This past weekend, I had the opportunity to attend PodIndy 2025 in Whiteland, IN — a gathering of content creators, podcasters, and storytellers focused on the tools and ideas shaping our craft. The highlight of the day was a series of sessions led by Dr. Craig Vanslyke, professor at Louisiana Tech University and host of the AI Goes to College.
Craig’s focus wasn’t on dazzling technology or futuristic fears — it was on how creators can use AI to amplify their humanity, not replace it. From the very start, his tone was disarming and practical. “AI is not hard,” he told us. “If you can text, you can use AI.” He added, “There are all kinds of people out there telling you this is hard, but using it is not a difficult thing. It’s easy to make it hard — but it doesn’t have to be.”
That simple idea became the thread running through all his sessions: AI should help you be more you.
From “Prompt Engineering” to “Prompt Design”
Craig opened with a challenge to one of today’s most overused buzzwords: prompt engineering. “Forget about it,” he said. “It’s a ridiculous term for the way 90 percent of us are going to use AI.”
Instead, he reframed it as prompt design — a creative, iterative process rather than a technical skill. “I want you to think about prompting as design — something messy, where you go down paths that may not go anywhere immediately, but they get you somewhere you want to be.”
To make it simple, he introduced his own framework: Role – Goal – Input – Output.
“All the framework does is give you some tips about what you might want to include in your prompts. It’s a set of guidelines, not a set of laws.”
He demonstrated this live, using ChatGPT to help create podcast episode ideas for a show about women in Jiu-Jitsu. Each step showed how adding role, context, and specific goals led to richer and more original results — what he called avoiding generic AI slop.
“Give it context,” he explained. “Tell it a specific role, be really specific about what it is that you want to do — and then finally, give it exactly what you want for output.”
Structured vs. Open Prompting — Finding Your Creative Flow
One of the most useful takeaways was Craig’s breakdown of two different prompting styles.
- Open prompting: conversational, creative, back-and-forth exploration. “It’s like sitting in a meeting with someone and hashing out ideas,” he said. “Sometimes you just say, ‘Hey, do this thing for me,’ and refine as you go.”
- Structured prompting: more templated and repeatable. “If you do something frequently — like finding pull quotes from your transcripts every week — make a template. Don’t reinvent the wheel.”
He encouraged creators to start open, explore, and then formalize prompts that work into reusable templates. “If it doesn’t work,” he laughed, “you can fix it later. Nobody’s going to punch you in the nose.”
The Gold of Meta-Prompting and Deep Research
When Craig said, “This is gold,” everyone leaned in. He was talking about meta-prompting — a method for having AI write the prompt for you.
“You ask AI to write the prompt for you,” he said, smiling. “You just say, ‘Hey, would you please write a prompt to do this thing?’ It will do just what it did for deep research. You can copy and paste it and put it into a Google Doc or whatever and tweak it.”
He demonstrated this concept using Google’s Gemini, showing how to build a deep research report on the history of surfing, complete with sections on hotspots, shark attack data, and surfboard design. The point wasn’t the topic — it was how easily AI could be directed to gather, plan, and structure complex information.
But even here, he returned to balance and integrity: “Anything that’s really important, you want to verify. They still hallucinate. They still make stuff up. But they’re better. And you always want to check it before you put it out there in the world.”
From Sparks to Substance
In a later session titled From Spark to Substance, Craig mapped out how to turn an idea into a finished piece of content using AI as a collaborator — not a shortcut.
He called the blank page “the creator’s greatest fear” and said, “AI is fantastic at getting over that blank page.” But he warned that creators must guide it with their own voice, perspective, and purpose.
“AI is great at helping you refine an idea,” he explained, “but I find it’s usually better if AI and I come up with ideas together — in partnership — rather than it telling me something.”
He modeled this by brainstorming an episode for his own podcast Live Well and Flourish, exploring the stress that solo creators face. “I kind of like this one,” he said after refining a teaser. “You started creating for freedom, so why do you feel trapped in your own to-do list?”
That blend of humanity, humor, and practicality summed up his entire approach.
Turning AI into a Creative Partner
Craig’s closing thoughts were both encouraging and empowering:
“This stuff is not hard. Once you start doing it, once you start playing around with it, you’ll find your own tricks.”
He emphasized that AI’s greatest potential isn’t in doing the work for us, but in collaborating with us to expand what’s possible. “Think of AI as your creative partner — one that never sleeps, never gets offended, and never says, ‘Hey man, I’m trying to sleep here.’”
He even teased a future project about building “virtual teams” of AI agents to act as editors, producers, or social media coordinators — another way creators can multiply their effectiveness without losing their human voice.
Final Reflections
I left PodIndy 2025 both inspired and challenged. As someone who spends a lot of time creating — whether in classrooms, tech workshops, or behind a microphone — I often wrestle with that tension between creativity and efficiency. Craig Vanslyke didn’t just show us how to use AI; he reminded us why we create in the first place.
AI doesn’t need to make us less human. Used thoughtfully, it can help us see our own ideas more clearly and express them more powerfully.
Or as Craig put it:
“How do I get AI to help me be more me, not to replace me?”
That might just be the most important question every creator should be asking.
About the Event
PodIndy 2025: AI for Content Creators Workshop
Hosted by Dr. Brad Miller, featuring presentations by Dr. Craig Vanslyke and Dave Jackson.
Held November 8, 2025, in Whiteland, IN.