Dear Reader,

I already feel smug as I write this, as the pizza dough for our dinner is proving in the kitchen. And the thing about this pizza dough is that it seems wrong at every single stage. Or if I'm being melodramatic. Every. Single. Stage.

And if I'd been making it solo for the first time, maybe it might have taken a one-way trip to the bin, rather than ending up in the oven.

*Trigger warning* I'm going to speak fondly about the COVID lockdown years. Yes, I know that on so many levels they were truly awful. And I've just deleted all the sentences where I listed out how much suffering there was in different ways. But hear me out.

One bizarre joy was doing things together from our own houses on Zoom.

A case in point being pizza making. This was my friend Rachel's no-knead pizza recipe. And a big group of us all gave it a go on Zoom. And, yes, I did have a not-so-secret supplier of flour. Bonus when your ish-laws have a farm shop.

As I said, the thing about this recipe is that it looks wrong at every stage.

"Rachel, my dough looks too dry" - photo into WhatsApp chat.

"OK, now it looks too wet" - points laptop at bowl of bubbly thick soup.

"How am I supposed to pat that blob out onto the tray?"

"Ohmigosh there is sooooo much steam," glasses fogged up, peering into the oven.

But because we were doing all this together, with someone who had already done it, we were reassured enough to keep going until we had delicious dinner.

I was going to give you some pictures of all of these stages but realised that it seemed like a pound-shop version of Lynks' track: How to make a bechamel sauce in 10 steps (with pictures). If you're of a sensitive disposition, I wouldn't go down the rabbit hole.

And as I remembered all that making my dough this morning (currently transforming itself from too dry to bubbly soup), I thought well that's like one of our innovation days. Trying things with AI together as a team with the reassurance of a tried and tested recipe and a coach every step of the way.

I often badge it "prototypes by home time" but it's more than creating some sort of AI multi-tool to help you with your job. It's team building. It's the freedom to try something new. Getting things wrong is part of the point (and how often do you get to say that at work). And dare I say it, it's fun.

So, if you think your team could benefit from an AI innovation day, you have budget and could carve out a day (two, even better) before the end of the year to roll your sleeves up and get building, reply to this email and let's talk.

Helen