September 2015 Content Wrap-Up

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I knew September was going to be a whirlwind of activity – and the month did not disappoint. I kicked off the month by presenting two sessions at the Digital Workplace Conference (#DWCNZ) in Auckland, New Zealand. Both sessions were well-attended (Life Inside the Paperless Office on Day 1, and the standing-room-only Monitoring and Measuring SharePoint to Guarantee Your ROI, linked below) and, as always, I had fun meeting up with friends and partners from NZ and Australia. As part of this event, we were also able to join the NZ Ignite event keynote, with Microsoft leadership and guests kicking off the schedule with talks on productivity. Of course, for me the real highlight of the week was spending a couple days with my former ceo and good friend from echoTechnology days, Garry Smith. We were able to fit a jam-packed tour of Rotorua into my schedule that included a whitewater rafting excursion with 3.5 meter waterfall drop (highest commercial drop in the world) and a visit to Hobbiton, which was on my bucket list.

From Auckland, I traveled home for a day and a half, before setting off again for a few days in Oslo for the Modern Workplace Summit (#MWSsummit) where I presented another two sessions: Increase Adoption and Engagement through Social Collaboration, linked below, and 5 Ways Office 365 Can’t Defend Your Data, and What to Do About It, which is not linked below – but which was created around 2 of the ebooks I wrote for Datto, which you can find here and here. Fun event, and my first visit to beautiful Oslo – must definitely get back to that city sometime soon. Of course, following the event, I had another weekend excursion that found me in Reykjavik Iceland, where I was able to take a day-long 4×4 tour of the countryside, including multiple waterfalls, hot springs, and a drive up the side of a volcano. Just an all-around incredible trip. I highly recommend it if you find yourself in the neighborhood (another bucket list item, btw).

imageFollowing Oslo and Reykjavik, I found myself home for a week of rest, before again returning to Europe to keynote the Congres SharePoint event in Utrecht, Netherlands (Organizational Impacts of Moving SharePoint to the Cloud). I also presented the session ‘Managing SharePoint within Office 365’ (linked below) which was a version of the very popular session I have presented numerous times that compares on prem management to online. From Utrecht, I made my way south to Barcelona, Spain for a week with my development and leadership teams for 2016 planning. We have some major releases coming up, and we’re already thinking about events and marketing campaigns well into next year. Of course, I kicked off my visit by co-hosting another live CollabTalk show on IT Unity (recording available here). It was a fun show in which we covered the latest thoughts around SharePoint 2016, Yammer for Teams, and our thoughts on change management around Office 356. I returned from Barcelona late in the day yesterday, and will probably be jet lagged for a couple more days.

Looking forward to October, its going to be another gauntlet month. In fact, I told my wife that things really don’t slow down until mid-December. This month includes another 24-hour online event, Collab365, in which I am a speaker and session host – which is a great FREE event with over 100 sessions, with registration here. From there, I’ll be back in Amsterdam for UnityConnect where I’ll be talking about #productivityHacking and working the Beezy booth, followed by a keynote and session at SharePoint Engage in Raleigh, North Carolina. And, of course, in-between all of that travel, I’ll be pumping out content, hosting another session of the CollabTalk show with Ben, Naomi, and Marc (register here to join our mailing list), and tweeting up a storm via #CollabTalk tweetjam, this month focusing on the new Office 365 Planner announcement, and thoughts on where project management is going in the SharePoint + Office 365 world.

As for September’s content – I’m always self-critical of the volume of content I create. I can do more. I should do more. My OCD wants me to turn it up a notch, no matter how much I write. But September was more about presentation materials than feature articles, so the list is short. I did manage to author a couple pieces that has inspired some dialog within the community, both for RedmondMag.com. The piece on SharePoint tasks and the announcement about O365 Planner is the impetus for this month’s tweetjam, but I’m sure I’ll be sharing a few more ideas on the topic of project management before the end of the month.

Not a month goes by where I don’t write something about the state of SharePoint administration and governance, although this month it was primarily shared through PowerPoint. I do highly recommend that you take a look at the ebooks I created for Datto – and not just because I wrote them. I am really proud of the work that went into all three of my ebooks for them, but this final piece took a while to organize and synthesize the vast amount of content available online, distilling them into a single ebook. If you want to better understand how Office 365 handles physical, logical, and data security – this ebook is for you. I talk about what they do, why it matters to your business, and where to go for more detailed information.

imageOf course, much of the reason why Beezy is in business is because people want a better user experience. Not just for SharePoint and Office 365, but across all of their workloads and business systems. While early versions of SharePoint may have gotten beat up about the crappy UI, the reality is that having a unified experience – even with a lousy UI – can provide more value, and a better work experience than a UX that forces you to move between various tools and systems with “better” UIs.

September included a few mentions, with Chris Slemp from Microsoft responding to my RedmondMag article Will Office 365 SharePoint Online Groups Displace Yammer?, a CMSWire piece on what people think about the impending SP2016 release, and a Datto blog post on my latest ebook. I’ve also included here a copy of the ESPC15 award finalist announcement that Beezy pushed out earlier this month.

A month that was short on published content, but long on presentation materials. October is sizing up to be huge on both fronts. Far too much going on. Honestly, I’m just looking forward to Thanksgiving, knowing that the only travel left for the year is a trip with my wife to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary, which comes at the end of November. Until then, I’ll be in a constant sprint….but loving it. Cheers!

Christian Buckley

Christian is a Microsoft Regional Director and M365 Apps & Services MVP, and an award-winning product marketer and technology evangelist, based in Silicon Slopes (Lehi), Utah. He is a startup advisor and investor, and an independent consultant providing fractional marketing and channel development services for Microsoft partners. He hosts the weekly #CollabTalk Podcast, weekly #ProjectFailureFiles series, monthly Guardians of M365 Governance (#GoM365gov) series, and the Microsoft 365 Ask-Me-Anything (#M365AMA) series.