Welcome to the Out of The Box Series — where I test how far curiosity and AI can take you in 30, 60, or 90 minutes using today’s best no-code and low-code tools. No studio. No production team. No advance training. Just exploration to see what we can do — right out of the box. 🎧 Finished Song*: I Got Your Six Little Girl 🎬 This Episode: Suno.com – AI Song Creation 🕒 Time Limit: 90 Minutes 📂 Category: AI Music & Personal Creativity 🎶 What Is Suno? Suno is an AI music generation tool that can create songs from prompts, lyrics, and style direction. In this case, Suno did the musical composition. I uploaded my original lyrics. 🎧 Finished Song*: I Got Your Six Little Girl Because rights and ownership matter, I started with lyrics I had written myself and kept the words original. With Suno Pro, you can publish what you create, so I wanted to be thoughtful about what I uploaded and refined. 📝 Backstory In February 2020, I wrote a poem for my daughter called I Got Your Six Little Girl. It was written from the perspective of a father looking back on all the firsts: - first heartbeat - first breath - first steps - first bike ride and moments in between The poem was already written. But I cannot sing. I cannot play instruments very well. I was never in the band. So I wanted to see if I could use AI to help turn the poem into a song to give her as a graduation present. ⏳ What I Built in 90 Minutes: Within one focused session, I: 🎼 Uploaded my original lyrics into Suno 📝 Converted the poem format into a song lyric format 🎚️ Used Suno’s interface presets to guide the style 🔁 Generated multiple versions 🎧 Listened for tempo, transitions, hooks, and continuity 🎵 Created a strong working version of the song 🎧 Finished Song*: I Got Your Six Little Girl The prompt was less of a traditional instruction and more of a music style descriptor.

For all you aspiring solo AI agencies and entrepreneurs out there, you will appreciate this story. I was recently engaged to conduct an “Intro to AI” training for 200 employees. Less than a year ago, I was the president of a tech marketing company on a totally different path. One day, I was presented with a fork in the road opportunity and took the AI path. Today, I run a full AI agency offering AI Opportunity Mapping, AI Readiness Assessments, AI App Prototyping, and enterprise AI workflow and automation solutions. More recently, I’ve also added something I call “strategic workforce resiliency”, a strategy to prepare and future proof your business with AI. How did I get here, by surrounding myself with like minded people in the AI industry. In a community like AI Bits & Pieces where professionals like @Matthew Sutherland @Collin Thomas @Mike AI Consultant @Usman Mohammed @Nick Mohler are building, testing, sharing, and talking through real AI business challenges. It speeds things up. It gives you better pattern recognition. It helps you not just use AI, it teaches you to start building with it. Another thing that has changed for me is how I structure client value. I now include my beginner AI fluency training, AI Bits & Pieces, as a free service when signing a multiple month agreement for corporate clients. That has been a strong move because it raises the baseline AI understanding across the team and it completely avoids the “can you do this for less money” conversation. The discussion becomes about value, capability, and how to actually move the business forward with AI. A lot can change in less than a year when you are in the right room - with the right people. Thank you to the members in this community that help us sharpen the saw for all of us to get better.

We just crossed 600 members in AI Bits & Pieces. Consistent growth from day one, fueled by people trying to understand what AI actually means for their work and day-to-day life—and how it can help them stand out in the workforce, business environment, or executive ranks. That’s been the goal from the start. A place for: 🔵 AI Curious — figuring out what this all is 🟢 AI Enthusiasts — using it regularly 🟠 AI Practitioners — applying it to real work 🟣 Enterprise — thinking about scale across teams What’s been interesting isn’t just the number—it’s the mix of people and the conversations starting to take shape. Members are building small things. Members are asking in-depth questions. And members are starting to connect the dots between tools and outcomes. A special shoutout to each and every member, and the people who have supported me from the beginning: @Michele Wacht @Dena Dion @Debra Schmitt @Patti Hoekstra @Mark Zayec @Matthew Sutherland @Jason Hagen @Usman Mohammed @Nick Mohler @Eduard Friesen We have some exciting updates and new offerings for the community designed to help you win the AI game in life, at work, as a business owner, or as an agency. A heartfelt thank you. Michael

🗓️ Session 2: April 10, 2026 at 5pm EST. (60-90 minutes) Check calendar for Session 2 and 3 dates and times. AI is getting closer to giving non-developers a real path to building full applications with natural language. Because one day, you may not think you’re writing software or workflows… but you will be. Maybe it looks something like: - Setting preferences for a fancy AI vacuum - Creating a daily brief from your favorite news and email accounts - Building a simple tool for your own workflow to improve a business process - And, yes, giving directions to your own personal humanoid robot. In any of these cases, learning how to speak to AI clearly will matter if you want practical and useful outcomes. 🎯 What This Live Series Will Cover: - I’ll be using Claude Code on Windows - We’re going to build the a simple task list app across three sessions, with a few differences - Each one will be built from scratch Session 1 — Vibe Code No planning. Just build. Minimal features. Session 2 — Vibe Code + Planning (April 10, 2026) Some planning. More structure and a few useful features. Session 3 — Skill Coding (Planning assumed) The most upfront planning. The most feature rich app. The most fun. 🏁 The goal is to help everyone, no matter their AI or programming experience (including zero) level, get a glimpse into the power of Claude Code. ❗ Beginners and complete newbies are absolutely welcome. It is to help people see what these tools can do, how planning changes the outcome, and why the shift to using natural language matters. We are getting closer to a world where more people will create software using natural language, where the quality of the idea starts to matter more than whether you have an engineering degree. At the same time, two things can be true at the same time - strong computer science fundamentals and great ideas will continue to compound for those who have both. @Matthew Sutherland @Nick Mohler @Usman Mohammed @Dena Dion @Mike AI Consultant

I’ve been cruising along lately, just loving life with Claude Code, but I recently got absolutely humbled by Cowork. I’ve actually made up a new acronym for the event: WTT. The reality is, I’m not quite productive enough on Code yet to justify dropping $100 or $200 a month in tokens. So, I’ve been managing my token "allowance" like a kid who gets $5 a week when candy bars cost $2. Everything was going great until a buddy asked me to show him the ropes on Cowork. Being confident (and perhaps a bit too proud), I said, "Sure!" I didn't mention I’d never actually run this specific workflow before. I figured—how hard can it be? I set up a scheduled task to roll through my Gmail account and give me a daily briefing. Awesome. Easy. Total "Pro" move. So, I’m showing off, doing this very impressive demo for him, and I hit "Run Now." I’m leaning back, like: "Look, you can see it thinking... it’s reading the email, producing the brief, preparing the summary..." DONK. 💥 OUT OF TOKENS! WTT (What the Token?!) And then it hits me: I cannot Code. I cannot Chat. I cannot Cowork. #WTT Thinking on my feet, I started to explain, "You see, managing tokens is just a sophisticated part of the LLM lifestyle," all while seething under the covers. So, that was yesterday. I decided to shrug it off, tough it out, and wait for the rolling reset while I slept. ☀️ The next morning, I was all fired up to get back into Claude Code to build my slick new app. I sat down, opened the terminal, and... DONK. 💥 OUT OF TOKENS! #WTT Then It hit me... 🤖 Claude Cowork had woken up before I did. It chewed through my entire brand-new allowance of tokens just before I was all fired up to "Claude Code.". I cannot Code. I cannot Chat. I cannot Cowork. #WTT The ultimate irony? I couldn’t even grammar-check this post in Claude. I had to go over and do it in Gemini! LOL. #WTT @Matthew Sutherland @Nick Mohler @Usman Mohammed @John Romano