Technology & AI for Business
Automate a muddle and you get a faster muddle.
Every owner has tasks that eat an hour a day: copying details between sheets, sending the same reminders, chasing the same information. Automation can give that time back. It can also quietly send wrong messages to many customers at once. This session shows how to choose carefully, start small and keep control.
Explore this page6 sections
The best automation is small, boring and well-understood.
Saving ten minutes ten times a day is a real gain, and most of it comes from simple things: a template, a saved reply, a rule that files an email, a reminder that sends itself. The grander the plan, the more likely it is to be abandoned half-built.
The risks are also real. An automation can send the wrong message to every customer, create duplicate records, or fail silently for weeks while everyone assumes it is working. Careful owners decide what to automate, keep a human where the stakes are high, and know who looks after it. That is what this session teaches.
What the session covers
36 topics across 7 areas. Seven parts, from finding the work to keeping it running.
Finding the Repetitive WorkWrite it down before judging it.5
- Tasks done weekly, daily or per order
- Copying the same data between places
- Reminders, follow-ups and status updates
- Reports compiled by hand
- Roughly how long each takes, and who does it
Ask the people who do the work. They know where the time goes.
Which Tasks Make Good CandidatesA simple test.5
- Frequent enough to be worth the set-up
- Follows clear rules with few exceptions
- Low harm if it goes wrong, or easy to check
- The process is stable and understood
- Not a task where the personal touch is the point
Simplify FirstRemove steps before automating them.5
- Why does this step exist at all?
- Standardising forms, names and formats
- Collecting information once, at the source
- Removing approvals that approve nothing
- Writing the steps down so a colleague can follow them
The Options, From Light to HeavyUse the lightest thing that works.6
We do not recommend products. The question is always which task, which method and who checks it.
- Templates, saved replies and checklists
- Rules and filters inside tools you already use
- Scheduled reminders and recurring tasks
- Connecting two tools so data moves on its own
- Using AI for drafting or sorting, with a person checking
- A custom script or app, only when nothing lighter works
Keeping a Human in the LoopDecide where a person must look.5
- Anything involving money, prices, legal or tax content
- Messages going to many customers at once
- Deleting or changing records
- Sampling the output regularly instead of trusting it
- A pause or an “undo” where the tool allows it
Start with the automation preparing a draft, and a person approving it.
When It BreaksPlan for failure from day one.5
- Who gets alerted, and how, when something fails
- Checking that it ran and that the result is right
- What happens to the work if the automation is off
- Changes in the connected tools that quietly break it
- A simple way to switch it off
Access, Ownership and DocumentationWho looks after it when you are busy?5
- Using business accounts, not a staff member's personal login
- Giving the automation only the access it needs
- One named owner, and one backup person
- A short note: what it does, why, and how to stop it
- Reviewing it every few months to see if it is still needed
What participants leave with
- A repetitive-work list for their business, with time estimates
- A candidate test sheet to run on any task
- A one-page plan for one small automation, including checks and an owner
- A “what if it breaks” checklist
- A simple way to measure whether it actually saved time
What this session is not
- A tutorial on any specific automation or AI product
- Programming instruction
- A claim that automation will transform every business
- A substitute for fixing a process that is unclear or broken
How the session runs
A practitioner who has automated work in a business shows the method on hypothetical examples, such as order confirmations, payment reminders or weekly reports, labelled as such. Participants list their own repetitive tasks, run the candidate test and simplify one process on paper. They finish with a one-page plan for a first small automation. Nobody has to set anything up in a live system during the session.
What your students leave with
- A list of the repetitive tasks in their own business, with rough time costs
- A test for which tasks are good candidates and which are not
- The habit of simplifying a process before automating it
- A sense of the options, from templates and rules to connected tools
- A plan for human checks, error handling and who owns the automation
- One small automation chosen to try first
Scheduled sessions
Nothing scheduled yet
Sessions are arranged with a college once a date is agreed. Ask us and we will find the right person for it.
A student rather than a college? See what is coming up, or ask your placement team to host this.
Pick one small, boring task, simplify it, automate it, and check it.
Tell us who your students are and what stage they are at. Sessions are free for participants.