Office 365 Distilled

Start with a technical discussion on recording the podcast before Marijn gets into some strange and good news.

Jon, Shaun, and Matt get a mention for their Microsoft Refresh YouTube show about new products

Steve shouts out that he focuses on the latest news from Microsoft and how companies forget that technology depreciates

Marijn spills the beans and…  Confesses he might be wrong about Sway…  he received a Sway and he admits his adoration for a well crafted communication…  

Marijn admits he is in denial

Inevitably the technical conversation turns to Whisky early on in this podcast… and Steve amazes Marijn with a whisky that 49 podcasts in we have never tasted this…

14 weeks and counting before the O365Distilled Japanese Whisky tour and Steve preparation through the various TV shows on Japan

Setting targets are important.  what is the KPI for the number of Japanese tastings will take place?

The role of Microsoft 365 admins, service owners and consultants in Enterprise Digital Transformation is discussed.

First… do organisations really want to do Digital Transformation or is reality the minimum path to the solution with least transformation

Is Digital Transformation a yellow Camero transforming into the alien defending robot?

Is Digital transformation possible without the SharePoint collaboration team… especially with the constant change in the digital landscape

Marijn like the word better… better refinement, better compliance, after inventing Easify as a new word for the world

Click Boom Wow… a SPO library showing on your native laptop with one click

My Transformation verse My teams transformation is analysed

Bribery is discussed as a change and adoption tool for the ‘team Digital Transformation’ individual enthusiasm for the change is a key steppingstone to success

Steve gets is user story points and stories and measurements all mixed up…

Identifying the ‘Enterprise tools’ that drive digital transformation across the teams and their processes, a role for Service owners, administrators and consultants.  Where can Power Platform drive efficiency and process change.

Curious users with a Desire to change will drive team Digital transformation

Peoples Ability to change is a must… that’s why A is the fourth later in the change acronym ADKAR

Always changing, the platform is never stable to reinforce the change… but maybe of 

As in previous Lockdown episodes you get 2 whisky tastings simply due to not being in the same room.  Steve surprises Marijn with the Caol Ila Whisky and the boys cannot believe that we have not tasted it before…. And then Marijn introduces a change in his taste starting to love a drink that previously he has not really appreciated…  Sway and Whisky Transformation for Marijn…

First subject is about ‘The Week that was’ and Steve talks about an approach to migrating intranet content and at a high-level what approach to take.

Cortex released the first iteration SharePoint Syntex and Marijn makes a commitment to collaborate with himself to get a great understanding of the new products and direction that Cortex is taking.

Then Steve and Marijn look at the upcoming releases and taking a few each explain why it has value to the work we are doing now or just because it’s cool

Marijn predictably starts with the Obvious teams one… Breakout rooms and Steve thinks about what breakout rooms we might have at the Christmas party… and beyond!! And how most of the time will be spent naming the rooms and how Forms will help with the efficiency of deciding the room names…

Its pretty cool how the organizer can set up the rooms and send people to their room.  When everyone is brought back together all their collaboration content which is shared back with everyone when the breakout rooms are dissolved

https://youtu.be/cKp0QRORQfQ has great overview of the new Breakout Room features

The next item selected is around SharePoint and enabling modern experience on Classic sites.  Able to migrate a classic site and then implement the modern experience.

Marijn then hits us with his number 2 which is all about the external collaboration with folks outside the organization.

Project Moka gets a mention and Marijn’s frustration with no external sharing.  Finally, Steve shocks Marijn with the news that Whiteboards will be stored in SPO libraries later in 2021 and get retention and label capabilities

SharePoint Spaces (Project Moka) is still being worked on as a new release is discussed and Marijn considers how spaces should be more like a Virtual headset game and approving a document can be accomplished by slashing it with a light sabre…

Steve talked about tags and metadata for containers which is imminent and so required to do site lifecycle

The boys then find that the next item for discussion is the same…  both think that calendar lists will be cool so that any list with a data can be shown in a calendar view…  and suggests to any partners listening that being able to take that item as a ICS exported file would have value.

Steve pops the cork on a whisky bottle to remind Marijn that the podcast is moving on and then some frustration is shown about the baby Power Platform for MS teams that is due on a MS team somewhere near you.

The improved reporting on SharePoint sites hits the stage to give some feedback on site usage so that proper decisions can be made on site lifecycle.

Then the boys start to play with the sounds that a Whisky bottle makes when the cork is removed and it is poured into a glass… Due to the lockdown 2 whisky’s are discussed and how far apart they are…

Marijn drinks from Scotland Jura Superstition and Steve takes a dram from Belgium Wild Weasel… Steve wins the decision on best name…

Marijn describes his 7-minute wake up with Google and his shower fantasy around Google Routines before realizing that this podcast had started.

Being in lockdown means that you get two whiskies tasted at the end…

Eventually, Steve asks the questions ‘How do we collaborate?’ and stopped Marijn using the standard response ‘It depends’ 

Marijn takes a customer from Happy to Fear to Content and Amazed

Considering how to collaborate the tools are discussed but are ‘How to Collaborate’ and is it Co-authoring, voyeurism or collaboration… or even stalking…

Points to consider when thinking about collaboration… understanding the exact goal, timeline, and purpose for the collaboration

Before answering How to Collaborate we need a definition of ‘what is collaboration’  suggests Marijn

Collaboration is defined by the dictionary and after a few minutes conclude collaboration is about working together or not!

Both agree that the Goal must be understood by everyone

… but for every meeting we attend is the goal of the meeting clear to everyone…

More Collaboration Statements

Ø  The Nature of collaboration involves people with different priorities working together

Ø  Collaboration needs a plan… a purpose

Ø  Collaboration works best with full and open transparency

Ø  The Goal must be understood by everyone

The love-hate relationship between the Office365 team and security is laughed at

Great collaborative decisions are based on strong diverse opinions 

And Marijn talks about his tool and capacity…

The definition of collaboration is when everyone agrees to disagree!!  So Collaboration is about managing the process and configuring the tools that drive continually improved decisions

Business need to discover the art of using the tools

Michelangelo directed the brush maker to give him the right tools to create the Sistine Chapel [Assumed]

… some quotes [  I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free  |  Genius is eternal patience.] 

Following the logic of a diverse team causing great collaboration, Steve talks about Spotify and how they create squads with diversity and alignment creating collaboration

Collaboration needs the courage to understand something is hard alongside people who are driven to just make things happen.

Marijn works out that the A-team was a perfect collaboration of A bunch of people with their own skill sets and a common goal

Moving to the tools Steve asks how you drive adoption with so many diverse tools… and Marijn says MS teams is not always the answer

But leaving the business to decide the tools leads to 50 people collaborating on a single OneNote file which include multiple PowerPoints and spreadsheets… not exactly a low-risk solution

43 minutes the 5 step approach    Marijn asks what is the 5 step approach to successful collaboration

1.       Ask how the team creates their ideas today… see how they work

2.      Understand process and timelines for collaboration and how they communicate

3.      Tools that best support this

4.      How do you collate the answers and output?

5.      How do you apply the changes and new ideas?

A podcast that is Back to Basics which is a key attribute of Continual Improvement so going back to ask, How, Why, and What we collaborate

Where Marijn tells everyone to ‘grab themselves’ (when he means 'hold on a second') whilst he works out the name he wants to give a shout out to!!  The Adoption and Change Management teams Europe User Group.  Marijn name drops galore but we love their online sessions talking about PROSCI and ADKAR.  ACMteams.com is simpler than the full name…

MS Teams requires a different type of adoption so the boys discuss why and Steve explains it is based on complexity and Marijn adds the point that the users really need to change the way they work when moving from SharePoint/Outlook to MS Teams.

The question of building a change program is discussed in a world where change is constant, and it is accepted by everyone… so change needs to be laser-focused…

Does a new tool require a change program or just a new set of instructions?

Steve explains his change strategy based on 1,2 3 basing changes on where people are at! So that change programs can be measured… how do you include KPI’s to understand the measurement of ROI in a change program.

The question about if Change is operational and part of the ‘Run’ requirements for Office365 and Marijn talks about how the focus has changed from Governance to Adoption… 

The ultimate rule of change and upgrade is discussed which is “do not affect the ability for the company to deliver” and then how the ROI is going to improve the people, efficiency the ability to deliver constant improvement to the business

Conspiracy theory abounds to question if MSTeam's adoption is so important because the app is not really needed!!   I have SharePoint and Outlook which works for me.  Adoption is important because the tools are so entirely different and adoption is needed because the added value has to be defined for each aspect of the business.

Identify the advantage of MS teams and find the story that the business and the users want to hear to drive them to change…

"MS Teams, it's only fun when everyone else is doing it…"

Defining the people change levels, high ROI is when you have everyone at level 3

3- Someone who takes on new Tools and works out the new advantages   
2-These guys need to be trained and taught and
1- Needs to be convinced they need to change.  

But overall the organization needs to ‘corporately’ know where they want to go with MS teams.

Define the MVP! is it simply ‘we just want to talk to each other’ or moving collaboration from SharePoint to full integration with communication.

MS Teams new way of working is because nobody read their emails any more… So the key question is “What is the first skill you teach somebody in MS teams” 

Marijn goes with Enterprise Chat because it is WhatsApp or Messenger…  In many cases messaging is new for lots of people

MS Team… convincing people that they can send messages instead of emails…   how do you convince people to use teams instead of emails?

Define the rules of Messaging V Emails

Should there be a tool that says this email is short enough for a message so I will send the message instead.  Is this where outlook spaces sit. who knows…?

Productivity Score could be a solution to assess the level of ROI for changes and productivity.

Some assumptions are available that need careful assessment but could tell you how well change is being accepted.  Alongside the MyAnalytics tools 

The productivity score will track changes over time which can be aligned to the change goals of the business  for example are more people messaging today than 6 months ago… did the change messages get through.

Inevitably the boys talk about how people are changing their view about work.  With potential savings for the company and a difference of opinion from the workforce, some wanting full time at home and others a few days per week the productivity score maybe is a toolset for assessing and driving the change.

Steve covers how time and effort can be saved plus real-time minute taking in a collaborative way.

The change team, HR, C-Levels can now get some recorded statistics on the efficiency of the business and some real answers to the questions of ‘How much extra are user working’  ‘The average working day and changes over time’ 

@48 minutes:  Marijn has had a long day and forces Steve to stop talking and drink a Whisky from Glasgow the Auchentoshan Blood Red,  finished in a Red Wine Wood.

“OCK-UN-TOSH-UN” Challenging to say, easy to drink

Amongst the items talked about before the guys do a little Swedish are:

Whisky@Ease is a new podcast channel from the boys reversed from Office365 with 80% Whisky and 20% tech.  Just for those that value the lifestyle of Work hard - Play hard

Marijn comes up with an EPIC tag line for Whisky@ease… longer than War and Peace when Steve shares the more accurate line of 

www.WhiskyAtEase.com
Chilled, Unfiltered and Aged

Marijn finds that when he talks like an 8-year-old his audience understands more as he struggles with the guilt of his daughter failing a school project about his job

Microsoft Book of News gets the #Office365Distilled treatment as Steve and Marijn pick out their best items in terms of importance and usefulness… top of the list for both is Cortana

We come up with a new Cortana tag line… Hey, Cortana fix my Shit! and then try and work out if Cortana might ever be jealous because we went to Alexa first!!

Steve as always forgets the name of the guy who demonstrated Cortana slicing-and-dicing data through voice commands (Joe Belfiore).  Part of the journey that got Cortana to the point where we are today.

Dear Jeff letter appears again trying to understand why Just because I am living in Belgium and speaking English I cannot get Cortana, but I can if I happened to be in the UK?

Cortana is congratulated on becoming of age and is now a Mother of all AI… 

Cortana is a MILF (Master Information Life Force) !!

Steve selects an item where Excel can now connect to PowerBi data enabling all the cool Pivot tools and queries to be applied to a BI data set for all those people who create macros and the family of tactical tools that focus the migration team when the files need to move

Bookings get a kick in the right direction as it moves to Enterprise acceptance and goes beyond booking a hair appointment. 

The conversation turns to the places that Microsoft store new applications with Blob stores, Common Data set Model… 

Marijn gets greedy with all the new features that are announced in the Book of News around MS Teams.  “ Marijn you were told to choose 3 “

The conversation’s around the ‘Home’ site for SharePoint and if this is the Intranet home or if there are two start locations… In-reality the starting point depends on where you want to go.  Will the Home App be the real front door and work seamlessly in MS Teams we shall see.

Marijn is looking at all the options for the together mode including the Gentlemen’s club Together room.

Productivity Score mode enables the ability to measure the success of your adoption programs, updates, are training courses changing people… are your people adapting the challenges of Remote working 

New Stream brings a few questions on what we can expect this quarter and the SPO templates that will host the videos and the web parts that will play the videos… lots of new, exciting stuff to look forward to.

Will Syntex be used or will it fade away because existing applications like Financial and procurement systems are already doing it…  we shall see how the business reacts when we can demonstrate it…

Marijn sneaks in two items, not in the Book of News like how Project Oakdale will bring MS teams with its own ‘baby’ PowerApps and Off-line list storage…

And again, we keep asking where Outlook Spaces have gone to after the tease last year… Dear Jeff… you’re a big tease!! 

EP44 where we say…

Marijn is proud that his customer was in the keynotes and Steve thought it great that his Ignite Bacon was displayed to everyone on Marijn’s Tweet.  The boys talk about the great stack that was displayed across all the opening keynotes.  Knowing what it represents but not sure what to call it… lets go with the Microsoft Cloud Stack…

After getting diverted by Steve’s home domesticity and Marijn wondering about the water running he can hear we do a quick mention about how Marijn is going to take time off and learn Azure in a week…. Good luck with that!! 🤣🤣

The Stack is described with Identity, Security, management, and Compliance in the basement with the guys that run it… the Azures, Power Platform and the Big Boys toys sitting on top.

The core intelligence is tied throughout the stack and allow skills like Graph and AI to be incorporated across all the toys.

Git Hub starts to bother Marijn aligned to the Power platform on the same layer and the boys consider what value it will bring to the game.  It allows an enterprise to tie all the tools into the same assurance platform

S&M talk about Dynamics being in the Big Boys Toys section where Marijn again reminds everyone he has a certificate in this space…. 

Then Steve asks what is missing, what are we not seeing in the Cloud Stack.  The OS is questioned and as Microsoft365 includes so much about setting up the edge devices and Steve goes with defining and describing all the cloud functionality delivered by Microsoft…

Marijn asks if we are now at full circle with an ecosystem that defines the Microsoft offering, then Marijn wonders if Edge needs to be identified and the boys need to find something wrong because it feels like someone should..

HoloLens has been hanging and now has a place to connect to Dynamics in the presentation.

Devices get a few minutes of time when the guys talk about the Surface Duo and the Surface meeting screens along with Cortana managing so much… just to stop hands free operation in Covid times… For example: Is it really dumb luck that the Surface pens work on all devices and it supports the issue with sharing pens in these times of COVID?

A discussion takes place on if there is a wizard that could understand the whole Cloud stack or if it is too diverse, too big for a simple human brain….  And consider the dev guys that take a bigger role in the stack.

Steve continues to get Conditional Access mixed up with conditional formatting and Marijn just ensures it is corrected and clear for people.

Steve and Marijn discuss the applications that was demonstrated in the Power Platform presentation from Toyota and how legacy systems can be updated into new technology, available on the phone through the use of connectors and more importantly API’s.

Not forgetting PowerBI in the Power platform to support monitoring and reporting against all the aspects of the Cloud stack.

Before an awesome Smokey whisky they both say what was their favourites and Steve go with the Flight Simulator video that showed the state of the technology over the last 30 years.

Then they taste a Benromach 2008 Bot.2018 Peat Smoke which turns out to be a great drink with an awesome surprise and depth that make this one of the top 5 !!

The Podcast episode with the faded out goodbyes….

Steve can’t leave it alone that Marijn didn’t like the Octomore 9.1 from EP42 so he brings in Sven, one of the Office365Distilled listeners, to show Marijn that this is a pleasant whisky and maybe Marijn is wrong.  Although Sven does say that “wow this is like a donkey kicking you where it hurts”.

Starting with the Whisky brings the boys to reminisce about Jack and the special Frank Sinatra Edition the boys tasted in Orlando and then started on Ignite 2020 and the forthcoming conference due in September where some great sessions are planned and the virtual Red Party from Las Vegas is (virtually) happening.

Marijn comes up with a better name… maybe… for Cortex and discussions ensue about the way Microsoft products are names and how the name describes what the product does… or not.  Word is a great name describing what it does, and Forms took no imagination and then we wondered who chose Sway!!!

The number of versions is explored, and the boys consider why the number 512 is not possible for a minor version… and do you know how many major versions can be created and that now you can’t leave it blank… it is true that things change in SPO.

And Teams… how is that MS Teams describes the functionality delivered and Jeff is asked to consider ‘frontpage’ as an alternative answer… then a second service announcement is described with some issues around blocking connectors… sent to Microsoft engineering for resolution…

A discussion ensues about Power Automate and its connection to Dynamics another names that is discussed before Power Apps gets a thumbs up on the names front.

Visio takes some punishment until the boys work out that it might be “Visual Input Output” a real nerd name for a product and they work out that naming things might not be as simple as you might think… especially if you are too chilled…  But Windows has some crap associated with ‘Windows of opportunity’ and floppy disks drag them both into the world of pixelated screens…

Steve and Marijn talk to a regular listener to the podcast @Dylan_Hayes who talks about setting up his home office so that he can give professional quality presentations with switched cameras, virtual desktops and some great tips on doing the one-person presentation.

Then the guys talk about the forthcoming Microsoft 365 Lists application and how it can improve the management of data and looking at adoption and enablement across the business.  They discuss Governance of M365 Lists and some thoughts on use and functionality.

Steve gets a little sarcastic about the number of monitors you need whilst working from home… the ‘New Normal’ and value of Pop-out meetings in MS teams.  Finally, the suggestion of timing your adoption for MS teams so that you can run with the release of the new application in your own tenant.  Then Marijn adds his sarcasm about how difficult some companies make change and cannot bring themselves to accept new applications.

They align SharePoint and the DB app Access and discuss how SharePoint now maps to the structure of the desktop DB app and think about how Excel is abused as content repository tool and then emailed to everyone.

They show their age and forget the names of colleagues (sorry Joanne !!) who they had dinner with @ignite and Marijn takes another swipe @Sway still not finding the business case for the product... the boys cannot leave it alone…

Then they go back to the first distillery they tasted on EP1 for a bottle named after the farm that grows the barley which makes this very special whiskey limited to just 4200 bottles and described as “An iron Fist in A Velvet Glove” the Bruichladdich Octomore 09.1 a very peated whiskey that only one of the duo enjoyed.

The only thing they agreed one was… “There is nothing delicate about this whisky” and beware Marijn says he will drink it again but only to ensure his friends get the taste it and he can watch!!