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Dylan_Snodgrass
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Joined Jul 11, 2017
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Skills shortage: 5 things you can do to fight cybercrime
People play an important part in cybersecurity. Top talent is critical to the success of your security strategy. But what do you do when there’s a talent shortage in this field? Check out 5 things you can do to fight cybercrime. Read the full post here.Re: Microsoft Word Community Hub AWOL
Certainly, Doug! The Word community is one of our original communities created when the Microsoft Tech Community was first made! We're looking at ways to "update" or breath new life into this community. Which creates a perfect opportunity! If you could see anything updated about the Word community, what would it be?Re: Microsoft Word Community Hub AWOL
Doug_Robbins_Word_MVP Deleted Stefan_Blom rasad4468 Thank you all for flagging this. The Word Community should be fully accessible again! We are currently looking at ways for us to best surface content to our Word customers, and thank you all for your patience. Cheers, DylanAnnouncement: Microsoft for Startups
“Today is a major milestone for Microsoft’s startup programs, as we lift the curtain on our new initiative to support the global startup ecosystems.” Microsoft for Startups was created to support the startup ecosystem and was officially announced on the https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2018/02/14/grow-build-connect-microsoft-startups/ in a post by Charlotte Yarkoni, Corporate Vice President Growth and Ecosystem at Microsoft. https://startups.microsoft.com/ will commit over $500 million over the next two years to broaden the solutions available to startups. The new program also includes: A co-sell opportunity with access to over 40k sellers and hundreds of thousands of Microsoft partners http://startups.microsoft.com/scaleup for startups in later stages New http://www.microsoftreactor.com/ community spaces for the startup community Read the https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2018/02/14/grow-build-connect-microsoft-startups/ or visit startups.microsoft.com for additional information. For more startup-related conversations, watch our https://youtu.be/IBQBNCRFHdk filmed at Tech Summit Cape TownFriday Feature: Sonia Cuff
Sonia Cuff Job Title: Co-Founder Company Name: The Missing Chair https://mvp.microsoft.com/en-us/PublicProfile/5002295?fullName=Sonia%20%20Cuff LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/soniacuff/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Cuff_S Website: https://soniacuff.com/ Why do you enjoy working with small businesses? What’s most rewarding? I love that technology projects have a shorter sales process, because we’re usually working with the decision maker from the start. Then once we have the green light to proceed, we also see those initiatives resulting in real business benefits in a short timeframe too. Ultimately building long term relationships is the most rewarding, where you feel like a part of their small business and they know you always have their best interests at heart. What advice do you have for small business owners that want to work with a consultant? Make sure your consultant is interested in your business and how you work. The consultant should ask a bunch of questions about your short term and long term plans and challenges, and how things get done in your business, to make sure their advice is appropriate to you. Also, trust your consultant. It’s hard to see outside of the walls of your own business, but consultants see similar problems across many businesses. Have a little faith in what they recommend. How has the IT industry changed since you started your career? Oh gosh, well I started supporting 286 PCs running DOS so a lot has changed! Aside from technical components like Active Directory, Solid State Drives, virtualization and Cloud Computing, the industry itself is a lot broader and there are many more opportunities to learn new skills. How do you stay up-to-date with current and emerging industry trends, and how do you share that information with clients? I have a number of trusted sources (online publications and key people or corporate accounts) that I follow, across a wide range of subjects. My morning routine is scanning those sources with my coffee, to get the latest announcements on my radar. Then I deep-dive into things when I need too. Living on Twitter and LinkedIn helps too! Then I’ll share content, adding my own thoughts, or I’ll blog on my own websites. For my close clients, it’s about surfacing that information to them when they need it, when I see a need in their business or just during conversations about how things are going in their world. What advice do you have for the community to help others achieve their career goals? Always be learning. I love that our industry is always changing, so you have to go wide with your what you take in but go deep with what you’re really interested in. A passion for sharing and helping others goes a long way too. Stay curious and talk with people outside of your immediate bubble.New MVP post: 2017, The Year I Realized Change is the New Constant by Lasse Nordvik Wedø
Great read by Lasse Nordvik Wedø about his hesitation with new tech, and decision to question his thinking for better understanding. When have you felt challenged by your gut reaction in the workplace? Join the conversation hereFriday Feature: Ståle Hansen
Ståle Hansen Job Title: Founder, CEO and Principal Cloud Architect Company Name: CloudWay AS, https://cloudway.no https://mvp.microsoft.com/en-us/PublicProfile/4032550?fullName=St%C3%A5le%20Hansen Blog: https://msunified.net/LinkedIn: https://no.linkedin.com/in/stalehansen/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/StaleHansen Tech Community Profile Can you tell us about your company, CloudWay AS? What do you do in your current role? My role as Founder, CEO and Principal Cloud Architect at CloudWay AS is to enable my colleagues to reach their full potential in whatever direction they want to go. I want to share my experience and help them as a mentor and coach and remove blockers so that they can make a difference as speakers, bloggers, trainers, and succeed as consultants at the same time. I believe that sharing knowledge and helping others will bring out the "helpers high" as Jason Silva puts it. That is when you get the energy to do more, when others benefit from your tips and tricks, it is a great feedback loop. I started CloudWay AS in December 2016 and already we are three people, focusing on secure productivity. I was fortunate to be able to team up with MVP Jan Ketil Skanke as partner, making us an MVP-driven consultancy. The goal is always to have complementary teams with more than two people to better scale and make sure we can combine knowledge sharing and keeping projects on track. That is why we are already looking to https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcloudway.no%2Fcloudarchitect%2F&data=02%7C01%7Cv-dysnod%40microsoft.com%7C796894c6c87a444f33d008d54e2bd33d%7C72f988bf86f141af91ab2d7cd011db47%7C1%7C1%7C636500872505341474&sdata=LKbcO0DTjY2oiXt64V7R6h15jJ2kuuK3E4tP71Kq6gI%3D&reserved=0. How do you breakdown complex problems for those you work with? When facing a complex tech problem, it is important to start from the inside out and always eliminate known factors as soon as possible. Too often people go down the complex route when the answer is in simple approaches and simple troubleshooting options. At the same time, it is important to break down a problem into individual components. When looking at hybrid Office 365 for instance, it is important to look at each component as a full solution and make sure they are correctly configured and that the approach for setting them up is sound. I always focus on the end-goal, keeping end-users in flow and make sure features works as intended. Knowing the prerequisites for each feature is key to breaking it down to individual components. What’s your favorite part about attending industry conferences & events? I love sharing my knowledge and lessons learned at industry events. Meeting likeminded people that are interested in Office 365 is always fun and we can have some good discussions. If I can help one person learn something new, then I have made a difference, and that is always the goal. Lately I have been sharing my thoughts on https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DW_Dag-3BQDU%26list%3DPL6SeshpCxLFFmRLYmsuaUmaJihs4dWIsE%26index%3D2&data=02%7C01%7Cv-dysnod%40microsoft.com%7C796894c6c87a444f33d008d54e2bd33d%7C72f988bf86f141af91ab2d7cd011db47%7C1%7C1%7C636500872505341474&sdata=Q5kzGfOAAotlJvdJsm0xU0lgnjVbwLt2cGWz5dEmzFg%3D&reserved=0 and the feedback was overwhelming with comments such as life changing and that this was a technique to be implemented right away. Feedback like that makes it worthwhile to put in the long hours in preparing content for industry events as speaker. Can you tell us about the book, “Office 365 for IT Pros”? What inspired you to contribute writing? When I was researching Office 365 Groups, I had difficulty finding useful information since neither groups nor Office 365 is something new. The problem with blogs and articles today is that they often are a static source to information. Then I came across the digital book, Office 365 for IT Pros, which is updated every week. I got to read up on Office 365 Groups and learn how they are different from other group types in Office 365 and know that this was the latest information. The authors did a great job reflecting on each possible approach and putting them in context. I thought this was a great source of information and wondered if there were any areas where I could contribute and found that the there was not much content on Skype for Business Online, which is one of my primary areas of expertise. I asked the authors, Tony Redmond, Michael Van Horenbeeck and Paul Cunningham, if they wanted help in that area and I ended up writing a dedicated chapter that I keep up to date as well as help keep the rest of the content up to date. This is a great example of how the community works, if you want to help share content, just ask. I believe in this format moving format since new features and possibilities light up fast in the Microsoft cloud. You can https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpractical365.com%2Febooks%2Foffice-365-for-it-pros%2F&data=02%7C01%7Cv-dysnod%40microsoft.com%7C796894c6c87a444f33d008d54e2bd33d%7C72f988bf86f141af91ab2d7cd011db47%7C1%7C1%7C636500872505341474&sdata=cWOWfHZXpR%2F7FlfqOQamuYlTlo2HT3OdApclEe7DVd8%3D&reserved=0. What’s a common misconception your clients have about solving tech problems? What I have learned over a long career in IT is not to make assumptions. I find this is more important now that we are in a cloud world and you want to integrate a static datacenter with a hyperdynamic cloud. Assuming that an integration works in the way you think rarely ends well. As IT Pros we do not have the same freedom to tweak technology the way we used to, we need to follow supported standards and recommended approaches, which are changing fast. The typical blockers I see today is when you try to get something to work the way you think it should work, but the approach is in the wrong direction, and so you need to find a different approach to make it work as intended. By looking at the wanted result we need to find the correct approach, sometimes it seems there are multiple different ways to get you there, but only one or two that will. Having the knowledge and insights to find the correct approach is the way to go forward, and that is why I think that people with passion for learning are a great asset in today's cloud IT Pro world.New MVP post: How I Grew My Career in 2017 by Jussi Roine
A year is a long time – but it always seems to fly by quickly. MVP Jussi Roine shares his reflections on last year including growing his company and the valuable connections he’s made in the industry. Read his insights and join the conversation hereFriday Feature: Martina Grom
Martina Grom Job Title: Co-Founder and CEO Company Name: http://www.atwork-it.com/ https://mvp.microsoft.com/en-us/PublicProfile/4030574?fullName=Martina%20%20Grom LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martinagrom/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/magrom What has been your biggest success, and biggest challenge, as Co-Founder and CEO of atwork? To found a company and get into the risk of failure, lots of work, and always challenging situations was something which was very exciting and scary at the same time. I founded atwork in 1999 together with my partner Toni Pohl. In the beginning we worked in IT and did almost “everything”, like installation of computers and servers, fixing networks, and doing trainings, etc. After a short time, we learned to specialize and focus on things we are good at. This was mainly software development and consulting – finding IT solutions for businesses. When we started to employ people, this was a huge learning. A team is something that needs to grow, and everyone needs to find his or her space. As an employer you are responsible for good work, valuable teamwork, and a successful replication of your vision through your whole team. We grew a lot since then and each and every day I am proud about what we did and what we do: help our customers be successful. We still love what we do, and we are still excited about our projects. We’ve focused for 10 years on Microsoft Cloud technologies, first starting with Office 365 and later with Azure and Enterprise Mobility + Security. What a ride! I started focusing on Office 365 at a time when most people in the industry did not believe in cloud technologies at all. In 2011 I was one of the first Office 365 MVP’s – and I’m so proud about that! This early focus on cloud technologies brought us an advantage in the market and let me learn that I am most successful when we can act as early adopters in new technologies. Learning about new things, adopting them, and talking about the benefits is one of the things I most love about my job today. It’s always a challenge but it pays off when you work in a job you love. Do what you love, love what you do. What are your company’s top priorities this year? We continue to develop our Software-as-a-Service solution named http://delegate365.com. This service helps companies in large Office 365 tenants use delegation management among domains or selected organizational units and offers automation tasks and auditing. We are currently investing a lot in supplementary features around this product. Another focus is on security, governance, and compliance due to the new EU GDPR regulations which will become mandatory in May 2018. Additionally, we are excited to build solutions around intelligence within Azure and Office 365. With the help of Microsoft Graph we can develop valuable solutions for customers that help with their change management process. One of our current research projects is about knowledge: with the help of AI we will discover existing skills and hidden champs in a company and help them to shine as experts. How do you help clients move to the cloud and understand its value? Our customers are pleased by our knowledge about the whole service architecture in Office 365. Our approach is to listen to our customers, build a good governance strategy for Office 365, prepare them for the move, and adopt the service. We integrate all aspects to it and start with building knowledge in the companies we work with, helping them understand security, finding the hidden challenges and pain points, and building a solution. Most of our customers go into a full or hybrid cloud solution after a short time. They understand the value of self service and they understand the benefits. We explore the service together, we integrate different departments of an organization, and help them to standardize and create workflows while learning about the advantages together. When did you first realize your passion for Office 365, and how does it affect your work? My passion for Office 365 started in 2008. At a local Microsoft event a friend told us that Microsoft is going to the cloud and that this will be something very exciting in the future. I started looking at it (it was called BPOS at that time and the very first cloud services became public) and learned that the service solves a lot of business requirements. So, I started to onboard our e-mail hosted customers to Office 365 (so we gave up our business in that space and moved it over to Microsoft). I got a lot of feedback and heard things like “you will never earn money with that, no one will ever go into the cloud.” But my passion is not around money, it’s around a solution which everyone can benefit from and that brings value to real time business requirements. Believe me, I learned a lot during that time. We were such a small group of people that we all literally knew each other: the support guys, people at Microsoft, us. In 2011, I was one of the first eight worldwide MVP’s for Office 365 – at a time where the product was not even released and available in Europe nor in Austria, where I live. My first MVP summit was one month later – and it was like a small family meeting for us eight, in person, in Redmond. My passion is still here, because Office 365 is a service that is never boring or stays the same. It is evergreen and everchanging. This is the best option for me as an early adopter. I build my skills through the whole service, starting from e-mail, through collaboration, communication, enterprise social, security, and automation. And it is still exciting! What’s your favorite way to share your knowledge with others? I am an introvert with a high passion for public speaking. I love conference talks and sharing my knowledge and best practices at conferences like Microsoft Ignite, the upcoming SharePoint North America conference, or our European collaboration summit – a community driven event. I’ve learned so much through my public speaking and it helped me grow and learn about different cultures, countries, and people. It is never the same and never boring. I like to get feedback and questions and love to see how excitement about technology can grow through inspiration and experience. Community brings incredible value. And I try to blog as much as possible about selected use cases, and how-tos. Also, writing books and training material is something I try to do as often as possible, but speaking, sharing background stories and knowledge, and getting direct feedback is still my favorite part.Friday Feature: Greig Sheridan
Greig Sheridan Job Title: Practice Lead - UC Company Name: https://www.generation-e.com.au/ https://mvp.microsoft.com/en-us/PublicProfile/5000473?fullName=Greig%20%20Sheridan LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/greiginsydney/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/greiginsydney Can you tell us a bit about your career path in the Telecom Industry? I’ve worked in telephony for over 30 years now, going straight from high school at 18 into an apprenticeship with Australia’s national carrier Telecom (now Telstra) as an Apprentice Technician. I chose PABX maintenance for my specialty and spent many years in support roles, eventually evolving into a pre-sales / solutions architect position with the master Nortel reseller in Australia. In the mid-noughties Nortel entered into an “Innovative Communications Alliance” with Microsoft, and that exposed me to Live Communications Server 2005 and Office Communications Server 2007. The collapse of Nortel in 2009 presented an opportunity to reboot my career, and I felt that joining a Microsoft partner to work on OCS 2007 R2, installing and deploying Enterprise Voice was the right move. Coming from a traditional PABX background was quite a learning curve for me, but the team I was working with there really helped me grow my networking and Microsoft skills, and in return of course I taught them plenty about telephony. What did you learn early in your career, and what have you recently learned? Early in the career it was the basics of telephony, of battery feeds, current flow and the colour codes for cables and resistors. Back then I used to program with a soldering iron! Of recent times, it’s how little I seem to know about PowerShell. Over Christmas I bought fellow MVP Mike F Robbins’ ebook “https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fleanpub.com%2Fpowershell101&data=02%7C01%7Cv-nasw%40microsoft.com%7C4e083a70d7334a85c39e08d562361e79%7Cee3303d7fb734b0c8589bcd847f1c277%7C1%7C0%7C636522906953358591&sdata=H8l3N5dKCZY8e6wEv%2BuUEdya3ywMjOFAgCUcvdZkA8A%3D&reserved=0”, and I’m a little embarrassed (but at the same time delighted) at all the tips I’ve picked up from reading what’s supposed to be a book for beginners. What excites you most about telephony and Unified Communications? I’m continually impressed by how telephony has evolved since Alexander Graham Bell supposedly uttered the words “Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you”, and that I’ve lived through so much of that change – and it’s still evolving. From generator handles through dials to pushbuttons, telephony has morphed to become Unified Communications – and yet at the same time if we want to talk to someone we still hold a “receiver” to our ear and talk into a “transmitter”. I won’t be happy until we can mark the official death of the G.729 codec, and all other narrow-band codecs. It’s coming. What cloud or IT trends are you paying attention to most these days? Bots and automation are big, with Microsoft releasing SDKs for Skype for Business and Teams, and Flow to help you automate and integrate. I have a couple of ideas for some bots I want to write, including porting my own take on Joseph Weizenbaum’s 1966 ELIZA “artificial intelligence” application to the cloud version of the platform. As far as 2018’s concerned though for me it’s Teams. Microsoft’s development of that is continuing at great pace, and the published roadmap for this calendar year lists a lot of really exciting telephony features to catch up to and then surpass what we do with Skype for Business. What are your hobbies outside of work? I've always been interested in digital electronics and I still enjoy dabbling there, although the workbench doesn't see much use these days. I've loved coding since I was a kid, and that's something I get to do today as part of my work (primarily with PowerShell) and of an evening and weekend when I'm writing C# utils & scripts for Skype for Business or tinkering with an Arduino or Raspberry Pi on all sorts of home automation projects. I'm also the cook here at home. I'll often throw a "mystery ingredient" into something just to see if it works, then ask my partner if he can guess what it is. In the absence of any really obvious sensation his default answer is "chilli", and he's often correct. There's always room for chilli in a dish – and yes, even dessert.
