The Forthcoming Microsoft Teams Revolution

With the arrival of Microsoft Teams in mid-2016, there has been both excitement and some confusion within the ecosystem as to how this new tool fits into the broader collaboration story. Microsoft Teams, in many ways, is the embodiment of the Groups concept: a way for organizations to provide one seamless interface to the many different tools, whether provided by Microsoft, or through third-party and web-based solution providers, and tying it all together in a platform that allows for conversation, context, and extensibility. Organizations must once again try to understand how to leverage this new technology — and the impacts it will have on existing collaboration strategies (SharePoint, for one) and end user adoption.

For this month’s tweetjam, our topic is “The Microsoft Teams Collaboration Revolution” and will include an assortment of partners, MVPs, solution providers, and community influencers who will take an hour out of their busy schedules to shares their insights and experiences with Microsoft Teams — and, as always, speculate about where they think Microsoft will take us next.

Please join the community discussion on Wednesday, August 30th at 8am Pacific using Twitter and the #CollabTalk hashtag, or through the dedicated tweetjam site at http://twubs.com/CollabTalk. This month’s tweetjam is sponsored by the team at KanBo, as well as tyGraph, who are once again providing the awesome stats!

If you’ve never participated in one of these tweetjams, it’s pretty simple: anyone can jump in and share their thoughts, or just lurk in the wings and absorb the wisdom of the crowd. Either way, it’ll be a TON of content to consume in a single hour. You can follow the live session using the Twitter UI of your choice (Twitter.com, Hootsuite, Tweetdeck, Twubs, whatever). How it works is that I’ll post a series of questions every few minutes, and people will respond to Q1, Q2, Q3 and so forth with A1, A2, A3, always including the #CollabTalk hashtag with their answers. Feel free to reply as often (or as little) as you’d like, ask your own follow up questions, share relevant links, re-tweet others, and engage with the audience.

The questions we will discuss during the session include:

1. What has been the impact of Microsoft Teams to Microsoft’s collaboration story?
2. Has your SharePoint strategy changed due to Microsoft Teams? Why, or why not?
3. How do you position Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, and Yammer to customers and end users?
4. With many community questions about governance, what are your top 3 concerns about Microsoft Teams?
5. How important are bots and connectors and other integrations to Teams and the future of collaboration?
6. End user adoption and engagement are so important — what are your Microsoft Teams best practices?
7. If you could prioritize Microsoft’s road map, what 3 features would you want see in Teams?

Of course, there will be side-questions, side-conversations, and wise-cracking throughout. This is open to the public, so please join in the discussion! The dialog is usually thought-provoking but also fun.

Participating on this panel (more names to be added):

• Eric Overfield (@ericoverfield), Microsoft Regional Director, SharePoint MVP, and founder of PixelMill
• Darrell Webster (@reoffice365), Office Servers & Services MVP and co-founder RE:Office 365
• Michal Sobotkiewicz (@michalsobot), founder and ceo of ObjectConnect and KanBo
• Rachel Braunstein (@rkbraunstein), digital marketing manager & podcast host for @mspartner at Microsoft
• Eric Riz (@rizinsights), SharePoint MVP and ceo of Empty Cubicle
• Jon Rivers (@jon_rivers), social media disruption expert, founder of Marketing Monarchs
• John White (@diverdown1964), SharePoint MVP and cto at UnlimitedViz Inc.
• Benjamin Niaulin (@bniaulin), Microsoft Regional Director, Office 365 MVP and evangelist at ShareGate
• John Peluso (@johnconnected), Microsoft Regional Director, and vice president of product management at AvePoint
• Maarten Eekels (@maarteneekels), SharePoint MVP and cto for Portiva
• Chris Slemp (@cslemp), director of strategy at CarpoolAgency
• Sebastien Levert (@sebastienlevert), Office365 MVP and specialist in Azure, SharePoint, and O365
• Jennifer Mason (@jennifermason), SharePoint MVP and director of innovation & strategic solutions at Planet Technologies
• Matt Wade (@thatmattwade), cloud services lead at H3 Solutions, founder of icansharepoint
• Paul Keijzers (@kbworks), Office Servers & Services MVP and Office 365 specialist at Wortell
• Sarah Haase (@sarahhaase), collaboration group product manager at US Bank, organizer of SPS Twin Cities
• Dux Raymond Sy (@meetdux), Microsoft Regional Director, SharePoint MVP, and CMO of AvePoint
• Owen Allen (@owenallen), Office 365 technology specialist at Alpine Lakes Digital
• Matt Varney (@thevarnish), intranet manager at KCTCS
• Joel Oleson (@joeloleson), Microsoft regional practice director at Konica Minolta
• Craig Jahnke (@techJahnke), SharePoint strategic advisor with AvePoint
• Bob German (@bob1german), principal architect at BlueMetal Architects
• Wes Preston (@idubbs), SharePoint MVP, evangelist,  and owner at TrecStone
• Theresa Eller (@SharePointMadam), SharePoint consultant at Constellation Solutions
• Sandra Mahan (@smahan14), manager unified communications and SharePoint at Cambia Health Solutions
• Mack Sigman (@mack_sigman), senior director for professional services at Coras, chairman of FEDSPUG
• Brian Seitz (@bseitz), enterprise architect and senior consultant at Elyon Strategies
• Paul Schaeflein (@paulschaeflein), Microsoft MVP and enterprise architect at DMI
• Katarzyna Bobrowska (@kbobrowska_), customer happiness specialist at KanBo
• Melanie Gass (@msftprincess), territory channel manager at Microsoft
• Stacy Deere-Strole (@sldeere), SharePoint MVP and owner of Focal Point Solutions
• Ryan Schouten (@ShrPntKnight) senior SharePoint architect and evangelist at ZAACT
• Liz Sundet (@percusn), Microsoft MVP, director of business relationships at Focal Point Solutions
• Dean Swann (@sdeanswann), social collaborator, growth hacker and product manager for UnlimitedViz
• Paul Stork (@pstork), SharePoint MVP and MCM, owner and principal at Don’t Pa..Panic Consulting
• Mike Oryszak (next_connect), managing director at B&R Business Solutions
• Michael Greth (@mysharepoint), Microsoft MVP, SharePoint and Office 365 specialist, podcaster and speaker
• Drew Madelung (@dmadelung), SharePoint and Office 365 MVP and architect at Concurrency Inc.
• Nyasha Tunduwani (@siyana), founder and technology solutions advisor at Real Impact Technology Consulting
• Nick Brattoli (@Byrdttoli), founder and lead consultant at Byrdttoli Enterprise Consulting
• David Drever (@DavidMDrever), SharePoint MVP and SharePoint services lead at Solvera Solutions
• Ed Senez (@edsenez), president at UnlimitedViz and TyGraph
• Ragnar Heil (@ragnarh), Office 365 E5 channel lead at Microsoft
• Gokan Ozcifci (@xGokan), Microsoft Regional Director, SharePoint MVP, and IT infrastructure consultant at Neoxy
• Nikkia Carter (@carterMcGServ), ceo at CMW LLC and tech speaker
• Erica Toelle (@ericatoelle), evangelist at Record Point
• Noah Sparks (@noahsparks), Office Servers and Services MVP, community igniter and strategy manager at Brainstorm
• and your host, Christian Buckley (@buckleyplanet), Microsoft MVP, founder & ceo of CollabTalk LLC

If you would like to join our panel, please drop me a line. Otherwise, everyone is invited. And if you can’t make the time – don’t worry. I’ll capture the entire discussion in Storify and post the link to the various social feeds. Watch my Twitters via @buckleyplanet for updates.

And thank you again to the teams at KanBo and tyGraph for your support of these CollabTalk tweetjams! If you are interested in being a sponsor of a future tweetjam, please contact me at CollabTalk