AI for Small Business Decisions – Practical Help Without Blind Trust
Lesson 1: Command Thinking for Free AI Foundations
Lesson Objectives
By the end of this lesson, students should be able to:
- Explain what a command is in this provider context.
- Distinguish real commands from natural-language requests and UI buttons.
- Write a command request with role, source, desired output, constraints, and acceptance checks.
Lesson Content
AI can help a business owner compare options, write checklists, draft offers, inspect customer questions, and map risks. It should not be treated as an accountant, lawyer, doctor, or final decision maker.
Professional Use Case: A business owner compares three course pricing options and asks for assumptions and risks.
Student task: Perform the following use scenario. Copy the first AI answer into a text editor or notes document. Then write one clarification prompt, which is a short follow-up that tells the AI exactly what to fix, add, remove, or explain.
Starter scenario: Ask AI to create a pricing decision brief with pros, cons, risks, and missing data.
Troubleshooting: If the command is unavailable, check whether it depends on a workspace, paid plan, enabled tool, file type, browser/app context, or region. If the output is shallow, add source material, examples, exclusion rules, and a definition of done. If the output contains claims, verify against an authoritative source before using it.
Quality Rubric:
- The command includes enough context to prevent generic output.
- The result is tied to a real deliverable.
- The student records at least one verification step.
- Sensitive data is removed or minimized.
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