AI is the greatest thing to happen for camps
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It’s all about kids today
4 Quick Things
The Staff Training Sprint Cohort is done, but you can still access everything we covered and more. Check out the Full Playbook here with replays, activities, prompts and a ton more. This is basically a staff training suite.
Blake Boles wrote last week’s newsletter and, more importantly, wrote Dirtbag Rich, which you have to get and read.
Check out a free webinar we are running kinda about this newsletter. Sign up is at the bottom.
We are still writing 3x / week on Write From Camp on Substack. Love camp? You’ll love this.
All right, on to the show
Being a camp director is like running a small city.
There are facilities to manage. Parent emails to get back to. New ideas to try. Cool program ideas. Redoing the schedule. Figuring out how to just do the schedule efficiently. Worrying about when things break. Managing how pre-camp will work.
There’s a ton going on.
Camp is built so much on the institutional knowledge of “we know how this works.” We can do this. We’ve done it before. It’s hard, but the goal of camp is almost always the same which is something like:
Help kids grow, build connections, and spend time outside.
But getting there requires navigating so (so, so, so) much digital work.
Teleporting back in time
Camp is teleporting back to a world before screens.
A world where play, laughter, and human connection is paramount. Where scrolling TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram didn’t exist.
A lot of times at camp, we are nostalgic for the past. Me too. I love that part of camp.
I love being face-to-face, laughing, and what the kids call “touching grass.”
I want to do more of that.
More of it during the summer. More of it during the rest of the year.
But it’s tough.
There’s constantly more technology that needs to be navigated. Transportation, parent onboarding, new camper events on Zoom, supporting kids from far away.
It’s hard and it’s overwhelming and I know other camp pros feel it.
But that’s exactly why I’m unbelievably excited about the possibilities that come with AI.
Getting more done in the digital world
Being a camp professional is a bundle that includes so much computer time. Making schedules. Responding to emails. Organizing files and systems.
A lot of that is going to be able to come off our plates as AI gets better.
That’s what I’m experimenting with.
Summer schedules that used to be days-long slogs now take hours. Transportation coordination that felt overwhelming now has structure. Parent communications that used to fall through cracks now happen consistently.
It’s not a magic button yet. But it’s really starting to save real time. Starting to improve things like reducing schedule time, improving our SEO, organizing transportation.
We’re making progress. And it matters.
Speaking of running camp, Campminder helps us do just that.
Which kids are coming back?
What areas are families from?
Who still needs medical forms?
Answers in like 30 seconds instead of digging through 47 spreadsheets. The kind of data that actually helps you make decisions.
Check out Campminder
More kids to camp, more time with kids
It matters that we dig in to be better at utilizing AI as a tool.
Because it means getting more kids to camp. It means spending more time with awesome adults, spending time with kids.
AI has become a part of getting that done for me in the work that I do.
When I use it, I can both get more kids to camp and have my awesome adults spending more time face-to-face with kids and less time on our screens.
My bet is camp is better with AI in the background for the tasks we’re already doing on our computers.
And the world is better with more kids spending more time with more awesome adults.
It’s not perfect
AI doesn’t come without its trade-offs.
AI is not perfect. You got to double-check things. You got to worry about safety. I don’t yet use it to draft emails because I want a human in the loop.
Then there’s the macro stuff.
If we’re going to build so many more data centers, how does that impact our world environmentally? These are big questions to ask.
I think there’s a lot of uncertainty about what the future is going to look like.
But I’ll tell you what I know is certain.
Camp makes kids’ lives better.
Camp and AI may be is the best thing that’s happened to camp in the last 20 years.
You got this,
Jack
PS - Camps & Cowork → Doug and I are hosting a free webinar on Friday, April 17th, 2-3 PM EST about how we’re using automations to begin clearing away some of this camp work.
Want to join? Easy. Just sign up at the link below and you’re on the list.
Oh, and be sure to check out the Staff Training Sprint Playbook
Get my newsletter every week.
It’s all about kids today
Jack Schott
Summer Camp Evangelist