August 2024 Content Wrap-Up

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M365 Twin CitiesAnd here we are in September, enjoying the last few weeks of warm weather before the leaves turn from green to brown, and the rain begins then turns to snow…

August was a month of preparation for the fall conference season. I did a session for the Boston O365 User Group, a webinar alongside Virgil Carroll for Rencore, and with fellow MVP Dan Rey and Antares Leask for a Smart Consulting webinar. No work travel this past month, but I did spend a couple of days driving up to Montana and back to visit with 3 of my sisters, which included a drive up the side of a mountain and some pistol target practice. I’ve also been working on an AI certificate program from Vanderbilt University that I should wrap up in the next week or so, and have been making a lot of content plans.

The big news is that I reached my goal of 3 years (1,095 days) of daily blog posts on this site. While I will be maintaining the volume for now, my content efforts will be changing as I build out and launch new M365AMA.com and CollabTalk.com websites to promote the panel series and my podcast, respectively. Sharon and I are also talking about a standalone site for the Project Failure Files, but most likely that’ll happen toward the end of the year as we prepare for Phase 2 of the “grand plan” around that content. I’m also thinking about a theme update to the blog. Haven’t found a template just yet, but I am looking. Always open to suggestions.

For the month ahead, I’ll be on the road speaking at the M365 Twin Cities event on September 6th (just northwest of Minneapolis) and attending the Power Platform Community Conference in Las Vegas in support of the Rencore team. After that, I’m home for a few weeks continuing to work with clients before TechCon365 Dallas (Nov) and ESPC (Dec). It may not sound like a lot of travel – certainly nowhere close to what I used to do each year – but it’s plenty for me. Looking forward to the projects on my plate and to helping Smarter Consulting scale out their business.

Here’s what I was working on in August:

Project Failure Files Live Stream

As mentioned above, Sharon and I have grand plans for the project management space. I’ve been in and around the PM / BA space for most of my career, and enjoy sharing my experiences and best practices with all of you. If you’ve not yet caught our show, our live stream is EVERY Monday morning at 9am Pacific via X, YouTube, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Check out the on-demand recordings here. We’d love to hear your questions and comments.

  • Project Failure Files: Failures in Risk Management (Ep.8) [blog | YouTube]
  • Project Failure Files: Micromanagement vs. Empowerment (Ep.9) [blog | YouTube]
  • Project Failure Files: Fear of Change and New Ideas (Ep.10) [blog | YouTube]
  • Project Failure Files: Self-Awareness and Humility (Ep.11) [blog | YouTube]

CollabTalk Podcast

Some updates coming to the podcast this fall, as well. As mentioned, I’m planning to re-launch the website so that I can do more around this weekly show, and better promote my guests and topics. The main change is that I am pulling back the MVPbuzzChat recordings (and branding) from the existing site because they are two very different things.

#M365AMA

Only 7 community questions answered this past month, but many more in the can and waiting for me to finish editing. This activity deserves a standalone site, YouTube channel, and promotion – so that is what I will be doing later this month….probably after I get back from Vegas on the 20th. My plan is for this to be a multi-person production with some of the panelists also contributing blog posts and videos on the questions covered. I just wish YouTube made it easier to migrate content (with likes and comments) from one channel to another…

  • How do I sync Teams data between two different domains? #M365AMA [blog | YouTube]
  • How do I backup our Microsoft Teams conversations? #M365AMA [blog | YouTube]
  • Why does Skype On-Prem take so long to join meetings? #M365AMA [blog | YouTube]
  • How do I give external guests write access in M365? #M365AMA [blog | YouTube]
  • How do I sync my new phone with Authenticator? #M365AMA [blog | YouTube]
  • Should I leave the GPOs in the local Active Directory? #M365AMA [blog | YouTube]
  • Can I sync M365 Business Basic with Win Server 2016? #M365AMA [blog | YouTube]

May be an image of 1 personMVP Interviews

#MVPMonday will continue to be a thing, but I’m turning off the tap on the podcast. While there are certainly episodes that have performed well in the podcast format, for most episodes video out-performs audio. As of September 2nd I’m moving these to video-only so that I can focus on growing the main podcast.

AI Content

Having fun learning new technology, and folding these new tools into my daily activities. Whatever did I do without Copilot and ChatGPT? While I am still writing my own stuff, than you very much, these tools have helped me organize, create, research, and refine my content and activities. If you missed my Boston O365 UG session, I’ll be doing a version of this at ESPC later this year. I’m also planning to create a series of video tutorials for my ‘Content Strategy’ content on the blog and for my pending newsletter. If you want to learn how to incorporate AI into your own content plans, you won’t want to miss this series.

  • Crafting Content with AI: Human Insight Meets Machine Intelligence [Abstract | YouTube]
  • Improve your Copilot experience with strong information architecture with Virgil Carroll [Rencore webinar]
  • The Components of a Large Language Model (LLM) [blog]
  • Building Your Own Large Language Model (LLM) [blog]
  • Why Do I Need Copilot? [Smarter Consulting blog]
  • How do I get started with Microsoft Copilot? [Smarter Consulting blog]

Governance Content

Of course, I wouldn’t be me without content about corporate and IT governance on the blog every month. Things are revving up with the Smarter Consulting governance practice. If you didn’t catch my webinar with Dan Rey and Antares Leask last month, be sure to watch the on-demand recording below. We talked about conducting your own M365 governance self-assessment. If that sound too overwhelming and you know you need some help in this area, schedule one of our free 30-minute consultations.

  • Empower Your Organization: Microsoft 365 Governance Self-Assessment [Smarter consulting webinar]
  • Revitalize your M365 Governance with a Tune-Up Service [Smarter Consulting blog]
  • Achieving Effective Microsoft 365 Governance [blog]
  • Crafting a Microsoft 365 Governance Strategy [blog]
  • Summary of Guardians of M365 Governance Episode 8 [blog | YouTube]

Music

The weekly music sharing continues! Someone recently asked whether I planned to include artists AFTER the 1980s. The answer: Yes, of course. Eventually.

  • Blue Plate Special: The Housemartins [blog]
  • Blue Plate Special: Art of Noise [blog]
  • Blue Plate Special: Soft Cell [blog]
  • Blue Plate Special: Echo and the Bunnymen [blog]

May be an image of 8 people and text

Blatant Self-Promotion

Ringing my own bell.

  • 1,095 posts in 1,095 days (3 years) [blog]
  • Completed ‘Prompt Engineering for chatGPT’ course from Vanderbilt [Coursera]
  • Fall 2024 Events [blog]
  • July 2024 Content Wrap-Up [blog]

 

And that’s a wrap….of the wrap. Lots of goodness coming up in September, including (in no particular order) an expanded #CollabTalk TweetJam on X.com Spaces AND livestream panel on “Understanding Your Baseline for Copilot Adoption” (9/24), a Smarter Consulting webinar on the M365 Maturity Model and how to leverage it for your company (9/25), 20 personal and team productivity tips alongside Tom Duff at #M365TC (9/6), heading out stickers at the Power Platform Conference (9/17-20), and launching the M365AMA and CollabTalk websites. Another typical month. Nothing to see over here.

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.