July 2025 Content Wrap-Up
After one month in Texas, I’m finally feeling settled in….for the most part. I’ve located most of my office gear and setup my rack stereo and new turntable, allowing me to once again listen to my extensive vinyl collection. My wife and I also located our “local” Costco, which is a bit of a drive, but with two Walmarts and a Target within a 3 mile radius, I think we’ll survive. We’ve definitely gotten lost more than once in this spaghetti freeway system. I mean, seriously, who designed this thing?
It’s been great to be off the road for a few weeks, although more travel is ahead. We’ll be heading back to Utah for a few days for a baby blessing (grandbaby #5, Lucas) and to visit with family. And then in September, I’ll be speaking at the North American Collaboration Summit (get $50 off the $250 ticket price using Buckley50) in Branson, MO, and driving up to Kansas City for a night to visit my youngest sister, and to hang out with members of the Smarter Consulting team for some customer visits. Later in the month I’ll be back out in Minneapolis to speak at M365 Twin Cities once again, which is already closing in on 500 registrations. Always a great event – and an opportunity to see my daughter and her family. Oh yeah, and I’m also planning to swing by DynamicsCon here in Dallas before heading north to MN.
Other exciting things are happening before all that — preparing for the launch of the M365AMA.com website, making refinements to the Project Failure Files templates, expanding my YouTube footprint, and launching at least 2 new on-demand training courses. On top of all of that, I’m also trying to publish a couple of ebooks and a self-published marketing book — my first as a solo author. Oh, and this month marks the last month of my 4th year of posting to my blog daily.
Lots happening, as always. But here’s what I was able to publish in the month of July:
AI and Copilot
My consulting time has been heavily focused on Copilot and other AI topics. Shocker, I know. The world is moving in that direction, folks. Get ready for it. The articles below are a mix of adoption, governance (and how the things we learned for information management still apply to AI), and deployment best practices, much of it inspired by client projects and trainings I’ve been conducting.
- Building a Human-AI Collaboration Index [blog]
- Microsoft Copilot in Regulated Industries [blog]
- Why a Copilot Data Catalogue Is the Smartest First Move [blog]
- Scaling Microsoft Copilot Across Hybrid and Multicloud Environments [blog]
- AI Will Not Take Your Job [blog]
- Making Sense of AI Training, Tuning, and Grounding [blog]
- A Change Management Approach to Driving Copilot User Adoption [blog]
CollabTalk Podcast
With the move behind me and my home office finally being set up (for the most part), I’ve started scheduling interviews again. Lots of AI discussions, but with multiple M365 modernization projects underway right now, my chat with Mark Kashman on intranets feels especially timely…
- CollabTalk Podcast | Episode 179 with Mark Donnigan [blog | YouTube | audio]
- CollabTalk Podcast | Episode 180 with Mark Kashman [blog | YouTube | audio]
- CollabTalk Podcast | Episode 181 with Andrew Amann [blog | YouTube | audio]
Project Failure Files
As mentioned at the start of the month, between my move at the end of June and Sharon’s current move (underway this week), we are taking a 2-month break with PFF. We’ll be back on the air on September 1st, so don’t you worry. We have huge plans that are in the works…
- Project Failure Files: Taking a Summer Break [blog]
MVP Interviews
Thank you again to everyone who has participated in this ongoing interview series. I love hearing the “origin stories” of my fellow Microsoft MVPs, what they’re doing within the community, and how they contribute.
- #MVPbuzzChat 320 with Tom Rolvers [blog | YouTube]
- #MVPbuzzChat 321 with Seena Khan [blog | YouTube]
- #MVPbuzzChat 322 with Abdulrafiu Izuafa [blog | YouTube]
- #MVPbuzzChat 323 with Jerome Brown [blog | YouTube]
Articles
This past month was a true mixed bag on article topics. I had planned to write more productivity tips, but with my tips session coming up in September in Minneapolis, I didn’t want to *tip* my hand and share what I’ll be presenting…
- Music for a Wandering Mind [blog]
- Leveraging the Edge Browser [blog]
- Productivity Tip: Creating Outlook Tasks [blog]
- Securing SharePoint and Teams with Conditional Access [blog]
- Is IAMCP Still Relevant? Only If You Use It Right. [blog]
- Identifying and Engaging Microsoft 365 Influencers [blog]
- Why Your Content Strategy Feels Like Group Therapy (And That’s a Good Thing) [blog]
- This Is Your Brain on Internet [blog]
- Why Your Day Starts Before Your Inbox Does [blog]
Guardians
The monthly show continues to roll forth. Trying to get Microsoft’s Erica Toella back into the lineup, with Sue Hanley Scheduled for next month.
Music
Still having fun with this weekly series, and there is no end in sight for the bands that I’d like to share. I’m really trying to mix it up, so it’s not all 80’s bands that, increasingly, people have never heard of. More modern stuff in the schedule. Plus some 80’s new wave, because that’s what I like.
- Blue Plate Special: R.E.M. [blog]
- Blue Plate Special: Of Monsters and Men [blog]
- Blue Plate Special: Neon Trees [blog]
- Blue Plate Special: Low [blog]
Blatant Self-Promotion
And finally, some blatant self-promotion and a personal post on the 4th of July. Enjoy.
That’s it for July. More content coming to you daily in August, so keep reading!
