March 2023 Content Wrap-Up

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Well, that was a busy March! This month’s Content Wrap-Up was kicked off with my announcement that I’d be joining Rencore to lead channel development in North America and Asia-Pacific, and I’ve included a bit more in the Rencore section below. I was able to participate in a Rencore webinar and will be contributing regularly to the company blog. March also saw the launch of TekkiGurus, a Microsoft-focused technology site with content created by members of the community. Lots happening with TekkiGurus, and I’ll regularly contribute to the site as well as being a board member and help drive overall content strategy. Also highlighted below is content for Exclaimer, who I have worked on and off again over the years. I am a huge fan of their centralized email signature management solution and have more content coming this year in partnership with them, so watch for that.

From an event and travel perspective, I helped my inlaws move to Texas by driving their car the 19.5 hours straight from Utah County, Utah. The only sketchy part was the blizzard I hit in the mountains just east of Albuquerque, NM. Looking forward to April and May, I’ll be spending a week in Redmond, WA for the first in-person Microsoft MVP Summit since 2019, for which I am excited to participate. At the end of April, I’ll be in Denver for Comms vNext, where I’ll be hosting the #CollabTalk TweetJam, both on Twitter and via live stream with a few of the other speakers and sponsors joining me. A couple of days later, I’ll be heading down to Las Vegas for two events: the M365 Conference, and the Channel Partners Conference, happening at opposite ends of the Vegas strip. Add into the mix university graduation programs for my wife (BYU), my son (Univ of Utah), and daughter-inlaw (Utah Valley U), this will be yet another really busy month!

Here’s what I produced in March:

Joining #TeamRencore

Facebook M365 Governance Community

Join the Facebook M365 Governance Community

Excited to join the Rencore team and help build out their channel program here in North America, as well as across APAC. You can read more about the role in the blog post, or check out the corresponding press release. If you’re interested in learning more about the Rencore Governance solution, whether for your company or for your customers, use my Calendly link to schedule a call + quick demo. There’s a reason why Rencore is growing rapidly – they have the best M365 governance solution on the market. Happy to demonstrate.

And the link to the right is a new M365 Governance Community that we’ve created on Facebook. It is a place to ask questions and have discussions, and NOT to see vendor spam. We’re currently at 135 members, so please join us!

  • Joining Team Rencore [blog]
  • Partner Strategies for Reducing Microsoft 365 Costs [Rencore]
  • Including Loop within your Governance Strategy [Rencore]
  • Scheduling introductions to Rencore Governance [Calendly]
  • Facebook M365 Governance community [Facebook]

TekkiGurus Launch

TekkiGurus logo and taglineAs of March 15th, TekkiGurus went live. Our goal is to build the world’s largest Microsoft-focused technical community that is built-by-community, for-community. If you are interested in writing for the site and have an idea for an article or a series, please reach out to me. We’re always looking for content. Much more to come from TekkiGurus as we build out our podcast/webcast content, expand our video efforts, and start running webinars, product reviews, and tutorials. If you have not yet checked out the site, be sure to register!

  • TekkiGurus Goes Live! [blog]
  • TekkiGurus Announces Website Launch for the Microsoft Community [PRWeb]
  • TekkiGurus Provides Marketing Opportunities to the Technology Community [TekkiGurus]
  • Community Building, Communities in Teams, and Laurie Pottmeyer [TekkiGurus | YouTube]
  • Sending Attachments as Links in Outlook [TekkiGurus]
  • Productivity Tip: Adding a Drop-Down List to Excel [TekkiGurus]
  • Productivity Tip: Cleaning Up Conversations in Outlook [TekkiGurus]
  • Productivity Tip: Automatic Suggestions for Alt Text in Word & PowerPoint [TekkiGurus]

Creating Content for Exclaimer

As mentioned above, I’ve worked with Exclaimer off and on for several years, and am happy to endorse the leading email signature management solution on the market. In case you missed it, I recently joined Exclaimer Chief Product Officer, Jonathan Bartlett, for a webinar, and then also interviewed him for my blog. You can find links to both below. The bottom 6 links are clips from the webinar recording which Exclaimer is promoting through social channels.

  • The Missed Business Opportunity of Centralized Email Management [LinkedIn]
  • An interview with Exclaimer CPO Jonathan Bartlett [blog]
  • How to use email signatures to modernize your marketing campaigns [Exclaimer]
  • 5 reasons why email is still a powerful business tool [Exclaimer]
  • Extending the employee experience with email signatures [Exclaimer]
  • Why the strength of email is in the numbers [Exclaimer]
  • Driving Growth in 2023: How IT professionals can do more with less [Exclaimer]
  • Why Automating Email Signatures Saves You Time [YouTube]
  • Why Email Is Still The Most Important Business Communication Channel [YouTube]
  • Leveraging Exclaimer to Do More with Less [YouTube]
  • 6 Ways Microsoft Helps Organizations Do More With Less [YouTube]
  • 6 Key IT Strategies For Doing More With Less in 2023 [YouTube]
  • Will AI Cause Job Losses in IT? [YouTube]

Loop, Copilot, and the Rise of AI

Clippy in the Halo Universe

Clippy in the Halo Universe

With Microsoft’s major announcements around Loop and Copilot, and their major plans to integrate AI into just about every product and platform, there’s going to be a lot of great content from the community showing innovative ways that individuals and organizations can improve their productivity and collaboration using AI. I focused last month’s tweetjam on the topic, and have more AI-related content to be published through TekkiGurus and on my blog, so watch for that! I’ve also been playing with the new Bing Image Creator tool. On the right is an AI-generated phot of Clippy if he were in the Halo universe!

  • Automating Information Governance [blog]
  • Possible Future Uses of AI [blog]
  • The impacts of Microsoft Copilot, Loop, and other AI advances [blog]

Answering Community Questions via #M365AMA

The Microsoft 365 Ask-Me-Anything (AMA) series continues to roll forth with 11 new entries to this series that answers questions posted to various community boards. If you have a question that you’d like us to tackle, please contact me.

  • Is MFA now mandatory for M365 applications? #M365AMA [blog | YouTube]
  • Why do some questions not show on my Microsoft Form? [blog | YouTube] #M365AMA
  • What is the least disruptive way to enforce MFA? #M365AMA [blog | YouTube]
  • Why is iCloud not syncing with Windows 10? #M365AMA [blog | YouTube]
  • How do I setup M365 on a new PC without using my personal login? #M365AMA [blog | YouTube]
  • Is there a good forum app on Microsoft Teams? #M365AMA [blog | YouTube]
  • Can I create tabs in a modern SharePoint site? #M365AMA [blog | YouTube]
  • Why does my newly created Word doc show as Read Only? #M365AMA [blog | YouTube]
  • Does Microsoft 365 work without internet access? #M365AMA [blog | YouTube]
  • Can I add an HTML signature in Outlook? #M365AMA [blog | YouTube]
  • What is the best way to review responses to a long MS Form? #M365AMA [blog | YouTube]

Community Interviews

March saw 3 more episodes of the CollabTalk Podcast, plus 4 interviews with MVPs from around the world.

Expanding (finally) on my Marketing Content

I finally finished some of the marketing and branding-related content that has been sitting unfinished in OneNote. Most of this is part of my planned series on content strategy, others are just one-off posts. I’m slowly compiling an ebook on guerilla marketing techniques, and have even considered expanding on these topics and writing a book on technology evangelism based on my 30+ years of experience. You know….during my free time.

  • Content Strategy: Performing a Content Audit [blog]
  • Content Strategy: Building Social Influence [blog]
  • 10 Ways to Amplify Your Brand [blog]
  • Social Media Strategies for B2B SMBs [blog]
  • What is the Future of Digital Marketing for B2B? [blog]

Music Discovery

No Blue Plate Special posts this past month, sharing music from some of my favorite artists, but a post on my music discovery process. This article was triggered by an article I came across about people turning away from Spotify and other streaming music platforms, and instead going (mostly) analog.

  • The Changing Landscape of Music Discovery [blog]

Blatant Self-Promotion

Link to last month’s content wrap-up.

  • February 2023 Content Wrap-Up [blog]

One more thing…

Sean McDonough presenting to #MUGUTSome of you may have noticed that I pushed out a Call for Speakers to present at the monthly Microsoft User Group Utah (#MUGUT) meeting, which happens on the last Tuesday of each month from 4:30-5:30pm Mountain. If you would like to present to this group on a topic related to Microsoft 365 or Power Platform, please use the link below and submit an abstract or two. In March, we were joined by friend and fellow MVP Sean McDonough (@spmcdonough) talking about SharePoint Online performance. Great stuff. We need more like this!

  • Microsoft User Group Utah (#MUGUT) Call for Speakers [Sessionize]

And that’s a wrap for March content, and also means that I have delivered 19 months of daily blog posts — on my way to 730 daily posts in 730 days (end of August). I will likely not continue this pace once I reach that milestone, but we’ll see.

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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.