Microsoft Teams is dedicated to helping our customers achieve more and we spend a great deal of time listening to our customers describe their goals and challenges. This feedback is an essential guide to what we focus on next in the product.
Our engineering teams also partner with industry-leading researchers to help shape new experiences and improve existing ones. This has been especially true over the past 10 months, as the pandemic moved so many of us to remote and hybrid work. We worked together to inform and inspire Teams features like Together mode, Virtual commute, and the new integration with the Headspace meditation app.
It’s exhilarating to share these new experiences with our customers but we don’t often get to share the thinking behind them – or the people who helped bring them to life. People like Jaron Lanier, who coined the term “virtual reality” and is one of Together mode’s leading creators; or Mary Czerwinski, a Microsoft research leader, who’s leading ground-breaking work to bring emotional intelligence to technology. As product leaders and thinkers, we realize the power of listening to customers directly and to what the data and research tells us about their needs. We are committed to understanding how work is evolving, and how we can shape our tools and products to benefit the greatest number of people.
Today, I am excited to help introduce WorkLab, a site focused on the future of work. WorkLab leverages Microsoft expertise and research, as well as customer voices, to spark conversation on the changing world of work. Stories range from Together mode’s origin story (who knew Stephen Colbert was involved?) to tips on how to improve your meeting culture. You’ll hear from an expert on workplace friendships; learn about the technology opportunity for frontline workers; and discover new ways to find balance in the ever-evolving workday.
With WorkLab, we are starting a conversation and we’re counting on this community to jump right in. I hope you’ll take a moment to check out the site, let us know what you think on LinkedIn and Twitter, and keep engaging as this experiment evolves.
Work is changing fast, and we’re dedicated to innovating and bringing value in this rapidly changing landscape. There’s so much we can discover and learn together.