They go hunting for insights in places no one has ever thought to look.
The mission?
To see whether the timeless wisdom of Burns, actual old-school poetry can shed new light on the ever evolving universe of Microsoft 365. And to everyone’s surprise (including their own), it absolutely does.

Expect hilarious interpretations, dramatic readings, suspicious Scottish accents, and philosophical detours that somehow make perfect sense. Along the way, they uncover governance lessons hiding between the verses, collaboration metaphors tucked into the stanzas, and even a few productivity tips disguised as 18th-century poetic flair.

It’s part whisky tasting, part literary adventure, part tech nerd‑fest—and 100% Distilled chaos in the best possible way.
So pour yourself a dram, warm up your best “Auld Lang Syne,” and join the boys as they celebrate tradition, toast the future, and prove once again that wisdom, like whisky, only gets better with age.

It all started with this post from Daniel Anderson:
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/danielando_sharepoint-in-2026-activity-7410921384069017600-m52B/

Links to the material:
2025: The year the Frontier Firm is born
https://buckleyplanet.com/2025/08/how-to-become-a-frontier-firm

From the deep trenches of SharePoint to the swirling galaxies of Teams, Sway, Exchange, and beyond, they explore the quirks, wonders, and hidden gems of the M365 ecosystem. Expect a whirlwind of insights, unexpected discoveries, and the kind of tech wisdom that would make even Deep Thought raise an eyebrow.

Join us for a fun, fast-paced, and thoroughly entertaining ride as we unravel the mysteries of M365 and help you find your own '42' in the world of collaboration, productivity, and—dare we say—governance! Don't panic, grab your towel, and tune in!

But are we actually paying more or are things just changes... but then we got distracted... something that happens very rarely for Steve and Marijn... well...   OK check it out and enjoy... and maybe get prompted for a few ideas and the odd Golden Nugget...

But then the boys got serious and talked about some very nice drams all priced around the 30-50 euro mark that taste like things double the price.

Check out this episode to find out why we think it has disappeared and if a hole has been left that needs filling more importantly laugh as we work through the last episode we recorded before Snow fell and Santa delivered presents.

Marijn talked about the underlying ABC pyramid approach with A being for ALL = Intranet, B being about Business = SharePoint sites and C being about Collaboration = MS teams and OneDrive as a location for sharing.

The describe how these layers work out in reality and how as consultant it is explained to the customer for them to add their local governance to the different layers… and then we finish the  last of the Tikit sponsored  whiskies. 

A very old Teeling gets a tasting after Tikit for MS teams brings their 3 series to a close with a great whisky

It started with a very valid article from Computer World Company or a magazine about the slow update of Copilot and ended with the boys checking out if the article was true. Maybe you heard Steve say that he is becoming a bit more of a believer. 

But anyway check it out yourself and let us know as always what you think...  Have fun...  but don't forget...  

The Whisky was truly awesome; Tikit, who sponsored the next episode and supported the show, bought the boys a dram... a first for them... Deanston whisky finished in a Tequila barrel... a very nice dram.

It was fun with about 100 people, just after the ice cream, the boys talked about AI and specifically Copilot with the awesome title:  AI - Bullshit or Hotshit?

It is a short episode with guests Sara Fennah and Martin Rovekamp joining Steve and Marijn. The team looks to understand the promise of Copilot and how it might be a little short on delivery.

The crowd asks a few questions and Steve goes into lecture mode about how Labels are the way to go about SPO security to get the real value from the Copilot365 licenses.

The Whisky, the 150th on the podcast was a lovely scotch distilled in Seattle (the home of great coffee and great technology😊)  in the tried and tested scotch methods using Peated barley from Scotland to ensure it is authentic.

In this podcast they discuss their experiences and drop a few practical ideas of how a team can move forward when energy is low and some ideas on how to motivate the team and have things in place to resolve issues and steps to take to ensure projects move forward in a positive way.

When you are rolling out MS teams or Migrating SharePoint sites this podcast might help you spot potential delays or problems with delivery in time to step in and keep momentum to the end results and scope.

The boys drink what might become a rare whisky from Mackmara after they recently annouced that they will file for bankrupcy and finding a new buyer to take over the operation... enjoy...

Marijn read an article (Microsoft Teams increases collaboration in the modern workplace at Microsoft - Inside Track Blog)… it was not a podcast but real words and it created the idea of a podcast for the duo.  Microsoft have been looking at how they can improve collaboration using their own tools and a process that has some alignment with ADKAR.  

Steve and Marijn talk through the ideas shared in the article and how it can be adopted practically and where it all makes sense.  Microsoft use to cool analogies’ that we like and that everyone can use to improve their collaboration in their organisations.

And the boys re-christens KevinM as Saint Kevin after drinking this extraordinary Irish whisky the boys take in this episode of M365Distilled 

So Steve, Anouck, and Marijn did Commsverse TV (https://www.youtube.com/@Commsverse/streams ) and in this episode we talk about all the things they learned including the longest and first case of remote working, that FAX is still a big business and ghost calls that Analysing software need to remove to get accurate figures…

Speaker bags this year were very funny… and we stole Mark Vale's designer back for the title of this podcast…

Check out what the team talked about as the boys look into their bag of Shit and discuss what was the coolest thing for them…

Make changes Obvious, Easy, and Satisfying from James Clear's book Atomic Habits. The boys are provided with a slide from a conference, and they decide to apply some of James's thinking to a communications project. They then break the gold rule of having 2 subjects per podcast. Will it work? Well, listen in…

So James gives us 4 rules and Steve and Marijn want to talk about communications, judge for yourself if you can find all the Golden Nuggets in what turns out to be a very satisfying podcast…

We hear about Steve Folding his arms and being all about himself and yes a little cocky, and Marijn being wrong… or is he… only you can judge in this very cool Steve & Marijn discussion…

In this episode, Marijn has a plan, and Steve helps him think it through as questions arise about what direction to take to sort three terabytes of content on a Tenant and turn it into a solid, stable collaboration platform.

But the Shit does stop there as their whisky involves elephants and is a real definition of a Whisky that you might not easily get hold of... but if you can, then you should.

Unusually for the M365 Distilled team of Steve and Marijn, things went a little sideways to start with but eventually got back on track. OK, maybe going sideways is just normal for us, but why change a good thing?

In this podcast, the boys talk about the definition of collaboration, check out the list of best practices to include in the collaboration process, take some statistics about communications, look at all the tools we have available and mash them all together...

And like all the other 143 podcasts before it, the whisky at the end makes it all worthwhile and helps you understand that it all does hang together into one aligned program of greatness...  and this time, it's an Indian Whisky that performs the alignment duty.  😉 

Marijn recaps his SMART goals session, and each subject is finished with a Whisky—of course, two Polish whiskies, to be precise!

and then.... 
🎙️ Ladies and gentlemen, fight fans from around the world, welcome to the podcast showdown of the century! Tonight, we bring you a clash of titans that will shake the very foundations of the digital realm! In the blue corner, hailing from the land of traditionalists, we have the undisputed champion of news dissemination, the Sultan of Press Releases, none other than Marijn "The Publisher"!

🥊 Marijn steps into the ring with a steadfast belief that the intranet is nothing more than a digital bulletin board, a platform solely designed for the dissemination of news, announcements, and updates. But will his perspective withstand the ferocious onslaught from his opponent in the red corner?

🔥 And in the red corner, we have the challenger, the master of efficiency, the architect of productivity, the one and only Steve "The Gatekeeper"! With a fiery passion burning in his eyes, Steve believes that the intranet is not just a news outlet, but a gateway to unlocking the true potential of workplace synergy and collaboration!

💥 Get ready for a battle of ideologies as these two formidable contenders step into the ring, each ready to defend their corner with everything they've got! Will Marijn's traditionalist approach to intranet dominance prevail? Or will Steve's vision of a digital doorway to productivity reign supreme?

🔔 The bell is about to ring, the tension is palpable, and the stage is set for an epic clash of perspectives! So grab your popcorn, settle into your seats, and prepare to witness history in the making as Marijn and Steve go head-to-head in the ultimate showdown for intranet supremacy! Let the battle begin!

The Boys talk about the new gameshow “ IT Depends” which you can find here  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcB3Ba6K6N3HMUbt6yVT1Bg 

The boys with Gianni dig down into the roles and process of the SaFe AGILE framework and try to identify the simplicity in what feels like a lot of moving parts.

Marijn aligns SaFe Agile to the Fellowship of the Ring headed up by Gandalf in a SaFe role and it Kinda works... all working towards a big picture that they all know about....

It seems a long time since we talked about AGILE working and how M365 grows on our podcast as we add in SaFe where we look at Scaling the Agile Framework and finalise the way to look at update adoption and change through the SaFe process.   

Then we took a breath and drank a whisky from a distillery we had tasted before, but this time it was peated.  The Loch Lomond distillery is one of the most beautiful locations for a distillery and the Whisky is the same.  Loch Lomond Heavy Peated is a lovely peated dram which Steve does not fully agree with as he takes some time to feel the smoke.

Its an area of Scotland that the boys no well and re-live the small road and the experiences with the buses.  Driving to Oban along the loch is one of life's pleasures for anyone finding themselves in that area. 

The Boys talk about the new gameshow “ It Depends” which you can find here  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcB3Ba6K6N3HMUbt6yVT1Bg 

After 15 minutes of community talk the boys went around the world… Ami Diamond posted a great LinkedIn article comparing M365 to the new wonders of the world.  It was so cool that we decided it required more in-depth expertise from Steve and Marijn.

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7159248067244765186?updateEntityUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afs_feedUpdate%3A%28V2%2Curn%3Ali%3Aactivity%3A7159248067244765186%29

So maybe this is AKA Jules Verne “Around the M365 World in 80 minutes”.

So, enjoy the humour of Steve and Marijn as they discuss Ami’s great post… check it out.

Listen to Steve try all the tough words from around the world as we describe the output from the post and add a bunch of disrespect and fun…

Then eventually the podcast gets technical as we bring in the M365 bits and break down the article from AMI.

Enjoy even if the Chat GPT analogies are weak, the humour is good supermarket listening.

Then we drank a whisky, I know a surprise right?  This was something interesting: a special bottled edition of the Edradour distillery from 1st fill Oloroso casks out of the smallest distillery in Scotland.  Dark and a powerhouse of flavour.

And a few things to catch up with... Marijn as a Seamen, Life is about the basics first and complexities later and of course... CoPilot gets everywhere

We look at some of the great new innovations due and a few ideas that maybe should be put in place. Before tasting a whisky we come clean about which are from Microsoft and which are from the awesome imaginations of Steve and Marijn

Finally, Brian sent over a great whisky to taste, The Glendronach Parliament, 21 years old, which is a very Sherry Whisky, but from Oloroso and Ximenez barrels; what do you expect?  The finish is awesome, and the water drop brings in so much pepper it changes the drink.

The boys give themselves 10 categories to find their best of the best for 2023... Check out what Steve and Marijn decide on the best Conference or speaking location, their best community contributor and, of course, the best Whisky they have drank this year.

They discuss episodes, guests, Golden nuggets and the best Microsoft releases and upgrades.  Before thinking about their funniest 2023 moments, sessions they have listened to and finally the best titles.

Ever wondered how they choose the best title... when listen in and check it out.

Finally, Marijn dips into his whisky shelves and selects the Tullibardine 288 to taste on the podcast, and they find it delicious and very mature whisky with depth and satisfaction.

We talk about AI and how it might be adopted, we talk about working lifestyles and finding time to think and workout strategies and solutions.  We talk about 2 great whiskies, yes we break the rules and do 2 whiskies as we have a truly relaxed conversation...

In this episode, we’re going to be dipping our toes into the five pillars of cloud governance: Cost management, Security baseline, Resource consistency, Identity baseline, and Deployment acceleration. Sounds like a lot of fun, right?

Our host Steve talks about identity, which is great because he’s been struggling with his own identity for years. We’re hoping that by the end of this episode, he’ll finally figure out who he really is.

Marijn, on the other hand, is drawing a blank. We’re not sure if it’s because he’s overwhelmed by all the governance talk or if he’s just having a bad day. Either way, we’re here to support him.

And then there’s Kas. She’s our hero, our savior, our knight in shining armor. When Marijn drew a blank, Kas stepped up to the plate with her quick wit and humor. She’s the reason we’re all still here today.

Unfortunately, we don’t have any whisky yet. But don’t worry, we’re working on it. In the meantime, sit back, relax, and enjoy the show!

First up, we had the enigmatic Kas Nowicka from CoreView, who could make even the driest technical details sound as riveting as a Dutch detective novel. Then, there was the charming David Nevins from Simeon Cloud, whose insights were so sharp, they could cut through a Gouda wheel at twenty paces. And hold onto your clogs, because the lineup was crowned by none other than Jeff Teper, the president of Microsoft 365 himself!

Our hosts kicked things off with the tale of Simeon Cloud's birth and its journey to being scooped up by the eagle-eyed CoreView. It was like a Silicon Valley fairy tale, except the hero's a cloud and the magic beans are lines of code.

Kas and David tag-teamed the mic to unravel the problems SimeonCloud solves, and let me tell you, their solutions are smoother than a well-aged Jenever. It was a deep dive into the nitty-gritty of cloud management, so detailed you could almost see the pixels.

But folks, the pièce de résistance was Jeff Teper's first-hand commentary on how Copilot has flipped the Microsoft ecosystem on its head. It's like the wheel, sliced bread, and those little plastic things on the ends of shoelaces all rolled into one. Teper waxed lyrical about Copilot's transformative powers, painting a future so bright, we're going to need shades made of SPF 100.

In this podcast by the boys, we look at all the places value is hidden or lost.  Check out the meeting of Opportunity Cost, Technical Debt, or Culture Debt.

Finally, we get to a Durvelish Spirit that is rare and lucky to have landed in the hands of this podcast duo... 

This is a strange podcast that takes a few statements from Darrell as a Service, which Steve refined into:

• No Adoption without User Governance
• Because user Governance Drives Adoption
• Adoption plus Governance is managed change

So, Steve started a conversation, and the boys just talked about it... coming together with a little basic knowledge about Adoption and Governance and proving the above statements are the basis for Adoption and Governance.

What comes out of this podcast are several statements that can be used as a basis for defining your governance and adaptive paths.

Here they are:

• Microsoft default Settings are a form of governance.
• Viral Governance is a tool that works in many organisations.
• Governance is actually tough to do... even if you have a plan.
• Adoption and good Governance may or may not drive better change (the jury is still out).

Finally, the Golden Nugget from Marijn is...   Adoption plus Change drives Sexy Change.

It is a sin that Steve and Marijn have never shared with you the annual release of Cairdeas whisky from Laphroaig, so we tasted the 2023 version and atoned for that sin.

Value is discussed by comparing the various Project management methods working out, which adds so much value to the business for a limited spend.   We then throw in Risk, adoption training and eventually applications and understand the size of the work needed to be successful within each of the delivery management levels.

Then, Cloud features are discussed and compared to underwear and socks. It requires regular changes in small iterations... but each of the applications is compared against of the project methods to understand the work associated with the methodology.

And Marijn cannot resist moving away from T-Shirt sizes to 3-piece suits and mankinis.

Finally, a Whisky is tasted from Vascu’s birthday collection, the Ardbeg Galileo. 

Marijn is slowly getting convinced to listen in and check how Steve bullies him into believing that he is right...  yes, feel sorry for him.
Steve says  “ I do apologise, brother, I gave you a hard time” ... “But it was fun recording this” 
We decide that there are loads of Apps and nearly impossible an export all of them except Yannick who has a superpower as a member of the M365 Force.

The conclusion is that we try and count the total applications and don’t reach a conclusion because the number is huge (in context) and stopped counting at 80+ and started to really panic when we suddenly realised we had not considered Apple, Android and Mobile apps.

The boys finish by going Cheap with their whisky bought on the way back from South Coast Summit and on the boat... they found a bargain...  White Cask is a Speyside Malt which surprises both of them.

The Boys from Office365Distilled want to talk about focus, the ability for people to move the company forward through an understanding of goals, or the Viva Goals of the company.

At the recent Collabdays in the UK, at the National Computing Museum, an excellent place that everyone should visit if they visit the UK and are in computing in any way forward.

Looking at the definition of OKR and how Viva Goals helps organisations fix the vision of their Objectives and Key results... goal setting and reporting as a process managed by a tool.

In their Collab days presentation, great demonstrations are described here... and then we talk about GoldCock!!

This is the whisky that Marijn tasted in Prague and found at the airport on the way home and just had to buy a bottle... even if it is to keep saying the work and all the jokes on this podcast.

There is a new model described that helps understand the value of Viva Goals which is described before Marijn and Steve drink their GoldCock!!

But after this, there is a little revelation about adoption of Viva Goals... 

So Marijn lost for the first round of the battle between the quick and powerful JSON v PowerApps @Helsinki but was magnanimous in his defeat.  This is a great session and if you get chance to hear it them don’t miss it.

Steve had a conversation this week about a mystery workflow that did not seem to have any documentation, that we could find… it prompted a need to think about how to define a process that ensured documentation had a high enough priority and is a key component in the Definition of Done.

Lots of people get a call out in this episode where Marijn and Steve look at what should be included ,typically, in your governance documents.

Enjoy but be warned this is an explicit podcast versions as Marijn uses the C-word… and no we are not joking… 

Finally after another shout out we drink a Chinese Whisky, seriously a Chinese dram that actually impresses enough to seriously put onto the purchase list. 

As always the show is improvised around a few great ideas and this time it’s about Myth busting and Marijn throws in a Sideways thinking at the beginning “Hello Mr Watson”  to the end   “Shift Left” Check it out.

We think about a few things before starting on the main topic, like Cortana, that hot non-AI chick, and if CoPilot is about questions, will voice conversations return....  Hey CortanAI... 

The Boys decided on a few things that people generally believe are true and bust the myths!!!

Today we look at how good Search really is and Steve learns a new bunch of stuff about Search and then we look at Users, Back Up and Malware...

So listen in and check out if the following is true, well actually they are all Myths....

·       Is Search Holy?

·       All users are the same!

·       Is Everything Backed Up?

·       All Content is Scanned for Malware!

Check in and work out the reality of the myths.

In this final Wee Dram for August, we look at the 11 steps that form part of the Governance Workshop from the South Coast Summit on Friday, 13th of October in Farnborough UK.

This is a 10 minutes piece of fun but full of Golden Nuggets if you are looking to try and do governance in your organisation.  11 steps in 10 minutes and if they make sense but the workshop in the diary and join us for a day of Governance fun.

Steve’s memory is again letting him down as he tries to remember the name of the artist he saw a week ago because the boys have been singing “Changes’ from Mr David Bowie since they suggested today’s subject.

So, the subject is change, and specifically, they discuss the implications of Outlook and MS Team having huge updates in the same timeframe.

The Podcast looks at current changes creating problems and differences in both clients to identify scope changes.  Some will be improved, but this is a new canvas for Outlook and format for MS Teams, so some features may not be available when it goes live and be added later.

The Point of this podcast is to look at how to manage this change... we know change is constantly changing when considering Enterprise Apps.

The boys develop some great nuggets on how a model might look based on some change metric...   Change Points!!!  You heard it here first...

The Change model is about packages balanced against the change needs based on the change required in the application's upgrade size.

Several criteria can create the model. so Steve and Marijn discuss the main ones that should be considered.

Steve Changed the name of XLA to ELA’s, but the basis is still the same, value is based on how users perceive and manage the change... the ultimate way to measure the success of change.

Whisky eventually hits the menu, and Steve asks one of the speakers from the NY Community event a few weeks ago to find us a bottle we have been looking to taste for some time.  Today we taste Metallica’s Blackened whiskey, a blend from Dave Pickerell, one of the last blends he created before he passed away.  One of America’s greatest Master Distillers who changed Markers Mark from 175,000 bottles per year organisation to a million bottles per Distiller.

This whiskey has been on Steves’s list for some time so here it is, and well there is a difference of opinion...  

This batch of Whisky has its own playlist that is played to the Whisky during the Maturation process and if you want to listen to the playlist...  here is the link.  https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1w6KeG09G0VWrRRkkLZet0?si=972b68b77ae9468e 

Check it out.

define | review | adapt | approve | publish.

We are looking for replacement names, all ideas are welcome.  So the boys break down each of these stages in the model and cover the value that each section brings to the process of Governance.

https://www.southcoastsummit.com/workshop/practical-microsoft-365-baseline-governance/ 

If you want to come and discuss this as part of our governance workshop, join us at Sout Coast Summit in October.

The first important subject is Methodology or a Model, and the decision is not to create a podcast on which is most accurate...

Using some real examples, we look at current customers and which state of the DRAAP process they are at and the next stages to be completed.  The process does allow you to define at what stage each of the governance documents is at and what the following stage should include.  A way to identify the value.

Risk and value are included In the conversation, and Steve thinks this is a key attribute to define the protection required verse the effect on the end users.  Governance that drives users away from using the product is not the target.

Then the boys drink a local Whisky from Mechelen in Belgium. Het ANKER’s Molenberg distillery for their anniversary edition    

October13th 2023 @SouthCoastSummit https://www.southcoastsummit.com/workshop/practical-microsoft-365-baseline-governance/ 

The Boays introduce DRAAP which will get a few modules in their course as they talk about how practically you need to get to be succesful in introducing Governance as an active subject into your organisation

A list on the whiteboard of Roles is associated with managing and running M365.  Which role would you like to do and are the best at?  Steve and Marijn run through the list, select their dream role in M365, and say how it works and why it might not... Check out why they both think that CISO would be a great role...

We finish with a review of the position of the roles immediately after tasting a very unusual single cask from Deanston.  Bourbon barrel about seven years in the barrel and hand filled at nearly 62%vol.  It was a brilliant drink; pity I could only get a 20cl bottle...

In this special Wee Dram which is primarily notification to join Steve and Marijn on a Governance workshop.  Marijn is in the Mic Drop mood... check out his great maximum of 6 words responses on Governance.

A quick boost of Marijn and Steve’s humour looking at Why we do Governance, How we do Governance and the problems associated with it.

Steve has an idea that looks to combine your Governance plans with ADKAR and Marijn likes the picture, but we disagree with the Model and do not find agreement.  So you guys get one Model and 2 plans for implementation... you can choose the Marijn way or the Steve way... Such great Podcast Value!

The podcast finished with the knowledge that the 21-year-old Austrian Whisky from the SecureMailMan Alex Duggleby as it created an excellent review of the Governance/Change idea and rounds it off with a new idea. This is Whisky Value Stream in action.

Alex Duggleby joins the boys to talk about his career in development, the background in his new Mail Merge Application and his thoughts on developing inside the M365 apps and creating secure tools that do not need to take any data outside the M365 ecosystem.

Advanced mail merge for Outlook for Windows, Mac and Web. (securemailmerge.com)

Steve talks about his direct experience with the tool after using it to manage CVTV (Commsverse TV) interviews and communications for this MS Teams event in the UK.

In this Podcast, we look at the truth behind the common assumption that 70% of projects fail and analyse if it is accurate and how you can take MS Viva and ensure that it is successful. 

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/do-70-change-management-projects-really-fail-simon-lewington/

Simon does a great review and background on the statement... worth a read.

The Forgetting list... CooperKing.... Not CastleKing is the name of the new Distillery Steve visited and the boys tasted their new make spirit which is full of promise.  Matt Wade is the producer of the M365 Periodic Table.   Steve and Marijn are both simply getting old and forgetful... we did however remember Dylan’s name!!

Steve’s Golden Nugget is about Monopoly Money used to set priorities in workshops instead of dots on Post-Its. And then they discuss how impossible it is to roll out Viva in a quantifiable way

In essence, this Third Sponsored podcast from CloudALLY www.cloudally.com looks at why projects fail and how to create success.

I don’t want to ruin a great podcast with spoilers but check out the 7 reasons why projects fail and 5 Golden Nuggets to put your project on the proper foundation for success.  XLA is the secret sauce in the process... work to be completed to resolve exactly how you and your organisation will  design these.

The boys drink the last CloudALLY provided whisky a Tomatin Decades 2 that is comprised of barrels Matured across 5 decades... a genuinely awesome dram. 

Information from www.cloudally.com    Follow up use sales@cloudally.com  

We have anecdotes, horror stories and some background on how CloudAlly have saved people’s business but mostly about the common sense around backup needs and requirements.  You get IT stories from people who have been in the industry for some time.

Murrey places backup in the context of shared responsibility between you and your cloud supplier to ensure the availability of your services.  Back-up is different, and we explain why.

Time is spent looking at the simple things in life... and the product which, within a few clicks, can get you to a specific date, a specific file or email and restoration is a click away.

Back-up not only can save your ass in your business but correcting user errors is potentially where the value is in the product.  Steve and Murray realise they are both audiophiles and have a history of sound, so they start talking about the beautiful feel of sound from tape...

Steve as always ruins everyone’s names which raises a smile and a constant reminder of the old man’s memory from the Dynamic duo of Steve and Marijn.

Finally, we touch on the interesting facts about backing up messaging in MS teams which for many reasons is a complexity that you will have never heard of.

This podcast was simply fun, we tell you about backup, business, IT over the last 20 years and laugh together over stories and then we drink whisky and coconut spirit that Murray decides to join us with.  Steve and Marijn hit a delicious 22 year old Benriach finished in Dark Run Barrels, the smoothest, darkest and Deep whisky the boys have tasted.  Murrey introduces Arrack, a spirit from Sri Lanka... another whisky the boys have added to the list...

Never having enough information is bad... but unlike Whisky sometimes too much information can be just as stressful and causes problems of a different kind.... thinking about it,  too much Whisky might also cause problems of a different kind.  Anyhow...

Check out Marijn’s view on Information Overload from the recent Harvard Review paper.

Information from www.cloudally.com    Follow up use sales@cloudally.com  

The subject of today is ‘Human in IT’ and we start by considering the workload growth and the average number of change programs that people are involved in has increased by 400%.  Cynically Steve of course is wondering if that is true but that companies are now taking more care about change and formalising the programs of change.

We can only assume but we do agree that the number of changes is increasing, but not everyone gets phased by application changes as often it is not a core process.

We identify that the big 3 are changing, Outlook, MS Teams and SharePoint will all look and feel differently over the coming 3-4 months.

Co-Pilot is a new attribute where AI gets integrated into the normal applications within the Office application set.  This change will affect everyone as those that use it can gain real value within the company and for themselves.  This is a change that is worth and change program as the payback will be worth the effort.

The Boys get hot under the collar about the concept of collaboration and communication protocols and whether these are good or bad.  The lesson here is that Humans in IT mean that there are many ways of working.  Humans are fickle people... but they are inquisitive by nature... So we get involved with defining what normal means but take some extreme examples like is Climbing Mount Everest now Normal?

We have to shout out to Dylan Hayes because we wanted to talk about his great runs, but we could not remember his handle...

We hit on AI, and the changes it brings and how Humans in IT can benefit from it and get value from one of the most significant IT changes in recent times.

We conclude that Change is a Drip-Drip-Drip means that as Humans, we do need to expect change, which of course, can increase stress levels or not.

Finally, we remember that tech can make people lazy... so accepting what Co-Pilot gives you may not get tested/assessed/changed before being published.

Techorama Belgium on May 15th https://techorama.be/workshops/practical-microsoft-365-baseline-governance/ 

The podcast explains all this and more,and this might be the funniest start yet...

Steve and Marijn wonder if the Double Entendre is evident to the listener, and Steve struggles to say penis because it feels wrong to say it on the podcast.  The boys present the open content from their new governance course to be launched at 

As always, Steve’s brain refuses to bring in names, so we want to say Sigourney Weaver, because he could not remember Dian Fossey, who worked with Gorilla until poachers killed her.  And then he forgot the name of the Guy who invented the WWW... whom we will call James from the Internet.

Eventually, they get serious and explain how Microsoft, Harvard and Office365Distilled define governance... so GPT is to the rescue.

Steve reads through the Office365Distilled definition of Governance and identifies the core model from this definition.

Governance Office365Distilled style, covering 4 core areas as a DRDR  Defined, Resources, Drivers, Results...

Defined by Policies, Procedures and Practices.

Resources that are used, Managed and Protected.

Drives the behaviour, Administrators, content and compliance.

Results are to maximise the benefits whilst minimising the risks.

We break down each of these areas and explain how, practically, these decisions and consequential definitions all bring a practical approach to Governance.  And if you want to hear more, join us on May 15th in Antwerp, Belgium. 

This very much supports the idea of ensuring your organization sees the value in your business transformation story by viewing visual assets and immersive experiences—promoting buy-in and getting alignment on commitments.

Marijn dives in immediately, talking about some cool solutions, but soon understands that small business needs their cloud solution to deliver good value... maybe best describe them as cheap... So, we work on solutions for auditing, controlling, and tracking content and information that are all out of the box.

We take questions from Laura about distributing and managing compliance contact, mainly completed through emails to external parties for a small business.  So, the first question was about maintaining control of the document when it is moving around so many people, many of whom are outside your control.

We then consider the ability to maintain the immunity of that content when agreements or decisions are made against the content.

Audit soon raises its head and needs to ensure that evidence exists to confirm decisions made with compliance officers and regulators with minimal effort.  

We touch on feedback loops, why external survey tools might not be the best solution, and where M365 forms could provide a safe way to collect feedback or decide on specific questions. 

Eventually, we get to taste 2 whiskies from the same distillery with 7 years of difference to understand if the extra time in the barrel adds tasty value when it adds so much cost.

Steve announces a new Sponsorship with Cloudally, a company supporting businesses with Cloud backup solutions, more on that in future episodes and Marijn finishes off with a great ending and a request to complete Spotify comments as a Lady’s Understanding or a Gentlemen’s Agreement. 

Steve is not sure how AI can add value to documents and other content, but we will wait patiently to find out.  The original subject is around document governance and, specifically, content architecture and the value it brings.

To get started, we look at the components that make content architecture possible, like content types, metadata and taxonomy and the governance that will ensure it stays contextual.

The discussion turns to who can make the decisions around creating libraries, columns etc. We move to cover the security model that makes it all possible.  Then Templates come forward, and a deep dive around DLP and Sensitivity Labels.

Before drinking a completely new Whisky from Italy, yes, I said Italian we finish off with a quick insight into view formatting and migration...

The Boys are back after the great episode 107, and this time they are talking about innovation with a quote that Innovation is in the Delta between your known limit and the place you push to.

As we take some time to break down the pillars of Creativity, Vision, Risk and Collaboration, we identify that governance has a role in the innovation process. Still, we need to agree if this is something that restricts innovations or merely controls the scope of invention.  Let us know how YOU feel about it.

We conclude by taking a Harvard quadrant with Innovation on the left and best practice on the right.  We put High Risk at the top and No risk at the bottom.  So Innovative High-risk items are in the top left quadrant... so where you would put OneDrive or MS teams etc.  Check out what Steve and Marijn did.

The Whisky is very unusual and no. 870 from the first bottlings from the Maradsous Abbey in Belgium is a very interesting dram to taste if you can find a bottle outside of Belgium.

We finish by referring to a few Wee Drams around Innovations, and these can be found here to support the content of this podcast:

https://www.office365distilled.com/508 Innovate Everywhere

Valentine’s day caused some delays as it fell on a regular recording night, so Steve and Marijn had to delay swapping Vantine gifts, but we did that on this podcast.  But the delay revives some magic, and the Boys dig deep into some great tools to improve the end user experiences for delivering your Cloud and Microsoft 365 services to your users.

We know what SLA OLA supports eXperience Level Agreements, and if you don’t, you can learn something from Steve and Marijn as they talk about how this can improve the delivery, the change process and improve the tracking of Ability in the ADKAR process.

All this and a Very different WHISKY FROM Finland as we return to the KYRO distillery for this episode’s wee dram, maybe, just maybe, we have found a distillery that is just NOT to the taste of Marijn.

This year we take on the road our Governance workshop and the key to that is understanding XLA’s and much of today’s learning you can drill down and catch in our Governance workshops through 2023.  https://techorama.be/workshops/practical-microsoft-365-baseline-governance/ 

We conclude that there are practical links between getting governance right that drives the success of a Good Adoption and Change program.

Here is what GPT told us about M365 Governance

Microsoft 365 Governance refers to the management of policies, procedures, and standards for the use of Microsoft 365 services. It involves defining rules and guidelines for access, use, storage, and dissemination of data and information within an organization using Microsoft 365 services. This helps to ensure the security, compliance, and privacy of sensitive data and information, as well as promote collaboration and productivity.

Effective M365 Governance also involves the use of tools and features provided by Microsoft 365, such as Azure Active Directory, Microsoft Intune, Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, Microsoft Teams, and others, to enforce policies, monitor usage, and provide reporting and auditing capabilities. It is critical to have a well-defined M365 Governance plan in place to ensure that all users are aware of their responsibilities and obligations when using Microsoft 365 services and that the data and information within the organization is protected and managed appropriately.

Finally, M365 Governance also involves continuous review and updates to policies and procedures to align with changing business requirements, technological advancements, and regulatory compliance requirements. This includes regular risk assessments, security audits, and assessments of user adoption and usage patterns to identify areas of improvement and ensure that the M365 Governance plan is effective in meeting the needs of the organization.

A quick 10-minute review of the people we met, the subjects we covered in December before hitting the subject of the Podcast Lists.... and some examples for use

Mark Kashman, on his blog did a release just before Christmas showing a personal list he created that he uses to track the people he meets and the socks he needs to give away as he tours and delivers his presentations.

Marijn suggests that forms are better, and for the right solution it might be... but if you are tracking something that needs updating Lists are the only way to do this...collecting data then forms are great... manipulating data then lists are the way to go.

So you get some great examples, of lists and the management of them as well and feedback and discussions on the best ways forward and lifecycles of your data.

The boys taste a Whisky from Denmark that sounds like a character in the Game of Thrones... Danica.

Speaking engagements are discussions from Copenhagen to Vegas, and the boys get hung up on GDPR and admit they know nothing about what needs to be protected and decide it’s a grey area they don’t know anything about.

Different types of Governance cover the vast array of applications and content within the M365 ecosystem Before looking at the default governance processes and audiences.

Then the boys go old and taste an 18-year-old Whisky from one of the Distilleries in the most northerly part of Scotland.  An 18 BalBlair.

Focusing on communications and Key messages, Steve outlines the model developed by the boys that give you the tools to plan and build your communications around Awareness and Desire.  This model gets you 30% of the way forward in preparing the company for the change.

Wendy, the dog, is active tonight and wants to get involved…

We originally wanted to talk about loop… but Marijn decided he will play interviewer and keep the conversation technical, and we have the Life of a Consultant in action.

So Steve tells the world about a current project to introduce MS Teams calling and migrating from SfB and the things that needed attention, and where the project needs to go to support Voice calling.  Some strategy discussions about how and what is planned next on the project.

Marijn identifies that Steve was using a classic change strategy “Add Crappy Legacy tech to improve desire” 

The conversation continues, and Steve has worked out that over the last few months, his consultant's head has been in the game more than the boy’s thoughts initially.

So welcome to the Marijn Somers live Interview…. Until they swap roles and Steve takes over.

Subjects discussed in this Episode

MS Teams Calling | Moving from Baseline security through Evolution to the ‘Rethink’ |  Use of OneDrive in the wrong way |  Loop is discussed but in the context of delays

The future is discussed how long it now takes Microsoft to release new features… 

...and eventually, Loop is discussed, which was the original topic agreed upon by the boys and whilst they both love the concept that an active component is available across several applications.  Some discussions occur about whether a Fluid File (the file type for Loop) should be saved centrally…

And Finally, the podcast is turned over to the Càirdeas 2022 Warehouse 1 edition which turns out t be a very welcome guest

In this episode of Office365Distilled, Steve gives Marijn something to look forward to as he starts the podcast with a howl...

Then the conversation turns to a lot of golden nuggets as areas of change risk are identified before moving to look at where people can be forced... or encouraged to do things differently.

Enjoy everyone, and maybe we will see you at the MGM Grand in December at the great Las Vegas... the place on earth for conferences... 

It sounds like the record sleeve from a 1970 rock album, which is a good description of what Steve and Marijn did on a quiet Thursday afternoon during the Ignite 2022 Microsoft Conference Day at the South Coast Summit.  This podcast recorded live was a great success providing the audience that Marijn and Steve sometimes miss when recording in Steve’s office on a Tuesday evening.

Check it out as the 100th birthday party edition takes shape, and the audience seems to bring out the worse in both of them, and secrets are revealed about how Offcie365Distilled.com is put together and the huge amount of hours that go into each episode to bring you the magic that is the Office365Distilled Podcast from Marijn Somers and Steve Dalby.

Innovation is not always a ‘Giant Step for Mankind’. Sometimes Innovation is introverted and focused on a small audience.  We do learn that, of course, M365 innovation is driven by our own User Stories sent to Microsoft and if it is something that the user base needs, then it gets built.

We take a quick check on the current status of MS Team changes as this podcast is recorded a few weeks ahead of Ignite 2022, when we do expect some large differences in terms of Mesh for Teams that will be across the enterprise but compare this to a change in Excel (check out EP99 of O365Distilled) that will be for very few people.

Not every change is giant... many are small and focused.  But it is innovation, and we should be awaiting that something new in our own organisation feels like innovation that has value that needs to be managed as a change.

‘I‘ stands for Inspire, and in this wee dram, he takes you through the 4 steps to success with inspiration and understanding of the customer’s expectations for the process, business expectations and what their next step might be.

Look to the future and prepare for Marijn’s next Wee Dram on this subject... Design.

Talking about Excel and when excel was introduced to the market and how Steve and Marijn thought they would have a great case for moving people from Excel to SharePoint lists and find that maybe there are not many even no, specific reasons to drive users away from excel to M365 Lists

The session turns out to simply select the best examples of using Excel and M365 lists without saying one is better than the other....   It just shows that even the most experienced and best can make mistakes.

Steve keeps asking the hard questions, which lead us to understand Lists more and their roles in the M365 ecosystem. 

The podcast’s ending is great because Gianni, who won the One Inch Party, sent over a great sample of Aberfeldy 16 year old, which was worth a taste  (he also sent over a sample of Cruach-Mhone from Bunnahabhain), all very much appreciated.

Where Marijn says, ”Sorry, keep going I will interrupt you later”   and then  “ Hold on and let me continue”  and it is decided Marijn can interrupt as much as he likes but Steve has to do as he is told…

Our Sponsor Braeburn Whisky for this episode gets a great mention https://braeburnwhisky.com/ 

The boys start on the Roadmap workshop that defines the order of products that will be released and feeds back to the team what order they will process the project.  Roadmap Strategy is required and agreed by the business… then the boys get stuck on questions around what the minimum settings are…  and Steve has a Daaa moment when he works out Marijn is right…

Governance workshop takes frontstage and arguably the most important as so much is decided within this and getting then documented means you know so much about the project already

Content workshops are discussed that incorporate so much decision making…  The Elephant in the room ‘ Content Types’ hits the discussion with a few erm and aaass when Steve rounds out what is needed to get started and define the baseline

The content workshop identified so much about the future of the project, migration, Change and Adoption Taxonomy strategy and some search aspects of the project…

Portals are mentioned and Wendy wants to get involved… she has something to say… and then Steve puts Marijn on the spot with portals.  It is agreed an Intranet is a portal and opens up a bunch of things to decide like audiences, Viva Connect etc. all associated with publishing content…

Migration cannot be forgotten so they do list the things that is required to ensure migration takes place… then some workshop around servicing the M365 environment with the helpdesk etc.

After tasting Isobel Gowdie a Linkwood 14 year old cask strength whisky from Cask88 https://cask88.com/witches/ 

Steve finishes with a few thoughts on the Vision workshops and suggests that Marijn is right but only if we accept there are more than one Vision workshops required to make this work and get it right…. 

Starting with the infrastructure workshop, they get hooked up in discussions about the naming of tenants (we are still not sure who is correct). Still, the thought is to get the infrastructure workshop completed early on with the right people in the groups.  Many decisions at this level define the coming workload.

It’s also worth thinking strategically about services, multitenancy etc.

Identity and a few others will cause issues like who owns the user’s Admins, AD admins, HR etc., so be prepared and ensure all parties are in the same room.

Some words are spoken about the people involved and how they might be upset of losing control to the cloud etc.  So, pull in a great partner or Microsoft to ensure all the infrastructure teams have a level of comfort.

There is a disagreement (always fun) and Marijn starts Steve thinking about which comes first, the Adoption or Email or Supporting workshop to understand the new way of IT supporting the new cloud services

Road mapping is important to understand where you are in the process of changing the company and the way of working and aligning development plans to power platform etc., or if you will remain with existing dev tools.

The idea of splitting the Adoption and communications and when to start the personae decisions and special needs so maybe the adoption and change conversation is needed to baseline the governance.

Identifying the user-focused people for the Ambassadors and core users is important, but then we need to think about the end user-focused workshops so that become Episode 98...

The Whisky plays memory games with Steve after Marijn asks him to dig deep into the memory banks to identify the point when he realised, he loved Irish whisky.  That took him to an Irish bar in Rome.

A Black Bush 80/20 PX Sherry Cask Reserve, has a good recommendation for a great price with a complex flavour... well worth looking for a bottle

South Coast Summit:  October 14th 2022
Tickets:https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/keeping-change-and-adoption-real-1-day-workshop-tickets-359518869617

M365 Conference – Las Vagas: December 9th
Register:https://www.m365conf.com/#!/workshop/Keeping%20Change%20and%20Adoption%20Real:%20The%20Workshop/5553

And on the podcast...

Steve and Marijn kick off their Summer podcasts with a quick check on their Vacations and a Proud Dad tells you about his daughter obtaining her Degree and the graduation parties

Marijn lists all the injuries he was plagued with on the dangerous holiday park he stayed at in France.  Steve did a road trip around the south of England and Wales.

The boys have a busy end of the year with presentations and workshops in Belgium, the Netherlands, Copenhagen, UK and USA  (Vagas Baby...) 

Microsoft put Viva Goals into GA this week, so Steve and Marijn start talking about OKRs, the business's implications, and all that you need to prepare for.

Goals will allow the organisation to be transparent in what Objectives the board has decided will drive the business forward.  Recent statistics from Microsoft show that 77% of the workforce needs more purpose in their work.  Viva Goals could be a way to change that statistic to the most positive.

Steve considered the old MC server system, which included 3 servers that started with the High-level programs followed by the Projects and then the client tools.  You could not create a project unless it was a vital aspect of the program and connected.  This allowed a roll-up of the program costs and delivery.

The conversation comes to the most significant consideration, which is the fact that to make this work, it requires buy-in from the highest level to the lowest action.

Marijn and Steve finish by going Welsh and tasting the Penderyn Hiraeth No8 in the 50 special release whiskies coming from the South Wales distillery in the Brecon Beacons.  Steve admits to not being the biggest fan of their standards but this one is lifted above many.

Building a SharePoint site for the end user is like buying yourself a new 40th Birthday cigar lighter that is complex and needs a few You Tube videos to ensure you operate it correctly.  Your Corporate SharePoint look book might just be the tool to do that.

With the opportunities to automate your site creation by the users from the press of a button Marijn extends the concept to consider Governance capabilities that can add variety to the templates enabling both functionality and content protection based on the level of assurance the site requires.

BrainStorm - 33 Ways To Unlock More Software Value.

Steve and Marijn took this sheet and pulled numbers from a bag to select random values to apply to the Values sheet provided by Brainstorm Inc. 

Use Polls: Marijn immediately thinks Dancing Poles and Steve reminds every one of their brilliant ideas to create a Gentlemen’s Club together mode image. 

Microsoft have just released a new update to make it easier for polls to be included in meetings.

Build Activities: Steve Takes this as an opportunity to consider gamification and the various performance scores available from Microsoft.  They are all activity-based actions that generate indications that the tools are being used and actions are being taken by

Explain Why the Change: Reference is made to the SouthCoast Summit where Steve and Marijn will be running a workshop at this event on Saturday 15th October

Bring in an Expert:  Bring in an Expert or call a friend was referenced and Steve has an opportunity to make his favourite Experts quote (listen to check it out)   These people bring in their experience and ability to lead but Steve turns this around a little by saying for a M365 Project The Business are the experts!

Be available for Help: Being available is possibly the best way to add value to the business.  Steve asks Marijn how he ensures people have access to the resources that deliver success.  A single point of contact is crucial for value which can be an email address or a SharePoint site or regular AMA sessions.

Learn what your users need:  Understand the User stories from a deep dive into the business getting to the coal face and describing what the users want to have delivered that will deliver value.  Marijn described an approach used previous with a Mnemonic based on a Spy, in Dutch.

Finally, Marijn points out that the value is what the user NEEDS not what IT thinks they want!

Digitize Training:  Marijn talks about learning pathways and Steve points out that the same courses are available in Viva Learning, so they are available in SharePoint and in MS Teams… 

Steve shares a few nuggets from Viva Learning and Marijn gets distracted by a ringing phone and cuts off the girlfriend… but I am a witness we are recording.

Gather Feedback:  It does not matter what the feedback is, just continue to get feedback.  Steve suggests that you should kick off as early as possible with a poll before your awareness campaign kicks off to confirm

Personalise your Training:   This about sing the Audience features to suggest training across the business.  Think about the matrix of Role v Skills so that Managers do not need to know how to create a page, but it would be good for them to understand how audiences work.  However, both need to understand pages and how they work.

Custom videos or page instructions for the ‘feel’ of the company so that they have customise training branded for the company that feels a little special.

Our Sponsor Braeburn Whisky is described and of course Steve and Marijn have invested with Braeburn with 3 barrels between them already to do some cool things with 😊

Braeburn provided a 14 year old whisky from the Loch Lomond for us to taste which was truly great peated whisky available from their web site Hill Climb 14 Bottle - Cask 88 not many bottle left. 

There is disagreement about the copying of profiles and if the AAD groups also get copied across to new users based on another user... Steve thought not and Marijn started to doubt... but from a quick lookup it appears there is a user template option now available and some Microsoft Flows that will not assist in this role.

Bon Vivant is Marijn’s new Viva name, which is apparently a thing

Eventually, Steve and Marijn move on to the subject at hand which is Business Architecture.  The idea being it is important to understand the business processes around this architecture and then use M365 architecture to add value to the areas that most need a change or improvement.

We take a look at a specific Business architecture working across the business and for the podcast, we tool the Hire to Retire process.  

We take the various aspects of the process and choose the appropriate Microsoft365 application and tool that best improves that aspect of the process.  Nothing is limited as this is after all only a podcast.

And of course, neither Steve nor Marijn has to build this so reality can take a side-line.  Especially when Steve takes an AI chat that creates an automatic Head-hunter application to go find the perfect candidate.

After completing the process, it is time to relax with a whisky from Finland... so we finished the Finish whisky at the end of the podcast: Kyro Rye ruby port.

Understanding the Need:  Our primary communication is speech, it’s the fastest way 2 human beings can exchange ideas, and frustrations and collaborate over solutions.

Identify the current risks: Breaking down the processes that are prone to fail or that everyone understands are vulnerable for some reason.

Ignore the normal: There are a few traditional ways of delivering M365 but if you want to deliver M365 with value then use everything you have learned to focus on what can Create Impact Faster

Check out Wee Dram EP2 and understand how you need to breakdown barriers to deliver M365 Value

Names of Internets got a little time which represents the point about style that the team use for the project.  The Style, tone of voice, graphics, and word choice helps set the style of the project, training, look and feel etc.  So often the name chosen will drive the style.

Some thoughts on how the project is linked to the corporate brand, but the best advice is to have a feel of the corporate branding in whatever style you decide on for the communications and adoption of the project.

Navigation gets a good minute or two both on style and importance before taxonomy has a few sarcastic comments that ensures it is not forgotten and an indication that it is important and something that needs to be taken seriously.

Returning to the link to the company branding needs to be considered but the intranet and project communications should be aligned to the company style.  Steve and not sure about how a company ethos is defined and by who and gets very deep on this wondering who makes the decisions.... Marijn is right in that M365 project needs to work alongside the way the company operates.

We do agree on the fact that different companies need a different personality to the project and intranet, we know banks are more serious than a software house etc.  Steve does need to let it go... companies find their own level it is not decided by ‘John’ or any team.

Marijn hits on the important point that whatever style/vibe/feel you decided on it should be consistent from beginning to the end and a strategy of style that everyone signs up for

Don’t let the style take away the main priority that M365 projects are about changing and improving communications and collaboration

You should not forget that you need to balance the audience needs and the company style.  Legal people have a different mindset to engineers and marketing and the content is very different ranging from Serious to stories to data sheets.  Maybe the pages and terms used on different divisions pages need varied styles.

The Boys finish with a very rare whisky from this weeks Fies Ila festival from Islay in Scotland.  We are very impressed with this year’s edition from Kilchoman, the Fèis Ìle 2022 Edition. 

Inevitable there is a reason when it has not been delivered before you arrive which means that your specific skills are needed to make it happen. 

Very often after over 30 years in the consultancy game, Steve finds that what the organisation thinks needs to happen is not what should be delivered.  Steve shares his secrets of the first week and identifies Doors and barriers that you will come across but maybe you have not noticed.  Doors and barriers are what shape the work you need to do, and your effectiveness in delivering value.

Value is important as it balances the money you are taking out of the company, and we always want to ensure the company feels that they get value for money.  In this podcast, you will find one or two ideas that will ensure your employer feels that way.

Marijn is convinced that MS Teams as a hub is the way to go to the point that he even misses the ‘It Depends’ joke that he keeps mentioning.   Steves. Sarcasm is evident throughout the podcast, but Marijn defends it well.

The devil is in the detail and Steve is not sure that the app is ready and counters many arguments that Marijn puts in and event Steve is beginning to see some sense but the strategy does need some development and yet again suggests that this conversation is ahead of the time and that maybe the future might deliver the right functionality.

It is difficult to argue against the logic that because I spend so much time in MS Teams having access to the applications I need for my job.

Steve Starts to think about how it might work, and Marijn identifies some solutions about how to focus the navigation against audiences based on policies for personae groups.

Steve is not impressed with this idea and wonders if MS Teams in its current format is suitable to provide Navigation and appropriate functionality to become the true application, Hub.  But accepts as a strategy the concept makes sense but wonders if it has the legs

The biggest issue is the current structure because everything is based around teams a Channel to have global access to the app’s navigation seems difficult.

Expanding Topics AI functionality might be an answer to draw people across to the apps your team is using and maybe a solution for your team to continue your processes when you go on holiday and maybe

Steve throws in left-field questions to ask about UserVoice and cannot remember the name of the replacement.  But after the podcast, we remember.  We know now that it’s called Feedback Hub which is a Windows Application for reporting improvements.

Marijn accepts that this is not a perfect solution and decides that the only perfect solution is Anne Hathaway 

The boys eventually leave this with the suggestion that this is a strategy that needs testing so why not think about MS Teams as a Hub/platform as you consider an upgrade or rollout of an app and consider if it can be easily integrated into the MS teams and adds value.

The finish is from the USA with a very neat Drink that Al Capone once described as “the Good Stuff” Templeton Rye 6-year-old from a small-town distillery in the State of IOWA

Join Marijn as he looks at 4 golden nuggets that help you understand and plan for the low-Code development age breaking out across our enterprises.  Ho offers considered thoughts on how to set up the culture and community that creates the foundation of Collaboration-Innovation for your organisation

There is a revisit of the pandemic 2 years ago and forced a change in the company working from home meant somehow equipment from chairs to monitors all had to be purchased from home.

Today the Way of Working needs to find a way to minimise the changes from home working to Office working and the key attributes of meetings need to be transparent to all employees.  Even if it is just about equivalency during the meeting.

Change is so important and the K from ADKAR becomes important as we need to help users gain the knowledge and change their perspective during meetings to understand that not everyone is sitting by their side... how many people point to their screen during a meeting and assume everyone else can see their windows 

As IT we can help the company design their infrastructure to support how the company will deliver a Digital 1st environment.

Steve points out that if everyone is equal then unless the company is going to invest heavily not everyone will have the best monitor and camera at home and at the office.  So finding the common denominator as the online meeting policy and documenting the expectations and associated training is one way for IT to support the home working policy.

Of course, one way to encourage back to work is to ensure the Office experience is better than the home experience.  However, that needs to be balanced against the quality of the meeting to ensure it is getting the greatest value for the business.  For example, ensuring that people have access to the right knowledge to be most effective.

Tool knowledge is key but also a personal understanding goes the differences between Collaboration, Presenting, Brainstorming, and ensuring that everyone knows and understands how to encourage innovation during meetings.  In fact, the reality is that the Meeting owners need to plan and ensure the right tools are available for everyone and they know how to use them.

AI and Cortana could be a big player using insights to identify who will be in the office and set up meetings to support active projects 

Martijn drops his golden nugget by stating his perception is that for Hybrid work you need Hardware, policy, the right application and ensure people have digital literacy and understand the technology to move forward.  Meeting owners have responsibility for the success of Hybrid meetings.

A great Digital First meeting experience is achievable.

For this company, we need a digital-first definition to drive policy and delivery of the right hardware.

The boys work through the different stages in creating a workflow that starts with The Talk.  The point where the business describes what they expect to happen and how it will improve their business process.  The list includes decisions on Audience, triggers, lifecycle, compliance, and planning all before a no-code ‘drag-and-drop’ box has been moved on the screen

Conversation provides some ideas on how to define the governance for the creation of a workflow and understanding how you balance IT support for business created workflows... and then they drink a great Deanston finished in a Bourdeaux Wine barrel  MMmmm...

Steve uses the word Personae and Marijn wonders if he is ill.  

Steve has not always been a believer in the default view about personae but in this podcast, he explains that like a complex whisky there is value in personae when the audience value is understood.  He goes on to explain this is described as Focused Usability where the Personae has the Desire (aka ADKAR) because you have identified the specific value they will get from MS Teams or SharePoint Online when combined with Exchange.  Collaboration, Content and Communications

The example discussed is to only allow the personae who need sites to have the rights to create sites.

And right in the middle of this Steve’s mother calls, Wendy Barks and Marijn must drag us back to his golden nugget from this week’s podcast!!

Marijn re-iterates the value in NOT giving everyone the rights to create sites… for example not having to train the personae who do not have rights to create sites.

Viva Insights tells Steve that he responds quickly to emails and Marijn asks if that is a thing… then they get to discuss what you can do in 6 minutes!

The conclusion is that defining policies around when to use a Site, Group, MS team or yammer group depends on the business need.  However, this is a variable in that the personae obtain different values from the M365 toolset depending on the Baseline governance that drives each of the services.

If you get the Awareness and governance by Personae right, you are already halfway to setting up the Desire by identifying the value in the product.

The boys drink the Lagavulin 8-year-old created to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the founding of the Lagavulin distillery by John Johnston in 1816… and they like it a lot!!

Policies do need to be thought through about external access for Chats.  MS Teams and channel chats are OK as invitees are created as external users but not for Chats.

Marijn outlines the email problems with emails and the problems of losing control and treating the email string as a conversation instead of having… a real conversation.

Worth thinking about email as evidence of a decision made.  Chat can be less instinctive without the context, but the story of an email has a little more depth to describe the decisions being made.

Chat has some risks as it is not always so easy to see who can read the messages like in Email but of course, if we were all open and honest it doesn’t matter.

Chat tends to work the right and left side brains with great creativity tools.

Change program is required to drive a Chat 1st Mentality 

All the old rules apply across Chats as they do for emails, so CAPITAL LETTERS do mean I am shouting and to respond quicker than an email process. 

Marijn and Steve sound a little disappointed with the Jura 7 wood they taste at the end of EP87 but they are not, this was a very deep whisky with great notes at the end.

Braeburn Podcask  https://open.spotify.com/episode/3CTjSOEP9QZpfkAa8358d1    

Kate took us to a few new Bars and was a fabulous host visiting 4 great places https://www.airbnb.com/experiences/1757637

Kates first choice was Dr. Stravinsky:  https://www.worlds50bestbars.com/the-list/dr-stravinsky.html 

But we found our spiritual home here at La Whiskeria: https://www.facebook.com/lawhiskeria which became our Barcelona home from Home

Marijn points out that not migration is a migrating strategy and one to consider, although not migration leads to come complexity on the roadmap.

Stave points out that the tools are not about Migration, and they agree the scope is about moving active content from the old technology and location into the new Cloud-based storage tools

Migration strategy has at one end just a Lift and Shift scenario, so the data stays in the same structure but in a new location.  At the other end of the scale, is to move the content and add it to a fully configured Managed Content architecture built on SharePoint, MS Teams, OneDrive as example locations.

Plans and communications are a key aspect of the planning… plan and communicate it well.

In simple terms, we decide to Move this document from here to there.  Then the complications start where these questions need to be answered

• Do the users know where the documents will be placed?
• How do they share contact after the migration?
• What files will cause issues, Macros, file links, OneNote files
• Which options the have least risks

IS the definition of s simple migration just getting the users to move it themselves??

Often the migration strategy starts with ‘Who is going to migrate the content’ 

Once it was agreed that the podcast is about their experience then users cannot lead on M365 but should provide some great user stories.

The Project Team define the Migration strategy

Every organisation will require different aspects of the migration strategy

Start thinking about Migration strategy at the same time as you plan how your tenant will be structure

Do users follow or stay with the content, even if you roll out SPO and MS teams will users start using them if the content is not migrated.

Marijn and Steve work differently around migration and adoption and they work out how many ways are there of making tenants work across the enterprise.

Migration is about archive because the average document is only receiving focus for 3 months and we need a migration strategy that can deliver now.

Steve disagrees with Marijn’s approach to migration which makes for interesting conversations for 2 guys standing at a bar talking crap!!

Before drinking a wonderful Japanese 12-year-old whisky the boys quote Charig Patel whose statement suggested that you Know-Your-Data (content) is very profound to know what content will add value after the migration.

Finally, after trying to close the conversation with a quick comment from Nikki Chapple who identified the need to de-duplicate the content before migration.  Steve Points out that defining the conditions against which you judge duplicate data is difficult

As they realise this and move across to the podcast subject of looking at the Back-to-Basics of data in SharePoint online.

Steve pushes listeners to think about how they process data and make it available as data.

From a Change and Adoption basis, we teach how to manage documents when we need to decide on the form that the data is stored before just falling into the habit of using excel

The Value of the data we can use every day is reduced greatly when it is stored (and lost!!) in an application like Excel.

Statistics around which applications focus on document and which focus on data was taken and it was roughly equal.  But we do not teach and explain the management of information and knowledge in the same proportion.

We wonder how much data is lost inside the documents we plan on migrating or the documents we are creating and uploading to SharePoint.

Going back to basics for lists means looking to keep your data in data format whilst working out how you can publish it as a port and document.

The boys realise that they also need to change and focus more on lists and only on documents when it makes sense.  Preparing for the future use of the data will become a value in the future.

New Microsoft tools mean that you can present list data as Panels and great page data. 

The famous whiteboard gets a Name:  PATTI which gets very rude very quickly, so the boys decide on PADDI as it holds pads of paper.  It now delivers more structured divergence

A warning is discussed that whilst there is the value of thinking about content data, over content documents, simply because lists are more granular.

Steve surmises down the rabbit hole about creating virtual contracts creating from a bunch of re-usable items which are in fact data defining another blurred line between documents and data.  “It’s a good job nobody else can here this great idea” 

To sum up - Don’t just focus on the content separate the data at the source, beware of the rabbit hole because more decisions are needed around access control.  PowerApps and Power BI are a tool that can turn around your company’s perspective on their content.

Steve and Marijn consider how much knowledge is lost when Data is stored inside content.0

The boys drink Deanston Virgin Oak whisky which is one of the boy’s favourite distilleries featured on their Whisky@ease channel on YouTube.   No-fuss just great whisky is a great description of the Deanston product.

The round-up at the end of the podcast brings out the key thoughts that generate a few thoughts about how to approach the overall contract and data strategy across the change and adoption plans.

All this before talking about M365 Chicago, mentioning Commsverse  https://www.commsverse.com/ again in June same place, and Steve and Marijn turn up on a few of the social photos on the web site.

Steve tries to explain to Marijn why his view on Internet is a little screwed and has changed over the years and yes Steve gets difficult (surprise surprise) trying to drill down on the importance of the Intranet and why relevance is so important as a solid source of truth.

Content architecture becomes a key part of the Intranet scope so that relevant information is delivered to the right people.  A key decision is needed to decide if Content is pushed or pulled but only if after you have defined the company content architecture.

Its important to ensure that you have a great content taxonomy of content so that what arrives is relevant to the user viewing the page… One page about health and safety but it delivers the relevant H&S rule based on where I work and what I do.  A user should not have to search for a specific Safety information sheet when the Intranet knows what I do and where I work.

Marijn brings back the model for content management as A, B C and now adds D.  in a model that looked like a Whisky Still

Scope of an Intranet is defined without reference to internal communications.

A new approach to publishing is required and audiences are well defined to cover languages and culture.

The Intranet is about content driven by a growing number of technologies that create the Intranet and can simplify access to relevant content based on the role and location of the user.

The mechanics of an Internet are briefly discussed on how easy it is put together a Hub sites and a few connected sites.  But the real work is about ensuring the right people see the most relevant information.

Yammer gets a good mention because of its ability to provide funnels of information well delivered

Finally, the boys return to Goa. This time a none-peated version from John-Paul.  Finally Steve and Marijn touch on Push and pull of information through the Intranet. 

The basics are covered to talk about re-usable metadata and then move across to the value of being able to identify specific content across large number of sites.  Steve gets pedantic (surprise surprise) about how CT’s are synchronized and copied as a separate object with a link and the value of this in search.

Emphasis is placed on the importance of planning content types as an architecture as part of the information architecture across the enterprise.  Marijn asks a question about how the hierarchy of content types work and when should a content type be created as a new top level or latch into an existing structure.

Marijn starts to take on the role of question master to add some structure to the review of Content types to ensure the right information is available.

Content types are going through a re-birth like classic pages when to Modern pages.  This means that some of the existing functionality is removed whilst the rebirth of the concept is modernised.

The boys taste a South African whisky created from Corn that surprising enough they like and enjoy.

Marijn talks about Socks and Beanies with fairy dust on as he talks about the gift if the Microsoft List before discussing if he would walk around with a Scrotum beanie label on his head.  Conclusion is that Lists are cool and going to sub-zero levels of coolness.

Then Big Peat makes us both smile with a Kick in the balls!!  Finally, Steve must be told by Marijn to stop because this podcast can go on and on so don’t stop at the Whisky some cool stuff at the end you do not want to miss… so many cool presents.

Steve and Marijn open their Christmas presents for 2021

Is MS Teams trying to do too much, its more navigate than content… the one App to rule them all.

Marijn has a new consultant tag line “Its manageable” 

Is Loop the answer to the complexity of MS teams UI trying to get you to everything…

Steve decides that his new 2022 Lego characters will be the personas for the 2022 adoption program.

Compliance gets a good going over with Steve talking about Auto-Auto-Auto equals expensive and more expensive but cool, very very cool… and complex so work for consultants well into the 2020’s

We had to feel the pain of going through Microsoft strategy of the modern pages, libraries and lists to get to a point where Microsoft can now bring out rapid functionality development on Forms, Lists, Power Platform etc.

Stream for SPO must be the present you save until last because you have more to gain from it.  Video still needs to become a medium that the average Joe uses every day.  But the new functionality coming out like comments live in the video, and transcripts are back after missing for some time.

Steve sent the last podcast through the transcript service and Marijn gets transcribed as Moron 😊 

At the final present on Stream, Steve adds in some pixie dust and starts to imagine some of the cool stuff Microsoft could do which includes auto editing a 30-minute meeting to a 5-minute video and including the emotive expressions to identify the important items or the heavily discussed items in the meeting.

Finally Big Peat is tasted, and the boys conclude about how big and complex M365 is becoming and almost impossible to track and be the expert on everything. 

Bringing together Baseline Governance and Plan to Evolve will put in place your rise to Rockstar status in your Microsoft 365 project regardless of where you are in your Collaboration journey.

Plan to Evolve supports the adoption programs through the process for quarterly planning and cutting up the strategy for delivery.  All this driven growth and development makes you a rock star in your business because you have direction that is well communicated and planned.

After a very different Rye whisky from The oxford Artisan Distillery Marijn brings the planning process together and points out the new evolution items like Microsoft LOOP. 

EP72 is really Steve and Marijn standing at the bar and shooting the breeze.  With lots of diversions and bar level humor (you have been warned) 

Steve identifies the subtle levels of change in the MOCA framework that takes it over and above a framework of telling you which tools should be used for what. 

Today MOCA is more aligned to corporate objectives and business value items allowing you to think about the work completed by the business and identifying the Microsoft 365 tools that can deliver value to the community of workers.

The Boys touch on the framework but also the purpose of Persona used by many to identify the scope of a Microsoft 365 roll out. But Steve expands on this adding in the dimension of Process alongside the Personas. After all we are reminded that everyone in the company works within a set of processes, regardless of the role they perform.

So, they start with T-Shirt sizes and Steve goes onto explain how T-Shirt sizes allows for an AGILE approach to corporate planning and delivering against a vision in a driven direction.  Marijn loves the concept of using Dinosaurs to plan your Microsoft365 roll-out… an interesting podcast!

Steve admits towards the end of the podcast that he is the last person in the world to create a Spotify playlist and the boys talk about the magic of driving and hitting the right bend with the right speed and the right music.

Then they timebox 6 minutes to argue about Intranets and the different philosophies you could take when deciding on the Governance of your Intranet and which works in your organisation.

Then it finishes off with a gift from Tony who when on Holiday found a distillery that created Whisky from Cactus.  We definitely hit the objective of tasting a Whisky that you would not normally savor.  Mike Drop!

We consider the people and problems that need to be considered at the start.  Stakeholders, C-Level, Middle management all become part of the change leadership whilst Architects, Developers Helpdesk, Security, and the configuration team can develop design documentation and use these to define the system builds.

Understanding the metrics  https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/admin/productivity/productivity-score 

The boys eventually start to look at the areas monitored with the productivity Score, ignoring the physical network aspects. They focus on the people aspects to try and make a judgement on the way people are changing.

Microsoft has looked at how people are working but with the context of generating information from the cold hard data figures.  Achieved through a combination of data sets to create a story of change

Comparisons are made between the number of people enabled for a function and the number of people using the tools available to them.

Marijn and Steve are not sure about the way meeting definitions are used in the productivity Score. Where Camera-on gets a higher mark than a meeting without Camera usage by the participants.  However, they like that meetings that include screen sharing have a higher value as this indicates good Collaboration

Tracking the mobility of your users is about using multiple devices for a user and using different applications to edit or view content.

Working through all the pages on the Productivity Score page, Office365Distilled becomes more optimistic about how these tools can judge Collaboration across the enterprise.

Then we move to TOAD or The Oxford Artisan Distillery, where the boys visited a few weeks ago and bought a bottle that is distilled from grains propagated from 300+-year-old seeds.  This drink is truly a great tasting Rye Whisky.

Shout out...

Sarah Fenner  |  Al Eardley  |  Yannick Reekmens  |  Tony Woodruff  |  Alex Kwaskowski  |  Megan Warren  |  Bill Ayers  |  Sharon Weaver  |  Kevin and Al from GreyBeard  |  David Cromca  |  Zoe Wilson  

And all the others that we missed from the list…  thank you.

They talk about what they learned which of course focused on all the bits they don’t know… The main message is that MS teams is huge, but we all knew that.

Times may be uncertain, but one thing remains true. There’s a simple power in people coming together.  That is why we are committed to delivering an in-person conference this Year. Commsverse is a community conference organised by technology enthusiasts for enthusiasts.

We are a laser focused technical conference dedicated to enabling Microsoft Teams for medium to large enterprises.  We are the event where the best minds in the business gather to share their expert knowledge and experience so that your organization can enable your flexible workforce communication & collaboration using Microsoft Teams effectively & efficiently.

We pick out our favourite presentations that we intent to visit and learn from.

Steve & Marijn   -   www.SteveandMarijn.com

We discuss why it’s important to Senior managers to ensure that Awareness if Transparent. That they fully understand the implications at the start and become the strategy ambassadors for the project.

Finally, we mentioned the dreaded word Politics and look at how its important for management to drive the energy of the project ensuring user beliefs and step into providing the vision of the change 

But then the background to the podcast about setting up those pages is discussed.  Not defining the information that needs to be displayed but focusing on the tips and tricks to building and managing pages… the main 8 pieces of content.

We talk about Dear jeff and how he will be taking our suggestions and immediately adding them to the backlog on the day the podcast is released…  ok maybe not 😉 

A great tip from Marijn about creating a new view in the Site pages library to create a Functional list of the pages to find them back again. Steve reminds us that it is a library with all the features of a library including metadata, grouping, filtering multiple views.

Marijn introduces the way to list the pages in web parts and Steve looks at the fact that the page content is King, presented in a way to make the user go WOW and want to come back and see future changes.

Both podcasts talk about how the Heading anchors are a great way when combined with Quick links and even text links so that users can jump around the page and quickly get to the content.  Steve adds the tip to make sure users can easily get back to the top.

Matt Hurst joins us from Ribbon Communications a sponsor from the Commsverse conference on September 15th for 2 days to talk about what goodies they will be giving away at the conference and what knowledge they will share.

Dear Jeff… can you make a web part that can move within the page as you scroll down and stay within the live window as well as making it possible to pull content from other site collections.

The boys shout out lots of respect to those with the skills that can visualize a stunning page and the difference between the technical skills of building the page and the design aspects of creating beauty.

Movie tags are included that perfectly describes how we bend Microsoft365 weaknesses as Marijn says “Nature always finds a way” 

Some new features are discussed around collapsible sections which are rolling out… but you can ignore this if needed because apparently ‘We are not that kind of podcast 😊

The podcast disagreement is about the Page web part that inserts a line… Steve hates and Marijn loves… before finishing with some Dear Jeff moments for improvements.

Finally, we get to Whisky, which turns out to be very special, suggested by our regular listener Sven, created by a German Kirsh maker.  The boys tell a confusing story of this whisky because it is so surprisingly good and it expands the taste horizon of Steve and Marijn.  Bu the agreement is that they should not have been surprised because of the source of this whisky.

And this time Steve tries to do the ending and gets hijacked by Marijn.

Opinions vary in this podcast with the usual disagreement on Architecture coming first but we hope the different opinions, thoughts and discussions help you work out what’s best for you.

The boys disagree on the readability of URLs and naming convention for Sites Marijn is a believer in identifiable and named url’s and whilst Steve is a believer in a Code or number for the Intranet, we look at the pro’s and con’s of a readable url.    

The One-Inch Party is defined as 3 days before Commsverse with a reminder that September 12th is the Office365 Distilled One-Inch party and September 15th and 16th is Commsverse the Hybrid MS teams conference.

Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) is discussed and the involvement of Leadership to support the solutions around RBAC and Steve identifies some of the difficult steppingstones for success which will change but solid processes and dynamic groups make this a real success possibility.

A blended whisky again is selected to finish off the podcast with an independent bottler taking great whiskies from the lowlands creating ‘The Epicurean’ blended whisky from Douglas Lang. 

“but how does this effect the user?” Is a question that Steve and Marijn cover. We do know that adding security is a balance with the inconvenience cause with additional authentication and speed reduction through encrypting content etc. 

Mark Vale and Martin Boam creators of Commsverse join us to provide some background about how this Hybrid conference is designed to focus on networking and deep diving into MS Teams over 2 days at Mercedes-Benz world in the UK 

Peer comparison in Secure Score is discussed which is a great way to judge your figure against representative peer companies and how settings today will not consistently keep your percentages up because accessing secure score is important to ensure a high level of security.

Secure score can manage your tasks and projects around security and allows you to mitigate the risks if your DLP for example is managed by external tools.  Defining who can see, read, and edit secure score is important to ensure the right people have appropriate access.

Alerts are discussed that will set some policies which check various aspects of the user experience for those users who forward their email to external accounts or remove their Junk Email folder.

Whisky raises its head as usual and we move east with a blend from Japan and Steve forgets the the name of the recent Sherry Bomb Whisky he tasted on his journey to appreciating Sherry whisky and then Marijn introduces a Japanese Whisky finished in Rum barrels from Okinawa. 

The future of collaboration is discussed looking at Fluid capabilities with such great excitement and the boys discuss recent announcements within MS teams from build.  

Advice on becoming a MS teams Rockstar is included as well as a slightly longer discussion on Kilchoman Experimental Casks… which we of course had to taste!!

30+ years ago you only had the ability to share a network drive holding files you and the team needed.  Today you have co-authoring, Sharing, Document templates, Improved search capability, live sharing of content and integration of voice, Video and Content.

We look at the Corporate Collaborative Roadmap and route your organization needs to take along with the investment of tools, time, and resources to move forward.

How do you measure the work and return on investment as you roll out the M365 services and deliver collaboration to your organization?  Steve and Marijn tell some stories in EP60 of office365 Distilled around the Roadmap to deliver collaboration.  Starting from over 40 years ago when a network drive was all that was available through to full collaboration.

Finally, we tell you one of the best Whiskey stories to emerge over the last few years that created a very special whisky.  The story and the whisky combined bring you the best whisky tasting yet from the boys of Office365Distilled with the help of Uncle Nearest!

00:00:14 Steve
KI kind of hate this whole notification thing in Ms teams. Okay.

00:00:21 Marijn
Probably because you're not using it in the right way.

00:00:26 Steve
Okay Mr. high and freaking Mighty then why? What am I doing wrong?

00:00:27 Marijn
****

00:00:29 Marijn
No, no no. I'm just saying this notification system works as you know, just like it should on Outlook 

00:00:41 Marijn
For when people are collaborating in the organization and you or they should send you an email where you are in the CC.

00:00:49 Marijn
See, you shouldn't be. You shouldn't have to read. It's not information that you need to know in order to do your job. 
If you're in the CC square, so for that they can just post that information on the team. If they need you to do something with it that you need to be put in the two fields and for that, in teams, the equivalent is actually tagging you or tagging a group of people, and that is the thing that you should get in your notification.

00:01:20 Marijn
Should only be the items that you need to do something with.

In Episode 57 of Office365Distilled:

#OFFICE365DISTILLED Steve Dalby and Marijn Somer in EP57 discuss top items to teach anyone how to Collaborate

#OFFICE365DISTILLED Steve Dalby and Marijn Somer in EP57 Ask you to Tell us your thoughts on the podcast

#OFFICE365DISTILLED Steve Dalby and Marijn Somer in EP57 Discuss what's in a name when the hidden 'Spaces' became 'Moka' which was launched as 'Boards' and is Project Moka now finished?

#OFFICE365DISTILLED Steve Dalby and Marijn Somer in EP57 discuss the constant complain that no definitive date is available for a new application to launch.  But Steve knows why.

#OFFICE365DISTILLED Steve Dalby and Marijn Somer in EP57 Talk about some new features like Boards, Scheduler, and the Duo.

#OFFICE365DISTILLED Steve Dalby and Marijn Somer in EP57 What are the values of collaborations tools, feature richness, ease of use, in place governance?

#OFFICE365DISTILLED Steve Dalby and Marijn Somer in EP57 hit the usual disagreement on telling the user the way they should collaborate.

And as mentioned in the podcast…  'e' vIHarqang, ghojwI'pu' qeylIS,  

The boys hook into the simple task of Saving or Opening documents in Microsoft 365 and conclude that it has not changed in 30 years and still it’s difficult to open a document unless you recently accessed it.

They look at the new All document update on the home page and how now it is more than the most recent 15 documents.  It provides a bunch of extra stuff about the documents.  Marijn identifies that the new App bar will also identify recent content from different sites.

Cortana coms back as the boys discuss if ‘miss Graph is somehow related and who has the real intelligent.

What is the definition of Recent documents and does Delve, Cortana and Miss Graph have some input to what is displayed?

Is it the time to bring back ‘My Site’ a place where anyone can see you and all about you.  You blogs, documents… Maybe this is the time to bring back a more accessible ‘My profile’ that looks good in public.

If you want to see Steve and Marijn on their You Tube channel Click >>>  https://youtu.be/8m8clnpRtsk?sub_confirmation=1  

The boys finish in true lockdown style by talking about 2 whiskies, yes 2 one from Scotland and one from Japan.

 https://youtu.be/8m8clnpRtsk?sub_confirmation=1  

They report back on the speaking session that has not happened at the point of recording but went well at the time of the mix down!!!

The subject is Viva which of course is built on the release notes of cortex and its been really cool watching this initial release and launch turn into a set of great products.

Steve points out that historic applications like Delve and Graph have driven the capabilities that today has been refined into Viva Topics and Connections.

So they look at the extra features and the four products…    Topics, Connections, Learning and Insights.

Marijn looks at Topics and how it could retain the corporate knowledge.  Steve suggests that adoption is all about teaching people to share and collaboration and disagrees with Marijn who suggests that people keep it in their head.

The knowledge is less tacit and more hidden on OneDrive etc.

Viva will not necessarily fix problems, but it will provide the evidence to move towards a solution. 

Security is important but it might need to go a step earlier and start to show content that you are not allowed to see.  Of course, with permission.

Connections and topics will need managed metadata and transparency in place and across the organization.

One great working example might be Viva ensuring everyone is reminded about the Agile Epics, Features User stories that are relevant to a specific topic.  Maybe it can start to enhance communicate strategic items if seeding is correctly enabled across the organization.

Shout out for the March teams Summit and the Omaha365 User Group lunchtime sessions where Steve and Marijn have slots to speak.

Steve realizes that he should not trust everything he hears because he believed that you could only have 30 channels, but the reality is 200+. Always confirm your information.

UPDATE:  If you want to see all the MS Teams previews as they release then  Admin Teams > Teams > Update Policies  and decide who should get the new updated features

Marijn explains how to use MS teams and how you can manage your time spend using MS teams through a little personal management of your channels and Teams.   This includes showing how to use MS Teams showing how to Tag people.

Steve talks about including content in the adoption communications, and Marijn tells you how you can re-apply the un-read items.  They also cover the fact that notifications are essential to ensure that you are notified about the crucial channels and teams

Marijn tells his latest User story about asking Microsoft to show in the OneDrive Synchronized files to show which ones are shared as an icon

Steve suggests that before you create a new Team or new Channel that you think about how the user will feel about another entity or if a new document library will suffice

 Remember you can @ someone In the chancel if the subject is right but use the personal channels to speak to someone directly.

Steve points out that the convenience of ‘Just creating a new Team’ has some dependency on the global retention policy, which might, of course, mean a team/SPO site cannot be deleted.

Emojis can same lots of time and responses, use the LIKE to make a powerful statement of support

Steve suggests a new App called the @ed me App that sends over all the Likes from your outlook and MS Teams chat.

Control of Notification is possible; check the settings

Steve talks about the ‘MS teams search’ bar and how cool it is. Discovering the strength of the / comments and the @ and # the search of great content

The boys discuss that the search bar must be a hot item for MS to be strongly considering.

We look at the channels and how you can now add the Praise images for things like Awards

Checking out connectors and add-ins for the channels for integration with external apps

Bots are discussed, and whilst it is a great idea, but then we wonder how many people stick with a bot long term

So the real question is eventually asked why you would create a private channel?  Marijn quotes one great example of keeping content away from external people who are in the same team.

Marijn Quotes Disney, specifically a Princess, on the Office365Distilled podcast. 

As an end-user, who would they create a private channel when they could make the team.  Other than Private channels, ONLY in the coming months, will have retention applied.

Two words  ‘ It Depends’  which whilst we laugh about is a perfect description for considering when and if to create a Private channel 

Be aware that you can only be a member of a private Channel if you are a team member.  When you add people to a private channel, the user list is driven by the Team membership

Marijn suggests that the objective is to collaboration, so ignore the no folder rule, and Steve indicates that this is a compromise too far.

Add channels and build things that only add value as a golden ruled

The day they both met for the first time and the spark that said this would be cool.

The first date when they started to understand the complexities and depth of our new partner.

That extraordinary moment of the first Kiss and you realised that this was a commitment for life.

Of course, they discussed getting to second base, but we edited that bit out after all who wants to hear about anyone getting intimate with a software piece. But don’t underestimate the need to get-on-down with SharePoint to make it shine with happiness!

The many arguments that took place because SharePoint would not do the things you wanted to do

That moment in any relationship when you realised it was getting serious

The sad time of the affair when SharePoint ran away with Exchange and created the illegitimate child calls Groups.

Briefly, the breakup of the family is discussed as Lists leave home and set up on their own

And we touch on the adopted family where the Hub site can connect with lost children.

Marijn explains that he has moved to the dark side on the side of the user. All because they have cookies.  Marijn shouts out that he will be on Blame the end-user video and the boys call out about the people they are collaborating with.

Steve eventually starts with Parallelism, not a cult but looking at how the F1 teams manage with reductions in all areas for 2021 and looking to make every bit of resources count.  So how can we parallel that to the adoption of Office365?

Steve suggests we look at the Big sell for the big 3 apps in M365.

Outlook always goes first, so what adds the most significant value, steve suggests it connects to all the other content in the Cloud ecosystem.  The value of such things like adding an attachment in a literal few seconds.

Marijn talks about the Email being a notification tool, but the components are active to respond without leaving the outlook message.

Email keeps you in touch with lots more great notifications like an update by others in co-authored documents.  And Dear jeff messages gets the idea of groups notifications and Cortana groups all the updated together.

Lists become a valuable item for SharePoint as well as a massive shout out for Metadata from Marijn.  Steve reminds us that now on Lists, you get comments by default.

It all just happens, fantastic!

Steve learns something new following on from checking in with Marijn about auto-tagging in folders. With MS teams, this makes your folder view from your channels become dynamic metadata driven libraries.

Marijns value for MS teams is about everything in one place… much of it as an extension of collaboration.

The boys lower the tone a little by suggesting that we only attend meetings Partly dressed and take the session with a twinkle in the eye

Then there is a hint of the new WhiskyAtEase YouTube channel to be launched soon as Steve and Marijn got together over the holidays to record the first Whisky Journey across Scotland. Watch this space.

Finally finishing off with a conversation about eating in the lockdown the boys eventually start to get to the subject of this podcast   MOCA, the Modern Collaboration Architecture…

Successful collaboration means getting the community time, individual time, and team time in the right proportion

The Microsoft adoption web site S&M check out the MOCA one page PDF and the supporting slide show.

There is a lot of conversation around the value of community in the business supporting the development of innovation at the coffee machine that is not available in lockdown.  Steve suggests that community-time is management driven community time within an ever-filled calendar.

How do you encourage Lockdown community?  People need time to interact as a community for personal development and to discuss ideas when there is pressure to meet goals and focus on delivery

The MOCA document shows SWAY which Marijn says must be SharePoint… is he saying Sway is not a collaboration tool 😊 

Performing in a team means getting support for community time and individual time

There is a discussion about the Team's applications to use. Steve suggestions that published content does not belong in OneNote. It is a NOTE book, not a sway PAGE.

Teams are discussed, and the suggested number of 5-12 is explained as a scientific fact around quantity v Qualitative and how decisions can be agreed quickly with the right number.

Steve talks about a solution for ensuring sites are correctly aligned with the governance so Site Owners can adjust their settings if needed.

The boys have a long chat about the ratio of time between Community, Individual and Team time that ensures a team member has time to be creative and support the team goal

This is an unusual finish for an O365Distilled podcast because neither of the boys gets on with the Whisky they have chosen to taste; it leaves an oily finish that they find unpleasant. But they still finish the glass.

So there are definitions of maturity for M365 which starts at 100 and moves through 5 levels 100 to 500.  

Steve works through the Differences and Definitions and the boys look to understand the people who will drive maturity…

The 25-year-old millennial who drives change because they need new tools and don’t want to work with old tools that have been around for 20 years.

Steve gets a little hissy about the value of the individual when it comes to measuring the organisation maturity…  and Marijn drops his ‘It Depends’ when considering how to drive the change forward.

The conclusion is that Chaotic theory will kick in and groups of people will drive forward their areas because of individual motivation.

Steve makes Marijn look at the maturity level and decide if he is for them or against them…  he sees that they are a great baseline.  They try to work out how to create the baseline…

Marijn makes a list of the things that you are looking to achieve with the business and Steve keeps trying to get Marijn to see that some measurement is required…  so that continual improvement can continue you need to understand the start.

Level 100 is often defined by the lack of consistency in how Microsoft 365 is used across the organisation leading to confused and frustrated users.  Islands of Expertise be a positive but as people move from island to island the experience is different

The conversation turns to looking at how this might be affected by the size of the organisation… will 5 people move to higher levels quicker than say 5000…

At Level 200 where a common understanding exists then new changes and updates can be fitted in… Level 200 means that an organisation has a set of common policies that the whole company can work towards.

Marijn points out that this enables the standards to be based on the business needs and values are…

Level 300 is the minimum target where Collaboration becomes a standard process, and the role of the consultant is to ensure that the company gest to Level 300.

Real value is obtained when you measure the maturity of the company and productivity score considering them together.  Together they provide the reference points that can drive change and Continual improvement  

At level 300 the organization will start to see real improvement in the way the organization communicates and changes.

Reaching 400 means that the Business trust the technology and the service providers.  However too much formality can reduce agility…

Maybe the move to level 400 does not work for your organization so care is needed to ensure that a formal approach with automation does not reduce the ability to develop further.

At level 500 the company is better managed with automation as standard replacing many regular functions previously manage manually or driven by manual processes

The optimization at Level 500 use as it is appropriate.

In conclusion defining the development and levels of maturity it provides a basis for management to define the level of change needed and to justify the costs that it will take and enables a value to be defined

Then it is time to go to the Ilse of Aaron on the west coast of Scotland for our whisky tasting for a whisky named after a famous stone that gets the name… ‘elegance in a bottle’ 

Marijn askes a great question of the listeners… How did we change your mind about something over the last 50 episodes?

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…

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…

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

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

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!! 

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….

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…

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!!