Full transcript
0:00Hey everyone. Today we're starting a
0:01series of videos all about using Claude
0:03Co-work, which is one of those areas
0:05that I've put off for honestly way too
0:08long. And it's a very viable way to
0:10write books these days, but it can be a
0:12little overwhelming for the uninitiated.
0:14So that's what this and a few future
0:16videos are going to handle. But in this
0:18series, we're actually going to do
0:19something a little different. I've
0:21actually gone out and recruited one of
0:23my good friends who knows Claude Co-work
0:25more than I do to do the bulk of this
0:27instruction. And I want to introduce you
0:29to him now. His name is Akello Harrell
0:31and he is an AI creator, builder, and
0:34writer who has been building real
0:35systems, not just talking about the
0:37technology, but actually putting it to
0:39work for authors. He runs his own
0:41channel called Why AI Matters and he's a
0:43science fiction and techno thriller
0:45writer, and he thinks about AI much in
0:47the same that we do here, which is as a
0:49creative partner and not as a
0:50replacement. He's joining us today to
0:52walk you through some things I think
0:54will be genuinely exciting for you. So
0:57take it away, Akello. Hello. My name is
0:59Akello Harrell, and boy am I happy to be
1:02a nerdy novelist. And today, before we
1:04get started, I want to make sure you
1:06understand that the only way that you're
1:07going to be able to access Co-work is
1:10through the Claude desktop app, not the
1:14browser, not the phone. I want you to
1:17download the app and that's where it
1:19lives. Once you've got that, everything
1:22I'm about to show you, it's just going
1:25to work. So, let me show you exactly
1:28what it does.
1:30Okay, so I've had a couple of fill
1:31attempts to date.
1:33It's not that big a deal, but I do
1:36already have a lot of what I'm about to
1:38discuss already built out for you. So I
1:40didn't want you to see to look at this
1:42and go, "Well, why didn't he show us any
1:44of this stuff?" But what I am going to
1:46show you is my process. What ends up
1:49happening here is you've got three
1:50different tabs up at the top, chat,
1:53Co-work, and code. You could go over to
1:55code, but well, why don't we stay in the
1:57middle, which is co-work, which is the
2:00agent that will help you do things.
2:02Anything you want inside of folders
2:05inside of your computer on the home in
2:09the uh home directory of your computer,
2:12as long as you have things hooked right
2:14in there, everybody's hunky-dory. And
2:17what you need to do is pick yourself a
2:21folder.
2:22And I already picked one. It's my second
2:25brain. It's my folder system that I have
2:28built with something called Claude
2:31co-work OS. It is not from Anthropic as
2:34someone else built it. And I use this
2:37file system that I can access through
2:39Obsidian and stuff like that. So, what
2:42I'm going to do is I'm going to show you
2:44the instructions I gave once I got into
2:46the real brain.
2:49The first thing I said to it was, "Okay,
2:52inside the StoryCraft machine, which is
2:55a folder,
2:56what I want to do is start up a fiction
2:59story. Go all the way down to the
3:02fiction folder and create a new folder
3:05called Boy Space Opera Adventure. What I
3:08want you to do is create a MD file
3:13called First Scene. And I want you to
3:17write a first scene in a space opera
3:21about a young boy who is very poor and
3:24lives obviously on a planet far off star
3:28system and a highly developed planet. He
3:31finds a map of something that doesn't
3:35exist, that should not exist. And what
3:38it did was it created a folder, and it
3:41even says right here, "Created uh folder
3:45at StoryCraft machine fiction Boy Space
3:50Opera Adventure." He made the scene I
3:52call my particular AI that runs all of
3:55this. I call him Butch after my father.
3:58And a few things I want to lock down
4:00with you. The boy is called Kale, 11
4:03years old, living in a place called
4:06Underspill. Haha, shantytown.
4:09Uh bolted to the underside of a megacity
4:13called Vesoral.
4:15Okay, on a planet orbiting a star called
4:19Kendolar. Oof, this is interesting. The
4:23map is a physical objective with a
4:25unknown substrate that projects a
4:29holographic star chart showing a system
4:33that the consortium's own consensus has
4:36confirmed doesn't exist. Marked with a
4:39seven-point symbol that appears in no
4:43catalog anywhere. And it made the story
4:47up. And so, we can even look at this
4:49artifact because it made it built out
4:51the artifact, and we can look at the
4:53actual artifact over here. And we can
4:56see very clearly that there is a full
5:00first scene of something really cool.
5:05Okay, so what is ended up happening was
5:07I actually looked at the artifact that
5:11it built, and it was supposed to have
5:13used this thing called the humanizer
5:15skill, which is something that we are
5:17going to get into in a little bit. Okay.
5:20So.
5:21Now you've seen me kind of futz with it
5:24a little bit, but let's talk about a
5:25couple of fundamentals. First off,
5:27Co-work works on two sides of your
5:30business on you as an author. The
5:33writing side of your business, you know,
5:34where you draft and you outline and you
5:37you story bible and you do all of these
5:39things with character dossiers and
5:41consistent checks and research files and
5:43all of that stuff. But then there's
5:45another side where the publishing
5:47business is like paramount where you are
5:50doing things with Amazon descriptions
5:52and email sequences and spreadsheets and
5:55it helps you actually manage your
5:58marketing campaign or press kits or
6:01you build an agent that actually figures
6:04out the market that you're writing to
6:06and something that keeps your voice
6:08consistent book proposals connecting to
6:11Gmail and Google Drives. Most of these
6:14tools are done by other things but
6:17they're just like one thing. This does
6:20both of those things. It works in both
6:22your writing life and your publishing
6:24life. If you didn't like doing the one
6:26thing in the past then
6:29boy do you live in a right time now?
6:32Real quick, if you're serious about
6:34publishing more books this year using AI
6:36assistance but you keep feeling internal
6:38resistance, I built something for you.
6:40My Story Hacker AI group is actually
6:42closed right now but when you join the
6:44wait list at the link below, I'll email
6:47you my entire prompt pack for free.
6:49These are deep multi-hundred word
6:51prompts that walk the model through your
6:52plot, your characters, voice, and
6:55revisions step-by-step. Tap the link
6:57below, enter your email, and I'll send
6:58you the prompts I actually use to write
7:00books fast. You get the pack now and
7:02you'll be at the front of the line when
7:03the group opens again. Now let's get
7:05back to it. Okay, now what we're going
7:08to do is in the same chat, we're going
7:11to start working on possibly marketing
7:15this. So, let's talk to the computer. I
7:18am a big talk to the computer guy,
7:20something that you're going to have to
7:23get used to. Here we go.
7:25Okie dokie.
7:29So, I'm thinking that I want to build a
7:336-month book launch tracker with the
7:36projected sales, actual sales, and
7:39royalties.
7:41Include a bar chart. Now there, it's
7:44going to pick it, open it, and it'll be
7:47a real spreadsheet with data already in
7:50it with a chart, and you didn't have to
7:52format anything. You didn't have to
7:55build any formulas. You said what you
7:58needed, and it actually just built the
8:00thing. This is a agent. It's going to
8:03work on your behalf. This agent is your
8:08your your confidant, your friend, your
8:10partner in whatever you're about to do,
8:13and it's always working in your best
8:17interest because you program it to do
8:19that, because it's a computer. And this
8:22is the publishing business part of your
8:24brain. This part helps you actually run
8:28your operations.
8:29Now, it's done with the book tracker.
8:32Let's take a look at it. There it is. A
8:35book tracker. It's got It's basically an
8:38Excel file. I can open it up in Numbers
8:41on Macintosh [clears throat] computer,
8:43and it has projections. It has every
8:45single thing that I just asked it for,
8:48and it's all ready to go for me to
8:51upload to something like Google Sheets
8:54or something anything like that.
8:56I have the power.
8:58All right, this is going to parlay us
9:00directly into the scheduled tasks. This
9:03is another amazing thing that Co-work
9:05does. It's absolutely really amazing at
9:08this. It schedules things and then
9:11actually executes on those schedules. It
9:14will go and look in a specific folder
9:16and get information for you and take
9:18that information and put it into a
9:20master report. So if you've got a bunch
9:23of things just going into one file,
9:26um maybe you're
9:29tracking your books, you're tracking all
9:31of the sales on all of your different
9:34platforms, and you want them all to
9:36aggregated into one spot and then it
9:38looks at the those different files that
9:42are made and it updates everything every
9:45day. It's absolutely a wonderful
9:47wonderful program for just that reason.
9:49So right now I said to it
9:52hey have we set up the ability to
9:55to run scheduled tasks yet? It says
9:58nothing's in memory which is because
10:00I've set up a memory task for it so it
10:02does it actually checks its memory.
10:04Nothing is in memory which is by the way
10:07another really smart thing to do when
10:08you have agents.
10:10Nothing in memory about scheduled tasks
10:13being configured. Short answer not that
10:16I can see on record. The schedule skill
10:20which I again we will be talking about
10:23skills extensively in the next video.
10:26The schedule skill is available and I
10:30can set it up right now. What are you
10:32thinking? Auto updating the tracker?
10:35A reoccurring reminder? Something else?
10:38Give me the use case and I'll get it
10:42running. And this right here ladies and
10:44gentlemen is one of the best parts of
10:47this entire endeavor. It is working on
10:50your behalf every single time you use
10:52it. It's wonderful and I just absolutely
10:56love the fact that it's almost being
10:59completely proactive. This is the
11:01engine. This is what Co-work is.
11:04Everything you just saw. The files, the
11:08spreadsheets, the automations. That's
11:11that's the baseline. That's out of the
11:14box. In the next video we're going to
11:17get into skills which is how you
11:20customize Co-work to sound like you, to
11:23think like you and to work the way you
11:27work. And if Co-work is the engine
11:29skills is now how you tune up the
11:32engine.