Target Connect Key User Group · 15 minutes · drive it from /talk/?present=1 · → advances, ← back, F fullscreen, T timer, O overview
Green = say this out loud · plain = do this · red = fill in / don't forget. Notes deliberately live here, not in the deck.
"How to build tools, widgets and doodads"
I'm not a developer. If you sat me at an empty file I wouldn't know where to start. But I've built about thirty tools people use every week.
Open cold — no agenda. Let the two facts sit together. The honesty is the credibility; don't oversell later.
Learn just enough to get something smarter than you to do the work
I can't write code. I've learned just enough of the vocabulary to point AI at the right thing — and that turns out to be the whole job.
Set up the promise: tips for making AI build something bigger than a single prompt gives you.
Twelve things → one ecosystem→ reveals
Ask AI for twelve tools and you get twelve strangers — different fonts, different colours, nothing shared.
Press → and the four clashing tools snap into one brand.
Same twelve tools, one set of rules. Now it's a platform — and each new tool is easier than the last, not harder.
Four switches: HTML · CSS · JSON · API4 clicks
HTML — let the ugly version sit 3 seconds. "A page is a list of what's on it, nothing about how it looks."
CSS — point at the code pane, flip it: the markup doesn't move. Then the colour swatches re-brand five tools at once. "One file, thirty tools."
JSON — type into the pink numbers; the card updates live. "Content in a labelled box. The team edits data, nobody needs me."
API — the moment. Say the posting count out loud. Then take a shout from the room — type a job title into the box, press enter. "A door into someone else's system you're allowed to knock on."
Keys 1–4 jump to any switch if you lose your place.
Four files. Four ideas.
Structure, style, content, data. That's the whole vocabulary.
Hover each card and its code example expands below — walk through the four. No mouse? Keys 1–4 do the same. Then advance.
Look what you can do with nothing
No money. No coding knowledge. Here's what I made anyway.
Events Feed live
This isn't a list I keep updated. It reads Target Connect's events feed and builds itself, live, every time.
Pathway widgets live
Static pages get looked at. Things you can do something with get used.
Flashcards + verb roulette. Built for the pathway activities in Target Connect.
Founders Showreel — JSON again live
Two different widgets — a showreel and a wall — reading the exact same JSON file. The tools never change; the data does.
The catch: the team can't edit JSON. So they fill in an Airtable — a spreadsheet — and overnight a robot turns it into the JSON. Nobody in that chain knows what an API is.
Skills Explorer — API live
Live occupation data from a government skills service. None of that data is mine. I just know how to ask for it.
Thirty tools. One rule book.
Thirty-plus tools. One shared stylesheet. No backend, no database, no logins — just files. Nothing to break into, no student data to lose. It's why it got past IT.
Let's make something — right nowhelpchat
Switch to Target's helpchat in the other tab. Paste the prompt shown on the slide. When it gives you HTML, copy it, come back, paste into the box — it renders live on the right.
If it's ugly, tell it what's wrong in plain English and paste the new version. That back-and-forth is the point.
Plan B — if helpchat misbehaves, click the discreet "plan b" button (bottom-right of the box). It copies a known-good countdown widget to your clipboard; paste it in and carry on. Don't fight it live.
AI does the building. Knowing what to ask is yours.QR
You just watched four switches — structure, look, content, truth. I can't write a line of any of them. Knowing they existed was enough.
Point at the QR: "Everything here, plus a plain-English guide to all four, is on that page. Scan it." Your name and email are on screen too. Then stop talking — no thank-you slide.