Open Nights / The Columbia of Duluth / $45
A small table, a real map, and something that runs before you go home.
Fourteen seats, a laptop, and one ordinary thing you would like to make, understand, or shorten. Nobody is quizzed. Everybody makes something.
The next oneThe last one / August
Five people, one night, four things that ran.
Five people sat down at The Columbia after hours, three entrepreneurs and a curious educator among them. Two had no particular task in mind. In ninety minutes, one connected an AI agent to the tools he already runs his business on. One wired a smart ring to his own assistant. One found a deeper way to mine a customer list he had been sitting on for years. One built the frame of a full digital marketing operation.
Public-safe recap. Names and specifics stay in the room.
Next up / Free community night
Help choose the next AI networking night.
A free evening for curious people around Duluth to meet, compare notes, and talk honestly about what they are trying with AI. It is conversation and connections, not a build night. Vote for every time you could attend and I will confirm the date and room after the group weighs in.
The next one
Open Night at The Columbia
The next Open Night is announced by email when it has a real date, a real question, and a room. If you want to be in it, the list is the way. Open Nights dates and Lake Effect AI Notes travel on the same list; there is no second one.
How the night runs / 90 minutes
You will not spend the night watching someone else use AI.
We begin with a map, turn quickly toward what is possible, then put the tools in your hands. By the end you will have made something, learned a way of working with AI you can repeat, and met people worth exploring it with.
- The wall
Put one wild idea or one stubborn task on the wall. Meet someone. See what fourteen people hope this might make possible.
- The room comes alive10 min
A fast welcome, names without speeches, and a tour of the questions already clustering on the wall. You are not the only beginner, and not the only person hoping for more.
- The map20 min
In plain English: what these systems do, why they feel different now, where they surprise us, and the three moves you will use before the night is out: ask, show, shape.
- Two live builds15 min
One playful, one useful at work. I open the hood just far enough to show how a real system is put together.
- Your turn20 min
Pick the idea or the task. Work in pairs. Make a first version on your own screen. No polishing; the surprise is part of it.
- The gallery15 min
A fast show-and-tell of what worked, what missed, and the ideas nobody walked in with. Borrow one move from someone else.
- Take it home10 min
Name the next experiment, keep the method, and leave with at least one person whose curiosity you want to keep following.