August 2021 Content Wrap-Up

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As other community members have made their way back to in-person events, one theme is clear: no matter how good the technology, in-person beats online every time. I was so happy to be able to fly out to Branson, Missouri for another fantastic North American Collab Summit and spend time with friends and community members. There were fewer people attending than last year (September 2020), but more online, which was unfortunate, but I am hopeful that we’ll see a return of the masses next year. For the second year in a row, I helped organize the hybrid portion of the event under the tutelage of organizer and MVP Mark Rackley (@mrackley), coordinating moderators for both in-person and online.

Table Rock Lake in the Ozarks

As far as sessions, I was joined once again from the stage by Tom Duff (@duffbert) for our ever-popular Top 20 Microsoft 365 Productivity Tips, and also participated on an Ask the Experts panel with Cathy Dew (@catpaint1), Liz Sundet (@percusn),  and Jason Himmelstein (@jasehimm). As always, we definitely entertained ourselves….and hopefully provided some value to attendees.

We wrapped up the event with a speaker and volunteer day out on Table Rock Lake in the Ozarks. The water was warm, the sun was hot, and my shoulders are still recovering from the mild sunburn.

After a weekend home, it was right back out on the road for an AvePoint team offsite in Arlington, Virginia. It was my first opportunity to see (most of) the leadership team and folks within the product and marketing teams since I joined the company last December. I’ve always been a collaborative person — I prefer working as a team and with members of the community over individual tasks, so this was a much-needed face-to-face with the extended team. Between this event and NACS the week before, it made me realize how much I missed seeing people. Looking forward to doing more of this in the months to come.

The #CollabTalk TweetJam

We had a fantastic community discussion on the topic of “flow of work” this week. We had a number of last-minute additions to the panel, and some very passionate discourse. I am a believer in the future of collaborative apps, in general, and this is yet another example of selfishly selecting a topic that I was interested in hearing more opinions around so that I could create more of my own content on the topic. If you’re interested in the topic, be sure to check out Microsoft CVP Jared Spataro‘s (@jared_spataro) blog post on the topic (he had a client meeting and couldn’t join the tweetjam) as well as my August 4th #O365hours discussion on this topic with fellow Office Apps & Services MVP Darrell Webster (@darrellaas).

MVP Interviews

I have a small backlog of MVP interview recordings, but I’m moving to a weekly cadence going forward. September is booked, and I’m on pace to have October filled, as well. I thoroughly enjoy these interviews and getting to know fellow MVPs, so if you’re an MVP (new or long-time, it’s all good) and would like to participate, please let me know. Happy to schedule a session.

#O365hours and #M365AMA

We had to reschedule one of our #O365hours live shows due to my travel, but we have a full schedule lined up for September, beginning with fellow Office Apps & Services MVP, Joanne Klein, who this morning was sharing her thoughts on Microsoft 365 retention policies. While it’s technically content for the next month’s summary post, here’s the link to my session with Joanne. As for the monthly #M365AMA, Sean McDonough (@spmcdonough) and Eric Riz (@rizinsights) were once again no-shows. What’s up with that, anyway? Some people have priority issues. Srsly.

  • #O365Hours​​​: Microsoft Teams and the Flow of Work [YouTube]
  • August 2021 #M365AMA Summary [buckleyPLANET]
  • August 2021 Microsoft 365 AMA [YouTube]
  • Expanding the Office 365 Hours (#O365hours) Series [buckleyPLANET]

One more thing…

 

Yes, it was a light month for content, but don’t you worry — big plans for the next 3 months (up until my vacation to Hawaii in December). More on those plans tomorrow…

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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.