 Hey everybody, this is Christian Buckley with another host tweet jam discussion. I've got Wes on today. He was gracious enough He's a regular. I was like that. It's a longtime listener first-time caller to the post But what why don't you introduce yourself? My name is West Preston. I'm a Microsoft MVP. I think in my 11th year for share share point and Is it more than that 12th? All right 12th year Yeah, time flies that last year was kind of a blur. So Yeah, so mostly around share point which kind of migrated evolved into office servers and services and now I spend most of my time doing Kind of the in-between technology and business. So I spend a lot of time with the power platform with lists still Independent consultant working on a startup that has to do with all of that stuff with managing tech skills Platforms knowledge all that fun stuff. I also I also organized the biggest event. Oh, that's true. Yeah twin cities SharePoint Saturday, which recently renamed to m3 65 Twin cities Nice. I was going to throw in one other thing. It's also co-authors of that if you are it hot off the presses a few years back But if you are dying for tips like solution guidance for SharePoint 2010 Well, that's that I can hook you up with the book. I Could pull one off the shelf over there if you want me to I you know Mine's in a box over in that closet over there Yeah, I yeah, I used to have them I had them out and all that stuff, but you know, it's a pain to dust all that stuff I know Yeah, they keep cleaning out the older ones too and ours are kind of in that mode now so I have to say that one of my favorite things when we were running the SharePoint Saturdays on Microsoft campus back in the days when I had a purple badge So it was a vendor a partner badge for those that Blue badge orange badge purple badge Anyway, so I had access into office spaces the access that's gone to the world now unless you're a blue badge And you would go into any of the little Kitchen areas in just about any building and you would find discarded books It was kind of a service that Microsoft would provide to employees That were on-site there and they would just get rid of their books and other tech gear in the kitchen area And somebody would come and take it along or anybody could grab it We used to go and just grab like ancient technical books and then give them away as the rival prices It was it was fantastic except one time we were giving away something that was like like an ancient I don't know dot-net or even pretty dot-net just something ancient technology book and the author was in the audience I was waiting for you to say that you came across a pile of our old books because they're discarded by the Microsoft folks Now I'm not sure that any of the Microsoft people bought our books Yeah, that's probably true. Yeah, but anyway, well listen to the topic this this last Sharepoint or this less share for see I go that direction the last flab talk tweet jam was improving productivity in the enterprise And so we had a great turnout for that and there was a lot of discussion And it was it was kind of the warm and fuzzy questions around this and I was interested They were meant to be broader so that people can bring, you know specific Experiences to the space and so I know that you know with our history of a lot of talk about improving collaboration and Productivity in general that means we have a lot of those discussions where even you know in the SharePoint space How the discussion shifted as you saw broader and broader adoption and reach of the platform for very technical keeping the servers up Scripting building custom blah blah blah to whatever that was up to now We're really talking more about the business. How do we keep the people engaged? What are these business scenarios? How do we keep up people happy and coming back and collaborating more because when more people collaborate? We get more out of the technology itself. That was kind of the basis of this of this topic So let me start out question number one. What three things would have the greatest impact on enterprise productivity and why? And again, like you said pretty darn broad I think my I think my during the tweet jam I think my answer was was something like the people the tools and the leadership Which leads in the lots of other stuff, right? I mean people is gonna be making sure you've got the right skills there making sure you've got the collaborative kind of Personality that the right culture Tools is obviously where we've been playing for years with SharePoint and now Teams and all of the other stuff in that period periodic chart that someone we got out there And then leadership I always come back to leadership because they're the ones that are They're setting the vision and they're clearing the path Hopefully for people to do their job and getting the right tools in and all that stuff But I mean it's such a mishmash of so many different things You know with so many different variables variables So we just come back to our role. It depends, you know, it depends. Well, and that's and I want something similar I think I talked about you know people process and technology being the three But it's it's kind of like I'm a marketing guy and there's always talked about, you know You adjust the marketing mix the four P's or five P's depending on which methodology, you know And you get you're constantly fine-tuning just like in operations. You look at the metrics You look at the scorecards the KPIs and you're constantly tuning. How do we improve? How do we improve? You know, you improve 20% now. How do we get another 5%? How do we keep moving forward? And you do that with that mix of people process and technology And so there's always gonna be just you could have extremely happy people on Far outdated technology and still be able to get process done and be successful I would argue that you can have the top-of-line technology and if your people aren't happy it doesn't matter What the technology it's it's a failure. So I weigh it heavily on the people side, but all three of those are Important. Yeah, and when we I mean when we when I go into a place and I'm talking to people, too, it's it's a lot of Evaluating where the pain is at that particular time, right? The one and the one that neither of us spent too much time talking about there because it's the most painful one to talk About is sometimes you have the wrong leadership, too And that's where you know, I've seen people like the like the EOS process and consultants on that side They tackle that heads-up head-on, but that's not typically something that you and I are gonna go in and say hey The guy who hired me he stinks Or I was hired to work on the wrong problem entirely and it doesn't have to like scope yet You know one of the great examples. I love this example is very visible Very transparent was back with the with the Yammer acquisition when nationwide was like the poster child for for Yammer But the story was of so I think it was nationwide insurance that was there and I Remember it was the CEO or there's somebody very senior in the org that was up on stage I think that was the SharePoint conference that was in Anaheim. I believe that was that anyway If I have my dates wrong my events wrong But anyway that in that example, it just talked about how somebody very junior in the support organization had posted a question out on On Yammer and like nobody responded to it and here the CEO because it's so flat the CEO went in Saw the question Responded to it and then immediately everybody's paying attention that and then it got hundreds of Responses and it was as used as an example of the power of what Yammer could do and the flat You know structure of it so anybody that you know could provide feedback. That's all true not to take away from that Yeah, however, it also shows the power of having executive support People will follow and if an executive the leadership team Doesn't believe in the solution or you know have that out there. It isn't using it Especially they disparage it in any way It's not gonna be adopted and so it's critical for them to be out front. Yep, absolutely agree So I'll go ahead. I was just gonna say it's a common conversation I have with people too because I'm usually at the at the team or like the platform Ownership level and it's you know, we start talking about governance and lots of other topics It's do we have support from execs? If not, we're gonna be fighting this uphill, right? Sorry, that's that's some ways. We're as an independent and you and I both had this experience Where you go in and say like I delivered on when I was hard to go and do and I'm not interested in extending I've got these other projects going on too. Yep. Yeah, you recognize that hot mess right away The second question kind of touches on the same thing. So because I asked the question It bias towards my response to the first question, but the second one considering people process and technology Where's the focus of your org and and why and so it could be like your think about, you know You some of your customers. Where is their focus and why? It's a tough one to say just because it I've seen so many of them in there most of the time when I'm getting engaged the focus is on the technology Or at least they think it is and it'll slip into Slip into or I might steer it towards the people part because they could they'll they'll come in and say Hey, I want you to make this technique I want this technology to do this and we'll we'll say hey, let's take a step back and see what why are you doing that? right, what's the reason for it and I Don't know what the odds are what the percentages are but in many cases It's a it's a people problem that a technology problem or it's a technology problem Where they have multiple answers for it and someone in the org has to decide which path they want to take So I mean, it's it's tough, right? They it's the it's a it's a very Typical consulting problem where a consultant or a company is going to say hey I want you to use this to solve this When that's really not the problem, right? So Well, they try to be so prescriptive in nailing down, you know edge cases that you know specific scenarios that they're solving for and That really just has kind of a domino effect of then locking out other scenarios Yep, and I know that there there's the I mean There's a lot of fear and some of it justified of leaving the system wide open turning all flipping all switches Turning everything on give everybody access and they just let it go Yep And that is fantastic for consultants to then come back in later and clean up all the mess that's created there We just did so I just did a survey and ask that exact question while I ask the question I'm looking at my results over here Saying how do you characterize your organization's implementation? Are you bleeding edge? Are you letting everything turn to get turned on? Are you spending time doing? Some hey, let's check this out and roll it out with you know, my thought Yeah, with a method. Yeah, and or are you super conservative, right? You're gonna. Hey, this new stuff has come in Let's see how everyone uses it before we turn it on and it's about 20% bleeding edge, which is kind of more than I thought there would be About half is where we like to see people right with the we're checking it out We're trying to be methodical, but we're what we're using it and then probably another 40% are doing the super conservative side So I was I was a little surprised at that I was surprised that there were that many people doing the bleeding edge or what I would call bleeding edge But really what I'm calling bleeding edge is what Microsoft is pushing hard, right? It's new features. We're turning them on by defaults, but you know get them in the hands of your users Even if they're not technical like oh, well, you know why I mean my Microsoft because they're all unhappy because they're all dog Fooding and their stuff is constantly breaking because they they have to do dog food And so they want everybody else to be miserable Enjoy this food. Yeah, but but it's different, right? It's I mean They are pushing stuff a lot harder than they have in the past and I Understand some of the reasons why and but from our perspective as the people that are out there implementing and helping companies that are feeling the pain There's there's pros and cons to that to that push, right? Well, yeah, it's it's the well I mean, it's one of the probably the most common question that people ask like how do you keep up and the answer I jokingly answer every time, but it's the truth. It's yeah, it's that why don't Yep, and and so I have certain people certain podcasts certain blog posts that I follow up on I'm reading through the message center updates to get the email notifications I'm reading through those on a regular basis to try and you know catch up and then immediately I reach I look to other people to find out what do they say by the zigzag I don't fully understand the impact of this It feels like this could be an issue and I'll wait for smarter people to respond that are in-depth on Security for example that that kind of stuff. So you it is That's why you have to you know one you can't hide from it. You delay the responses. You could be on a slower ring It will catch up at some point It you still need to change the way that you're Consuming and then training and updating your environment. Yeah, and I think a lot of it depends on it This is this might be the next question, but it's I think it plays into the culture, too Yeah, it's it depends on what the culture of your company is There's there are going to be companies that fit in all three of those niches and if they're if they're Bringing on the technology that aligns with the way that their culture works Then it's great. Yeah, but that where we run into problems is where they do the miss the mismatch, right? You've got a conservative organization and then you've got someone in IT Who's like bring on all the really cool new stuff and the rest of people are just tripping over themselves So it's a matter of matching that stuff up I think and there's and it is great that you can again, you know, you know faster slower rings for the new features and new capabilities But you can also be very conservative Microsoft is getting better that not just releasing a new feature and having it by default on I mean, they're they're thinking through in my again They've always thought through some of it like hey, this needs to be here for this reason They're doing a better job of communicating those things and some of the impacts there So yeah, so number three question three was exactly that about culture What role does culture play within enterprise productivity and how does an org build and maintain a strong culture? and it's in in relation to collaboration and productivity not just culture and generically of the organization Although it's just you know an aspect. It's a subfolder or of the broader culture Yeah Yeah And I think I said this on the when we were on the actual tweet jam too. It's like culture is It's such a it's such a buzzword, right? And it means so many different things But it comes to what we've just been talking about a lot and it's how how people Are flexible and accommodating and I think this is where Over the past. I don't know how many years we've been talking about this But where we're like the user adoption thing all of a sudden got to be super important And you know, we spent a lot of time on it for good reason. It was How do different organizations accommodate that user adoption because it was I? Would say traditionally it was shoving tools down the business's throat. Oh, yeah It Microsoft didn't care about it and though there was there was a turnaround and now for those that don't know some of the history I mean exactly why it happened the way that it happened is Because when Microsoft started when they rebranded MMS to be passed to office 365 and launched office 365 They were still as a company Microsoft was pushing out through enterprise agreements And what was happening is the end of those ea's People were not renewing a bunch of these components and why because they realized they were paying for something that they weren't getting the broad Adoption across the organization and so suddenly you know those of us that were in the community Especially that we're just shouting this from the rooftops trying to saying, you know Adoption is everything, you know, if people aren't using it, they're not gonna keep paying for it. Duh Well that finally it clicked and it worked its way into the KPIs The the the measurements for the sales people the sellers within Microsoft and that's what moved things around Well, then an effect of that happened where it then got then Microsoft people thinking well How do we improve adoption? How do we have a stained adoption in an ongoing? Adoption get them in plugged in up to speed to know how to use it and long-term engagement Which is the ongoing activity and more activity. How do we increase that because we know that the more engaged people are the more Productive they are the more benefits that they get out of the solutions that they have and the more likely that they'll be happy With the solutions themselves and feel like getting their money's worth so it's all tied in there if you know a lot of times from a cultural standpoint my experience is just that There's an executive back to that an executive or two who get it Who get it and understand that we don't always have the exact measurement for the result of this thing But more people talking together working and sharing information is better for us Even though we don't know the attribution of a lot of this is hard to do. Yeah And I think I'm probably biased in my opinion I think the community was probably a half step ahead of Microsoft in terms of recognizing that That that user adoption was important and it was hey instead of just turning these things on or or making them available And or an executive, you know declaring we're gonna we're gonna use this tool it was we need to spend some time working with the people they're gonna use these tools and Show them why it's important or show them why it's you know Easy or beneficial or show them what the value is and once they bought into that once we I don't say coddled It's not the right word But once we kind of nudge them down that path and kind of gave them that message and they bought into it User adoption became super easy, right and in the past it was really like turn it on Here's a new tool learn how to use it. Here's a training thing People are like I got work to do that. I'm not gonna go do this or spend any time on it But once we started explaining to them that there was value then they're like, oh, well, that makes a lot of sense Let me start using it. So that's I think there was a change there a Little ahead of where Microsoft started to get into it now Thankful, I'm super excited with all the resources we have for Microsoft now with the the different sites with the road map Messaging with the message center messaging. I mean all of that stuff is is fantastic And I think way ahead of other organizations or other, you know service providers So it's it's an exciting place to be That's a great segue into the next question, which I think touches on it It almost like kind of bridges between, you know, the culture down into now that the practice the change management aspect of it So focusing on technology, how do you or your organization approach productivity improvements? So I think you name some of those tools watching those things So it's you know, you've got the listeners that are out there So that you can actually follow and filter on the road map site for example And you get more data about which which changes which road map items actually impact Your tenant And be able to follow those things along to subscribe to you know Or you'll follow those items so that you get the updates instantly when changes happen to the roadmap for example Yep, and I think that I was really excited about the message center and how they So like when I think of message center I think traditionally of an IT pro type of person that's managing or or monitoring that it's generally not the user base But bringing it when they when they set up that link between message center and planner and with all of the other automation tools that we have available to us now Now we can now we can see that stuff as it comes down We can say here here are my different platforms or my platform owners It's coming, you know, there's something from message center That's about that plant platform and I can route it to them and stick it in front of their face That is awesome. It's it sometimes it's like that You have to you still have to do some tweaking and filtering on it But if we can get that stuff that's coming down and get it in the in front of the people that need to see it That's super exciting from a governance perspective. What is something to that's a great point that it's it's much more You know public facing out there. So if the admin admin team has somebody who is a power user That is very passionate about a solution where we're waiting for an update from Microsoft on You can point them towards that they can watch that in real time It's a great accountability tool so that when it does ticks over, you know, they are watching it at, you know 1201 a.m. They're aware that the change took effect and they can harass you then internally about Hey, when we get to get it when we it's now live out there And of course then you have to go back and explain the whole concept of rings and where you are as an org to get it That's why I love you know some of that changes And one of the asks it out that's been out there for a long time is in the message center updates and the roadmap Don't just tell me what's available out there. Even that is now rolling out don't tell me about it or Highlight it flag it somehow when it's actually touched my tenant. I would love that capability But but that is something that is great. You have a lot more insight into what's happening Than we've ever had before yep And I think it's I think back to eons ago when I worked for target corporations it And we were on you know, we had a I can't remember what the group was called But it was part of the change management group, right? So it would it would be get all the platform owners in a room and if This technology had a change coming then the rest of us could go and that doesn't touch me or oh crap That's going to really you know impact my group. That was the meeting where all of those conversations happen You know if we if we had that evaluation, you know somewhat automated through this process That was that'd be super powerful, right? If I can sit there and say You know look at the list of things that are coming and before that meeting or is part of a different process I can go no no no. Oh, that's one. I'm going to have to spend some time researching Super super effective and that's that was from the it pro side, right? That's like oh my gosh It's going to affect my server That's so many of those things that come down trickle right down into the users And that would give those platform owners time to say all right this new change is coming And if it's you know, it could be message center could be roadmap Either way it gives us time to say all right. Here's something that's coming. Here's my communication plan Here's my training plan. Here's my whatever To make sure that everyone's ready for it or You know, we're not we know we're not ready for it So what are we going to do about it? And it's all of these things that microsoft is giving us from that perspective has been great from a communication and adoption and governance perspective You know early in my career, what this reminds me of early in my career I started out as a business analyst and then a technical project manager and that was my world for the first decade of my 30 years and You know in that world was around change management and a lot of the You know desktop management in the old way a lot of it on-prem all that but all the server management all of those solutions And the way that they would go and and deploy You know desktops and laptops and all that and own all these systems and tools But you had You know a centralized team that owned all of that and would then create the communications the training schedule and all of that And I think we're we're starting to see organizations are getting better and figuring out How to do that again And and it was it was lost for a while and a lot of organizations Even especially if they moved most of their systems to cloud services Did away with those teams. They're like, oh, we're consuming the service here and stuff. It's like Yeah, but no Have that Yeah, like especially if you have if you are using any of the telephony capabilities Like you need to have a dedicated person who's smarter than all of us that knows a bunch of those things because None of them works seamlessly And don't anybody send me angry emails, you know that there's like it. I'm sorry No, you're blind to all of the issues that still happen around the telephony side of things especially yeah But uh, especially about teams. I know that works flawlessly Yeah, and I would I would argue that those teams are are more relevant now Just because of the speed of change is you know, the more the more of those cloud The more cloud-based services that you use The more you're using stuff that changes so fast that you have to have someone paying attention to it all the time That's this goes back to the conversation that we were having years ago as The cloud started entering the conversation so back in 2014 2015 of like what happens to the it pro like what happens that role and and we would say all the time in fact, I did a session at the first The ignite when it re tech ed moved to ignite and it was the chicago event. So when was that five six years ago So I did a session it was packed. There's like 1500 people in the session on On you know, what happens that role and where I went and did You know survey to the community and got feedback So it was an hour of me going through and sharing data from microsoft As well as sound bites from various mvps and experts and vendors and and partners that are out there and the the the message overwhelmingly was The role doesn't go away. The need doesn't go away. It changes for sure But you need to have people that understand the systems that understand What's happening behind the scenes of how the services are consuming data how they're connected And that when stuff goes wrong like how you're going and and uh doing the root cause analysis became more difficult When you don't own the servers and you're having to go to microsoft for that frontier Yeah, so speaking of having to go to microsoft to solve problems Describe your greatest productivity blunder And how you hopefully turned it around I can't think of anything you'd like to share Well, I can't think of a specific like oops. I did something horrible. Honestly to me it was it's To me it's being able to filter out and manage all the social media distractions So that and that to me is an ongoing challenge Partially because it's what there's just so much crap out there. Um, but it's People will say the easiest oh just turn it off like well. Yeah, that's easy But there's I have a lot of community things that happen through those through those Those channels where I have to be able to I shouldn't say have to It's helpful to me to be able to see some of that stuff. So my challenge is partially Partially disciplined and partially using tools to filter things down into the stuff that I need to see during the day And leaving all the family and personal stuff to you know other times Um, but that's I'm easily distracted. So that to me has been probably my biggest I wouldn't call it a blunder, but I would call it a challenge from a productivity perspective Well, sometime when we're sitting down in person, I'll tell you my adventures in a past company where It was a prom that came up with somebody falsifying test data results test results And that caused some problems the failed go live of a major system uh, yeah, so Uh, but but that again, I wasn't a wasn't a blunder Other than uh, you know a a deceitful employee who got reported to the authorities Oh Yeah, but anyway, that was what came to mind first, but I think most of uh, you might my first thought Oh, that's my first thought the second thought around that was uh Was I think being uh overly optimistic about some of the technology And especially when it's brand new and wasn't fully vetted And so I mean even microsoft has pulled back on new features. They've released things You know and then gone back and changed and I you know and for the people that that that moan and complain about when microsoft Oh, they just they just released it a month ago. What are they doing? I'm like, I'm glad to hear those examples Where the feedback is overwhelming like that didn't Didn't land as intended or they didn't foresee this scenario or You know something else and microsoft then Brought it back in like that's part of that what needs to be there the dynamic nature of these Cloud services is that fast respond time to be able to go and fix things Yep, and it's the the nice part of that whole thing is that it's it's pretty rare that that happens and it has to be a pretty significant Deal for them to do it, but I'm glad that they do it too. Um, it might be painful, but it's all communication, right? Exactly last the last 12 calendar months I think twice I've seen that happen. Maybe a third time, but twice that i'm i'm confident All right, so the next question number six within the microsoft ecosystem. Where can customers get the most bang for the buck in enterprise productivity? Well, I think the easy slam dunk is teams right now, right? And it's it's it's hard to It's hard to for that was this set up. I cast out. I reeled it back into everybody, but yeah, yeah, and it's I would say had it not been for the for the the covid situation It might have taken longer for teams to roll out But I mean even before them teams it was still ramping it was still ramping hard. I mean it it worked, right? I look at it again from a bias of our our long history with microsoft is um, I look at it as a Taking over a lot of the space that sharepoint used to have or that sharepoint was pitched to have But it does a better I think it does a better job of fitting with that collaborative space You know when we when we talked about team sites way back when But teams now fits that bill Even better than sharepoint did well, it's interesting that you know you had with back in the sharepoint as a Swiss army knife You know and organizations were trying to make it the one-stop shop for everything And the idea was and I even heard people saying that the well, let me back up There's a there's a whole slate of vendors That are called these intranet in a box solution providers That were you know their their goal was to put a pretty Face on top of sharepoint on the back end. That's where that all came from And teams mix that up a bit for them. I think um Bewildering to microsoft leadership. In fact, I interviewed teeper jeff teeper specifically about this Where he said he was surprised of the resilience of the intranet in a box providers And that they've only grown in fact, um The vendor out of clearbox consultant not clearbox. Um, who does uh out of the uk? Uh So the team that does the the intranet in a box report Um, yeah, so anyway, so their analysis they they have there's over 50 Solutions that are included within that report. There are others that are not included There's a lot of them out there and they're growing and some of them are doing very well now I'm not close. I don't have any vested interests at any of them But I think some are also struggling and that's just the natural there are better solutions than some that are out there But the fact that they have remained You know and and you know points to the need that people wanted to have a A nice business front end on top of of sharepoint teams has I have to believe Closing the window on a lot of those providers because it's providing a lot of the capability that that those orgs wanted He I'd say yes and no so to when I think when I think of sharepoint The historic sharepoint. I think of man historic. That's almost worse than modern, isn't it? It's I always thought of three different things. I thought of the internet, right the pushing to everybody I thought of team sites, which is where I think the the big landing zone for teams is and then solution sites, which is really falling into the The the power platform side now, right? I need to build a solution. That's you know, I go that path I think the in I think the internet one is still Still that's the number one right? Yeah, it's it's still there document collaboration and internet. That's the core strength of right Yeah, but the collab I think the collect from sharepoint from the collaboration perspective is It's still there and it's still super powerful, but it's really falling To more of a behind-the-scenes functionality because it's got all these other tools on top of it where sharepoints the core So it doesn't get all the fanfare, but it's still it's still the core technology behind all those collaboration things Internet is really the I don't want to say the last but it's really the big You know and when you say sharepoint, this is the big thing that's front and center That says sharepoint all over it, right? It's still internets So that that might be why there's so many of those out of the box providers that are still there, but Right and and well, that's the other thing too is that a lot of especially smaller. What's also happening Is you you have business trending and expansion is happening more rapidly within the smc Which is a small to medium business and traditional microsoft term corporate, which is the mid market So kind of everything under the enterprise, which again traditionally was you know, like 5000 seats and above wherever that is If you got 4999, I'm sorry. You're not an enterprise. You're no, yeah Um, but you have uh, you know so much growth that's happening there Because of teams because for a lot of organizations that said we don't have the the people the knowledge Or the time to go and build and maintain a sharepoint Formal intranet we'd love to have that capability and there used to be back in the wss days There was the small business server solutions and things that were out there Yeah, the fab 40 and all that kind of stuff that was built around it to make it easier for smaller organizations to be able to go And out of the box do these things Teams does that out of the box and provides a lot of that where a lot of organizations say we don't need a formal intranet But for those that do recognize and the the difference and need to have the different things My company at point we have our intranet. We have yammer that side-by-side with that We have and then we have teams and they're very distinct scenarios and i'm in all three every day you know And so it's that's that's part of the evolution there is that it's um, you have Use the right tools for the right problems Rather than which is a huge topic in our community right now, right? That's it's it used to be like you You said a couple of times before that share point was this big You know do everything um umbrella and it's really been kind of parsed out and split out into all the separate tools now but it's and I made reference to that uh periodic chart right of office or whatever it's I don't remember the original the right name for it but That illustration is so powerful from from the things that we have to communicate It's you don't need to know share point anymore You need to be aware of that entire chart and all the tools that are there I love pointing people to that matt wade did such a great job of that So if you don't know what we're talking about go search on matt wade periodic table It's a fantastic utility. There's a few others that have all been lesser Of his work on the periodic table all good work matt love it But that one is the rock star status one, but it's a great guide You know microsoft never created something that that uh useful that functional All right last question here west uh in your opinion Where should microsoft be investing to improve enterprise productivity or are they making the right investments? Hmm trying to remember what I said to that and during the tweet jam, but it's a lot of it was around the the Around the power platform. I think a lot of the commentary Well, and I think I think the platform the power platform is going to play a huge part because it's it's kind of that third I don't know third piece of what I was saying, right? It's the internet. It's the team's collaboration and it's the solution building um And that's where I spend a lot of my time. So I'm biased in terms of that I would add the fourth leg of community, but that's me, you know Well community kind of sits on top of all of that, right? It's it's yeah, but from a tool standpoint Yeah, I see what you're saying. Yeah, it's an enemy community falls into that that first the first one the Well the internet the yammer piece kind of the when you're talking about a community within an org when you're talking about community of you know all the people supporting the microsoft platforms are two separate things but I didn't need to get into a religious discussion about yammer, but uh, yeah, well, but anyway, you know what I mean I know what you mean Honestly, I think they're doing an awesome job right now when it comes to things like pushing out How do I use this? What's the benefit of this? What, you know, when do I use this? I think there's a great start I think we've mentioned a lot of the different tools that I'm excited about things like the The message center and the the roadmap piece and then learning the learnings site Those are all awesome and I think those are you know Above what other providers are are providing for their their user bases Um, but I think they need to keep going down there, right because the minute they stop then they're behind and everyone else Is kind of messed up too. So they have to they have to keep doing that in in terms of keeping up The communication to us and when I say us there's all these different audiences. They still have to be able to understand, right? There's Users there's power users. There's citizen developers it pros developers like all of those people And we need to keep getting content for all of us and it's that's tough That's I remember when we've been to some of our summits where you know at microsoft and we're talking We would it would usually be over a lunch session where they would bring in the people that are creating all the content And to ask us how they were doing That's not a big team, you know, there's there's just there's not enough people Providing that information to keep up with all the the rate of change And they do lean on the they do lean on the community as a whole They're doing a better job at that reaching out and having People that don't know too a lot of content increasingly you see out on microsoft docs Our community authored That's a great. That was a great move when they did that. Yep So, I mean that's to me that's a big thing. I think it's it's still going down the team's route It's still keeping down the the power platform route That my biggest concern with the the power platform route right now is that I think they're still trying to find their way from a how do we pay for this and it and it changes Yep, a little faster than people are comfortable with Or can figure out and licensing already within what the you know, the space that we work in is already a headache There's everyone is always like a licensing. I'm not even going to address that because it's HD and licensing to understand it. Yeah, and I think the power platform is is trying to their It sounds it sounds bad, but I don't mean it to sound bad. They're earlier in the maturity cycle to figure They're still figuring that out They would be the first to say that I mean the Microsoft has been open about that You know when they did the first change that caused such a you know Scuttle bug out there. Um, yep. Yeah a lot of frustration out there and Microsoft said look we're we're adjusting. We're you know, they they Look, they're they're a company that's in business to be in business They're not they can't be losing money on something and they're based on the usage patterns and and so it's just evolving and changing So I expected to evolve and change more But I'm surprised that one um One new offering that you didn't mention here at all and this entire time we've been talking Uh around viva And the reason I bring that up that investing more from a productivity standpoint And not that viva and the four offerings within that are the end all be all and that's it's a Skiu to some degree. There's new capability. There's different pieces that they branded under one piece For the purpose of you know, it's why Most people identified said really what Microsoft is they came out with an offering for hr That identified people recognize that why are they saying it? Why are they describing it in that way? because what it is it's capturing Experiences and data that are relevant to The how people are using the technology that they already own and better understanding and learning from You know the way the the patterns of collaboration today I guess I'm interested in this. I'm excited about this because I I think You've probably heard me say this before but I actually was on the path was actually registered was going to go start on My doctoral program was going to look at the social informatics around collaboration technology I was specifically going to study How collaboration technology is changing how we collaborate Team-based collaboration. So I'm very passionate about this topic. So very excited when they announced this piece I said finally I mean we've had insights and other analytics and pieces around that kind of skirted around that But this is like next level up. Not that it's again It's not it's this is we're in the Piloting of the beta of of these offerings They are in no way finished products and go talk to the teams Which were part of the alphas or betas that were early testers piloting out of capabilities And that will tell you a long way to go but microsoft is directionally correct And like hey, we need to have this data. I'm excited about that I'm excited about it. I'm excited about the potential for it, right? I'm I'm still on the Let's wait and see what actually comes out and what actually gets delivered and when it gets delivered So, I mean, I'm a little hesitant to be, you know, rah, rah Um, I think it's I think it's super powerful. I think I mean it it overlaps with it. It's got a It's got an overlap with the with my startup concept stuff So I understand the space and I'm I'm excited about that space, but I also think that it's um It's harder to deliver that message of what the value is to The masses, right? I think people that are thinking More at the management level are going to see this See the offerings and be excited about it because that's where they spend a lot of their time So it's it's a different it's a different audience to be message To put the message out to and it's like you said, it's still it's still being Refined developed all of that stuff So I'm I'm excited about a lot of the concepts of it but I'm also hesitant because I'm waiting to see how it actually gets delivered and um, it'll be interesting to see how they mess the messaging for it because it's going to be It it's not a Oh, you can do this better kind of message. It's it's you have to really walk someone down that path for them to go Oh, yeah, crap. That's really awesome. Let's bring it on You know, it's a it's a little bit harder message to deliver, but there's so much value there Well, I like that that it's You know to start utilizing the pieces that are out there today I mean, there there's some setup. I'm actually doing a session tomorrow on preparing for Viva and what's you kind of unique for for each one of those And there's still a lot that we don't know, but you know, so there's kind of general things to go and prepare for around that but um You know the the fact that there are There's community building around this and asking questions The fact that it uh, if you're already using the out-of-the-box capabilities that you have most of what you need for it It's not like I need to go and purchase E5 and a bunch other tools and do a bunch of custom development to get it to a place where I can start utilizing these things It's going to be much more streamlined and and plug-and-play To you know, how I use that that phrase but um into for those organizations that are interested in it So you're not being forced to go and use it like you could still do analytics at a bunch of different Personal and workplace analytics and do each of those pieces Or you can do it more comprehensively, you know once insights is deployed more broadly um But uh, yeah, so when you have a a you you could still have your learning you know paths in place In your environment, but if you want to Be able to track and measure your your enterprise learning and the the uh, the learning paths Inside your organization track that like then there's a benefit for stepping up to that next that next piece and they all You know intertwine and they're they're all related to each other. So anyway That's I know there's a lot we could talk just on that one topic yep, but Wes really appreciate your time going through and again as always participating in so many of the uh the tweet jams We got another one coming up this month I love them. I'm glad thanks for hosting those because I I just uh, I get jazzed doing them You know, it's it's fun to answer. It's fun to see It's fun to see what other people are seeing and kind of their different perspectives and just kind of letting that Roll on on on top of each other. I love it I agree. It's uh, especially if you blog if you're if you speak and things it is to get other people's perspectives And and same seems to use like I'm I'm often in fact, I don't think there's a single share point I use the word share point again the single Clive talk tweet jam where I've not Seen a response that was the opposite of what my default answer was and made me kind of go Hmm. Well, that's that's interesting. I didn't think about that like every single time I get those kinds of responses So it's it's great to go and see that of course those are sponsored by Um by tigraph that provides the tooling and measures that an app point my uh, you know my sponsor here for this the event But west people want to find out more about you get in touch with you. How can they find you? um, they can find me on twitter at um at idub's idubbs They can find me at the same name www.idubbs.com Um, those are probably the two easiest, you know community ways of getting getting to me. Um Yeah, we'll just leave it at that. Those are the easiest ones and if so he's he's out there. He's a he's an overpriced high-end consultant, so if you want his Very reasonably priced people come on Uh, yeah, so if you if you like what something that he said hire him So let me know yeah west, uh appreciate it and i'm gonna see you at the end of the month I will be in your neck of the woods driving out So gonna make that, uh, I don't know how what is it a 19 hour drive or something like that from uh, Salt Lake city to go into How do you pronounce it ots we go ots we go a tzigo a tzigo there you go a tzigo That's where i'm going the land of the native american names. We have that's right Excellent. Well, thanks a lot and we'll uh, we'll talk to you. All right. Take care