Predictions for the Microsoft Ecosystem

Microsoft has had another record-breaking year, with the stock and company valuation remaining incredibly strong. Within the modern work and collaboration space, they continue to be a dominant player. Ten years ago, SharePoint was reportedly the fastest-to-a-billion business for Microsoft. But then came the release of Office 365, surpassing SharePoint. And then there was Teams, once again surpassing its predecessors. So what is next for the Redmond, Washington software provider? Will the employee experience-focused Microsoft Viva change the way that organizations collaborate? Will all of our meetings and interpersonal connections move to the virtual and augmented world of Mesh? Will the fluid components of Microsoft Loop find their way into all of our enterprise applications?

In the next #CollabTalk TweetJam taking place on Wednesday, December 29th at 9am PST (UTC -8), the community will once again join forces and have a focused discussion on the topic of “Community Predictions for the Microsoft Ecosystem”  and share all of our thoughts on where Microsoft may be going next. In this 1-hour Twitter-based panel discussion, we’ll bring together MVPs and Regional Directors, community experts, partners, consultants, and practitioners to share their perspectives and predictions for the Microsoft ecosystem.

Anyone can join this community discussion using Twitter and the #CollabTalk hashtag or your favorite Twitter platform. You don’t even need to be an “expert” to participate in the online conversation. Anyone can ask questions, comment on the questions posed, or just “lurk” in the background. These online discussions are open to anyone — you do not have to be on the panel to participate.

As always, this month’s tweetjam is being sponsored by tyGraph and AvePoint. Thanks for your support!

If you have 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, 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.  In your opinion, what was the biggest news for Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, and Azure this year?
2. Has your outlook on Microsoft technology and/or strategy changed this past year? Why / why not?
3. Have the introductions of Viva, Loop, and Mesh altered how you / your customers think about collaboration?
4. How has the continued effects of the pandemic impacted your community activities, and what are your community plans going forward?
5. What 3 features (available now, or publicly announced) are having/will have the biggest impact in 2022?
6. What are your predictions for the Microsoft ecosystem in 2022 and beyond?
7. If you could give one piece of advice to Microsoft leadership and/or product teams, what would it be?

As always, 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 always thought-provoking and fun.

Participating on this panel (so far):

• Martina Grom (@magrom), co-founder of atwork.at, Office 365 MVP and Microsoft Regional Director
• Andrew Brust (@andrewbrust), Microsoft RD and Data Platform MVP, founder and ceo of Blue Badge Insights, correspondent and blogger at ZDNet, and research director for big data and analytics for GigaOm
• Tobias Fenster (@tobiasfenster), Microsoft Regional Director, dual MVP in Business Applications and Azure, and cto for Cosmo Consult
• Harjit Dhaliwal (@Hoorge), former-MVP, customer engineer in modern workplace at Microsoft
• Alex Terentiev (@alexaterentiev), Office Development MVP, member of the PnP team, solution architect and developer for SharePointalist
• Eric Overfield (@ericoverfield), Microsoft RD & SharePoint MVP, founder of PixelMill
• John White (@diverdown1964), dual SharePoint and Data Platform MVP, cto at UnlimitedViz and tyGraph
• Joel Oleson (@joeloleson), Microsoft Regional Director & MVP, principal technical product manager at Cyclotron
• Shari Oswald (@shortcutshari), co-founder and productivity evangelist at PowerUP! Learning
• Jay Leask (@jayleask), Office Apps & Services MVP and US federal director, strategic accounts & solutions for AvePoint Public Sector
• Kevin McDonnell (@kevmcdonk), Office Apps & Services MVP and solutions architect at CPS
• Adam Ball (@AdamCBall), co-founder of COUCUG, Teams and Skype for Business MVP
• Paul Swider (@pswider), cto at RealActivity, and enterprise SharePoint strategist
• Stacy Deere-Strole (@sldeere), SharePoint MVP and owner of Focal Point Solutions
• Wes Preston (@idubbs), SharePoint MVP, evangelist,  and owner at TrecStone
• Norm Young (@stormin_30), Office Apps & Services MVP, director of collaborative analytics at UnlimitedViz
• Hal Hostetler (@TVWizard), Microsoft MVP and senior field engineer and social media coordinator for Roland, Schorr & Tower
• Galen Keene (@sdkeene), consultant and collaboration architect, managing partner at Butterfly Technologies
• Sharon Weaver (@sharoneweaver), Microsoft Regional Director, consultant, trainer and ceo of Smarter Consulting
• Eli Robillard (@erobillard), SharePoint MVP, musician, fly-fisher, collaboration technology guy
• Bruno Capuano (@elbruno), dual AI and Windows Development MVP, and regional innovation lead for Avanade Canada
• Nicki Borell (@NickiBorell), Microsoft MVP & RD, evangelist & consultant for SharePoint, Office 365 and Azure
• Eric Riz (@rizinsights), SharePoint MVP and ceo of Empty Cubicle
• Philip Worrell (@worrelpa), ICT engineer and business analyst at Swisscom
• Sascha Fredrich (@saschaF80), IT consultant of Microsoft solutions at bei Bechtle AG
• David Patrick (@DavidEPatrick),  Office Apps & Services MVP, user group organizer, subject matter expert with DSA, Inc.
• Kurt Kragh Sørensen (@KurtKragh),  intranet consultant and owner of IntraTeam.com
• Toni Pohl (@atwork), founder & cto of atwork, cloud consultant, Microsoft MVP
• Tobiasz Koprowski (@KoprowskiT), Data Platform MVP, founder and consultant at Shadowland Consulting
• and your host, Christian Buckley (@buckleyplanet), Microsoft MVP & RD, #CollabTalk founder, Microsoft gtm director at AvePoint

If you would like to be included on one of these panels, please drop me a line via email, LinkedIn, or Twitter. And thank you again to tyGraph for your support of these CollabTalk tweetjams! And finally, if you are interested in being a sponsor of a future tweetjam, please contact me.

We’ll be back on January 25th with our 10th anniversary edition of the CollabTalk TweetJam, so be sure to follow me (@buckleyplanet) for news and updates.