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AlistairPugin
MVP
Joined Dec 20, 2016
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How to put together a Work From Home environment using Microsoft 365 — A RE365 Hackathon
We over at REgarding 365 had a similar idea to this. What we will be doing is putting together a Hackathon of sorts around Working from Home. "If we had 24 hours before everyone was locked out of the office and had to work from home, what would we set up so that people could continue to work and stay engaged with the org and their teams?" Grab the information here. Let me know what everyone thinks of the idea.The Tech Community, from zero to hero (100,000 users) in 12 months
I’ve been involved in the Microsoft community for the better part of 10 years, with my first engagement being that of the first SharePoint Saturday on the African continent, in South Africa, back in 2008, run by my old friend Zlatan Dzinic. Since then, I’ve had a sordid love affair with community. From running the SharePoint Usergroup in South Africa, to assisting other countries in Africa launching theirs, it’s become part of my genetic existence. Enter: The Microsoft Tech Community With the advent of the internet, 6 degrees of separation has been brought down to 2 degrees of separation and this is at the pinnacle of the engagement you will find in the Tech Community. Not only are you able to interact with fellow users of Microsoft technology, you are also able to engage directly with the product and engineering teams, and also industry experts and influencers. No other technology platform provides people with that level interaction, across the board. Now that I’ve positioned my love for the Tech Community, I had the fortunate opportunity to be involved with the Tech Community at this year’s Microsoft Ignite as a Community Reporter. WOWZER!! That’s the only word that comes to mind, to sum up what the experience was at Microsoft Ignite this year. As a community reporter, we got to experience what goes into putting together a live show, Day 1 and then inside the mind of Anna Chu as to what she wanted to achieve with the reporter initiative for days 2 through 5. Now what everyone sees through the live show, and the YouTube channel for Tech Community doesn’t even begin to show what really goes into it. Firstly, there was hours and hours and HOURS of prepwork, calls, session updates, interviewee scheduling, reporter kit decisions, location layouts, etc, etc, etc, which all culminated during the week of Ignite. As a reporter, getting to know the lay of the land, understanding the distances between shoots, which way to stand, what hand to hold the mic, where to look, when to be cued in, listening to yourself speak, as you speak’ so that you pause instead of saying “Erm”, all while maintaining the subject matter and being able to drive an interesting conversation at the same time, takes well, a LOT! I really enjoyed the conversations with people that we interviewed. My take home was the excitement of everyone involved. Not one single person was not hugely excited to be involved. The viewpoints of the people we chatted to was great as it gave us different insights into not only the conference but also what people thought about the announcements, Microsoft’s direction and the overall event itself. I’ve been running a podcast, 2 Guys and SharePoint with my co-host Rod Modlin (we did a live show from Ignite in the podcast center) for just over a year now so moving into video streaming and media was an interesting shift into how content is put together, what video shows require, and the type of audience that consumes video content. Content consumption in today’s fast paced world has changed drastically from the days of pure blogging alone. I’ve found audio and video to be a more expressive medium, which people enjoy over having to read traditional blog posts. Also, being able to keep up to date with what we are terming a “3 week” release cycle opposed to a traditional 3-year release cycle is proving to be the most challenging part of my career. By subscribing to podcasts and shows on YouTube like Regarding365, I’m able to stay current. My suggestion to IT Pros out there is to: Sign up to the Tech Community Follow the Tech Community on YouTube Follow podcasts, YouTube and other shows like: Microsoft Mechanics Windows Weekly This is by no means an exhaustive list of things to follow so please check out peeps on Twitter, Facebook, Medium and other platforms that provide amazing content in various forms. As a Community Reporter and Microsoft MVP, my passion is Learning Through Sharing. Being able to assist people through the concept of inclusion is what we practice in South Africa as part of the larger Microsoft Community. There is a Xhosa/Zulu word; ubuntu (no, not the linux distro) that means: “a quality that includes the essential human virtues; compassion and humanity”. South Africa is regarded as the rainbow nation and we have an amazing culture of inclusion in the Information and Communication Technology industry. We practice ubuntu in our daily lives and I believe that, in doing so, we are able to engage everyone more effectively. In closing, my message to people reading this post, in today’s world, approach what you do like this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-xScLIevw0 Be cool my ninja’s, See you next year people!
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