Driving Adoption Friday Feature: Loryan Strant
We are very excited to introduce this week’s Friday Feature— DeletedUser2246. Loryan recently started his own consultancy, The Cloud Mouth, aimed at helping companies through their cloud transformations. He has received 6 MVP Awards in Office Servers and Services. MVP Profile LinkedIn Blog Twitter Tell us a little bit about who you work for and your role in the organization. I've recently upgraded The Cloud Mouth from being my persona to a bona fide consultancy. I work with customers to determine their Office 365 strategy either pre or post sale, especially for those who have only deployed basic workloads like Exchange Online or OneDrive for Business. My goal is to achieve true productivity transformations for organisations and users. What’s the most rewarding part of a cloud transformation? Seeing users improve their day to day work lives is the most rewarding aspect of a cloud transformation. People have gotten so used to the way they work for so many years that change is frightening, but seeing how they become more productive and collaborative across a variety of little or large ways is really enjoyable. How do you handle the skeptics/’sticks in the mud’? Can you share any best practices for encouraging end-user adoption? I view all users on a spectrum. You can’t please everyone all the time, so my best practice is to identify the range of the spectrum and to work to getting the change to only be 20-30% away from those who are sticks in the mud. From there we’ve covered most users, and those that are hardest to change have less ground to cover. The main way I work to influence the skeptics to change is to find at least one or two little things that annoy them and make it better. Even if it’s cutting down a few clicks or speeding up a process, that creates a win and opens them up to the possibility of more improvements. My aim is to make everyone a “raving fan”. What resources do you use the most to stay up to date? How do you keep up with new technologies and updates? My morning routine involves reading through a plethora of blogs in my aggregator service Feedly. A lot I will skip over as I may already know them, but I do read a lot. Luckily I’m a speed reader so that cuts down the time to consume content. Usually when I first sit down at my computer my “work” morning routine involves trawling through Tech Community and various Yammer networks. Beyond that if I need to attend a webinar or watch videos I’ll carve out some time through the day, get cosy on the couch and set myself to Do Not Disturb. I find the content on http://reoffice365.com a great way to keep up to date from though leaders in the field. 😊 IT Pro Communities are highly engaged and seem to play a large role in IT Pros careers. Can you share how these communities have helped your career and your motivation for keeping up with your own blog and giving back to the community? I’ve been using communities since the early days of the Internet, be it IRC or bulletin boards. It’s been a great way to find experts and tips & tricks that you may not find elsewhere. Since the early days of BPOS I have been actively involved in the community and it’s actually that community I thank for nominating and supporting me in becoming a MVP. I’m a big believer in community and people helping each other out, so that powers me to keep sharing knowledge and content with those who choose to follow and engage with me. What’s the most interesting thing about you that we wouldn’t learn from your resume alone? I used to be an avid hiker, mountain climber, have long hair, and frequently enjoy mosh pits. 😊The Irony of Change
While technology has evolved dramatically overtime, the approach to change management around implementing new technology, ironically, seems to have stayed relatively constant. In 1985, the Harvard Business Review published an article titled “Implementing New Technology.” Although the technology referenced in the article is outdated; the concepts surrounding the challenges of rolling out and driving adoption, as well as the strategies used to address these challenges strike a very similar chord as strategies used today—including taking on a marketing approach, like we discussed in a post last week. Here are some of the quotes that resonated with us the most from the article: “New technologies, no matter what their origin, confront managers with a distinct set of challenges” “Generally, when technology is rolled out, it is handed off between organizations, but the runners should have been running in parallel for a long time” “Think of implementation as an internal marketing, not selling, job…selling starts with a finished product; marketing, with research on user needs and preferences” “The organizational hills are full of managers who believe that an innovation’s technical superiority and strategic importance will guarantee acceptance” “An innovation needs a champion to nurture it, and any new technology capable of inspiring strong advocacy will also provoke opposition.” Implementation Paradox: “The higher the organizational level at which managers define a problem, the greater the probability of successful implementation. However, the closer the definition and solution of problems or needs are to end-users, the greater the probability of success” Sound familiar? Do you agree that the principles of change are relatively constant? Do the change management principles shared in the article still apply today?Help your users be successful with Microsoft 365 and Office 365 with training & tips in their inbox
As a steward for your business, you’re always looking for ways to help your users get more from the technology you provide to them. We’ve heard from admins that one way to achieve this is with product tips and training content that their users can quickly use. This content often is available at the Office 365 Training Center , but users must currently seek it out themselves—and too often, they don’t. Email for product tips and training is coming The new email content from Microsoft will include only tips and training relevant to products and services you have enabled for your users. Be assured that we will not send your users sales, marketing, or advertising messages. Here is an example of a training email. Phased rollout We recognize that smaller organizations are juggling different priorities and often their IT admins wear multiple hats. That’s why we’ll start by sending the email communications to subset of customers that have Office 365 Business Essentials, Office 365 Business Premium, and subscriptions in the US and Australia. If you are an administrator for an organization that is part of this rollout, you’ll receive a notification in the Message Center, as well as an email reminder seven days before the first training tips email is sent to your users. Please note that you will be notified by the message center before the first training email is sent to your users. All training emails will only be sent from MicrosoftOffice365@email2.office.com email address. Admin is in control As the administrator for your organization, you’re in control. You have the flexibility to unsubscribe from these emails at any time on behalf of your organization by switching the ‘End User Communications’ setting to Off in the admin center. You can always subscribe later by changing the setting to On. Follow these steps to unsubscribe your organization from the training emails: 1. Sign In to the admin center 2. Click on Show all from the left navigation bar 3. Click on Settings 4. Click on Services & add-ins 5. Click on End User Communications 6. Change the setting and click on Save If you leave the email messages enabled for your organization, individual users can still unsubscribe at any time by clicking on the Unsubscribe link in the email footer. Users can also visit the Security & privacy page of their My Account Portal to unsubscribe. Preview the first training email and send it yourself Seven days before the first message is sent to users, global admins will be sent an email reminder with the opportunity to preview the content. This preview email will be sent only for the initial training content. If you prefer to send the training email yourself, just unsubscribe at the tenant level, then download a ready-to-send template from the preview email and send the first training email at your convenience. Give us feedback We’re always listening and learning from you. Please continue to provide feedback using the feedback button within the admin center.New infographic: document circle of life
"Where should I store my files?" and "What's the difference between SharePoint and OneDrive?" If you get these questions a lot, this infographic could seriously help build a standard lifecycle for files and documents. Also applicable to Teams, Outlook Groups, and Yammer, since they use SharePoint in the background. Link below for full-size version. http://icsh.pt/DocCircleOfLife http://icsh.pt/DocCircleOfLifeLive Webinar: Achieve More! Learn Key Functions of O365
FREE Live Training: Achieve More! Learn Key Functions of Office 365 A live presenter will walk through scenarios and encourage discussion and questions from attendees to learn out how Office 365 can make you more productive. Register today: http://aka.ms/O365achievemore Find other webinars like this one here: http://fasttrack.microsoft.com/office/webinar/live
