 Hey everybody, this is Christian Buckley doing another MVP buzz chat and I'm talking today with Melanie. Hello. Hello. Good to see you from Minneapolis. It was just saw you of course at the event and for those that haven't been out to the M365 Twin Cities event that just happened and it's we're back on the twice a year schedule right is that yes we are. So we'll be back in the spring again. So Melanie for folks that don't know you who are you already you already said where you are but what do you do. Okay, so I am an eight time Microsoft MVP for M365 apps and services and I work for Ernst & Young. I am an associate director and what that means in my role is that I am what we call a campaigns lead. This is for enterprise technology and it is for all of our colleagues and the technologies that they use in their day to day lives doing their work, not for our special, you know, client systems, you know, or anything like that that we've developed, you know, for solving their particular problems. This means that I engage with the M365 stack every day, and also other systems as we do deployments as we do deprecations as we retire technical debt and as we try to teach our users to get the business value from all the tools that we have licensed. So that might be something like UI path Studio X or something in the power family. I am part of a group called service adoption. And what we have is we've got a formal intake process where we're taking in things from all the product managers, we're putting it through a qualification input process, do we are do we not engage or do we hand you off to someone else. And then it goes through an actual change management PMO where we've got pro sized certified practitioners who are qualifying all the impacts of that change. We've got engagement, which links out to all of our global business relationship managers, if you don't know, he wise huge, we've got about 400,000 people across 70 countries which means we've got slices from everywhere from top floor partners and principles to shop floor and then we've got all these sensitive Geo so we've got engagement that reaches out to all the BRMs. And then of course I like to say I am content and we are last mile delivery, we are the tail wagon on the dog, and we are the ones everyone yells at when they don't like the stuff that hits their inbox or their teams cards or you know or any other channel by which we reach them. Well, so if you're involved with the internal usage of this technology, how much does I'm sure the company showcases you to prospective customers that they because I mean that's some of I know that that's always the case some of the most popular Microsoft content for example is like how Microsoft did it how they go and actually use the technology. And it's always, it's always interesting to hear that like well what actually worked and what other third party or custom built solutions, did you have to use to fill gaps. Oh, absolutely. I have been licensed for M365 co-pilot and it's going to hit my inbox any day now and so I'm sitting there getting f5 f5 f5 f5 f5 f5 just waiting for it to arrive because I've been reading all about it, but now I'm going to actually get hands on with it and we know of course, that we are going to be the ones who are going to be drinking the champagne, and we're going to be ones helping to go out to our customers and roll it out and start realizing a lot of the process efficiencies and just from my background and this is getting back to where I play and what I do. I am basically a digital strategist. I am change. I am communications. I am technology adoption and business value. So when you think of that golden triangle, which is people and process and technology sitting in a circle of culture. I am all about where that it actually meets the humans and the humans change their behavior and deliver the business value. It's so interesting because I don't know if you knew this about me so I actually have shared it on other podcast episodes but I so before I went to work for Microsoft in 2006 I actually was was accepted into a doctoral program where I was going to study the impacts of collaboration technology on teams on people and look at how the technology is actually changing the way that we work and I was a lot of my background is more on the PMO side so project portfolio management technology that's how I got into knowledge management space. But all the collaboration the social tech like all of that kind of fits in the space. It's been fascinating to see how that's changed and I know you and I have talked about this too about how now the AI tools co-pilot is going to actually is going to change that even more. It will be interesting to just discuss this to talk about it and watch the changes as it happens. Yes and and honestly I think that companies right now if they're looking out at everything that's going on in the marketplace and you and I were just you know kicking off the podcast and just making sure all the sound equipment was working. And as we were the news came across the wires that open AI fired Sam Holtman. This is this is changing in real time it is almost primordial level you know just chaos and real time evolution out there and if companies are wondering what they can do right now. You just mentioned PMO and TMO right project management and transformation management and one thing they can do right now is just get your internal house in order and have fun with the visioning process because this is you know this is all something where it's time to do the experimentation. It's time to get your house in order. It's not the time right now to go pick a pony. Yeah, there is there is so many where there's you know here we are at the end of I just came back from Orlando from the life 360 we had ignite that just happened we were trying to monitor the keynotes while we're sitting in a booth, watching that all the coming out reading through and for folks that aren't aware to with all of the announcements and there's something called the book of news. You find the Microsoft ignite 2023 book of news and you can see all of the announcements and you know there were just looking at co pilot mentions I said did like a search through it and was something like 280 mentions of co pilot and it's not a conference of Microsoft doesn't rename something. So now like you're now like you're being chat it's co pilot right you know so you know all I would say is you know this is who else were you going to get to talk to you by the way Christian who isn't exhausted for this week. Anything that just surprised you anything any any big announcements that that just made you kind of stop in in your in your very, I'm very intrigued by SharePoint premium. Because this is something where I think there's been a lot of questioning a lot of chatter about how SharePoint was kind of starting to fade into the background that it's a core technology. And we had to have the discussion that no SharePoint is this bedrock it's not going away as a product name, and suddenly instead we're going in the opposite direction here SharePoint premium and I need to unpack that goodie bag. Yeah, there will be many articles written about that so there's that the other one I was very excited about was project and and to do becoming one product. I think that's was the last one product or they're merging together they're integrated across which is which has been the direction of the I'm hoping that it speeds up right right. I mean this is something where I remember I think I have an old blog that I wrote out on LinkedIn because you know I write and frequently when I do a publish on LinkedIn, and it was about planner and and the funny thing was I every now and then I would go and I would check and I would still say do they have a recycle bin yet. Do they have a recycle bin yet. Do they have a recycle bin yet because you can fat finger something right out of existence. It's, I'm so excited to see this, this maturing and finally unifying. I mean, oh, can I also tell you that I am absolutely looking at everything that's going on with AI coming in, and how it can take in and how it can make sense of unstructured data sets I mean bad quality data. No unstructured data. Yes. Look at Viva engage and think of it as unstructured data and Viva engage longitudinally is Yammer for one thing redheaded stepchild no respect no respect whatever but it's not on the graph. Yeah, what happens when you have a good AI engine and you can point it at all that unstructured wonderful rich data in Viva engage. I am, you know, honestly that the what I'm most excited about in the future of course I look I work for a smaller organizations we're not even eligible yet for for the co pilot which is you know 300 seat me are you caught in that 300 seat vacuum. Yeah, we're so we're in the SMB space so we're under 100 employees but which is unfortunate I know that Microsoft will see something in a couple of years and and of course is RDS and MVPs will get access to it so it's not about that but being able to go in and utilize because we do use engage we're you know a hammer shop as well on that side of it but to be able to go and use engage with amplify for me to be able to look in across those conversations as well as my personal like my one note. All of my records because everything that I've written in the last decade is captured in one note and I want to be able to tap into that. So I've had many friends tell me it's like well Christian you know you can go do that without co pilot you could go and build an AI model around that data today so there are plenty of things you go and do but I want that in context to all of my content to my work activities to my email. So I'm looking forward to this next step. Honestly, I think it should just work it should just work and we are one step closer. Yeah. I'm going to spend the weekend reading the book of news I know that sounds great doesn't it. Well we were sitting there going through it on the on the expo hall floor and there's a lot to go through. But what so what are you speaking on and writing on right now what are the kinds of your hot topics. Well the thing is that I just delivered last weekend when you were there for the n 365 twin cities was I was delivering about the the connections. And then how you needed to be ready for that feed in Viva connections by leveling up your game in Viva engage stream and SharePoint news. And I think that Viva connections simply it's not yet getting I think the attention that it's going to merit soon it's a little bit quiet and I think it's going to turn into the blob that ate New York and I'll kind of tell you why. Intranet operations over the years is basically something where it's hideously expensive. Every time you rearchitect your intranet you know that this is cha-ching it's a huge team it's a huge investment. And over the years, as speaking as a person who's done this work, we have struggled, and we have really tried but we have failed to deliver on a place that realizes the big two of what you're trying to get there. One is a portal to absolutely everything that a person needs with the personalization level that we would like to deliver according to level and Geo and rights. But then second that integration to what is the stuff I care about the files I've handled that I'm looking for my task list right other things like that that matter to me in my line or that sort of thing or even in my language. And the thing that connections is bringing to the table quietly and right now at least for the bargain price of an E3 license is it saying hey turnkey turn it on. Turn it on and then personalize it and you can do so in draft you can do so with the number of experiences you want they are quietly the more I dove into this to create that presentation. The more I recognized how deeply they are preparing for organizations in all their messy complexity of subsidiaries and global footprint and specialty, you know, architecture. It's all going to be there and Microsoft is going to continue to build and build and build resources into this until if you're a company and you're looking at this saying look I know I've got all kinds of technical debt over here and I've got a lot of people who are used to spending if not years possibly decades fighting turf wars over this. But what are my usage analytics. What's the value I'm getting for that investment. And why wouldn't I stand these up side by side and just quietly grow it and see how it works. And then eventually see if you know what, maybe it's time to move on over, because I really think this is going to be disruptive long term. I think there's the fact that Microsoft moved away a couple years back but they really moved away from the idea of SharePoint as a Swiss Army knife. In fact, Jeff Tipper said many times he's like I don't like that, like we try to correct that that the core of SharePoint strength is your collaboration document collaboration. Yes, but is intranets. It is at the court intranet. And the I kind of missed the messaging the inner loop outer loop. I thought that was great message. Frankly, I'm I'm I still use it I'm still a fan and look go ahead haters going to hate it works. You know the whole thing about a model is every you know a lot of models are useful and they are all partially wrong. Right. Well, Microsoft I think just as they do they've got like the new season they've got the new messaging around there to update but like I never moved on from the inner loop outer loop because people got it then the light went off and they understood the tools that you use in exchange and where teams versus the intranet versus, you know, a Yammer now engage, you know, each of those pieces fit within. If you think about if you think about how we organize even just our mental models for our friends and our family, we have our inner ring of the people that who are closest to us and we recognize that it goes out in concentric circles. It just doesn't work. That's because people recognize truth and I mean this just this just maps to my existence and if it doesn't map to yours. I always like to say your mileage may vary. Yeah. Well Melanie, so for folks that want to reach out connect with you get in touch with you where are you most active in social where we're only I am only on LinkedIn and that's for reasons. Okay, so, so the thing is, I was back in my years at Cargill, which is where I originally became an MVP because rolling out back then Yammer in 2012. Yes, I'm old. I ended up in a social media governance role. And that meant that I was tied into and saw a whole lot of the sausage behind the scenes for everything from Facebook to Instagram to the rise of TikTok and all that sort of thing. And to be honest, I started to have opinions about okay what they're doing with my data, and the fact that they are building up profiles, even for my children who haven't joined. And I understand that this is the currency of the economy. I understand the barn door has been open for 15 years and though and every animal is already out in the fields. I know it is. In the meantime, once I moved out of that role, and I was not required to have my account connected to Cargill's Facebook and all that sort of thing. I eventually decided, you know what, this was especially around 2016 or so I decided I was going to quit. And I used a vendor called my social book, and I printed out all my history of my posts because I didn't want to lose all of that stuff. And I then grandly started deleting my accounts and the only one I'm still on is LinkedIn. So you will find me there. And you will find, you know, I have a little bit of a habit of blogging out there infrequently. But the few things that I publish, I stand by so you will find my writing back there as far as like 2015. That's great. Well, I will, we'll make sure we'll have the link in the profile to tell you so my wife is right there with you so she removed herself from just about everything and, you know, for some of the same reasons. Well, you know, I used to be hot and heavy on Twitter. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, still part of the core job for me still have to be involved with the stuff. In fact, I am getting pressure that they want me to go do some stuff on Tik Tok. So. Oh, okay. Well, separate identity for that. I know I'm going to have an approach to that as well. Well, Melanie, it's just such a time suck. I know, I know. But really appreciate your time and thanks for participating in the MVP buzz chat. Absolutely. Always great to talk with you and I'm sure we'll be spending time talking about AI soon.