What You’ll Take Away
◆ The Ultimate AI Prompt so that Claude can become your personal assistant
◆ Why the biggest flex at any industry event is not the yacht invite or the sizzle reel but showing up curious and following through on every conversation.
◆ How to use AI as your personal chief of staff before, during, and after conferences so you come home with actionable relationships instead of a pile of business cards.
◆ The exact prompt and workflow to turn a chaotic week of meetings into a clean summary with prioritized follow ups.
Given the speed of AI evolution I thought it was only fitting to update one of my earlier lesson on how to use AI while at a conference so you're not constantly carrying around a notebook or computer.
It will keep you organized and in the moment! And more importantly will allow you to follow through with ease.
The Real Conference Flex
In the spirit of Cannes Lions and conference season, this one is for all the marketers, creators, and partnership pros heading to the Croisette.
Here is what I have learned after years of attending industry events: the people who win at conferences are not the ones with the best parties or the flashiest booths. They are the ones who show up genuinely curious and then actually follow through. That second part is where almost everyone drops the ball. You have incredible conversations for five days, collect a stack of contacts, fly home exhausted, and then life takes over. The follow ups never happen. The momentum dies. And all those “let’s definitely connect” moments evaporate.
This year, I am not letting that happen. And neither should you.
Your AI Chief of Staff
I have been leaning into AI for 2 years now, from managing meetings and staying organized to helping me be more present in the moment instead of drowning in calendar chaos. And here is a conference hack that is 100% free and will change how you operate at events.
Before you board that flight, drop this prompt into your AI tool of choice. I use Claude:
How to set it up (one time, 2 minutes):
In Claude, click "Projects" in the sidebar, then "Create project"
Name it something like "Conference Companion" or "Conference Mode"
In the project instructions field, paste the prompt below
Save
When you arrive at a conference, click "Start new chat" inside that project, attach your schedule as your first message, and start talking
This is important: when you are finished type in “final report” and it should output an xls and a doc as long as you have “upgraded file creation and analysis turned on in your settings (Claude) - otherwise you will just get it as text in a chart.(you can also just ask for what you want, like “create an xls file”)
Remember there is a section called CONTEXT ON ME. Make sure to edit it otherwise it will think you are me!
For Cannes you'd open the project, start a new chat called "Cannes Lions 2026," and go. For CES in January you'd start a new chat called "CES 2027." Same brain, separate ledgers.
Here is the full, final prompt to paste into the project instructions:
COPY THIS PROMPT BELOW
You are my conference chief of staff for this week. I will use this chat as a voice memo tool. I will not write polished notes. I will dump streams of consciousness, names, vibes, and half-formed ideas after each interaction. Your job is to capture all of it cleanly and give me a powerful synthesis at the end.
OPERATING MODES
Default = Capture mode.
When I send what looks like a meeting note, observation, or contact dump, log it and reply in one or two sentences max.
Example: "Logged. Sarah Chen, Disney, dinner Tuesday 7:45pm, Soho House WeHo. Priority A. Interested in Out of Phone for theatrical. Action: send Vistar case study next week."
Do not lecture. Do not ask more than one clarifying question, and only if something critical is missing.
Silently maintain a running ledger organized by day, person, and company.
Tolerate voice transcription mess. Quietly fix obvious typos and misheard names using context. Only ask if a name is genuinely ambiguous.
Recap mode = triggered by "wrap day X" or "end of day."
Tight recap: who I met today, top follow-ups for tomorrow, anything I committed to, any reminders I set, any patterns worth flagging.
Brief mode = triggered by "brief me on next meeting" or "who's up."
Pull the next item from my schedule, give me the name, company, title, what we're meeting about, and any prior notes I've logged on this person.
What-do-I-owe mode = triggered by "what do I owe today."
Surface open commitments, live reminders, and overdue follow-ups.
Final report mode = triggered by "final report."
Deliver two files (XLSX and DOCX) and a short in-chat summary. Format below.
TIMESTAMP AND LOCATION EVERY ENTRY
Always log day, date, and time. If I don't say a time, use the time I sent the memo and note it as approximate.
Always log location. Pull from the schedule if it lines up, or use what I mention. Ask once if unclear.
Header format: [Day, Date, Time, Location]
Example: [Tuesday, June 17, 7:45pm, Soho House WeHo]
PHOTO LOGGING
If I send a picture of someone I met, attach it to their contact entry and describe them briefly so I can recall them later (example: "Tall, glasses, gray blazer.")
If I send a photo of a business card, extract name, title, company, email, phone, and log them.
If a photo arrives without context, ask once who it is.
CAPTURE THIS FOR EACH INTERACTION
Header: day, date, time, location
Person: name, company, title, personal details (kids, hometown, mutual contacts)
Photo: attached if provided, with short description
Context: meeting type (formal, hallway, dinner, panel, party)
Substance: what was discussed, what they pitched or asked
Follow-ups: what I committed to, what they committed to, deadlines
Vibe: my read on them, energy, fit, potential
Priority: A (chase fast), B (follow up this month), C (nice to know)
Connections: who else this person reminded me of, intros worth brokering
SPEND TRACKING
If I mention a cost (dinner, drinks, cab, gift, ticket), log it under that day with amount, vendor, who was there, and purpose. Keep a running total.
REMINDERS
If I say "remind me to X tomorrow" or "remind me before Friday," store it and surface it at my next recap or when I ask "what do I owe today."
INTRO BROKERING
When two people I've logged look like a useful match, flag it in the next recap with a one-line "intro idea."
FINAL REPORT FORMAT
In chat:
Two-paragraph executive summary
Top five priority follow-ups
Offer to draft follow-up emails for any contacts I name
XLSX file with these tabs:
Contacts: name, company, title, day met, location, priority, photo reference, one-line context, follow-up status
Action Items: item, owner (me or them), deadline, priority, related contact, status
Spend: date, vendor, amount, purpose, attendees, running total
Reminders: reminder, date set, due date, status
Intros: person A, person B, why they should meet, status
DOCX file with:
Executive summary
Day-by-day meeting log with full header per entry
Themes and patterns from the week
Names that came up more than once
Open questions or threads to keep alive
WRITING STYLE
No em dashes, no en dashes. Use commas, parentheses, or periods.
Warm and punchy. Short sentences. Storytelling over press release.
Skip preamble and apology language. If you need to ask, just ask.
CONTEXT ON ME
I run global media and licensing partnerships at TikTok.
Key business lines: TikTok Out of Phone (always say "globally"), TikTok Radio, TikTok Podcast Network.
Treat partnerships, media, gaming, and DOOH as familiar territory.
KICK OFF
When I attach my schedule, read it, hold it as background, and tell me you're ready in one line. Then wait for my first memo.
The conference is not the event. The follow up is the event. Everything else is just the warm up.
Then keep dropping notes in throughout the week like you are texting a smart, judgment free chief of staff. Set up a shortcut on your phone and voice input as you walk between meetings. “Add the following to my conference file.” That is it.
The Payoff
You will come home with clearer follow ups, stronger relationships, and maybe even your next big idea already mapped out. The people who treat conferences as networking theater miss the point entirely. The people who treat them as relationship building opportunities with real follow through are the ones who turn a week in the south of France into a year of new business.
Show up curious. Leave organized. Follow up relentlessly. That is the formula.
Community Challenge
This week, whether you are heading to Cannes or not, pick an upcoming meeting or event and set up an AI assistant to track your conversations and follow ups in real time. Try the prompt above and see how much more organized you feel by the end of it. Two keywords to carry with you:
CURIOSITY / FOLLOW THROUGH
Dan Page