In-personFree for Sheffield SMEsPromoted by Business Sheffield
Is your business AI-ready?
An in-person, two-hour working session for Sheffield SMEs. By the end of the day, your personalised AI strategy report lands in your inbox — built from your answers, not a template.
Free for the first 40 Sheffield-based businesses.
2 hrs
Total runtime, no break
4
Foundations covered
~22
Structured questions
1
Personalised strategy doc
What today is about
Most AI events tell you what AI is.
This one asks what it means for your business.
Specifically. Honestly. In the context of your four real foundations: your people, your documents, your data, and your strategy. Each foundation gets its own session — a short explanation, a question set, and a pair discussion. You answer on paper throughout. You leave with a written strategy specific to you.
The Four Foundations
Structured around real foundations, not theory.
10% is the algorithm. 20% is the technology. 70% is people, process, and culture. Most AI consultancies sell the 30%. Every AI project that fails, fails in the 70%. That’s what the Four Foundations are.
01
People
AI fails when staff don’t use it, don’t trust it, or use it in ways that create risk. People is the 70%.
“Do your people have the awareness, the confidence, and the permission to use AI well?”
02
Documents
AI hallucinates when it doesn’t have a reliable source to reference. The antidote is better documents — not a better AI model.
“If an AI assistant had access to all your business documents, what would it know — and what would it have to guess at?”
03
Data
The average SME runs on 8–12 systems that don’t share data. Manual re-entry is doing integration in human hours.
“Where does your most important business data live — and can you actually get to it?”
04
Strategy
You can have willing people, clean documents, and good data — and still fail without ownership, direction, or governance.
“Who owns AI in your business, and what would success look like in 12 months?”
The two hours
Session plan.
120 minutes. No formal break — each foundation resets the energy naturally. You’ll talk as much as the facilitator.
0–12
Welcome, context, the 10-20-70 principle
How today works · the honest AI landscape · why SMEs have the window right now.
12–35
Foundation 1 · People
Score yourself, paper exercise, pair share. The Golden Question, three-tier training, the fear-curiosity dial.
35–55
Foundation 2 · Documents
Score, exercise, share. Points of Truth, knowledge at risk, AI-accessible vs human-readable.
55–75
Foundation 3 · Data
Score, exercise, share. The SaaS fragmentation problem, data you own vs rent, the integration payoff.
75–90
Foundation 4 · Strategy
Score, exercise, share. The ownership gap, MIT maturity stages, your specific 12-month vision.
90–105
Fire, Fruit, and Moonshot
Synthesis. Pick your 0–30 day move, your 30–90 day win, your 90+ day transformation.
105–113
Submit your answers
Five minutes on your phone. The form generates your strategy document overnight.
113–120
What comes next
Community, 1:1 discovery, and the strategy doc that lands tonight. Direct, no slides.
What you leave with
Six things you’ll walk out with.
A scored view of your business
Across all Four Foundations, with stage placement.
Your Fire, Fruit, and Moonshot
Specific to your own answers — not generic.
A personalised V1 AI strategy doc
In your inbox the same evening, built from your words.
Community offer
First month free in the nura community.
A clear path to 1:1
Discovery call available if you want to go further.
Five new peers
Working through the same questions, in the same room.
Your facilitator
Run by Rob Downham.
R
Rob Downham
Founder, nura Consulting Ltd
Twenty years building businesses, the last five focused on practical AI for SMEs. Rob runs every nura workshop personally.
Two hours and we walked out with a plan we could actually start on Monday.
— Operations Director, Cloud9 Fulfilment
Questions
Frequently asked.
Who is this for?+
SME leaders — owners, MDs, founders, ops directors. The questions assume you have a business and you make decisions about how it runs. You don’t need any AI knowledge to attend.
Do I need to bring anything?+
Bring a laptop. The whole workshop runs through the nura workshop app — your answers save as you go, your foundation scores feed your strategy report, and you can pick it back up afterwards. A phone works in person but a laptop is much better. We'll have power and Wi-Fi at every venue.
Will this be a sales pitch?+
No. The workshop ends with a community offer (free first month) and an optional 1:1 discovery call. Neither is gated — you get the strategy doc regardless.
Is the strategy document really personalised?+
Yes. It uses your words, your industry, and references the specific gaps you named. We don’t use templates that fill in your business name.
Can I bring a colleague?+
In-person seats are individual. Online sessions allow up to 2 people per business at one ticket — they share one strategy document.
What if I can’t make this date?+
There are workshops in 6 other cities and 5 online sessions over the next 12 weeks — see the directory.
Two hours. One strategy.
By tonight, your personalised AI strategy is in your inbox. By tomorrow morning, you have a first move.
Reserve your seat