Capability building
I don't train people on tools. I build their capability to use AI as themselves.
Most AI training is a tour of apps you'll never open again. Mine does something different. I teach people to use AI in a way that's actually theirs, shaped by their own experience, their worldview, their values, and the work right in front of them.
The tool is the easy part. The capability worth building is knowing how to make it serve you, your business, and the people you look after. And I start where the room actually is. Every session is led by what the people in it need, not a curriculum I've turned up to deliver.
Capability, not dependence.
From a Follow the White Rabbit night · Photography by Nimmy @bynimmy
The Northland kaupapa
This is the one I care about most.
I want AI literacy built right across Te Tai Tokerau, in the hands of the owners, operators and communities who'd usually be last to get it, not first. This technology shouldn't only belong to people in the big centres with the budgets to match. Building that capability close to home is some of the work I'm proudest to do.
Five ways in
Not sure which one fits? That's what the free half hour is for. Book it and I'll tell you straight, including if the answer is none of them.
Most AI help hands you a thing and leaves. Here, you do the work, on your own business, and you walk out able to do it again without me. You build it. You keep the capability.
Five ways in, depending on where you're at.
Clarity is King
Turn AI overwhelm into confident action.
You're being sold AI from every direction and you don't know where to start, or whether any of it's even for you. This half-day is where that stops. You work through a simple method on your own business: what it does, where the real problems are, what's actually worth solving, and what to ignore. You leave knowing your next step and how to take it. For some people that step is AI. For some it's something else entirely, and that's a real answer too.
Who it's for
Owners and managers who are sick of being sold tech and want to start with their business instead.
You walk out with
A clear next step, and a way of thinking you can reuse every time someone tries to sell you the next shiny thing.
The shape
Half a day, in person, small group.
$600 + GST per person
Buildstorm
Two days to build the AI tool your business needs.
Anyone can build anything now. That's exactly the problem. The building was never the hard part, knowing what to build is. Buildstorm is two days where you build it properly, with your hands on the keyboard. You bring a real problem from your business. Over two days you build a working AI tool that solves it, while I teach, demonstrate and unblock. I never build it for you. That's the point. You leave with a working thing and the skill to run, change and extend it yourself. And if you don't finish in the room, you leave knowing exactly what to do next.
Who it's for
Owners ready to stop talking about AI and build something real.
You walk out with
A working AI tool or workflow for a real problem, plus the skill to keep building.
The shape
Two days, in person, a small room of 8 to 12. An onboarding call and homework beforehand so you arrive ready, and a group chat stays open for two weeks after.
$2,000 + GST per person
Build Something Real
You build it. You keep the capability.
One-to-one, my full attention on you and your business. For a trickier problem, or when you'd rather go deep on your own build than sit in a room. We design what to build first: the problem, who it's for, what good looks like. Then you build it, with me guiding, teaching and unblocking. You do the building. I never do it for you. You leave with a working tool and the skill to run, maintain and extend it without me.
Who it's for
Owners who want one-to-one depth on their own build.
You walk out with
A working solution to your specific problem, and the ability to build the next one yourself.
The shape
One-to-one, in person, half or full days depending on where you are. Travel is on top if I'm coming to you.
$3,000 to $6,000 + GST depending on complexity
Coaching, not a workshop
Grow Your Own
One-to-one AI capability coaching, every fortnight.
The workshops above are a day or two in a room. This is the other lane: one person, coached every fortnight by someone who builds production AI systems for a living, not a facilitator working from slides. No curriculum turns up to be delivered. Every session starts from your actual role, your actual business, and whatever is in front of you right now, with small, real work between sessions that's always tied to your job.
Between sessions you get voice-note access. Stuck mid-fortnight, send a voice note, get unstuck. That's the thing no course or workshop can offer, and it's why this holds where a day in a room fades: someone is there every two weeks making sure it sticks.
Who it's for
Two doors, same package. The owner who wants AI to go from fifteen half-tried tools to a small set of things that actually run your work. And the organisation that wants to grow its own AI person instead of renting one, so the capability stays on your payroll. Either way, it's one person, going deep.
You walk out with
Genuine working fluency by the end of block one. By the end of block two, a working AI workflow or tool of your own, and the ability to bring others along.
The shape
Blocks of six fortnightly one-to-one sessions, 60 minutes each, paid on booking and used within four months. Most people do two blocks, about six months. Online by default, on Google Meet. Local to Whangārei or Te Tai Tokerau, we can do it in person at your place, because sitting beside you at your actual computer, in your actual systems, is the fastest way to build real capability. Further afield, travel at cost, or we stay online.
$1,800 + GST per block of six
Build your own personal command centre
One day. You build the thing that runs your world.
A personal command centre is the one place everything you're trying to see and run actually lives. It's built around you, not your business at large: your projects, your goals, your week, pulled into one view instead of scattered across ten tabs and three apps. In this one, you build your own. Six people, one day, hands on the keyboard the whole way, me guiding and unblocking as you go.
This room runs a bit more technical than Buildstorm, and that's the point. Buildstorm is two days building whatever AI tool your business needs. This is one day building one specific thing, your own command centre, and having a real go at the connecting yourself. You won't walk out with a polished, fully wired system. You'll walk out with a working spine that's yours, and the genuine ability to keep building on it.
Like the sound of it, but you'd rather not build it yourself? I do a version where I build it for you. See the command centre build →
Who it's for
People who'd rather build it themselves than have it built for them, and would rather do it in a room with others than alone.
You walk out with
Your own working command centre, built by you, and the skill to keep growing it.
The shape
One day, in person, six people.
$1,200 + GST per person
Rather have it built for you?
$8,500 setup, then $400/month
Your personal command centre, built for you
The workshop above is you building your own. This is the other version. You talk it through, I build it around how you actually work, and we go live together, in person. You don't touch the plumbing, and you leave able to use it from day one. The $400 a month holds the hosting and infrastructure, and gives you two hours of my time each month for changes and a hand when you need one. Travel included within three hours of Whangārei, which covers Tāmaki Makaurau.
Book a free half hourNot sure where you fit?
The first conversation is a free 30-minute call to figure out if we're a good fit. Tell me where you're at and we'll work it out together.
Book a free half hour
Follow the White Rabbit
With Larissa Daly, 123online
Follow the White Rabbit is the work Larissa and I do together to take the fear out of AI. No jargon, no performing, no one made to feel behind. It started as one night, demystifying AI for women in business. It's grown into the most open-door part of what I do, and for a lot of people it's where the first real step happens.
Two ways it shows up.
The evenings
Local nights where we talk honestly about what AI is, what it isn't, and what it actually means for your work and your life. Come with your questions. Leave with fewer knots in your stomach.
The podcast
The same conversation, in your ears. Larissa and me, talking through AI for real people and real businesses, with none of the hype.
Listen →Why my capability building actually sticks
Plenty of people can show you a tool. Far fewer can design a learning experience that holds once they've left the room.
I've spent fourteen years designing how people learn and change, not just what tools exist. Instructional design, adult learning, eLearning, a microlearning rollout that reached over 80 percent engagement with frontline teams.
That's the part I bring, and it's why the capability stays after the session ends.
The background
Where the credibility comes from.
- • Master of Technological Futures, AcademyEX
- • Bachelor of Applied Business Management, Strategic Management, Otago Polytechnic
- • Mental Health First Aid Instructor
- • Lean Change Agent
- • Advanced Certificate in Change Psychology
- • Level 4 Certificate in Occupational Health and Safety
- • Fourteen years in learning design, capability development and wellbeing strategy
Talk to me about capability building.
Tell me where you're at and what you want to be able to do yourself, and I'll shape something around it.
Book a free half hour