July 2023 Content Wrap-Up

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As I gear up for increased events in the second half of the year, it was great to spend most of the month at home. I cleared out the incredibly heavy and bulky hardwood desk and cabinets, replacing them with a beautiful Uplift standing desk….and a room full of boxes, because without the cabinets, I have nowhere to put my stuff. Still working on that.

One major event from this past month: I was renewed as a Microsoft MVP, making this my 12th award. I’m also 5 years into being an RD. So #humbledandhonored to be a part of this community, which truly is the greatest tech community in the world. And I don’t plan on slowing down…

Rencore CEO and MVP Matt Einig at the company party

Rencore CEO and MVP Matt Einig at the company party

July also included a trip to beautiful Munich, Germany where I participated in the 10-year anniversary of Rencore, which included a team-building activity at a nearby lake, a lovely tour of downtown for lunch the next day, and a party at the office before my 4am wakeup to head back to the airport. It was a whirlwind trip, but great to finally meet so many people in person and see many old friends again.

By the time this blog post goes live, I’ll be in Melbourne, Australia to speak at the Digital Workplace Conference and talking M365 governance from our shared booth with our partners, Pack of 7. I wish I could stay in town longer, and maybe run up to Sydney to see more friends, but I’ll be back on a plane early on Friday morning and on my way home. Late in the month, you’ll find me in Seattle for the 365 EduCon double-conference for both M365 and Power Platform. Hope to see you at one of these events!

Here’s what I was up to in July, closing out month 23 of my 24-month daily blog posts goal:

How to Track and Measure Productivity

When my team approached me last minute (well, a couple of weeks early) to present on tracking and measuring productivity, I instantly thought of the Adoption Score and many of the other out-of-the-box capabilities, as well as the additional capabilities Rencore Governance can provide. I put together a deck, grabbed my fellow Rencore MVP, Ragnar Heil, to co-present, and then tried to join the Teams Live event….only to be locked out. Still experiencing some Teams issues 2 weeks later. But the content is solid. I also put together a blog series on the topic, and have yet another article being published on TekkiGurus in August. It’s a great topic. Enjoy the content!

  • How to optimize productivity in the Microsoft 365 ecosystem [Rencore blog]
  • Tracking and Measuring Productivity [blog]
  • M365 Best Practices: How to Measure and Improve Productivity [Rencore webinar]
  • Measuring Productivity: Microsoft Adoption Score [blog]
  • Measuring Productivity: M365 Reports [blog]
  • Take control of your M365 governance: Strategies and best practices [Rencore blog]
  • Powering up email signatures to become a key business tool [Exclaimer]
Downtown Munich, Germany

Exploring downtown Munich

TweetJam

With all of the changes at Twitter (now X) we’ve seen a drop off in participation for the tweetjams, but we’re continuing the series regardless. July’s session focused on unified communications, and was sponsored by Verizon Business. I’ll be conducting a post-tweetjam interview with a Verizon executive when I get back from Australia, so more content on the way!

  • Discussing the Future of Modern Communications [blog]
  • Verizon Launches Microsoft Teams Phone Mobile [TekkiGurus]

AMAs

Another dozen community questions answered by the #M365AMA expert panel. If you’ve not caught this series yet, be sure to subscribe to my YouTube page for updates. Their value is not in a walkthrough of how to resolve a specific technical question, although we do sometimes provide those kinds of answers. The benefit is that we explore each question and talk about a number of factors that could cause or resolve the issue. Always a great discussion, and always a lot of fun.

  • Why talk about AI and Copilot when little of it is available? #M365AMA [blog | YouTube]
  • Why does my Flow create a list item, but it’s empty? #M365AMA [blog | YouTube]
  • Can I delegate tasks to someone in a different domain? #M365AMA [blog | YouTube]
  • Can I assign SharePoint access to a group or only to individuals? #M365AMA [blog | YouTube]
  • How do I share a Power App between two environments? #M365AMA [blog | YouTube]
  • How do I calculate the dates in a SharePoint list? #M365AMA [blog | YouTube]
  • Can I filter the news webpart based on a custom column? #M365AMA [blog | YouTube]
  • Why do student profiles that I’ve removed from Teams still appear? #M365AMA [blog | YouTube]
  • What is the best way to create a reservation system? #M365AMA [blog | YouTube]
  • Is it possible to audit a OneDrive folder or file? #M365AMA [blog | YouTube]
  • How can I leverage ChatGPT within Microsoft 365? #M365AMA [blog | YouTube]
  • Why won’t Outlook links open in Chrome despite being my default browser? #M365AMA [blog | YouTube]
A growing Rencore team

A growing Rencore team

ColabTalk Podcast + MVP Interviews

The industry-focused podcast as well as the MVP interview series continue to grow. Another 6 weeks already recorded and ready for post-production, with new MVPs being added every week.

Blatant Self-Promotion

Ringing my own bell, as per usual.

  • MVP number 12 [blog]
  • Event Plans for Q3 [blog]
  • June 2023 Content Wrap-Up [blog]
  • Celebrating the 4th of July [blog]

Music

And finally, I added a couple of my favorite artists to the Blue Plate Special series. I enjoy compiling these, and hopefully someone out there is enjoying the discovery of new music.

  • Blue Plate Special: David Sylvian [blog]
  • Blue Plate Special: Interpol [blog]

And that’s it for me in July. Also want to mention that I felt old this month, as two of my boys turned 29 and 23….and the former is not even my oldest. I’m getting up there. While I may be slowing down physically, I am looking forward to the grumpy old man years where I get to yell at kids to stay off my lawn. Not too far away…

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.

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    August 3, 2023

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