Making the Most of Copilot
From switched on to second nature in twelve weeks
A twelve-week certificate program from Four Simple Words. Next cohort starts Tuesday, November 10, 2026. Fully virtual.
Need approval first? Click here to get a note for your supervisor.
Copilot is on. Now what?
Your licences are paid for, and there is a collective sense that Copilot should be doing more than tidying up meeting notes. Nobody is quite sure what they are missing, and nobody wants to be the first to say so out loud.
That is where Making the Most of Copilot starts, and it is why the +ai Mindset comes before any tool. Copilot is remarkably good at seeing patterns. Your people know what matters to your organization and the people you serve. This program shows you how to combine the speed of Copilot with the smarts of your team.
Who this is for
Professionals across every function and career stage whose organizations have already deployed Copilot and want their people using it well.
You will need a working knowledge of Microsoft Teams and the Microsoft 365 tools your role uses, and some exposure to Copilot. You do not need to be an expert. This program teaches Copilot inside those tools, so it is not the place to learn the tools themselves.
You do not need your own Copilot licence. For the length of the program, we will invite you into our Microsoft environment, with every feature switched on.
How it works
Learn it, use it, bring it back.
Twenty-four hours across twelve weeks:
- Six modules of three hours each
- Six open office hours of one hour each
- Two facilitators in every session
The spacing is deliberate. You learn something in a module, use it in your real work that week, find where it does not go smoothly, and bring that back to your facilitators and your cohort at office hours. That loop is where capability builds, and where adopting a tool turns into adapting how you work.
Attend at least five of the six modules to earn your certificate. Every module is recorded, so if life gets in the way, you can catch up on your own time. Office hours are open and encouraged, and do not count toward completion.
Learning outcomes
By the end of the program, you will be able to:
- Explain in plain language what Copilot is doing, and name the places where your own judgment matters most
- Decide when to bring Copilot into a piece of work and when to carry it yourself
- Work with Copilot across Teams, Word, Outlook, Excel and PowerPoint on the work you do every day
- Adapt how you work, rather than simply adopt another tool
The program
Three courses, taken as one twelve-week cohort. Click a course to see what you will learn.
Collaboration. The +ai Mindset and Copilot in Microsoft Teams. Six hours of instruction and two open office hours over four weeks. You will be able to:
- Embrace the +ai Mindset and begin to explore who you are becoming with artificial intelligence
- Explain in plain language what Copilot is doing, and name the places where your own judgment matters most
- Decide when to bring Copilot into a piece of work and when to carry it yourself
- Leave a meeting with the recap, transcript, action items and summary already written
- Adapt how you work rather than simply adopt another tool
Communication. Copilot in Microsoft Word and Microsoft Outlook. Six hours of instruction and two open office hours over four weeks. You will be able to:
- Turn a page of rough notes into a structured, finished document in minutes
- Draft, rewrite and summarize at pace, in a voice that still sounds like your organization
- Work through a full inbox using thread summaries and suggested replies
- Write clearer emails faster
- Know when a first draft from Copilot is good enough to send and when it needs your judgment
Operations. Copilot in Microsoft Excel and Microsoft PowerPoint. Six hours of instruction and two open office hours over four weeks. You will be able to:
- Ask questions of a spreadsheet in plain language and get answers back
- Generate formulas, analyze data and build charts on your own
- Build a full presentation from a prompt or an existing document
- Turn a finished report into board-ready slides
- Spot when a number or a chart is confidently wrong before it reaches a board pack
Where the learning happens
We do not teach Copilot with generic exercises. We invite you into a business.
FSW Fitness is a 21-location gym company we built for this program. It has a leadership team, financials, inboxes, meetings and a real business problem. Each module adds a new piece of that problem, and you work it through in the tool that module teaches.
It looks and feels real. It is not. That is the point. There are no customer records and nothing private in the room, so you can take bigger swings, make mistakes out loud, and learn faster.
And yes, FSW stands for the Four Station Workout. We could not resist.
Everything runs inside a Microsoft environment that Four Simple Words owns and manages, with every Copilot feature switched on.
Schedule
Tuesdays, November 10, 2026 to February 9, 2027, with a holiday break on December 22 and 29. All times EST.
Modules are in colour with a keyboard. Office hours are in grey with a clock.
Course One: Collaboration
Tuesday, November 10
Module 1: The +ai Mindset
9 am to noon EST
Tuesday, November 17
Office hours
11 am to noon EST
Tuesday, November 24
Module 2: Copilot in Teams
9 am to noon EST
Tuesday, December 1
Office hours
11 am to noon EST
Course Two: Communication
Tuesday, December 8
Module 3: Copilot in Word
9 am to noon EST
Tuesday, December 15
Office hours
11 am to noon EST, then a holiday break
Tuesday, January 5
Module 4: Copilot in Outlook
9 am to noon EST
Tuesday, January 12
Office hours
11 am to noon EST
Course Three: Operations
Tuesday, January 19
Module 5: Copilot in Excel
9 am to noon EST
Tuesday, January 26
Office hours
11 am to noon EST
Tuesday, February 2
Module 6: Copilot in PowerPoint
9 am to noon EST
Tuesday, February 9
Office hours
11 am to noon EST
Your facilitators
Sean builds the depth, all the way down to 1989 video games. Curt makes it land, usually on a whiteboard. You get both of them in every session.
Sean Yo created the +ai Mindset and leads its thinking. He is the architect, the one who goes deep into how AI actually works and builds it into a practice a team can trust.
Curt Hammond is the founder of Four Simple Words and turns the +ai Mindset into practice. For more than 20 years, he has helped organizations take big ideas and make them something a whole team can use.
What you leave with
- The +ai Mindset Copilot Certificate from Four Simple Words, for completing at least five of the six modules
- Your course materials and your own notes
- A cohort of peers from other organizations, working through the same questions you are
Need approval first?
Get a note for your supervisor. It covers what the program is, the dates, the cost and what your team gets back, with a few spots for you to fill in. We will show it to you right away and email you a copy.
Registration details
Each person registers individually. Cohorts are capped at 25. $3,500 per seat, plus HST, paid at registration.
Can’t make it? Transfer your seat to a colleague at no cost, up to 24 hours before the cohort starts. Email [email protected] with their name and email.
Cancelling. Cancel more than 14 days before your cohort starts and we will refund 50% of your registration. Cancel within 14 days of the start date and your registration is non refundable.
Life happens. If something changes on your end, email [email protected] or book 15 minutes with Curt, and we will talk it through together.
If we cancel a cohort for any reason, you get a full refund.