Fresh Perspectives: Living in the reality of SharePoint intranets

Season 3 continues on the theme of ownership, and this time the thing being owned is a whole city’s worth of communication. 

Martine Maingot leads centralised communications for the Equity and Inclusion Cabinet at the City of Boston, covering eight departments and six initiatives under Mayor Michelle Wu. When David Bowman and Jarbas Horst ask what she owns, she doesn’t reach for a channel or a budget line. She says the connective tissue between the departments. 

Martine started out in banking and moved into city government, and the contrast shapes how she works. Banks answer to shareholders and regulators. The city answers to the residents who live there. So when a message needs softening, the question she asks is who it protects and who it costs; and if a safer version protects the institution while costing the community clarity or dignity, that’s where she pushes back. 

The conversation covers the discipline behind one message and seven touches, why she wants people repeating things in their own words rather than reciting hers, how she makes messages easy to remember rather than merely accurate, and why she multiplies every piece of feedback she receives by twenty-five. On AI, she’s firmly in the practitioner camp, a tool to be respected, but one that can’t tell you whether something is trustworthy. That, she says, is a human call every time.

Fresh Perspectives returns for a third season, and for the first time it has a theme running through it: ownership. 

David Bowman and Jarbas Horst open the season by unpicking what ownership actually asks of you. Owning a space; comms, IT, HR, a team, usually ends up meaning you add to it. More content, more channels, more announcements. David’s argument is that real ownership works the other way round: it’s the ability to reduce, remove and say no. 

The conversation runs straight into Fresh’s research report, the Employee Attention Recession, which surveyed internal comms professionals and employees across the UK and US. Only 12% of employees said they read internal communications in full. The rest skim, read headlines, hand it to AI, or ignore it entirely and the number one reason given was cumulative volume rather than anything about the content itself. 

David and Jarbas work through the report’s central paradox, where 95% of employees are confident AI captures the key points of their internal comms while 92% of comms professionals worry those same summaries are distorting meaning and tone. They cover the levers the report offers, from treating attention as a finite budget you negotiate over, to writing content that can survive being compressed, to the governance gap where employees are using AI to interpret content that comms teams have no visibility of. 

David Bowman hosts Shannon Ford and Zoe Bennett, Solutions Consultants at Advania UK, for an in-depth discussion on content migration challenges and strategies. Shannon and Zoe share insights from massive migrations including 20 terabyte projects and SharePoint 2016 to online transitions. They reveal why the biggest migrations are often easier than smaller ones and discuss the common discovery of decades-old content like Christmas party photos from 2009. 

The conversation explores how migration projects evolve from initial IT requests to complex organizational change initiatives. Shannon and Zoe explain why talking to actual content owners across departments is crucial rather than relying solely on high-level project teams. They discuss the balance between manual recreation of intranet pages versus automated document migration tools, and why permissions management becomes increasingly critical with Copilot integration. The consultants emphasize that successful migrations require internal communication, content cleanup, and treating the project as organizational change rather than just a technical exercise. 

Key topics covered: 
[00:00] Intro 
[01:25] Biggest migration experiences 
[03:03] Legacy SharePoint content discoveries 
[05:05] Customer expectations vs reality 
[07:50] Content owner knowledge gaps 
[10:09] Common migration challenges 
[12:26] Metadata importance for search 
[14:42] AI Copilot content quality requirements 
[16:53] Migration tools and approaches 
[19:16] Manual vs automated methods 
[21:16] Where migrations go wrong 
[23:34] Success preparation strategies 
[25:55] Digital strategy importance 

Learn how proper planning and stakeholder engagement can transform content migration from a technical headache into a strategic advantage for your organization.

Jarbas Horst and David Bowman from Fresh Intranet welcome Andy Hall, Knowledge Transformation Manager at Forvis Mazars, for a deep dive into managing SharePoint intranets through major organizational change. Andy shares his journey from the company's rebrand from RSM to joining the global Forvis network, including a complex tenant migration that affected 3,500 employees across multiple countries. 

Andy reveals how the Hive intranet became central to change management during the acquisition, supporting everything from document rebranding to employee communications. He discusses practical strategies including using SharePoint web parts for governance oversight, creating centralized FAQ pages with curated search, and implementing taxonomy tags to track rebranding progress across 250 content editors. The conversation covers the challenges of maintaining content quality during rapid organizational change and how proper governance creates a foundation for AI implementation. 

Andy's experience demonstrates how SharePoint intranets can effectively support organizations through acquisitions, rebrands, and complex migrations when backed by solid governance frameworks. 

SharePoint just celebrated its 25th anniversary with Microsoft's biggest announcement in years. The new SharePoint experience introduces a refreshed navigation bar that follows you everywhere, featuring discover, publish, and build capabilities that transform how teams work with content and AI. 

Jarbas Horst and David Bowman break down the major changes including the rebranded SharePoint AI, new skills functionality, and how the E7 license makes AI more accessible. They explore what this means for organizations considering building their own intranet solutions versus using third-party products. 

The conversation covers whether AI automation will eventually replace the need for specialized SharePoint vendors, the importance of ongoing maintenance and ownership, and why creating something once is very different from sustaining it long-term. 

David Bowman and Jarbas Horst from Fresh Intranet share their bold predictions for workplace technology in 2026. The conversation reveals three major shifts that will reshape how organizations operate and communicate internally.

The duo explores the growing threat of AI generated content flooding workplaces and social media platforms, creating what they call AI slop that risks losing employee attention entirely. They discuss how Microsoft 365 organizations will drive software consolidation as Copilot becomes central to workplace AI strategy, forcing companies to evaluate whether external systems can justify their costs when they lack AI integration. David and Jarbas also examine how internal communications roles will become heavily AI augmented, with agents handling sentiment analysis, content prioritization, and even autonomous task execution.

David Bowman and Jarbas Horst from Fresh Intranet sit down with Christiaan Lustig, intranet and digital workplace consultant and author, to explore what digital employee experience really means. Christiaan explains why his definition puts employee needs first, arguing that great digital employee experience is the sum total of all digital interactions where the needs and expectations of employees come first. 

The conversation covers how intranets serve as horizontal platforms that bridge organizational silos, the importance of talking directly to employees before implementing new tools, and why resistance to digital tools often signals the wrong tool or wrong implementation approach. Christiaan shares practical advice on using personas to make employee insights tangible and discusses how AI will change digital workplace interactions through conversational interfaces while exposing poor content management practices. 

Key topics covered: 

[00:00] Intro 

[01:29] Writing a book on digital employee experience 

[04:04] Defining digital employee experience beyond technology 

[05:15] Business benefits of employee-focused design 

[08:43] Organizations actively pursuing DEX improvements 

[12:28] Internet's role as horizontal platform 

[16:07] Organization size boundaries for DEX 

[17:56] Formal recognition of digital employee experience 

[21:45] Integration strategies based on employee journeys 

[25:06] Handling resistance to new digital tools 

[29:35] Listening to employee needs effectively 

[31:54] AI's impact on digital employee experience 

[36:33] Future of DEX in next 5 years 

[41:01] First steps for improving employee experience 

A must-listen for anyone working to improve their organization's digital workplace through employee-centered design. 

Jarbas and David from Fresh Perspectives sit down with Suzie Robinson from ClearBox Consulting to explore the comprehensive process behind the 900-page ClearBox Report. Suzie explains how her team conducts 3.5-hour product demos, scores vendors across 8 business scenarios, and maintains the delicate balance between honest reviews and vendor relationships while keeping this valuable resource free for organizations. 

The conversation covers ClearBox's rigorous fact-checking process, the evolution from analytics as a standalone scenario to integrated workflow assessments, and how customer service has become increasingly crucial in vendor selection. Suzie shares insights on AI trends in the digital employee experience space, discussing how platforms are moving beyond basic generative features toward more supportive governance and lifecycle management tools that truly benefit organizations. 

Building a successful community isn't about gathering large numbers of people in one place. It's about creating meaningful connections that drive real business outcomes. Former Microsoft MVP program leader Laurie Pottmeyer shares her proven strategies for building communities that actually work.

Laurie spent nearly two decades at Microsoft developing some of their most successful community programs, including the Microsoft 365 MVP program. She reveals the critical difference between connection and momentum, and why most community building efforts fail before they even begin.

The conversation covers everything from getting executive buy-in and measuring ROI to choosing the right tools and maintaining consistent engagement. You'll learn why purpose beats participation, how to identify your community champions, and the three essential elements every successful community needs from day one.

Whether you're building an internal champions program or an external customer community, this episode provides a practical roadmap for creating communities that deliver measurable value to both members and organizations.

Fresh Perspectives hosts Jarbas Horst and David Bowman sit down with Kripal Kavi, Principal Group Product Manager at Microsoft, who leads product development for SharePoint experiences including sites, pages, the new Amplify space, and SPFx. Kripal manages an impressive portfolio spanning both mature products serving hundreds of millions of users and zero-to-one initiatives, giving him a unique perspective on product strategy at massive scale. The conversation explores SharePoint's role as the foundational fabric of Microsoft 365, where it serves as the primary content source for Copilot and supports everything from simple intranet publishing to complex workflow automation.

Kripal discusses Microsoft's vision for SharePoint's future, emphasizing the balance between AI-powered conversational interfaces and traditional visual UX design. He shares insights on common misconceptions about SharePoint, particularly how many users still think of it as the early 2000s product rather than the modern, flexible platform it has become. The discussion covers Microsoft's approach to simplifying SharePoint while maintaining its powerful capabilities, the importance of keeping enterprise content consolidated for AI effectiveness, and how third-party partners play a crucial role in extending SharePoint's value for specific customer needs.

Key topics covered:

[00:00] Intro
[01:31] Most Exciting SharePoint Projects
[04:13] Managing Massive Scale Challenges
[05:42] Picking Favorite Features
[08:35] SharePoint's Role in Microsoft 365
[12:53] Underappreciated SharePoint Strengths
[16:26] Evolution vs Revolution Question
[20:35] Future of User Interfaces
[24:37] Making Intranets More Successful
[29:36] Third Party Solutions Discussion
[31:01] Changing SharePoint Perceptions
[35:53] Future SharePoint Direction
[39:39] SharePoint Myths to Bust
[41:01] Favorite Apps and Tools

A fascinating look inside Microsoft's product strategy for one of the enterprise world's most foundational platforms.