The Copilot Studio Podcast

In a world where, right now, we're not all connected in the same place... the importance of community, the importance of engagement, the importance of engaging between leaders and employees, and employees with each other, is greater than ever.

 

It was amazing to spend some time talking to Dan Holme, Product Leader at Microsoft about Yammer  and how Yammer was built to create a social fabric that connects you with people outside and allows you to discover and intentially follow the things that are important to you. We also talked about many other topics in this wide ranging discussion that really was enjoyable for me and I am sure will bring you a stack of value.

 

Dan leads integrations of Yammer and Teams, and two new features coming to Microsoft 365 in early 2022. Prior to taking a role on the product team, Dan was the director of marketing for SharePoint, OneDrive, Yammer, Stream, Search, and what became Viva Topics & Connections.

 

So it is fair to say that Dan has a massive amount of respect and experience at Microsoft and this is one you will not want to miss.

 

Other topics that we discussed were (there was so much !!!):

 

• The rise of Yammer during Covid
• The role of Yammer across Microsoft Viva
• How Yammer superpowers are being integrated across Microsfoft 365
• Yammer or Teams ? Dan outlines how he explains it to customers
• Insights into where Yammer is heading and future plans

Carry on the conversation and connect with Dan:

Twitter: @danholme

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/holmedan

Website: https://aka.ms/yammer/resources

The Sunday Session: The idea behind the Sunday session episodes is to bring you a recap of the past week and anything that has come to my attention that I think will bring you some value all in a bit sized episode.

In todays episode of the Sunday Session, I explain what you need to watch out for when sharing or uploading files to a Microsoft Teams Group Chat that I hope will save you some headaches down the track.

We also talk about 3 key messages from the Microsoft 365 Message Center:

• Important updates are available for Microsoft To Do apps
• SharePoint channel sites - Temporary permissions editing
• SPO View in File Explorer available in Microsoft Edge

This is Part 2 of a series with Komal Thakker a Certified GTD Coach and Executive Management Consultant at Productivity First. In this episode I talk with Komal about steps 2 and 3 in the populat Getting Things Done Methodology.

 

Some of the key points and topics that we dicuss are:

Clarify Step

• What is it
• Getting In to Empty - assuming we have collected everything that has our attending now we need to get to the bottom of "in"
• Getting In to empty does not actually mean doing all the actions right ?
• In to next action - what does that look like can you provide an example ?

Organising - Setting up the right buckets

• Why is this step so important ?
• Where are the basic categories ?
• What do we really need ? Lists and Folder ?
• What actions go on a calendar?

About Komal:

 

Komal comes with over 25 years of experience in the public and private sector having worked with people at different professional levels ranging from Board Directors, C-level Executives, Department Heads, Managers all the way to new hires in a number of industries including Technology, Healthcare, Education, Government, Legal, Construction and Financial Services

 

The 5 steps of GTD that we will cover in the series are:

• Capture (discussed in Part 1)
• Clarify
• Organise
• Reflect
• Engage

Connect with Komal:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/getting-things-done-coach

GTD-Q: https://www.productivityfirst.com.au/take-the-gtd-test/

Website: https://www.productivityfirst.com.au

Asif Rehmani is the Founder and CEO of VisualSP, which provides an interactive guidance system to support end users in context of their own environment. This system is currently available to over 2 million end users around the world to help them get their jobs done.

Asif has been a Microsoft MVP since 2007 and is hyper focused on digital adoption and digital transformation of organizations. Simply stated: how to get the best use out of the technologies in your organization and help your employees get the best experience along the way.

Asif has been training, consulting and mentoring on technologies since 2002. He has authored several books over the years for Wiley publications. Asif has also been a speaker at conferences since 2006 on numerous topics. He resides in United States, but has performed speaking engagements in several places around the world such as Germany, Netherlands, New Zealand, UK, Sweden, Ireland, Canada and more.

In this epsode we dive into some really great topics that include:

• What good training looks like and learning in the flow of work
• How much time is wasted when breaking your flow and switching context
• How do you see Viva Learning being used to help establish a learning culture
• How Viva Learning is brining the learning to the user instead of having the user have to go and find it
• What are the common challenges that you see organisations having with training / learning and implementing that learning culture
• Micro Learning and Learning in Context what does that mean to you and why do you think that is so important

Find out more about Asif:

Website and Blog: https://www.visualsp.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/asifrehmani 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/asifrehmani 

The Sunday Session: The idea behind the Sunday session episodes is to bring you a recap of the past week and anything that has come to my attention that I think will bring you some value all in a bit sized episode. In thise epsiode we talk about a personal example of a less than optimal employee experience. Some tips and recomendations of setting up and using Microsoft To DO with the Getting Things Done Methodology and then we dive into two features rolling out to Microsoft 365 and in particular SharePoint and they are:

• Hub to Hub association
• Team Site Navigation swithing

More information about the above two features:

• SharePoint Hub to Hub Association: Associate a hub site to another hub site in the SharePoint admin center - SharePoint in Microsoft 365 | Microsoft Docs
• SharePoint Team Site Navigation Switching: Microsoft 365 Roadmap - New Releases - Updates | Microsoft 365

Komal Thakkar is an Executive Management Consultant and Managing Director of Productivity First. Komal is a Certified GTD Coach and former Chair of the APSIG committee for PSA (The Pharmaceutical Society of Australia).

 

In this episode, the first of a 3 part series, I talk with Komal about the ultimate goal of stress free productivity and how the Getting Things Done (GTD) framework from David Allen really can make this a reality.

 

In Part 1, we get an over of GTD and dive into the first stage - Capture.

 

Where we spend our time, what we give our energy to has never been so important and keeping track of everything that needs to get done so that they don't fall through the cracks is becoming harder and harder. People are getting more and more stressted with all the things that are coming into their heads "inputs".

 

As Komal points our through out the epsisode, your head is fo having ideas and not for holding onto them.

 

The 5 steps of GTD that we will cover in the series are:

• Capture
• Clarify
• Organise
• Reflect
• Engage

I must admit I have tried this in that past and did not make it a habit. I am giving this another go. This was a great first step not only for me but I hope that you can come along and get to that point of stress free productivity as well.

Connect with Komal:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/getting-things-done-coach

GTD-Q: https://www.productivityfirst.com.au/take-the-gtd-test/

Website: https://www.productivityfirst.com.au

The first edition of the Sunday Session. The Sunday Session is a weekly episode where I will share insights into what I have found usefull not only with what I have been doing but also from the community as well.

This week, I take a look at stress free productivity and how I have begun my quest to find it but re visiting the Getting Things Done concept by David Allen.

I had a clear focus on setting up the right tools and processes to get the Capture phase of GTD working for me. My tool of choice? Microsoft To Do. I explain why I chose this and also give some insight into the flow in which I plan to make tis capture phase a habit.

Also, there were 3 things that caught my attention from the Microsoft 365 Message Center:

• Microsoft Via Connection Public Preview
• Inline images in the SharePoint Text Web Part
• Microsoft List Sharing

I hope this Sunday session brings you some value,

On today's show, I am chatting with Sharon Connolly, a Change Lead in in the Financial Services industry and Microsoft MVP.

 

Sharon started her career teaching IT back in the days before computers had a mouse and programs needed to be loaded on floppy disks.

 

Sharon has always found that being creative and skilled with technology and software has been a massive value-add for the projects she's worked on. Her passion for Office 365 has gained her coveted MVP status and a flourishing side hustle.

 

Sharon shared some great insights into how to use technology to facilitate change management activities along with some tips for using PowerPoint more effictively and banish those bullets !!!.

 

Some of the topics that we discussed were:

• Sharon's light bulb moment
• How Sharon is still teaching users things
• What tools organisations are using to accomodate distributed working
• Moving team communication out of the Inbox and into Microsoft Teams
• Why change managers have no budget
• Delivering training in a way that users would like to consume it
• 3 tips that you can use right now to make your PowerPoint Presentations better

 

Resources from Sharon Connolly:

 

• Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharonconnolly
• Change Superhero - https://www.changesuperhero.com.au

In this solo episode I talk about how the place where work happens today and into the future will be the internet. I also talk about the Digital Employee Experience is now just the EMployee Experience and how staying in the flow of work can save time and outline 3 things that may help you.

There are 3 things that help me stay in the flow of work...

For me so much of my day is in Microsoft Teams...so I am always looking for ways to stay in Teams and not have to jump out to another app, tab or browser

• Create a Task from a message
• Create a meeting / Schedule a meeting from a chat or group chat
• Files Tab - find / get back to my files quickly and easily

In this episode I speak with Dux Raymond Sy, Chief Brand Officer at AvePoint, Microsoft MVP and Microsoft Regional Director and we discuss so many different topics in this episode.

 

Dux is an expert in Office 365, SharePoint, Microsoft Viva and also Personal Branding many many many years of experience, so for me this was a really valuable discussion. I have watched, read and listended to Dux for a long time and really value his insights.

 

I really enjoyed listening to Dux's insights into Microsoft Viva being the new business graph and also how Viva Connections is becoming the Next Generation Intranet. We also discussed how AvePoint rolled out Vival Connections and shared some best practises.

 

If you are currently looking at Microsoft Viva and how this employee experience platform (EXP) can bring value to your organisation then this is an episode that will bring you a stack of value. It will also provide some valuable best practise advise.

 

Some of the main topics we will be covering in this episode are:

 

• How Microsoft Viva Connections is becoming the next generation Intranet
• Microsoft Viva - The Business Graph
• Dux's favourite Cartoon Character 😜
• Best practises in planning the rollout of Microsoft Viva

 

Find out more and connect with Dux:

 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meetdux

Twitter: https://twitter.com/meetdux

Online: https://meetdux.me/