Intro to Claude AI: Your Efficiency Assistant

Most of us are still using AI the same way we did two years ago. Open a browser tab, paste in a question, copy the answer back out, then fix everything it got wrong about how we actually work. That's a chatbot. It's fine. It's also about 10% of what these tools can do.

This session is the other 90%.

I'm going to show you how I set Claude up as an actual working assistant: one that knows my writing voice, builds slide decks the way I build slide decks, connects straight to my SQL
Server, reads my meeting notes, and writes real working code that I ship to clients. Not theory, and not a vendor demo. This is my own setup, the one I use every day, running live on my laptop.

**We'll cover:**

- Getting Claude installed and pointed at your work, in about five minutes

- Skills: teaching Claude your standards once so you never re-explain them again

- MCP servers: connecting Claude to SQL Server, your meeting notes, and the rest of your tools

- Live demos: querying a database in plain English, and building a working app from scratch

- The honest gotchas, including what this still gets wrong and where I don't trust it

**Who should come:**

.NET developers, DBAs, and anyone who has tried an AI tool, found it underwhelming, and wondered what everyone else was so excited about. If you've never touched Claude, you're in exactly the right room. If you already use it daily, you'll still pick up the skills and MCP pieces.

**What to bring:**

Nothing. Just come watch. If you want to follow along, bring a laptop and I'll share the setup steps and every file from this session afterward.

Bring your questions. I'd rather spend the last few minutes on what you actually want to know than on my last five slides.

**Agenda**

6:00 PM to 6:15 PM Food, Networking, Announcements
6:15 PM - 7:45 PM Session
7:45 PM- 8 PM Q&A and Raffle of Microsoft Certificate Vouchers