Forum Discussion
Introductions
Hi, all! Welcome to the Viva Community. We are thrilled you are here to connect and engage with peers and experts in the employee experience space. To get to know the members of the Viva Community, we are going to start this very first discussion forum with introductions. We hope this thread continues to grow over time so members of our community can continually get to know one another.
Some ideas of what to include in your introduction: your name, where you are located, your role in your organization, topics of interest, and why you are excited to join this Community. I'll go first!
My name is Melissa Barry and I am part of the Microsoft Viva team. I lead our customer empowerment team as part of Viva People Science and launching this site is one of the many projects that I am fortunate to be part of in my current role. I am thrilled to be part of this community to connect and learn from all of you. Outside of work, I love exploring our local NYC parks and restaurants with my husband and daughter.
30 Replies
- sonyabedi
Microsoft
Hey, everyone! I'm Sonya Bedi and I'm a proud member of the Glint People Science team in London.
I work directly with customers to figure out what their employees need to feel fulfilled and happy at work. I'm passionate about helping people connect to their unique blend of strengths, understand themselves better, and find purpose and growth in the place where they spend most of their waking hours. I’m incredibly excited to connect with the wonderful Viva customer community and learn about what your organizations want and need from your integrated Viva experience.
Outside of work, I am a busy mother of two little girls who remind me to be a better listener. Currently, I am basking in this Spring feeling, and planning fun things with my little family.
Hello melissabarry & everyone in the community!
I'm Michaël, M365 Dev MVP at onepoint (France) and curious about the Viva world. I like to solve daily problems my customers and coworkers meet everyday and love to extend the platform features with some code 🤩. I want to guide companies on how they can engage their employees through Viva modules and eventually, find use cases that would involve extensibility with Viva Connections!
In my spare time, I spend time with my wife and kids, I contribute to the PnP Initiative and occasionally I give some conferences. I really love the M365 community and learning new things from it!
Hey there, Melissa 😎
My name is Nathan Roberts. I am a Windows Insider MVP, Xbox Ambassador and Windows & Xbox Insider. I am currently studying IT & Computer Science at university and work in a school full time (study part time).
In my free time I can be found helping people online on the Microsoft Community (https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/profile/6379a1f3-b4ab-41cb-9365-283c8bed0478?sort=LastReplyDate&dir=Desc&tab=Threads&forum=allcategories&meta=&status=&mod=&advFil=&postedAfter=undefined&postedBefore=undefined&threadType=All&page=1) and can be found working on development projects of my own and experimenting with AI and technology, or playing on Xbox.
I use Viva at work to help me manage what tasks I have and to help organise time. I am playing around with the feature in Teams to see what else there is on there.
Look forward to meeting new folk 🙂
Nathan
- adani721Hi everyone!
My name is Akshat Dani, I'm a Customer Experience PM on the Growth Foundations team on Viva Goals. I get to work closely with Brittany on our Voice of Customer initiatives and taking those learnings and insights to our pm/eng teams and influencing our strategy and roadmap for viva goals. My most recent project was with FT and enabling FT to be fully enabled to run viva goals deployments with the help from our SME's. Outside of work I enjoy hiking, spending time with my 3yr old son, reading, and am always down to binge watch a show. Looking forward to being a part of this community and learning different ways technology can help us achieve more by doing less. Hello Melissa & World!
Thank you for inviting me in. My name is Lesley Crook and I'm a Microsoft MVP of 7 years based in Brighton UK with my husband and 2 rescue doggies. I am the unintentional founder of the Viva Explorers. I regard myself as not too technical with a focus on employee engagement, user adoption and change management. Started with Yammer successes then Teams and now Viva! I love helping businesses to nurture Champion networks of which the Viva Explorers is and is gaining momentum from a high majority of the product groups but at this time predominately SharePoint expertise. I am see myself as a visionary and excited to see how Copilot is developing. I think the first application where this will really shine is Viva Amplify with writing guidance. To preview this Spring/Summer 2023. Here is a https://tekkigurus.com/microsoft-viva-virtual-onboarding-buddy/ I have written on how I see Viva as a very kind new hire buddy!
- EricKnudsen
Hi all! I'm Eric Knudsen, my background is in organizational psychology and people analytics, and I lead the analytics and research arm of Viva People Science. My team loves taking a human-centric approach to exploring, researching, and testing questions about how the workplace and employee needs are evolving! Our goal is to produce insights and learnings that elevate the human-centricity in Viva products - an interest I suspect so many of us share! Fun fact: before I was helping to weave humanity into software products, I worked with a team building a series of assessments to identify and hire high-potential airline pilots - who had never yet flown a plane!
- CKalafutHi Everyone! I'm Carolyn Kalafut, part of the People Science Team, MSFT Viva. I'm located in San Francisco and work directly with our product teams to imbed the science of people success and happiness at work into the products we build! I love thinking about how we can keep humanity at the heart of technology and am excited to connect with and learn from everyone here on the Viva Community!
- Hey Melissa! I'm Brittany Harper, and I'm on the Microsoft Viva Goals team. I work on our Growth Foundations team specializing in customer advocacy and scaling customer programs - one of the coolest projects I've been part of so far is being the Viva Goals Community App Owner and helping to launch this site. I'm passionate about the customer's voice and making sure they are heard in all of the programs we launch in Viva Goals! When I'm not at work, I spend my time diving into other worlds via books, soaking up the sun on long walks with my partner and dog, and traveling as much as possible (fun fact, this year I will be visiting 6 countries for the first time!). I'm so looking forward to learning from you all!
Hi Melissa!
My name is Kevin McDonnell, I'm a Microsoft MVP, member of the Viva Explorers, co-host of the GreyHatBeardPrincess podcast and Solutions Architect at Avanade. This gives me the fortunate position of being able to not only live the Microsoft world for a day job but also be able to share my passion for it outside of work as well. I love being able to have the time to keep up with the latest changes in the Microsoft space, especially with Microsoft Viva, and then share that with others to help them be more productive and collaborate more effectively. Many of the Viva Explorers have a persona and mine is the Viva Transformer as I like to be able to take the implementations of Viva and help organisations make that happen, getting the adoption and change in place to realise the value of the investment. Outside of the work and MS passion, I am the father of three boys and two cats who keep me busy enough but just about leave enough time to also volunteer as a Cub Scout Leader, sharing skills for life to 8 to 10 1/2 year olds in the UK.
