June 17, 2025 • 38 mins
In today's episode, Laura and Sarah share the apps they wouldn't want to go without, and then Rachel Fuld Cohen joins Laura to discuss kids and tech from an insider's perspective; Rachel is co-founder and COO of Silicon Society, an EdTech company focused on creating scalable, personalized, & cutting edge learning experiences in the AI Age, and is passionate about bringing best practices from the tech world to her family (and vice versa!).
In the Q&A, a listener asks Sarah and Laura if they do anything specific over the summer to avoid "brain drain".
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hi. I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
and speaker.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
And I'm Sarah hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician, writer,
and course creator. We are two working parents who love
our careers and our families.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about
how real women manage work, family, and time for fun.
From figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals.
We want you to get the most out of life.
Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura. This
episode is airing in mid June of twenty twenty five.
(00:47):
I am going to be interviewing Rachel fold Cohen, who
is the co founder and CEO of Silicon Society, which
is an ed tech company focused on creating personalized learning
experiences involving AI. She's a mom of three and also
just generally likes to talk about bringing best practices from
the tech world into family life and kind of vice versa,
(01:08):
bringing best practices from family life into the world of
tech companies. So we'll talk a little bit about that
and you know, unique ways that parents can make a
good run of it in tech companies. So yeah, we
talk about that, but we wanted to open this episode
by talking a little bit about the tech that we
(01:28):
are currently using in our lives. Sarah actually created a
lovely top ten list of the apps that apps that
are on shoes top you know, home screen right now.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Yeah, I mean I was thinking about, like what was
funny because and we're not going to be negative on
this episode, but my husband was like fantasizing about getting
something called like a light phone, which has less apps
on it, and I'm like, no, there are certain apps
on my phone that like I do not really want
to not have in my life. So then I thought
about what are the most essential things that I would
just be like devastated. And Laura's going to mention one
(02:02):
of them, which I agree with, is probably my top app.
But I'll let her talk about that one. But I
don't know my top like ten apps. I need the
weather app and some way of like monitoring for thunderstorms.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
So do you have something special for like when the
thunderstorm hits, Because there's some that are more specific, right
than like that native weather app. I have weather Bug.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
It's free and it will show like where the lightning
bolts are specifically.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
It's great. I have tray mind right now. Sometimes it is.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
I have tray Mind or to track my invisil line
or aligner progress. Really like that. You guys know, I
love you need a budget app. Use that constantly. I
will say big shout out to the fact that you
can deposit a check on your phone, Like that was
an annoying errand we had to do for years and
then like maybe a decade or so ago, you could
(02:51):
do it on your phone. So I have the Wells
Fargo app for check depositing. What's App is a great
kind of I really like it for I mean, it's
not my choice, but for school it's definitely to go
to app for classrooms and a bunch of activities. And
what I mean by not my choice is like the teachers,
the ones that make that choice. But I'm just so
glad that, like regionally, what's Up seems to be what
(03:12):
everyone uses and not like a social media app. Since
I don't really like going to social media. I have
yet to be forced to join Facebook for some sort
of activity. It's always WhatsApp, So that's great headspace for
my meditation.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Use that almost every day.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
I do use the high q app, which is Epics
mobile app.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
I use it mostly when I'm on call.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
I generally access that via the desktop because it's frustrating
to like see patient messages on your phone. But then
I'm not going to like respond to a patient message
on my phone. That would take forever. So I try
to only use that for like when I have to.
But it's I'm glad that it exists. The Due Lingo
app is very helpful. The New York Times Games app.
I didn't used to use this through the app. I
just like went to the site. But the other day
(03:54):
I was like, I'm going to treat myself to a subscription,
and then I got the app and it's been fun.
And then finally maybe a controversial pick. I do like
Life three sixty because then I can see where everybody is.
It's actually my favorite use of it is not stalking
my children, although that is helpful, but being able to
not nag my husband because I'll be waiting for him
(04:15):
and then I won't be able to know if he's
on his way. But this way I can tell if
he's on his way, So actually, I guess it enables
me to nag him if he hasn't left yet for something.
That I know is going to make us late, but like, yeah,
it's great Life three sixty, very helpful.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
I might it's been helpful, yeah, for I don't have that,
but knowing where the kids' phones are. If they're like
telling you when they're going to need to be picked
up and their time estimation is way off, I'm like,
I can see that the bus is like not where
you're saying it is, and it's like a real time update.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Because you just use like find my is that howbeit okay,
it's the same same deal.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Yeah, although I don't have that on my phone as
my husband has the account for their phones, so he's
the one finding them, so but he'll report back. I
would say, just like in general online ski I mean,
whether that's through an app or just through their website,
but something like restaurants, being able to look at multiple
restaurants on open table and see availability is just so
infinitely more efficient, like or your doctor has it, or
(05:12):
even you know a app like ZocDoc if you're not
you know, you're just trying to find somebody new and
you know, see who has availability. We use park Whiz
when we drive into New York City, which again is
also a game changer of finding a garage that the
price differential is ridiculous. Like we parked in one where
(05:32):
the base rate was twenty one dollars for the evening
when we went in a couple weeks ago for Jasper's birthday,
and literally one that was two blocks away was sixty
dollars for the same thing. And it's just like, you
would have no transparency on this unless you like pulled
in and asked, and by the time you're pulling in,
you're probably not pulling out because it's kind of like
a pain. And then to leave the garage once you're
(05:53):
in it, you don't know if there's somewhere around this
batter And now you do and you know you can
get a spot. It's like just so much better than
in the past. Map and traffic apps, oh my goodness,
not perfect either. But I was thinking about this the
other night. I was coming home from a rehearsal. I
was nine thirty at night. So normally I seventy six
(06:13):
has horrible traffic during the day in Philadelphia, but rarely
at nine thirty at night, Like you would be surprised
to see traffic on I seventy six, So I would
have normally just gone on it, but I happened to
look at the traffic app and there was something ridiculous,
like something had happened. Who knows, like if they were
repaving two out of three lanes or you know, there
was an accident. I don't know, but it was completely
(06:35):
stopped up, and so I went was rerooted around it,
and I was like, wow, I would have just been
sitting there like thirty forty five minutes on the highway
when I'm just trying to get home at nine thirty
at night. I'm really glad that this knowledge exists. I
have picture this. I will throw this out there. A
blog reader suggested this when I was trying to identify
(06:55):
a plant in my yard. It is paid, so if
your botany desire does not rise to the level of
being a budget item, then you probably don't want to
avail yourself of this. But I love knowing exactly what
the plant is. And I was using sk which was free,
but it just like wasn't working that well. And this
(07:15):
picture this works really really well. So I've had like
one where it didn't know and that may have been
a lighting issue. So I'm going to throw that out
there and I will say, Sarah, I love email.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
It's an asynchronous form of communication.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
It is great, it is and I know people let
it take over their life, but you don't have to
let it take over your life. You can decide to
check it when you wish to check it, and if
you treat it as a tool, it is an amazing
way for you to reach people in a way that
is not annoying for them because you are sending it
at a time that they can check when they wish.
And it is a way for people who would never
(07:53):
have called you to reach you as well. So it
allows people readers, listeners, viewers, whatever to find you and
to send you feedback in a direct way. And I
really enjoy that aspect. We love hearing from listeners, so
please email me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. I
would love to hear what you think are what your
(08:14):
top apps are as well. So we'll go ahead and
listen to what Rachel fold Cohen has to say. Well,
Sarah and I are delighted to have Rachel fold Cohen
with us. So, Rachel, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
Thank you so much, so excited to be here.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Yeah, so why don't you tell our listeners a little
bit about yourself.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Yes, awesome. So, like you said, my name is Rachel
fold Cohen. I'm the CEO and co founder of Silicon Society,
and I've really grown up in the tech space. So
started working in a startup in Soho and the adorable
little office with a small team years ago, and I've
really grown up throughout the ed tech space, got my
master's in career development with a focus on talent development,
(08:53):
and so at Silicon Society, what we're building is a
space for folks to lead a scalable AI native shadows
for the future of learning. And so it's been really
cool to mix all those interests together. But what's been
most interesting to me is seeing how I've learned from
my whole tech experience and brought it into my parenting life.
(09:13):
So I have three kids. They are how old are
they today? They are six, nine, and ten, so nice
and close together, and they teach me every day and
hopefully I teach them and to dream to be sharing
some of those learnings on this podcast.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Yeah. Absolutely, So you got kids in kind of the
elementary school years, and I'm sure that you know there's
been a lot of evolution and how tech is used
in the elementary school years of Are your kids at
a school where they do use a lot of tech?
Speaker 3 (09:42):
They do, Yeah, so they're spending about a third of
their time on different forms of technology. So the school
actually uses a rotational model, which is one of the
things that I really appreciate about it, so that they
either get some small time with their future small group
time or they're spending it on technology. And it's really
cool to see how some even kids apps have started
differentiating their learning so that folk kids could be like
(10:05):
advancing where they need to be. So that's definitely been
a growing area.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
For the cool Well. I love the idea of differentiated instruction, especially,
you know, kids have so many different needs and it's
so hard as an individual teacher to meet all of them.
But that's something that software can definitely excel at. But
we wanted to talk with you about some of the
ways that you know you are using tech in your
home life and maybe some strategies that people might want
(10:32):
to try. Yeah, some tips for our busy parents, definitely.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
And it's something that I think I naturally think about
because when I'm with my kids, I'm thinking about their
learning and development. And frankly, having three kids so quickly together,
some of that definitely didn't go great at the beginning.
So my first two kids are seventeen months apart. For
those first seventeen months of my son's life, oh man,
I gave him all the attention, like he wanted to
(10:59):
bake with me, We bake, and I would teach him
exactly how many teaspoons in a tablespoon, and he'd be
pouring everything in and he'd spill and I would say,
no problem, we'll clean it up, not a big deal.
And then, as life has it, my next came pretty
close behind, and I was so quickly felt like I
was just kind of moving her over to the side
and being like, just don't get in the way of
(11:19):
our baking. We have a special little thing we do
every week, and you're gonna play with a toy on
the floor. And eventually, of course she wouldn't have any
of that. She wanted to be part of the fun
baking activity, and so I was kind of meeting at
her level, and my oldest was getting bored. He knew
that he used to get all of my attention and
he was ready to learn more stuff. And I was
going back to the tea spoon to tablespoon measurements. And
(11:39):
then my third came along a few years later, and
we were really lucky to have I'll just spell it
out so it doesn't mess up everyone's home, but an
al Exa in our home by that point in time,
and so I could actually tell him what to be
asking our AI assistant in our home, and they could
be explaining some of those answers. And this was my
(12:00):
first real, like aha moment of differentiated learning in the household.
How we can actually use these speakers that we all
hate that they're listening to us all the time, but
really in a way to meet our kids' needs at
their own developmental stages. So baking to me was a
great example of one. But we actually use AI in
the home for a lot of different things. So we'll
use it for things like getting the weather or hearing
(12:22):
sports scores, like really basic things that my kids want
to know different pieces of and I don't know the answer,
and honestly, I don't want to staring at screens. I
don't want them looking at my phone. It's a quick
way to get a piece of information and then talk
about it as a family. So that's some like differentiated
learning examples. I can also share some kind of tactical
like how I use AI, but that could be a
separate one.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Yeah, yeah, no, I definitely want to hear it. I
love the idea, I mean, because kids have so many
random questions, and I mean, you want to answer some
of them, and certainly the important ones are ones that
deal with values you know you as a parent want
to take on. But when you're asked by three different
children in the morning what the weather is like today,
it could be a little bit like by the third question,
you're probably not that nice of a parent and answering totally.
(13:07):
Some tech assistant might be better for that, at least
in terms of patients. But what else are you guys
using it for?
Speaker 3 (13:15):
Yeah, so some of my favorite hacks so using AI
for school supply lists. This is one of my least
favorite parenting tasks is at some point in the spring,
you get a list of all the stuff you're gonna
have to send in in the fall. My kids have
multiple teachers and activities, so I have like four or
five six different lists that for some reason, my brain
just cannot cross check it all on its own. So
(13:37):
what I started doing a couple of years ago. Was
just copying, pasting the lists into whatever AI or whatever
LLLM it is that you use, and just asking you,
like doing some prompt engineering to ask it to put
it in different categories, you know, combine, like if each
list has a pair of scissors, just put five scissors
on one list, or really just creating one list. You
(13:57):
can even tell it what type of story you're going to.
If you're going to like an art supply store and
a supermarket, it'll put different lists for those different stories
you're going to. If you're going to a place like Walmart,
it could probably be all on one list, but you
can kind of get it just to do some really
specific tasks for you. I also love using it for
travel planning specifically because as my kids age, even for
(14:18):
day trips, there's such different needs. So we're actually going
to a Kadia this summer, which I'm so looking forward to.
We did go four years ago, but my kids were
really different ages. So I actually put in our itinerary
from a few years ago, updated with my kids current ages,
and said how would you adjust this and what would
you add? And I was able to get a whole
new itinerary to research. So it really like doing that
(14:40):
really specific prompt engineering. And if you're not good at
putting in an initial prompt, just really spending a few
minutes chatting with the AI will get you some really
great outputs and honestly efficiencies. My trip planning now takes
me an hour where it used to take me weeks,
and I just really appreciate that time back.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Yeah, well that's so interesting. I mean, so prompt engineering
maybe a phrase that people who are not immersed in
this like you are, may not have heard, yea even
before this episode. What that is is maybe spell it
out a little slowly for us. It's thinking about how
you're getting the AI to respond with what you want.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Is that right exactly? So anytime you ask a question
to an AI verbal or you're typing it into a
chat feature, that is a prompt. So if you say
what is today's weather? That is a prompt. If you
say who won the Super Bowl in nineteen ninety six,
that is a prompt. But if you want to get
a very specific output to your needs, the more information
(15:34):
you give it, the more specific the output would be.
And so prompt engineering is just a fancy way of
saying figuring out exactly how you want to ask a
question to get the output that you want. There are
some amazing resources online, like prompt engineering guides. There's definitely
one out there for travel, I'm sure we can find,
but also for different scenarios, and a lot of the
(15:55):
best practices are things like tell AI what you want
it to be, so like the Great of the Star
of a great prompt will usually include something like you
are my travel planner for today. Here is what I
need you to do, and then something very specific. So
you're giving the AI a job and then prompting it
with what output you want, and that's usually the most
effective way. So that's some basic guidelines. If you're just
(16:16):
getting started thinking about something like prompt engineering, do.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
You think it could help? But sort of like planning
a summer, like what kids should be doing? Would it
be able to look at the opportunities in your area
and suggest, you know, or I have a fourteen year
old who's into X and Y, what would you suggest
we do is that? How would you shape that one?
Speaker 3 (16:34):
Yeah, well that's a great question. So what AI is
very good at right now is general so types of activities.
What it is getting better at is search. So AI
search is still very new months old, where it's actually
searching like Google would and then aggregating that information, so
not just pulling information from like a corpus of past data.
(16:57):
And so what's been interesting is that companies have not
yet figured out how to I don't want to say game,
but I'm going to say game AI search. Whereas like
in order to game Google search, there's like SEO right
search engine optimization, and websites were super focused on their
search visibility. People haven't figured out how to quote unquote
(17:19):
game AI search. What that means is that when you today,
like as of mid twenty twenty five, AI search kind
of pull some random stuff in there. So what I
wouldn't necessarily recommend to say, like what summer camp should
I send my kid to in this area, because it
might actually pull a super niche camp that maybe isn't
even so close. But if you ask a bit more
broad question, it'll give you a starting off point. But
(17:42):
follow this space, AI search is going to be really
well defined in companies are going to learn how to
be found on it.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
Excellent, excellent. Well, we're going to take a quick ad
break and then I'll be back with more from Rachel Well.
I am back with Rachel Fuld Cohen from the Silicon Society.
We've been talking about ways that tech can assist our
(18:10):
lives as busy parents. But you've been in the tech
space for a long time at this point, and I
know that a lot of what has been talked about
and tech and with parenting is like, well, how can
parents still make it despite the hustle culture and all that.
I feel like you have a slightly different take on this.
Do you want to talk about that a little bit?
Speaker 3 (18:31):
Yeah, definitely, let's talk about it. Yes, I definitely do.
I feel like there's been so much written out there
about how parents make especially good employees, workers leaders because
they're so good at balancing and juggling things, And of
course that is true to an extent, but I actually
(18:51):
think it's like getting the chicken and the egg wrong.
And I think actually the narrative maybe serves to do
a disservice to parents because it just this reminds everyone
of all the juggling that we're doing all the time,
which real talk, we absolutely are. But what I think
is that the best parent caregiver employees that I've worked
with that I see on a daily basis are folks
(19:13):
who are naturally good at doing more with less. They
are naturally good at finding tools, at finding people, at
finding solutions that help them maximize their time at home
and maximize their time at work. And when you see
it done well, it's really skillful. Not to say that
I don't feel guilty on the weeks that my kids
(19:34):
are all from school and I'm juggling everything and things
feel like they're falling. It doesn't mean it feels perfect
or good all the time, but I actually think a
lot of parents are just very naturally good at doing
more with less and delegating. My kids call my delegating chores.
I call it making them responsible humans who can take
on household responsibilities. And honestly, same with my staff. I
(19:56):
mean my staff, many of them are parents are incredible
at cross supporting each other doing more with less. Like
I mean, I think AI is such an obvious way
that everyone can do more with less. But even before that,
there are so many tools that I think the best
workers just use because it makes their life easier. And
so I do think, yes, we are all good at
juggling a lot, but we're juggling fewer balls because we
(20:19):
can use the tools and we can delegate, and I
just like love seeing parents and caregivers in the workforce
route at it.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Yeah, yeah, I'm very curious. What chores do you have
your kids doing that? Uh? What's the chor schedule in
the Cohen family?
Speaker 3 (20:33):
Yes, okay, well the chor schedule was pretty set for
a while, so they're always the domain starts with their room,
so like for my six year old, he is in
charge of his room, so making his bed, making sure
there are own stuff on the floor, and hanging up
their towel. Man, if this day starts like that, that
is a great day for my nine and ten year old.
(20:53):
They also have responsibilities like setting the table for a
weekly dinner, sweeping a couple times a week. And then
we actually got a dog about a year ago now,
which is a new edition. We have a whole other
conversation about that, but that came with walking the dog
responsibilities as well, which is great because usually the dog
needs a walk when they get home from school, and
my partner and I are both still working and so
(21:15):
they can kind of take on that responsibility and allows
me to continue to be doing what I need to
do at work.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Excellent, always good way to have that. But I would
love to hear about your daily schedule. I mean, we
had talked earlier about how you know, you've definitely been
moving work around in the dimensions of time sort of
in place you know, people work remotely proof where there's
just a lot of flexibility with that. But what is
your schedule looking like now?
Speaker 3 (21:40):
Yeah, yeah, great question, fun to think about. My partner
and I are big proponents of like we take everything
a year at a time, and then we schedule up
the wazoo. So I'm very fortunate. We are definitely benefactors
of remote work. So we're both working from home, Like
we'll travel and have to go in for meetings, but
we have a pretty set drop off and pick up
schedule for our kids that we can do on a
(22:02):
daily basis because they are close by. And then I
think one of the biggest transitions for me over the
past year, so they'll my kids will come home from school,
they do screen there and aftercare and then they do
screens for an hour so that's their like TV time,
so we can wrap up work. I know lots of
opinions on different screen time, but that works so well
for my family, and then one of us we split down,
coming right when they're done with screens to make sure
(22:24):
dinner is ready, and then we're both pretty much around
for the bedtime routine most nights. The biggest transition for me, Lauren,
I think this is what you were alluding to, is
my kids used to go to sleep earlier. So any
other parents of like kind of going into the preteen years,
all of a sudden they care about like watching sports games,
they're bedtimes or eight fifteen and eight thirty. But somehow
(22:45):
we've been like very flexible these days with that. And
for me, what that has meant is for years I
had two hours between work and when I would like
go back to work, which I didn't always have to do,
but certainly being a founder right now, I am going
back to work most nights, and that two hour block
was pretty well defined, so I'd hyper focus on my
family and then go back to work and hyper focus there,
(23:06):
and that delineation has just gotten a little bit fuzzy.
I felt so uncomfortable going back to work with my
kids awake, and so one thing I've started doing is
that first hour I'm usually back to work like eight
to nine pm. I actually do it on the couch,
and my ten year old loves looking over my shoulder.
And at first I felt guilty about that. Why am
I working and he's watching me. Now he's going to
(23:27):
think that work is more of a priority. But I
actually realized it was like pair programming, like I see
our engineers doing all the time, like working together or
kind of job shadowing. And now I really love answering
his questions. I was actually on Canva the other night
designing some social media posts and he had some really
good input because, like spoiler alert, ten year old is
better at create designing stuff than I am. And so
(23:48):
it's actually been this really great experience that we've been
able to add into our routine. But then at eight thirty,
I'm like, all right, kid, go to bed.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Go to bed, It's time to get back. What do
your mornings look like?
Speaker 3 (23:58):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (23:59):
What are morning is?
Speaker 3 (23:59):
My kids are early risers, so they come down. They're
pretty much reading while we get snacks. We do school lunch,
but they get snacks. I'll get snacks ready for them.
There's a couple of mornings a week what we'll do cooking,
and so a lot of times they'll help, like this morning,
actually did some baking with our AI assistant because they
were all up in there with the flower at seven
(24:20):
o'clock in the morning, and so we'll do that and
then we are out the door by seven fifty five,
and so pretty much like the morning's run pretty smoothly
at this point that they're a little bit older, they're
getting themselves dressed and things like that. But we will
have like a couple of activities sometimes we even do
in the morning, and I very much rely on them
to like figure those things out themselves or I'll guide
them towards learning on their own. And that's been really cool, awesome.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
We're going to take one more quick ad break and
then i'll be back with more from Rachel fold con Well.
I am back with Rachel fold Cohen, who's with the
Silicon Society. We've been talking about AI at home using
(25:04):
tech tools, and then also various ways that parents might
have a competitive advantage in the workforce. But here's the
question that I think a lot of us are wondering.
As somebody who is sort of steeped in the technology
culture and knows the upsides of it, and you said,
your kids use it a lot at school. I'm curious
how you think about tech guidelines for your children, what
(25:26):
they are allowed to do, what they are allowed to see,
what they have access to, and how you envision that
changing over the next few years.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
Oh, that's a great question, and honestly, I also see
my approach to those changing over the next few years.
So I will share where my head is at at
this exact moment and what I've seen out there. But
I think this is something that's always shifting. So I
very much was raised on and believe it in everything
in moderation mindset, which is why I'm okay with my
(25:56):
kids having screen time during the week. We've set very
clear boundaries and works for our family life. But things
I'll never compromise on is safety, and so things that
are out there like YouTube kids and parental controls have
been a huge part of the past few years of
setting those up as our kids get bigger and realize
that they know how to search on YouTube if we
let them, so really setting up strict parental controls and
(26:20):
device access so like no devices ever go to the room.
Screen time is always done in public, there's a parent
sitting around whenever there's a kid on a screen, they'll
never be alone. Those are things that are like pretty
firm rules. And our kids' school does have an option
to be part of a wait until eight packed in
terms of cell phones, and so that's been really helpful.
I actually have said to a number of friends recently,
(26:43):
like I feel like I'm in this like sweet spot
of my kids are like old enough to be self sufficient,
but young enough to that they don't have devices, and
so it's like this, I'm not yet fighting the phone battle,
and they know that they're not getting one until eighth grade,
but they're old enough to get themselves dressed. So it's
like a wonderful in between moment. But those are some
like the guidelines that said things are changing so fast.
(27:06):
So for example, like one of my kids loves gaming,
so we don't let him play any games where there's
like outside chat or anything like that, and he's pushing
back on it a little bit, and so it is
honestly something that I need to research. I was not
a gamer, so I'm not as familiar with like the
limitations and safety there, but it's something that I find
myself just researching more and more. And by the way,
(27:27):
that's Another great use case for AI is like researching
things like this, I'll always then click on the source
the sources. So right now, basically any LM you use
will have a source that you can click on, which
it didn't used to have, So you want to make
sure that there's like actual sources there. But it's a
great use case for like understanding a safety landscape.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Yeah. No, my ten year old loves gaming with friends,
and so you need to have the ability to chat
with them, to team up exactly to do that strategy
that you know, you're who knows who they're playing with
against because they can't talk to them, but you know
these totally maybe adults who are being pounded by these
ten year old boys, but anyway, you know.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
Totally well, and it's so easy. Like for me, it's like,
I think much easier for me to set rules for
my oldest than for my youngest. Like he's already watching
and doing things that I would have never let my
ten year old when he was six do. And so
I do feel like there's a natural like you just
learn so much as with your older kids as you
learn these safety guidelines and then hopefully that benefits the
younger kids a bit more with what they're comfortable with,
(28:26):
but it could also go the other ways. So time
will tell, time.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Will tell exactly. Well, Rachel, we always do a Love
of the Week, So this is something that is exciting
for you right now. I could go first, and I
longtime listeners have heard me say that's probably a million times.
But I really love the Kindle app. Yeah, because you
can get a book so quickly, the instant gratification of
(28:52):
getting a book and being able to start reading it
right where you are. Do I prefer reading books that
are on paper, of course I do, but you could
give up a lot of that nicer experience in order
to have the immediacy. It's been really helpful lately. I've
had a few people I've needed to talk to that
(29:13):
I was like, I didn't you know, I wanted to
at least glance through their book before I talked to them,
and I could because it was right there, you know,
in the hour before you chat. So I'm thinking, so
Kindle app is a big one for me. How about you?
Speaker 3 (29:25):
Yeah? I love that. I love the focus like accessibility,
Like does knowledge being more accessible?
Speaker 1 (29:29):
I'm gonna go a totally different direction, Okay, let's do it.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
My love for the week is instant coffee. Ooh yes, okay,
I feel like it is one of my parenting hacks.
It is low tech, but it genuinely gives me time back,
Like I was someone who would do my pour over
my French press, which on the weekends I'll still love.
But lately I've just been instant coffee in the morning
and it gets me like right into my morning mix,
the morning routine we talked about, and honestly, I think
(29:54):
makes me like a better parent and a better like
extra coffee between zoom meetings, and so I'm just really
appreciating instant coffee these days. And for like basic innovations.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
It's gotten a lot better.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
It really, honest thank you for saying that.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
It really has. Really, I just like, you know, back
in the day, I was like, oh, it's got like
the bad church basement vibe of you know, in the
little like totally. No.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
Now they have like French roast instant coffee, vanilla instant coffee.
No shame, It's great.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
No shame. If it gives you a few minutes back
in your life, all the better. You know, what you
use that for is up to you. Well, Rachel, where
can people find you?
Speaker 3 (30:33):
Yes, so you can find me on LinkedIn, Rachel fold Cohen,
on Instagram, at Silicon Society, and on LinkedIn at Silicon Society.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Awesome, Well, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 3 (30:44):
Thank you for your time. This was a blast.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
Well we are back. Always fun to talk about tech
and how we can use it in our lives. So, Sarah,
this question comes from a listener who, as we are
coming into summer at the end of the school year,
wants to know do you do anything to avoid summer
brain drain with your kids.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
I think that the phrase is funny, and then part
of me is like, oh, is it like extra to
admit that you don't want your kids to fall behind?
But I don't think it's about falling behind. I think
it's more about I want to make sure that they
are doing some things over the summer that are beyond
just like staring at screens and playing with friends. I
(31:25):
don't know, it's an interesting question. It's good, but yeah,
playing with friends is great. Actually, yes, I guess we
do mostly just to encourage reading, because it's harder to
fit in reading during the school year. Different kids have
various enjoyment levels out of reading. But I find it's
an activity where if the more they do it, the
more they seem to like to do it. And so
this year we've actually kind of discussed having some monetary
(31:49):
rewards for reading. We have not entirely fleshed out our structure,
but the kids are into the idea. I just need
to figure out how to implement it in a way
that isn't totally unfair or silly. For example, some of
the books that Genevieve reads might take fifteen minutes, and
I don't need her getting some massive reward versus a
kid that a book that a big kid might read
(32:10):
could take a couple of weeks.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
Well, can you do it time based?
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Yes and no, because I feel like then it's hard
to know are they really reading? Like I kind of
think I'd.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
Rather just slip through it too, I mean, unless you're
doing a pop quiz at the end, or requiring a
paper summarizing the main thesis behind that ya novel, like
you don't know anyway.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
There might be a required like no, not a thesis,
but for them to tell me what it was about
in their own voice, And that way, they can't use
AI because they have to say it to me, unless they're.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
Really sneaky, they get AI to tell what it was about, they.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
Memorize that, they come back and report they have a
headphone on it's feeding them.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
I wrote it out, mom, and now I'm going to
read it to you.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Yeah, there's at least one kid in my house who
would benefit from some math practice, So we are going
to encourage that as well. I think beyond that, we're
not super aggressive. But yeah, I guess I don't love
the idea of I'm just doing nothing and then starting
the new school year having forgotten lots.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
Of what they learned. So okay, fine, we do we do?
All right? What about you? We'll tease it out of
you eventually. I'm not a type a mom at all.
I'm not. Yeah, I really am not. But I feel
like the upside of summers you're learning different things and
different skills, and you get a chance to try out
different parts of knowledge. Like, for instance, Ruth will be
(33:36):
in a theater camp for two weeks, and so she'll
have to memorize lines and songs and work on choreography,
and that's just a different skill than what you'd normally
be doing during the year. Unless you're doing the school
play or something I guess, or going to sleep away camp.
That's going to be different skills, but you're still going
to be learning things with sailing or horseback riding or
pitching a tent to various different things that kids are
(33:59):
learning learning as part of that. Josh ber will be
at a vocal camp for a while, so he'll be
learning music as part of that. Sam is actually taking
two online courses this summer to get credit for that
for not having to have it in his schedule next year,
So he will be entirely taken care of on the
academic front. And I believe Alex will likely have a
(34:24):
required math component this summer because the way they do it,
they then have kids skip fifth grade math and start
in sixth grade math in fifth grade and so then
you have to do it over the summer to get
into it in the fall. Anyway, so he will have that.
Beyond that, I don't know, I would like them to read.
(34:44):
I think we're going to try to have some sort
of still enforced non screen time at night. I don't
know exactly what that's going to look like, but that
is with the time when the younger kids at least
will be looking at books. I mean, this is really
like Alex and Ruth. I'm going to be thinking about
this with I'd like Henry to learn to read. Maybe
(35:05):
that'll be the summer project. I don't know, you never know.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
I mean every kid at their own pace. I one
kid read early of mine, and then another two none
at all.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
So yeah, just never know. Yeah, it's hard to tell.
He gauged his interest in it. He likes the chapter
books we're reading now. So we're reading the Dragonmasters series
and we are reading the Magic Treehouse series kind of
interspersed with another. We'll read like two chapters from one
and one chapter from another on the same night. He
likes to move forward in two books simultaneously with that,
(35:35):
which is good. But in the other day, we had
a little incident where somebody gave him mountain dew. I
don't know what happened, and I was spelling out that
he was not to be given mountain dew ever again,
and I was saying, we're not going to purchase moun
Tai and he's like, but I like Mountain Dew, and
(35:56):
I'm like, yes, that's so funny.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
Maybe he can read already. Maybe he's just holding it
from you. Wait, I have to share what I'm reading
to Genevieve right now, just because I feel like if
you're in our generation, like you're just gonna be like, Yes.
We are reading The Babysitters Club Super Special number one,
Babysitters on Board, Yes, which features a cruise and a
trip to Disney World. And as I'm reading it, I'm
like realizing I probably read it fifteen times, Like everything
(36:23):
is familiar. I knew which manicure color that Karen was
gonna pick. I was like, oh, yeah, the light purple
nail polish. Then she picks like it is so fun
to revisit that, and she loves it, so it's still the.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
Test of time. Yeah, well that's great, that's exciting. We
have had a lot of Babysitters Club Super Specials read
around here, although I have not re read them, but
maybe I should, Maybe I should pick them up. I
don't know. Alex has been reading a bunch of these
history books. They're sort of not really historical fiction. They're
more like telling the tales of like World War One
(36:57):
and World War Two. And the Viking is another various
like Little Boy exciting things Alexander the Great, but in
these little nuggets of anecdotes, so they keep you reading,
and so throw those out there too. I wish I
had the name in front of me right now, but
I don't.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
I think I know what you're talking about, because Cameron
likes a.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
Really famous podcast. He's like the one of the top
history podcasters, and he's written all these books for children.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
Well, someone can fill in the blank. Camra like's the
ones that are focused on disasters. There's one of those
are good, and then there's one about like I survived,
Like I survived.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
Yeah, that sounds Saint Helen's exactly. Yeah. Those are another
big win as well. And Harry Potter will always do
a shadow for Harry Potter. All right, well, this has
been best of both worlds. I've been interviewing Rachel full
Cohen about tech and parenting. We've been talking about our
favorite apps and summer brain drain. We will be back
(37:50):
next week with more on making work and life fit together.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the
shoebox dot com, at the Underscore shoe Box on Instagram,
and you.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
Can find me Laura at Laura Vandercam dot com. This
has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please join
us next time for more on making work and life
work together.
Hi. I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
and speaker.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
And I'm Sarah hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician, writer,
and course creator. We are two working parents who love
our careers and our families.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about
how real women manage work, family, and time for fun.
From figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals.
We want you to get the most out of life.
Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura. This
episode is airing in mid June of twenty twenty five.
(00:47):
I am going to be interviewing Rachel fold Cohen, who
is the co founder and CEO of Silicon Society, which
is an ed tech company focused on creating personalized learning
experiences involving AI. She's a mom of three and also
just generally likes to talk about bringing best practices from
the tech world into family life and kind of vice versa,
(01:08):
bringing best practices from family life into the world of
tech companies. So we'll talk a little bit about that
and you know, unique ways that parents can make a
good run of it in tech companies. So yeah, we
talk about that, but we wanted to open this episode
by talking a little bit about the tech that we
(01:28):
are currently using in our lives. Sarah actually created a
lovely top ten list of the apps that apps that
are on shoes top you know, home screen right now.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Yeah, I mean I was thinking about, like what was
funny because and we're not going to be negative on
this episode, but my husband was like fantasizing about getting
something called like a light phone, which has less apps
on it, and I'm like, no, there are certain apps
on my phone that like I do not really want
to not have in my life. So then I thought
about what are the most essential things that I would
just be like devastated. And Laura's going to mention one
(02:02):
of them, which I agree with, is probably my top app.
But I'll let her talk about that one. But I
don't know my top like ten apps. I need the
weather app and some way of like monitoring for thunderstorms.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
So do you have something special for like when the
thunderstorm hits, Because there's some that are more specific, right
than like that native weather app. I have weather Bug.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
It's free and it will show like where the lightning
bolts are specifically.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
It's great. I have tray mind right now. Sometimes it is.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
I have tray Mind or to track my invisil line
or aligner progress. Really like that. You guys know, I
love you need a budget app. Use that constantly. I
will say big shout out to the fact that you
can deposit a check on your phone, Like that was
an annoying errand we had to do for years and
then like maybe a decade or so ago, you could
(02:51):
do it on your phone. So I have the Wells
Fargo app for check depositing. What's App is a great
kind of I really like it for I mean, it's
not my choice, but for school it's definitely to go
to app for classrooms and a bunch of activities. And
what I mean by not my choice is like the teachers,
the ones that make that choice. But I'm just so
glad that, like regionally, what's Up seems to be what
(03:12):
everyone uses and not like a social media app. Since
I don't really like going to social media. I have
yet to be forced to join Facebook for some sort
of activity. It's always WhatsApp, So that's great headspace for
my meditation.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Use that almost every day.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
I do use the high q app, which is Epics
mobile app.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
I use it mostly when I'm on call.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
I generally access that via the desktop because it's frustrating
to like see patient messages on your phone. But then
I'm not going to like respond to a patient message
on my phone. That would take forever. So I try
to only use that for like when I have to.
But it's I'm glad that it exists. The Due Lingo
app is very helpful. The New York Times Games app.
I didn't used to use this through the app. I
just like went to the site. But the other day
(03:54):
I was like, I'm going to treat myself to a subscription,
and then I got the app and it's been fun.
And then finally maybe a controversial pick. I do like
Life three sixty because then I can see where everybody is.
It's actually my favorite use of it is not stalking
my children, although that is helpful, but being able to
not nag my husband because I'll be waiting for him
(04:15):
and then I won't be able to know if he's
on his way. But this way I can tell if
he's on his way, So actually, I guess it enables
me to nag him if he hasn't left yet for something.
That I know is going to make us late, but like, yeah,
it's great Life three sixty, very helpful.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
I might it's been helpful, yeah, for I don't have that,
but knowing where the kids' phones are. If they're like
telling you when they're going to need to be picked
up and their time estimation is way off, I'm like,
I can see that the bus is like not where
you're saying it is, and it's like a real time update.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Because you just use like find my is that howbeit okay,
it's the same same deal.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Yeah, although I don't have that on my phone as
my husband has the account for their phones, so he's
the one finding them, so but he'll report back. I
would say, just like in general online ski I mean,
whether that's through an app or just through their website,
but something like restaurants, being able to look at multiple
restaurants on open table and see availability is just so
infinitely more efficient, like or your doctor has it, or
(05:12):
even you know a app like ZocDoc if you're not
you know, you're just trying to find somebody new and
you know, see who has availability. We use park Whiz
when we drive into New York City, which again is
also a game changer of finding a garage that the
price differential is ridiculous. Like we parked in one where
(05:32):
the base rate was twenty one dollars for the evening
when we went in a couple weeks ago for Jasper's birthday,
and literally one that was two blocks away was sixty
dollars for the same thing. And it's just like, you
would have no transparency on this unless you like pulled
in and asked, and by the time you're pulling in,
you're probably not pulling out because it's kind of like
a pain. And then to leave the garage once you're
(05:53):
in it, you don't know if there's somewhere around this
batter And now you do and you know you can
get a spot. It's like just so much better than
in the past. Map and traffic apps, oh my goodness,
not perfect either. But I was thinking about this the
other night. I was coming home from a rehearsal. I
was nine thirty at night. So normally I seventy six
(06:13):
has horrible traffic during the day in Philadelphia, but rarely
at nine thirty at night, Like you would be surprised
to see traffic on I seventy six, So I would
have normally just gone on it, but I happened to
look at the traffic app and there was something ridiculous,
like something had happened. Who knows, like if they were
repaving two out of three lanes or you know, there
was an accident. I don't know, but it was completely
(06:35):
stopped up, and so I went was rerooted around it,
and I was like, wow, I would have just been
sitting there like thirty forty five minutes on the highway
when I'm just trying to get home at nine thirty
at night. I'm really glad that this knowledge exists. I
have picture this. I will throw this out there. A
blog reader suggested this when I was trying to identify
(06:55):
a plant in my yard. It is paid, so if
your botany desire does not rise to the level of
being a budget item, then you probably don't want to
avail yourself of this. But I love knowing exactly what
the plant is. And I was using sk which was free,
but it just like wasn't working that well. And this
(07:15):
picture this works really really well. So I've had like
one where it didn't know and that may have been
a lighting issue. So I'm going to throw that out
there and I will say, Sarah, I love email.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
It's an asynchronous form of communication.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
It is great, it is and I know people let
it take over their life, but you don't have to
let it take over your life. You can decide to
check it when you wish to check it, and if
you treat it as a tool, it is an amazing
way for you to reach people in a way that
is not annoying for them because you are sending it
at a time that they can check when they wish.
And it is a way for people who would never
(07:53):
have called you to reach you as well. So it
allows people readers, listeners, viewers, whatever to find you and
to send you feedback in a direct way. And I
really enjoy that aspect. We love hearing from listeners, so
please email me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. I
would love to hear what you think are what your
(08:14):
top apps are as well. So we'll go ahead and
listen to what Rachel fold Cohen has to say. Well,
Sarah and I are delighted to have Rachel fold Cohen
with us. So, Rachel, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
Thank you so much, so excited to be here.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Yeah, so why don't you tell our listeners a little
bit about yourself.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Yes, awesome. So, like you said, my name is Rachel
fold Cohen. I'm the CEO and co founder of Silicon Society,
and I've really grown up in the tech space. So
started working in a startup in Soho and the adorable
little office with a small team years ago, and I've
really grown up throughout the ed tech space, got my
master's in career development with a focus on talent development,
(08:53):
and so at Silicon Society, what we're building is a
space for folks to lead a scalable AI native shadows
for the future of learning. And so it's been really
cool to mix all those interests together. But what's been
most interesting to me is seeing how I've learned from
my whole tech experience and brought it into my parenting life.
(09:13):
So I have three kids. They are how old are
they today? They are six, nine, and ten, so nice
and close together, and they teach me every day and
hopefully I teach them and to dream to be sharing
some of those learnings on this podcast.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Yeah. Absolutely, So you got kids in kind of the
elementary school years, and I'm sure that you know there's
been a lot of evolution and how tech is used
in the elementary school years of Are your kids at
a school where they do use a lot of tech?
Speaker 3 (09:42):
They do, Yeah, so they're spending about a third of
their time on different forms of technology. So the school
actually uses a rotational model, which is one of the
things that I really appreciate about it, so that they
either get some small time with their future small group
time or they're spending it on technology. And it's really
cool to see how some even kids apps have started
differentiating their learning so that folk kids could be like
(10:05):
advancing where they need to be. So that's definitely been
a growing area.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
For the cool Well. I love the idea of differentiated instruction, especially,
you know, kids have so many different needs and it's
so hard as an individual teacher to meet all of them.
But that's something that software can definitely excel at. But
we wanted to talk with you about some of the
ways that you know you are using tech in your
home life and maybe some strategies that people might want
(10:32):
to try. Yeah, some tips for our busy parents, definitely.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
And it's something that I think I naturally think about
because when I'm with my kids, I'm thinking about their
learning and development. And frankly, having three kids so quickly together,
some of that definitely didn't go great at the beginning.
So my first two kids are seventeen months apart. For
those first seventeen months of my son's life, oh man,
I gave him all the attention, like he wanted to
(10:59):
bake with me, We bake, and I would teach him
exactly how many teaspoons in a tablespoon, and he'd be
pouring everything in and he'd spill and I would say,
no problem, we'll clean it up, not a big deal.
And then, as life has it, my next came pretty
close behind, and I was so quickly felt like I
was just kind of moving her over to the side
and being like, just don't get in the way of
(11:19):
our baking. We have a special little thing we do
every week, and you're gonna play with a toy on
the floor. And eventually, of course she wouldn't have any
of that. She wanted to be part of the fun
baking activity, and so I was kind of meeting at
her level, and my oldest was getting bored. He knew
that he used to get all of my attention and
he was ready to learn more stuff. And I was
going back to the tea spoon to tablespoon measurements. And
(11:39):
then my third came along a few years later, and
we were really lucky to have I'll just spell it
out so it doesn't mess up everyone's home, but an
al Exa in our home by that point in time,
and so I could actually tell him what to be
asking our AI assistant in our home, and they could
be explaining some of those answers. And this was my
(12:00):
first real, like aha moment of differentiated learning in the household.
How we can actually use these speakers that we all
hate that they're listening to us all the time, but
really in a way to meet our kids' needs at
their own developmental stages. So baking to me was a
great example of one. But we actually use AI in
the home for a lot of different things. So we'll
use it for things like getting the weather or hearing
(12:22):
sports scores, like really basic things that my kids want
to know different pieces of and I don't know the answer,
and honestly, I don't want to staring at screens. I
don't want them looking at my phone. It's a quick
way to get a piece of information and then talk
about it as a family. So that's some like differentiated
learning examples. I can also share some kind of tactical
like how I use AI, but that could be a
separate one.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Yeah, yeah, no, I definitely want to hear it. I
love the idea, I mean, because kids have so many
random questions, and I mean, you want to answer some
of them, and certainly the important ones are ones that
deal with values you know you as a parent want
to take on. But when you're asked by three different
children in the morning what the weather is like today,
it could be a little bit like by the third question,
you're probably not that nice of a parent and answering totally.
(13:07):
Some tech assistant might be better for that, at least
in terms of patients. But what else are you guys
using it for?
Speaker 3 (13:15):
Yeah, so some of my favorite hacks so using AI
for school supply lists. This is one of my least
favorite parenting tasks is at some point in the spring,
you get a list of all the stuff you're gonna
have to send in in the fall. My kids have
multiple teachers and activities, so I have like four or
five six different lists that for some reason, my brain
just cannot cross check it all on its own. So
(13:37):
what I started doing a couple of years ago. Was
just copying, pasting the lists into whatever AI or whatever
LLLM it is that you use, and just asking you,
like doing some prompt engineering to ask it to put
it in different categories, you know, combine, like if each
list has a pair of scissors, just put five scissors
on one list, or really just creating one list. You
(13:57):
can even tell it what type of story you're going to.
If you're going to like an art supply store and
a supermarket, it'll put different lists for those different stories
you're going to. If you're going to a place like Walmart,
it could probably be all on one list, but you
can kind of get it just to do some really
specific tasks for you. I also love using it for
travel planning specifically because as my kids age, even for
(14:18):
day trips, there's such different needs. So we're actually going
to a Kadia this summer, which I'm so looking forward to.
We did go four years ago, but my kids were
really different ages. So I actually put in our itinerary
from a few years ago, updated with my kids current ages,
and said how would you adjust this and what would
you add? And I was able to get a whole
new itinerary to research. So it really like doing that
(14:40):
really specific prompt engineering. And if you're not good at
putting in an initial prompt, just really spending a few
minutes chatting with the AI will get you some really
great outputs and honestly efficiencies. My trip planning now takes
me an hour where it used to take me weeks,
and I just really appreciate that time back.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Yeah, well that's so interesting. I mean, so prompt engineering
maybe a phrase that people who are not immersed in
this like you are, may not have heard, yea even
before this episode. What that is is maybe spell it
out a little slowly for us. It's thinking about how
you're getting the AI to respond with what you want.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Is that right exactly? So anytime you ask a question
to an AI verbal or you're typing it into a
chat feature, that is a prompt. So if you say
what is today's weather? That is a prompt. If you
say who won the Super Bowl in nineteen ninety six,
that is a prompt. But if you want to get
a very specific output to your needs, the more information
(15:34):
you give it, the more specific the output would be.
And so prompt engineering is just a fancy way of
saying figuring out exactly how you want to ask a
question to get the output that you want. There are
some amazing resources online, like prompt engineering guides. There's definitely
one out there for travel, I'm sure we can find,
but also for different scenarios, and a lot of the
(15:55):
best practices are things like tell AI what you want
it to be, so like the Great of the Star
of a great prompt will usually include something like you
are my travel planner for today. Here is what I
need you to do, and then something very specific. So
you're giving the AI a job and then prompting it
with what output you want, and that's usually the most
effective way. So that's some basic guidelines. If you're just
(16:16):
getting started thinking about something like prompt engineering, do.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
You think it could help? But sort of like planning
a summer, like what kids should be doing? Would it
be able to look at the opportunities in your area
and suggest, you know, or I have a fourteen year
old who's into X and Y, what would you suggest
we do is that? How would you shape that one?
Speaker 3 (16:34):
Yeah, well that's a great question. So what AI is
very good at right now is general so types of activities.
What it is getting better at is search. So AI
search is still very new months old, where it's actually
searching like Google would and then aggregating that information, so
not just pulling information from like a corpus of past data.
(16:57):
And so what's been interesting is that companies have not
yet figured out how to I don't want to say game,
but I'm going to say game AI search. Whereas like
in order to game Google search, there's like SEO right
search engine optimization, and websites were super focused on their
search visibility. People haven't figured out how to quote unquote
(17:19):
game AI search. What that means is that when you today,
like as of mid twenty twenty five, AI search kind
of pull some random stuff in there. So what I
wouldn't necessarily recommend to say, like what summer camp should
I send my kid to in this area, because it
might actually pull a super niche camp that maybe isn't
even so close. But if you ask a bit more
broad question, it'll give you a starting off point. But
(17:42):
follow this space, AI search is going to be really
well defined in companies are going to learn how to
be found on it.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
Excellent, excellent. Well, we're going to take a quick ad
break and then I'll be back with more from Rachel Well.
I am back with Rachel Fuld Cohen from the Silicon Society.
We've been talking about ways that tech can assist our
(18:10):
lives as busy parents. But you've been in the tech
space for a long time at this point, and I
know that a lot of what has been talked about
and tech and with parenting is like, well, how can
parents still make it despite the hustle culture and all that.
I feel like you have a slightly different take on this.
Do you want to talk about that a little bit?
Speaker 3 (18:31):
Yeah, definitely, let's talk about it. Yes, I definitely do.
I feel like there's been so much written out there
about how parents make especially good employees, workers leaders because
they're so good at balancing and juggling things, And of
course that is true to an extent, but I actually
(18:51):
think it's like getting the chicken and the egg wrong.
And I think actually the narrative maybe serves to do
a disservice to parents because it just this reminds everyone
of all the juggling that we're doing all the time,
which real talk, we absolutely are. But what I think
is that the best parent caregiver employees that I've worked
with that I see on a daily basis are folks
(19:13):
who are naturally good at doing more with less. They
are naturally good at finding tools, at finding people, at
finding solutions that help them maximize their time at home
and maximize their time at work. And when you see
it done well, it's really skillful. Not to say that
I don't feel guilty on the weeks that my kids
(19:34):
are all from school and I'm juggling everything and things
feel like they're falling. It doesn't mean it feels perfect
or good all the time, but I actually think a
lot of parents are just very naturally good at doing
more with less and delegating. My kids call my delegating chores.
I call it making them responsible humans who can take
on household responsibilities. And honestly, same with my staff. I
(19:56):
mean my staff, many of them are parents are incredible
at cross supporting each other doing more with less. Like
I mean, I think AI is such an obvious way
that everyone can do more with less. But even before that,
there are so many tools that I think the best
workers just use because it makes their life easier. And
so I do think, yes, we are all good at
juggling a lot, but we're juggling fewer balls because we
(20:19):
can use the tools and we can delegate, and I
just like love seeing parents and caregivers in the workforce
route at it.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Yeah, yeah, I'm very curious. What chores do you have
your kids doing that? Uh? What's the chor schedule in
the Cohen family?
Speaker 3 (20:33):
Yes, okay, well the chor schedule was pretty set for
a while, so they're always the domain starts with their room,
so like for my six year old, he is in
charge of his room, so making his bed, making sure
there are own stuff on the floor, and hanging up
their towel. Man, if this day starts like that, that
is a great day for my nine and ten year old.
(20:53):
They also have responsibilities like setting the table for a
weekly dinner, sweeping a couple times a week. And then
we actually got a dog about a year ago now,
which is a new edition. We have a whole other
conversation about that, but that came with walking the dog
responsibilities as well, which is great because usually the dog
needs a walk when they get home from school, and
my partner and I are both still working and so
(21:15):
they can kind of take on that responsibility and allows
me to continue to be doing what I need to
do at work.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Excellent, always good way to have that. But I would
love to hear about your daily schedule. I mean, we
had talked earlier about how you know, you've definitely been
moving work around in the dimensions of time sort of
in place you know, people work remotely proof where there's
just a lot of flexibility with that. But what is
your schedule looking like now?
Speaker 3 (21:40):
Yeah, yeah, great question, fun to think about. My partner
and I are big proponents of like we take everything
a year at a time, and then we schedule up
the wazoo. So I'm very fortunate. We are definitely benefactors
of remote work. So we're both working from home, Like
we'll travel and have to go in for meetings, but
we have a pretty set drop off and pick up
schedule for our kids that we can do on a
(22:02):
daily basis because they are close by. And then I
think one of the biggest transitions for me over the
past year, so they'll my kids will come home from school,
they do screen there and aftercare and then they do
screens for an hour so that's their like TV time,
so we can wrap up work. I know lots of
opinions on different screen time, but that works so well
for my family, and then one of us we split down,
coming right when they're done with screens to make sure
(22:24):
dinner is ready, and then we're both pretty much around
for the bedtime routine most nights. The biggest transition for me, Lauren,
I think this is what you were alluding to, is
my kids used to go to sleep earlier. So any
other parents of like kind of going into the preteen years,
all of a sudden they care about like watching sports games,
they're bedtimes or eight fifteen and eight thirty. But somehow
(22:45):
we've been like very flexible these days with that. And
for me, what that has meant is for years I
had two hours between work and when I would like
go back to work, which I didn't always have to do,
but certainly being a founder right now, I am going
back to work most nights, and that two hour block
was pretty well defined, so I'd hyper focus on my
family and then go back to work and hyper focus there,
(23:06):
and that delineation has just gotten a little bit fuzzy.
I felt so uncomfortable going back to work with my
kids awake, and so one thing I've started doing is
that first hour I'm usually back to work like eight
to nine pm. I actually do it on the couch,
and my ten year old loves looking over my shoulder.
And at first I felt guilty about that. Why am
I working and he's watching me. Now he's going to
(23:27):
think that work is more of a priority. But I
actually realized it was like pair programming, like I see
our engineers doing all the time, like working together or
kind of job shadowing. And now I really love answering
his questions. I was actually on Canva the other night
designing some social media posts and he had some really
good input because, like spoiler alert, ten year old is
better at create designing stuff than I am. And so
(23:48):
it's actually been this really great experience that we've been
able to add into our routine. But then at eight thirty,
I'm like, all right, kid, go to bed.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Go to bed, It's time to get back. What do
your mornings look like?
Speaker 3 (23:58):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (23:59):
What are morning is?
Speaker 3 (23:59):
My kids are early risers, so they come down. They're
pretty much reading while we get snacks. We do school lunch,
but they get snacks. I'll get snacks ready for them.
There's a couple of mornings a week what we'll do cooking,
and so a lot of times they'll help, like this morning,
actually did some baking with our AI assistant because they
were all up in there with the flower at seven
(24:20):
o'clock in the morning, and so we'll do that and
then we are out the door by seven fifty five,
and so pretty much like the morning's run pretty smoothly
at this point that they're a little bit older, they're
getting themselves dressed and things like that. But we will
have like a couple of activities sometimes we even do
in the morning, and I very much rely on them
to like figure those things out themselves or I'll guide
them towards learning on their own. And that's been really cool, awesome.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
We're going to take one more quick ad break and
then i'll be back with more from Rachel fold con Well.
I am back with Rachel fold Cohen, who's with the
Silicon Society. We've been talking about AI at home using
(25:04):
tech tools, and then also various ways that parents might
have a competitive advantage in the workforce. But here's the
question that I think a lot of us are wondering.
As somebody who is sort of steeped in the technology
culture and knows the upsides of it, and you said,
your kids use it a lot at school. I'm curious
how you think about tech guidelines for your children, what
(25:26):
they are allowed to do, what they are allowed to see,
what they have access to, and how you envision that
changing over the next few years.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
Oh, that's a great question, and honestly, I also see
my approach to those changing over the next few years.
So I will share where my head is at at
this exact moment and what I've seen out there. But
I think this is something that's always shifting. So I
very much was raised on and believe it in everything
in moderation mindset, which is why I'm okay with my
(25:56):
kids having screen time during the week. We've set very
clear boundaries and works for our family life. But things
I'll never compromise on is safety, and so things that
are out there like YouTube kids and parental controls have
been a huge part of the past few years of
setting those up as our kids get bigger and realize
that they know how to search on YouTube if we
let them, so really setting up strict parental controls and
(26:20):
device access so like no devices ever go to the room.
Screen time is always done in public, there's a parent
sitting around whenever there's a kid on a screen, they'll
never be alone. Those are things that are like pretty
firm rules. And our kids' school does have an option
to be part of a wait until eight packed in
terms of cell phones, and so that's been really helpful.
I actually have said to a number of friends recently,
(26:43):
like I feel like I'm in this like sweet spot
of my kids are like old enough to be self sufficient,
but young enough to that they don't have devices, and
so it's like this, I'm not yet fighting the phone battle,
and they know that they're not getting one until eighth grade,
but they're old enough to get themselves dressed. So it's
like a wonderful in between moment. But those are some
like the guidelines that said things are changing so fast.
(27:06):
So for example, like one of my kids loves gaming,
so we don't let him play any games where there's
like outside chat or anything like that, and he's pushing
back on it a little bit, and so it is
honestly something that I need to research. I was not
a gamer, so I'm not as familiar with like the
limitations and safety there, but it's something that I find
myself just researching more and more. And by the way,
(27:27):
that's Another great use case for AI is like researching
things like this, I'll always then click on the source
the sources. So right now, basically any LM you use
will have a source that you can click on, which
it didn't used to have, So you want to make
sure that there's like actual sources there. But it's a
great use case for like understanding a safety landscape.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Yeah. No, my ten year old loves gaming with friends,
and so you need to have the ability to chat
with them, to team up exactly to do that strategy
that you know, you're who knows who they're playing with
against because they can't talk to them, but you know
these totally maybe adults who are being pounded by these
ten year old boys, but anyway, you know.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
Totally well, and it's so easy. Like for me, it's like,
I think much easier for me to set rules for
my oldest than for my youngest. Like he's already watching
and doing things that I would have never let my
ten year old when he was six do. And so
I do feel like there's a natural like you just
learn so much as with your older kids as you
learn these safety guidelines and then hopefully that benefits the
younger kids a bit more with what they're comfortable with,
(28:26):
but it could also go the other ways. So time
will tell, time.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Will tell exactly. Well, Rachel, we always do a Love
of the Week, So this is something that is exciting
for you right now. I could go first, and I
longtime listeners have heard me say that's probably a million times.
But I really love the Kindle app. Yeah, because you
can get a book so quickly, the instant gratification of
(28:52):
getting a book and being able to start reading it
right where you are. Do I prefer reading books that
are on paper, of course I do, but you could
give up a lot of that nicer experience in order
to have the immediacy. It's been really helpful lately. I've
had a few people I've needed to talk to that
(29:13):
I was like, I didn't you know, I wanted to
at least glance through their book before I talked to them,
and I could because it was right there, you know,
in the hour before you chat. So I'm thinking, so
Kindle app is a big one for me. How about you?
Speaker 3 (29:25):
Yeah? I love that. I love the focus like accessibility,
Like does knowledge being more accessible?
Speaker 1 (29:29):
I'm gonna go a totally different direction, Okay, let's do it.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
My love for the week is instant coffee. Ooh yes, okay,
I feel like it is one of my parenting hacks.
It is low tech, but it genuinely gives me time back,
Like I was someone who would do my pour over
my French press, which on the weekends I'll still love.
But lately I've just been instant coffee in the morning
and it gets me like right into my morning mix,
the morning routine we talked about, and honestly, I think
(29:54):
makes me like a better parent and a better like
extra coffee between zoom meetings, and so I'm just really
appreciating instant coffee these days. And for like basic innovations.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
It's gotten a lot better.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
It really, honest thank you for saying that.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
It really has. Really, I just like, you know, back
in the day, I was like, oh, it's got like
the bad church basement vibe of you know, in the
little like totally. No.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
Now they have like French roast instant coffee, vanilla instant coffee.
No shame, It's great.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
No shame. If it gives you a few minutes back
in your life, all the better. You know, what you
use that for is up to you. Well, Rachel, where
can people find you?
Speaker 3 (30:33):
Yes, so you can find me on LinkedIn, Rachel fold Cohen,
on Instagram, at Silicon Society, and on LinkedIn at Silicon Society.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Awesome, Well, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 3 (30:44):
Thank you for your time. This was a blast.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
Well we are back. Always fun to talk about tech
and how we can use it in our lives. So, Sarah,
this question comes from a listener who, as we are
coming into summer at the end of the school year,
wants to know do you do anything to avoid summer
brain drain with your kids.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
I think that the phrase is funny, and then part
of me is like, oh, is it like extra to
admit that you don't want your kids to fall behind?
But I don't think it's about falling behind. I think
it's more about I want to make sure that they
are doing some things over the summer that are beyond
just like staring at screens and playing with friends. I
(31:25):
don't know, it's an interesting question. It's good, but yeah,
playing with friends is great. Actually, yes, I guess we
do mostly just to encourage reading, because it's harder to
fit in reading during the school year. Different kids have
various enjoyment levels out of reading. But I find it's
an activity where if the more they do it, the
more they seem to like to do it. And so
this year we've actually kind of discussed having some monetary
(31:49):
rewards for reading. We have not entirely fleshed out our structure,
but the kids are into the idea. I just need
to figure out how to implement it in a way
that isn't totally unfair or silly. For example, some of
the books that Genevieve reads might take fifteen minutes, and
I don't need her getting some massive reward versus a
kid that a book that a big kid might read
(32:10):
could take a couple of weeks.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
Well, can you do it time based?
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Yes and no, because I feel like then it's hard
to know are they really reading? Like I kind of
think I'd.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
Rather just slip through it too, I mean, unless you're
doing a pop quiz at the end, or requiring a
paper summarizing the main thesis behind that ya novel, like
you don't know anyway.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
There might be a required like no, not a thesis,
but for them to tell me what it was about
in their own voice, And that way, they can't use
AI because they have to say it to me, unless they're.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
Really sneaky, they get AI to tell what it was about, they.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
Memorize that, they come back and report they have a
headphone on it's feeding them.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
I wrote it out, mom, and now I'm going to
read it to you.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Yeah, there's at least one kid in my house who
would benefit from some math practice, So we are going
to encourage that as well. I think beyond that, we're
not super aggressive. But yeah, I guess I don't love
the idea of I'm just doing nothing and then starting
the new school year having forgotten lots.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
Of what they learned. So okay, fine, we do we do?
All right? What about you? We'll tease it out of
you eventually. I'm not a type a mom at all.
I'm not. Yeah, I really am not. But I feel
like the upside of summers you're learning different things and
different skills, and you get a chance to try out
different parts of knowledge. Like, for instance, Ruth will be
(33:36):
in a theater camp for two weeks, and so she'll
have to memorize lines and songs and work on choreography,
and that's just a different skill than what you'd normally
be doing during the year. Unless you're doing the school
play or something I guess, or going to sleep away camp.
That's going to be different skills, but you're still going
to be learning things with sailing or horseback riding or
pitching a tent to various different things that kids are
(33:59):
learning learning as part of that. Josh ber will be
at a vocal camp for a while, so he'll be
learning music as part of that. Sam is actually taking
two online courses this summer to get credit for that
for not having to have it in his schedule next year,
So he will be entirely taken care of on the
academic front. And I believe Alex will likely have a
(34:24):
required math component this summer because the way they do it,
they then have kids skip fifth grade math and start
in sixth grade math in fifth grade and so then
you have to do it over the summer to get
into it in the fall. Anyway, so he will have that.
Beyond that, I don't know, I would like them to read.
(34:44):
I think we're going to try to have some sort
of still enforced non screen time at night. I don't
know exactly what that's going to look like, but that
is with the time when the younger kids at least
will be looking at books. I mean, this is really
like Alex and Ruth. I'm going to be thinking about
this with I'd like Henry to learn to read. Maybe
(35:05):
that'll be the summer project. I don't know, you never know.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
I mean every kid at their own pace. I one
kid read early of mine, and then another two none
at all.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
So yeah, just never know. Yeah, it's hard to tell.
He gauged his interest in it. He likes the chapter
books we're reading now. So we're reading the Dragonmasters series
and we are reading the Magic Treehouse series kind of
interspersed with another. We'll read like two chapters from one
and one chapter from another on the same night. He
likes to move forward in two books simultaneously with that,
(35:35):
which is good. But in the other day, we had
a little incident where somebody gave him mountain dew. I
don't know what happened, and I was spelling out that
he was not to be given mountain dew ever again,
and I was saying, we're not going to purchase moun
Tai and he's like, but I like Mountain Dew, and
(35:56):
I'm like, yes, that's so funny.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
Maybe he can read already. Maybe he's just holding it
from you. Wait, I have to share what I'm reading
to Genevieve right now, just because I feel like if
you're in our generation, like you're just gonna be like, Yes.
We are reading The Babysitters Club Super Special number one,
Babysitters on Board, Yes, which features a cruise and a
trip to Disney World. And as I'm reading it, I'm
like realizing I probably read it fifteen times, Like everything
(36:23):
is familiar. I knew which manicure color that Karen was
gonna pick. I was like, oh, yeah, the light purple
nail polish. Then she picks like it is so fun
to revisit that, and she loves it, so it's still the.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
Test of time. Yeah, well that's great, that's exciting. We
have had a lot of Babysitters Club Super Specials read
around here, although I have not re read them, but
maybe I should, Maybe I should pick them up. I
don't know. Alex has been reading a bunch of these
history books. They're sort of not really historical fiction. They're
more like telling the tales of like World War One
(36:57):
and World War Two. And the Viking is another various
like Little Boy exciting things Alexander the Great, but in
these little nuggets of anecdotes, so they keep you reading,
and so throw those out there too. I wish I
had the name in front of me right now, but
I don't.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
I think I know what you're talking about, because Cameron
likes a.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
Really famous podcast. He's like the one of the top
history podcasters, and he's written all these books for children.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
Well, someone can fill in the blank. Camra like's the
ones that are focused on disasters. There's one of those
are good, and then there's one about like I survived,
Like I survived.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
Yeah, that sounds Saint Helen's exactly. Yeah. Those are another
big win as well. And Harry Potter will always do
a shadow for Harry Potter. All right, well, this has
been best of both worlds. I've been interviewing Rachel full
Cohen about tech and parenting. We've been talking about our
favorite apps and summer brain drain. We will be back
(37:50):
next week with more on making work and life fit together.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the
shoebox dot com, at the Underscore shoe Box on Instagram,
and you.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
Can find me Laura at Laura Vandercam dot com. This
has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please join
us next time for more on making work and life
work together.
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Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.