Corey Boutwell - Improving your productivity and reducing stress through a daily dose of stillness

I had the great opportunity to talk with Corporate Vice President, Modern Work @ Microsoft, Jared Spataro on this epsidode and we had a wide ranging chat around Modern work, thought leadership and the great re shuffle.

We also touched on the Metaverse and how that could change again the way we interact with each other moving forward.

Jared joined Microsoft more than15 years ago now and he still wakes up every day excited by Microsoft's mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.

He counts himself fortunate to have the opportunity to lead the Modern Work team. This includes efforts to research, predict and shape what the future of work will look like across industries, along with delivering new products and features across Microsoft 365 that enable everyone to thrive in the new era.

Here are the topics that we covered and I no will resonate with you:

• We are witnessing the evolution of hybrid and modern work - Companies are adding job titles focused on remote or hybrid work experiences as the shift to work from home becomes a lasting phenomenon
• Increase in job titles related to the future of work
• 304% spike in job titles that contain the phrase “hybrid work”
• Are we now seeing a whole new career path?
• The changing landscape of work and careers as we continue transitioning into the world of hybrid work
• Technology needs to be used in the right way to be the ultimate key to enable more innovative
• Technology alone is not the answer. It needs to be implemented in the right way
• How does Microsoft see this and how is Microsoft empowering all types of workers

Jared also shares his perspective on the key trends driving business transformation across industries: hybrid work, building hyper-connected businesses, increasing digital capabilities and end-to-end security.

It was great chat with one of the try thought leaders in this space.

Hope you enjoy.

On this weeks episode I had with me Alexander Eggers. 

Some key topics we covered that I know will bring you value were:

• Best practises on Team architecture - One of the most common problems with Microsoft team introductions is the wild growth: Too many people create too many teams and channels
• When to create a new Channel vs a new Team
• Private Channel or New Team
• Group Chat or Team
• 5 biggest mistakes in Microsoft Teams adoption
• Why getting buy in from the top is so important

Alexander's vision is that he can make people work better through technology.

He loves standing on the stage and this gives so much energy to him. His passion is interacting with people and sharing knowledge. 

In his role as head of an IT company with almost 50 employees, he knows procedures and processes. This helps him with the adoption of Office365 and in particular of Microsoft teams.
 
Alexendar has developed adoption workshops for the SMB market and can look back on many successful projects since 2017, the birth of MS Teams.

Alexander is also a speaker at various events. These include Microsoft events, cloud forums or Virtual Summits.

Since 2020 he has held the Microsoft MVP for Office Apps and Services. 

Connect with Alexander:

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/teams-pro/
  
• https://www.youtube.com/c/Teamsf%C3%BCralle/
• https://twitter.com/eggers_alex

Joining me on today's episode is Peter Rising....

Peter, has over 25 years’ experience in IT. He has worked for several IT solutions providers and private organisations in a variety of technical roles focusing on Microsoft technologies.

Since 2014, Peter has specialised in the Microsoft 365 platform, more recently shifting his focus to Microsoft 365 Security and Compliance.

He holds a number of Microsoft certifications, including MCSE: Productivity; MCSA: Office 365; Microsoft 365 Certified: Enterprise Administrator Expert; Microsoft 365: Security Administrator Associate; and Microsoft 365 Certified: Teams Administrator Associate.

Protecting and governing your organisation’s information is a challenging process and is more crucial than ever before.

Cybercriminals are more sophisticated and more determined to gain access to your organizations critical and sensitive information. 

Securing and protecting your data for regulatory compliance is a challenge every organisation and individuals for that matter needs to address.  

Where do you start? 

What are the fundamental? 

What simple steps can you take to secure identities and ensure compliance? 

And how do you ensure continued success with your cyber security posture in the ever-changing landscape of cloud and hybrid cloud?

These are the topics that we dive into in this episode and we also touch on Peter's little project "THe Microsoft 365 alphabet".

You can follow and engage with Peter here:

www.peterrising.co.uk
https://www.youtube.com/c/CloudConversations/videos
https://www.meetup.com/en-AU/m365sandcug/
https://practical365.com/author/peter-rising/

Joining me on today's episode is a truley experienced product person and seasoned Product Manager at Microsoft. A man that only needs to go by one name:

Chakkaradeep.

What I love about how "Chakka" goes about things is that he strives to build products that customers love.

It was a great chat and some topics that we discussed were:

• The rise of video in Power Point
• 3 things that make a great product leader
• Features vs Outcomes
• Design Thinking and haveing more productive meetings
• The importance of product metrics
• Balancing expectations and delivering iterative outcomes

Contact and keep up with Chakkaradeep here:

https://twitter.com/chakkaradeep

His Twitter profile also has a link to his newsletter: Product Management Insights.

Microsoft Teams is a big and sometimes overhealming beast. You can learn so much from how others use and apply the functionality in their day to day work. This is the reason I embarked on creating a community driven eBook. 

This episode is an audio reading of the eBook. I talk through the 21 tips, tricks and best practises that were shared with me theat formed the basis of the eBook.

Hope you enjoy and it brings you value.

If yo are not subscribed to my email list, go jump on it, I have exciting community things coming up and I don't want you to miss the content, announcements and value.

Subscribe here: https://www.sharepointfocus.com

What is Microsoft missing?, well joining me on today's episode is Ragnar Heil.

For the past since 22 years, Ragnar has specialized in Office Productivity, Search, Document & Content Management Software.

He has been involved in FAST Search / SharePoint / Office 365 / Yammer Projects in different roles (Developer, Infrastructure Architect, Project Manager, Tech Support, Consultant, Trainer, Team Lead, QA Manager, Regional Director, Partner Sales Lead, Alliance and Channel Manager)

Since Nov 2017 he has also been supporting Enterprises to move, manage and protect content within enterprise collaboration platforms in the cloud and on-premises and is the founding member of "Working out loud" community in Germany.

It's fair to say that he has some knowledge to share. And this episode was epic.

Some of the key highlights included:

• Ragnar's elivator pitch for Microsoft Teams
• Experiences learnt from real hybrid work (aka working whiel travelling around Germany:))
• Common pitfalls and success stories from tenant to tenant migrations
• Learning in the flow of work
• What is Microsoft missing ?

Connect with Ragnar:

https://linktr.ee/ragnarh

Joining me on this episode is none other than Cameron Dwyer. Now Cam is better known in the Office Development circles where he is a Microsoft MVP in 2017.

Cameron is alos Chief Technology Officer at OnePlace Solution overseeing an award winning Microsoft 365 product portfolio.

He has more than 20 years’ experience as a developer solving complex challenges and running SaaS offerings at global scale. Combining strong business understanding and acumen with deep product knowledge and thought leadership around Microsoft 365.

Now what is great about this episode is that there is no developer speak at all. Cameron  recently had the desire/need to setup regular Brown Bag style sessions as a vehicle to share knowledge within his development team. It was driven by two signals that he was hearing over and over again during their team sprints:

• I need knowledge
• I need to impart knowledge

This lead to Cameron creating a solution to solve the problem with Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Lists and SharePoint with out a line of code being written.

It was a great example of what can be acheived with out of the box functionality and also by starting with the problem first.

You can follow Cameron via Twitter and his blog where he shares a great about of experience through his content:

• Blog: https://camerondwyer.com
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/CameronDwyer

Joining me on this episode is Paul Keijzers. Paul is the co-owner of KbWorks which is a company based near Amsterdam Netherlands and also a Microsoft MVP.

His main focus is Microsoft Teams and SharePoint and loves to collaborate on these topics and make weekly videos for endusers.

In this episode we had a great discussion about SharePoint, Microsoft Teams, Teams only devices, Viva.

Oh and a little / big announcement from Paul for 2022.

Here are some of the highlights:

• Microsoft Teams only devices (think Chromebook)
• Where do you start your day? Outlook, Teams or the Intranet ?
• Old school user adoption examples for the Intranet
• Microsoft Teams - What are companies struggling with ?
• Microsoft Teams archiving - make sure you have a plan
• Pauls' take on Microosft Viva and Microsoft Loop
• What is the key selling point of Microsoft Viva ?

Connect with Paul:

• KB Works: https://kbworks.nl
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulkeijzers
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/kbworks

In this episode, I chat with Microsoft MVP Matt Wade. An engineer-turned-IT nerd and Microsoft MVP.

His career began in the nuclear power design field and ended up in SharePoint adoption, pretty much by mistake. He’s best known for his SharePoint and Microsoft 365 infographics—especially the Periodic Table of Office 365—and advocating Microsoft Teams as the foundation of our modern workplace. He lives in Upstate New York.

There is so much value in this episode as we dicuss a wide range of topics, a few of the highlights were:

• Microsoft Teams best practises and etiquet
• Running better meetings in Microsoft Teams (sometimes this is not a technology thing)
• Microsoft Loop and how this could be potentially the next big thing
• Who benefits from Microsoft Loop
• Just because you can do something in Microsoft Teams should you really?
• Pain points that people have with collaboration today
• The biggest challenges organistions face when implementing Microsoft Teams
• Microsoft Viva...just re branded to capture a different audience.

I highly recommend connecting with Matt as he continues to produce some really good and engaging content. You can find links to all his socials here https://linktr.ee/thatmattwade

Joining me on this episode is Norm Young. Norm has spent 20 plus years as a data professional who has recently made the shift to the collaboration space using Microsoft 365 and the Power Platform.

Norm is also a Microsoft MVP for Office Apps and Services. Blogger, speaker, community contributor, and Microsoft 365 evangelist.

Some highlights that will bring you some value from this episode are:

• We discuss the advatanges and value of moving from excel to Microsoft Lists
• The introduction of offline availability of Microsoft Lists via Project Nucleus
• Customization options with Microsoft Lists that help drive business value and adoption
• Real world use cases

Connect with Norm:

Blog: https://normyoung.ca
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/norm-young
Twitter: https://twitter.com/stormin_30

If you are interested in learning more about customizing Microsoft Lists: 

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-sharepoint-blog/customizing-lists-best-practices-guest-blog-and-video/ba-p/2858509