything you’re doing in prevention right now. So we can kind of get a background on how you do prevention?
[00:01:31] James Foley: So with prevention, a lot of times we take out just classes, we go to our local community college, we offer things for our nursing student programs. And they’re taking all her mental health first aid classes, our opioid overdose prevention things called ever shout experiences. So we’re doing that trauma and resilience. So we’re talking about those. And we’re going to local businesses, we’re trying to get into our school systems, we have our spouse programs, our preschool kids are getting these lessons already. And we’re trying to get these more prevention messages on suicide prevention, opioid overdose prevention, because it is happening in those lower grades. And so we’re trying to get into our schools and just all this stuff out into our community as much as possible. And it’s been awesome try to get the things out in social media as well. But getting into and in front of people is exactly where you want to be with religion.
[00:02:21] Jake White: I just have to ask because I’m curious now, what can you tell a preschooler that isn’t necessarily introducing them to drugs, but is helpful for them to save a life? What does that look like?
[00:02:36] James Foley: It’s mostly the same as the old dude out say no to drugs kind of campaign, you really want to teach them and educate them, what it looks like and this the way you don’t really want to use it, it does this the things that can happen, and you want to keep it out of your body and keep it away from you. And it’s okay to other people do it, because maybe they’re grownups. But that’s not for you, and you want to stay on your own path. And so those are the kinds of lessons we try to really get into our schools and trying to teach them more about prevention and start that originally.
[00:00:04] Jake White: Okay. Let’s move to some tech stuff. And this is what I’m really excited to chat with you about. So will you just kind of give us a menu of what are the things that you’re utilizing in your job as a prevention supervisor doing your work? What are some tools or some menu items that you utilize right now?
“The Power of ChatGPT and Bing Chat in Prevention”
[00:03:24] James Foley: The biggest thing is I really utilize our ChatGPT with a focus on being chat now because it has been chat has 4.0 capabilities with ChatGPT. And you can use it for blog posts, social media posts are really generating those things, their content around it, SEO friendly. So search engine optimization, those meta tags, you can really get those really detailed in chat GBT and creates it instantly just for you. Everyone gets a different one whenever you put it a different thing in. So you have your own party and you can put your own swing and sway on things.
[00:03:58] Jake White: Okay. Let’s break that down a little bit. So, for those of us who aren’t the tech people, you mentioned some things already. So ChatGPT being you said something about a 4.0. I’ll have to ask you about that. And we mentioned SEO and meta tags. So let’s break it down. I’m in third grade James. Tell me that same thing he just told me but third grade.
[00:04:27] James Foley: I forgot to break it down for people. So with ChatGPT is the newest, biggest hottest thing with AI. It’s you put your text in whether you want to solve a problem you can ask it how many leaders are in announced or something crazy like that. If you want to generate a post on social media, I buy social media posts for Facebook and has to have with raise awareness and suicide prevention. It can actually generate you a whole script through there if you do a Video PSA or social media post that generates everything for you, based on what you put in, it’s called a prompt. And with ChatGPT, there’s different functions, it’s now on 3.5 is the free version, you can get on ChatGPT with, you want the 4.0 version, you go to Bing Chat bing.com, they have their own chat bot now and that actually allows you to get free ChatGPT for answers from there. So you can go there and get those. And with the search engine optimization, so pretty much if you create a blog post or anything online, these crawlers, these spiders from Google have to try to find your information somehow. And so when you do a Google search, your information has to come up. And that’s because of SEO friendly tags as meta tags that you put in, when you actually put those meta tags in. When people somewhere around the world put in something on Google, you can search for suicide prevention, where Eastern Shore reward app, people will actually go to find that and your information based on those tags you put in. And so those are generative, they come straight from ChatGPT and they’re really awesome, really powerful to use.
[00:06:09] Jake White: Wow. Let’s say bingchat.com if that’s what it’s called. So go to bingchat.com, and maybe I make a profile or something, then I can literally put in the search bar, “Will you write me a 2000 word blog on the dangers of marijuana for teens?” And it’s going to create something based on information it finds across the entire internet and create that for me, right?
[00:06:42] James Foley: 100%. Actually, being chat actually puts down credible sources for you as well. Whereas ChatGPT doesn’t put those sources in. So when it lists data, or facts or statistics, ChatGPT you cannot they can Well, maybe that’s right, maybe it’s not right, but I’m just gonna go with it. With Bing Chat, you could actually look up those statistics and where those diets actually come from. So you can actually verify that information as you’re going. So it’s a very powerful tool that I have.
“SEO and the Role of AI in Increasing Online Visibility”
[00:07:09] Jake White: That is incredible. I mean, that alone is just worth so much, especially as people who are involved in coalition’s sometimes you’re starting off, and you don’t have a tech guy or a James in the office, and you need to produce all this stuff yourself. So why not utilize something that’s out there that does the research for you. And then you can add a little flavor on to it and post it. And this is something in case people don’t know using SEO or Search Engine Optimization. It helps people find you online, he talks about those spiders that are crawling and looking for your website. So if you are providing services for your community, you might ask it to write something that and maybe you can correct me if I’m wrong, James, but I could put in, “Write me a 500 word blog about this.” I want to rank for these keywords. And then you can put in your city name, you know, Recovery Services, or drug prevention or alcohol education. Can you ask it to do that stuff as well?
[00:08:12] James Foley: Absolutely. You can drill down as much as you want. And you can make the prompt as detailed as you want to get the exact results that you need. I mean, I make radio PSAs using ChatGPT. And the thing that you can actually deal and go down with on ChatGPT is amazing. You can get scripts made for your area, made for your exact numbers that you need the hotlines you need, it puts in everything exactly what you want.
[00:08:37] Jake White: Yeah. And just one thing that I’ve been just recently testing out was, number one, the blog capabilities and two is just writing emails, like you might have to invite, you know, community partners to be a part of your event. So you can tell these the search bar, basically, I’m calling it, but you can tell it about your event and say, “Well, you write an invitation letter for these community partners or these businesses or sponsors. And what’s really neat is these programs are insanely smart.” So they know actually what’s working and what’s not. If you imagine like yourself as a copywriter, someone who’s a really skilled copywriter, this chat program might have the same skills as a professional copywriter, because it’s collecting data from all the different copy across the internet.
[00:09:29] James Foley: Absolutely. Now, it’s been a breeze to work with, because it makes jobs so much faster and things are more accurate as you go through. And the more you use it, the more you know where to push the AI to get the results that you need. And so even if you don’t, if it gives you a social media post, and you’d like half the things and then you can tell it that you want to change the voice, the tone of voice, you can tell it to change the way he uses words, and it will drill down exactly what you need. It’s an incredible tool and I think people use it more because it saves time and saves money and it’s so much effort.
[00:10:05] Jake White: It’s so cool. And I’ve used it where I’ve had write emails for me, and then just said, can you make that half the length or shorter email and it will do it. It’s super impressive. And I want to ask you this, James, I don’t know if you are aware of this or know the future of AI, where it’s going. But for where it is going and allowing the capabilities like, is this something that do you think it’s going to be adapted by every department across the country is going to have access to AI, and they’re going to continue developing it. And this is like just the beginning, or is this as far as it’s going and these are the capabilities it’s going to have?
[00:10:48] James Foley: The way that I’ve seen it grow from just one year ago to where it is now, it’s unstoppable. There’s going to be at every single aspect that we use daily, day to day, whether it be just from emails all the way up to creating different therapy journals for people ways, they can actually produce self-care journals and everything that they can do those routines, you can actually put that into AI and create something for yourself. I do have to personally for my health thing and try to find self-care routines that I can have for myself, and it comes up with things I would have never even thought of and it’s amazing. I will say that the way we use it is going to change the way we work forever. And I think this is the next future for sure. Whereas people thought Bitcoin was the next future. I think it was definitely where it’s at for sure with the work we do. And the way we want to actually evolve society. I think this is exactly where we need to be.
[00:11:40] Jake White: And is the information going to get current? I might be already out of date, because when I was using ChatGPT for the first time, it was like I’m collecting data from 2021 and past, at the point right now where you can ask for like, “Hey, what is the current Youth Risk Behavior Survey results for Ohio around alcohol and drugs?” And it will pull current information or is that still in the future?
[00:12:09] James Foley: No, currently with ChatGPT, they just released an update where if you are a paid user, you’ve actually get results from the internet to plug in now. So you actually pull in results from the internet. So it’s basically like using Google search, you can just type in something you want from ChatGPT, it will pull up the information from the internet. It’s down dated back to 2021 anymore. This is a living brain, you have everything that you do on the internet, right at your fingertips.
[00:12:35] Jake White: Wow. So if you’re thinking, “Oh, I need an assistant, you can have fun with AI.”
[00:12:42] James Foley: There’s the executive assistant of your dreams right here.
[00:12:46] Jake White: Yeah, that is incredible. So what else are you doing? I’m going to open this up, James, anything that you want to share, knowing that people who are passionate about prevention are on here. And they have limited knowledge of tag or things like that. We’re not entrenched in it like you are, what are some other things that we could check out or what are the things that you’re utilizing that could be helpful for us?
[00:13:11] James Foley: I would say if you’re not too big on the tech space, use it ChatGPT to just get in there and try to play with it. Just say hello to it. It’ll talk to you to the whole process. It’s a chatbot. It’s made to talk and to converse with you. And the more you get used to it, the more you’re going to get used to the prompts, you can create blog posts, you can create social media posts. Like as you said, we can do emails now with it. I mean, even Gmail is going to have AI straight into it. So it’s got to be able to pump an email out for you without even have to think about it. So it’s incredible. I’m using it now to take notes during meetings, when I go into a zoom call, it will take notes. So great action items that come after that. It’ll rank who topped the most and what meeting and I’ll put together a report for you. And it’s an incredible tool, you can actually go through meetings without having to take notes, because it’s gonna take everything for you at the end. And it’ll give you action items, what’s been said through the whole meeting, so you want to do minutes or anything like that anymore, AI is gonna have changed the future, and it’s going to make it so much easier to do stuff.
[00:14:11] Jake White: Wow. So that sounds really attractive that I wouldn’t have to take notes anymore. How do you do that? If you’re on Bing Chat or ChatGPT, is there a button you pressed to say and take my notes, or do you write it and then it’s listening into your call? How do you actually do that?
[00:14:31] James Foley: So with Zoom, they actually have a Zoom marketplace for add ons and plugins. So it’s actually a little button when you’re in a zoom call has little apps button, you can click on it and it’ll actually take you to a marketplace where you can actually check out the latest AI generations they’re putting into it. You can take notes, you can play music, you can do pretty much anything you’d want in a meeting nowadays, especially with AI and it’s crazy what would you actually do that in a meeting while you’re talking to someone else. It’s pretty powerful.
[00:15:00] Jake White: Okay, cool. So we’re checking out the Zoom marketplace. And you are a designer, a web developer, stuff like that. I’m curious can AI create posters and stuff for you or not yet? And if not, what do you use for that?
“Creativity and Collaboration with AI Tools”
[00:15:24] James Foley: It’s getting to the point where it can, it’s slowly evolving to that point. Right now, people are mostly using it for generating images that you can actually put into like Photoshop and take pieces out and make a big poster with it. Just yesterday, I was doing something using Midjourney, which is a generative image creator. So basically, you put in a prompt to text prompt, and it turns that that text into an image for you. So it’s a very detailed image. And this is actually access to our Discord, which is another app to get to Midjourney, though. And that way you can actually use that. And I put in a prompt for Juneteenth. I wanted a social media post for Juneteenth. And I didn’t have a graphic that went with it, because I’ve already used online. So I didn’t want to spend the time to create one by hand. So I thought, well, I’ll use majority and just try it out. I put in the prompt with a colorful Juneteenth Celebration that happened in all the different types of words the colors that I wanted, the backgrounds, they weren’t the different types of style of illustration that I wanted, and it pumped out the perfect image that I needed. The only thing that was a little wonky on it was some of the hands had looked like different knobs on it. I brought him into Photoshop to take off the knobs. But I fixed the hands and I put on the Juneteenth all the information that I needed on it. And it was perfect. I didn’t have to change colors, I didn’t really have to change anything else about it. Because Midjourney took that prompt that I had pumped out the exact image that I needed. And it was an excellent time. I mean, I have social media posts done in 20 minutes easily.
[00:16:55] Jake White: Wow. So is it discord.com we can go to and look for Midjourney?
[00:17:01] James Foley: Yep, discord.com, you can download the app, create an account, and you can find the Midjourney server. So Midjourney, you can actually get into it, try it out. And like I said, you can take any prompts you want, you can imagine, I just did a DND character image for a friend last night, and I created his little parrot, I put that into a character of a druid. So I made a perfect image of his parrot, and I put it into a druid costume. And he loved it, it was definitely a big hit.
[00:17:32] Jake White: I love it. So you’re being very creative with this. And it sounds like it’s limitless and what you can play around with. And that’s kind of the posture is what I’m learning from you is this, is still fairly new. But it can be extremely helpful. And if you get creative with it, it can help you do things a lot faster than spending your time taking notes, creating assets for social media. It can do this stuff quickly. I’m curious at the point where you need to pay for all this stuff right now or is it under like the free trial area, that kind of stuff?
[00:18:10] James Foley: Most of its free currently right now. I’m sure in the future, there will be a lot of times where you either have an ad supported to you or something like that going on in the future. But currently, most of the really cool stuff is free. And so that’s the thing I love about it, because you can dip your toe into it, see what you like about it. And if it is up your alley, you can learn more about it. It’s cool, because it’s all free right now. So let’s definitely get into it if you can.
[00:18:34] Jake White: Okay, very good. I’m going to ask you a question that is about just tech overall. And hey, if you have an opinion, please share it. Is there any areas in prevention since you’ve been in this space for a while, that you’ve seen people use design or use tech? And it’s like wrong, you’re like, “Oh man, that’s embarrassing that you do that.” Would you be brave enough to share what that is, and maybe something different we could do?
[00:19:05] James Foley: Well, the easiest one I always see I even got one today on my inbox to post was on social media, people want to post flyers. You don’t post flyers on social media, you put you make a little graphic that size for the social media posts, and you put it on there. A lot of times, I just get so many graphics on flyers, I’ve got to change it all and I gotta send it back. It goes through so many revisions, it’s just a hassle. Just don’t put flyers, social media people.
[00:19:32] Jake White: A great tool that maybe you use it Canva is if you go to canva.com, you can actually select, I’m going to create an Instagram post or a Facebook post or a story. And it’ll actually give you all the dimensions for you. So you don’t have to think about it. So that that might be helpful for fixing that problem.
[00:19:52] James Foley: Yeah. Canva has been a huge help. I love doing something candid because you can actually change it around a little bit yourself and figure out all those different pieces. CES, and in Canva, they’re starting to put an AI. So look for that in the future, for sure.
[00:20:05] Jake White: Wow that is so cool. And what I love about it too is you can collaborate with someone like maybe you’re filling out some details on it. And because you use software like Photoshop, and these Adobe Suite things that are actually have a big learning curve. So the average person is not going to know what to do with them. But if you send them a canva.com document that you designed there, you can email on that. And they can add the dates or the details and send it right back to you. And there’s no special skills required, like literally anyone can do it.
[00:20:39] James Foley: Exactly. Hopping into Canva is the best way to get into the graphic design space. Because it makes it super easy. Anyone can grab into it and put in a date, you can collaborate. It’s like Google Docs for a graphic design team. And it’s excellent to have. I definitely am trying to dip my toe a little more into it. Because we have so many people in our community that want design elements that they can actually update themselves later on. And Canva is a great tool to actually collaborate with people and bring those in and those design assets can keep going forward without you having to constantly touch him and update a big data, graphics, they can do it themselves. So it’s a great tool to have.
[00:21:20] Jake White: I think one just came to my mind that if you don’t know design, like you just don’t know. And the difference between a JPEG and a PNG. If we have something we’re putting on our website or on a poster, if they send that JPEG, you know that in the file name .JPG or JPEG. And that means it’s going to have a white background. You can’t resize it. And so it’s really tough to work with. So if you’re listening to this, and you’re like, “How do I get stuff to look professional?” Oftentimes, it’s downloading the image as a .PNG. So it has a transparent background. It’s just going to import exactly the design you want. And without all the extra space or the square that makes it look kinda, you know, elementary, you know, or garage sale. Like it looks more professional.
[00:22:17] James Foley: Well said, I like it. So Jake, I got one question for you. What do you got to do with all this free time now that you’re going to be adopting AI into all of your workflows?
“Making Prevention Work Easier and More Efficient”
[00:22:28] Jake White: It means more time connecting with students changing lives with prevention, and then when I’m not doing that, more time to have a life taking vacations with my wife playing games and sports staying fit, stay inactive all that stuff.
[00:22:43] James Foley: I don’t care. I love that.
[00:22:46] Jake White: What about you?
[00:22:47] James Foley: I’ve got so much stuff. I’m trying to learn more from ChatGPT. Because now I’ve got more time, and how to code more and trying to get to the JavaScript stuff. I’m trying to get to the whole sound engineering or podcasting. So it’s been fun.
[00:23:02] Jake White: That’s awesome. So you love to learn, it sounds like you’re curious.
[00:23:05] James Foley: Absolutely, bring it on. If I can learn more and help out what I’m doing at my work, I wear so many hats already might as well put on a few more.
[00:23:14] Jake White: That’s awesome. And I have to ask this to close out. How does someone if they have somebody like you who is multifaceted, they’re passionate about prevention, they’re also doing tech you like you said, you’re wearing many hats. I imagine that any coalition or organization with this person wants to keep you how do they build a workplace that keeps a creative driven person like you happy and keep you there?
“Fostering Creativity and Autonomy in the Workplace”
[00:23:40] James Foley: I get free rearing, unfortunately, to go whatever direction I want. So if I’m feeling to do something, I am given the space to try and find out if it is something we can actually use in prevention, and to see if the community actually enjoys it. So I’ve been getting the free rein to take on these different avenues and different things to do. So I’ve taken on video production in the last couple of years as well for social media. And it’s just been awesome to learn the whole video editing space and how that all works. So it’s been incredible to get the opportunities that I’ve had, and my work had grows with that space. So I’ve been given that the free reign, unfortunately, I’ve got to say that’s the free rein to do all those things to give that power.
[00:24:26] Jake White: Well, that to me sounds like “Hey, if you’ve got somebody on your team, like James, give them that autonomy, that independence to run with their ideas to stay creative, because that’s what sounds like what you thrive on.” So with that, we’ll end the episode and if you’re listening, thanks for tuning into one more episode of Party Talk where we empower leaders in youth drug prevention, please subscribe. Check in next Monday for that new episode and tell a friend.
