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Happiest of holidays, and welcome to 2025! December 2024 brought some great new offerings: Microsoft Syntex pay-as-you-go: Simple document processing model, Viva Connections: Power Apps card, Viva Pulse now included in Microsoft 365 Copilot, Microsoft Search for Bing retirement, Outlook.cloud.microsoft, Add external content links to Viva Learning, Microsoft 365 data residency: New Zealand, the big, upcoming SharePoint Event + AMA (Jan.29.2025 - 9 AM PST), and more. Plus, a little year in review: The top five features of 2024, a quick list of apps we said goodbye to, and a few 2025 predictions. Read this episode's corresponding blog post. 02:11 Employee engagement SPONSOR | Upcoming SharePoint event 09:36 Top 5 SharePoint features shipped in 2024 20:40 Related technology 26:29 January 2025 teasers 32:22 AI and agents insights from Jeff Teper SharePoint | Facebook | @SharePoint | SharePoint Community Blog | Feedback Mark Kashman |@mkashman [co-host] Microsoft Docs - The home for Microsoft documentation for end users, developers, and IT professionals. Microsoft Tech Community Home Stay on top of Office 365 changes Upcoming events ON DEMAND Microsoft Ignite 2024 | Incl. SharePoint "event guide" ESPC | Dec 2-5, 2024 in Stockholm, Sweden (incl. Jeff Teper's ESPC24 keynote on demand) UPCOMING "SharePoint: From Concept to Creation to Impact + Live AMA" webinar with Jeff Teper | Jan. 29, 2025, 9:00 AM - 10:00 AM PST M365 Miami 2025 | Feb.6-7.2025 MVP Summit 2025 | March 24-27.2025 (Redmond, WA & online) Microsoft 365 Community Conference | May 5-8, 2025 (Vegas) SharePoint Intranet Festival (SWOOP Analytics) | May 21, 2025 (Online) European Collabroation Summit | May 26-28, 2025 (Düsseldorf, Germany) + always review and share the CommunityDays.org website Discover and follow other Microsoft podcasts at aka.ms/microsoft/podcasts. Follow The Intrazone at aka.ms/TheIntrazone.
This month's pitstop looks at everything that landed in November 2024: Viva Engage: Updates for the Copilot adoption community, Copilot Pages, Add Approvals to any SharePoint document library, Teams: New chat and channels experience, Teams: New calendar experience, and Windows Server 2025 (GA). Plus, we share highlights from Microsoft Ignite 2024 - Five announcements from across the Microsoft portfolio. You'll also hear a segment of audio from Maya Rodrig - from the Microsoft Loop team - summarizing Copilot Pages alongside BizChat. It's a busy pitstop to get up to speed AND look ahead. Read this episode's corresponding blog post. 01:24 Employee engagement 07:13 "Copilot Pages" by Maya Rodrig 11:17 Teamwork 13:23 Related technology 31:25 Teasers Maya Rodrig | LinkedIn SharePoint | Facebook | @SharePoint | SharePoint Community Blog | Feedback Mark Kashman |@mkashman [co-host] Microsoft Docs - The home for Microsoft documentation for end users, developers, and IT professionals. Microsoft Tech Community Home Stay on top of Office 365 changes Upcoming events: Microsoft Ignite 2024 | Now on demand (incl. SharePoint "event guide") ESPC | European SharePoint Conference | Dec 2-5, 2024 in Stockholm, Swede + always review and share the CommunityDays.org website Discover and follow other Microsoft podcasts at aka.ms/microsoft/podcasts. Follow The Intrazone at aka.ms/TheIntrazone.
September 2024 brought a few nice updates and some key disclosures—SharePoint Brand center, Copilot in OneDrive (GA), Copilot in SharePoint: Text web part, Microsoft 365 Copilot: Wave 2 news, Bing Generative Search news, Microsoft Delve retirement, Microsoft AI Tour Live updates, completion of the Microsoft Loop Learning Series, and more. Read this episode's corresponding blog post. 00:59 Employee engagement 03:25 Teamwork 07:42 Related technology 25:18 Teasers SharePoint | Facebook | @SharePoint | SharePoint Community Blog | Feedback Mark Kashman |@mkashman [co-host] Microsoft Docs - The home for Microsoft documentation for end users, developers, and IT professionals. Microsoft Tech Community Home Stay on top of Office 365 changes Upcoming events: Oct. 8th at 10am PDT | Microsoft OneDrive: AI Innovations for a New Era of Work and Home Oct. 14-18 | ESPC - SharePoint week (Seven virtual webinars | Free) Oct. 16th at 8am PDT "Create and share Copilot agents in SharePoint in a few clicks" with CJ Tan and Karuana Gatimu; our next "Meet the Makers" episode. CollabDays New England | October 18-19, 2024 | Burlington, Massachusetts TechCon365 - Dallas | Nov. 11-15, 2024 | Dallas, TX Microsoft Ignite (+ more info) | Nov. 18-22, 2024 | Chicago, IL ESPC | European SharePoint Conference | Dec. 2-5, 2024 | Stockholm, Sweden + always review and share the CommunityDays.org website Discover and follow other Microsoft podcasts at aka.ms/microsoft/podcasts. Follow The Intrazone at aka.ms/TheIntrazone.
July 2024 brought some great new offerings—New SharePoint content pane, co-authoring in SharePoint, OneDrive: Additional file types to filter, OneDrive: Updated shared folder experience, new Copilot in Planner (preview), the 2024 release wave 2 plans for Dynamics 365 and Power Platform, details about how to enter the Deadpool Xbox giveaway sweepstakes, and more. Plus, we also hear from Melissa Torres from the SharePoint team who focuses on pages and news. You'll hear Melissa talk about recent updates and then dive into learning more behind the scenes co-authoring in SharePoint pages. Click here for this episode's corresponding blog post. 7:50 Interview with Melissa Torres 24:45 Teamwork 28:35 Related Technology 35:00 Teasers Mark Kashman |@mkashman [co-host] Melissa Torres|LinkedIn | Twitter [guest] SharePoint | Facebook | @SharePoint | SharePoint community blog | Feedback BLOG + DEMO VIDEO | "Introducing Coauthoring for SharePoint Pages and News" by Melissa Torres Get Loop'ed in on the upcoming Microsoft Loop 5-Part Learning Series. Register today Watch | "Content Management and Collaboration for the AI Era" Watch | "The intranet of tomorrow: beautiful, flexible, and AI ready" Watch all 55 product learning videos on demand. Enter the #XboxCheekyControllerSweepstakes [More details + complete rules] Join the Power Platform community Microsoft Docs - The home for Microsoft documentation for end users, developers, and IT professionals. Microsoft Tech Community Home Stay on top of Office 365 changes Upcoming events: TechCon365 - DC | August 12-16, 2024 | Washington, D.C. CollabDays Hamburg | August 31, 2024 - Hamburg, Germany Microsoft Power Platform Conference | Sept. 18-20, 2024 | Las Vegas, NV CollabDays - New England | Oct. 18, 2024 | Burlington, MA TechCon365 - Dallas | Nov. 11-15, 2024 | Dallas, TX Microsoft Ignite (+ more info) | Nov 18-22, 2024, "Save the date" | Chicago, IL European SharePoint Conference [ESPC]| Dec 2-5, 2024 | Stockholm, Sweden + always review and share the CommunityDays.org website Discover and follow other Microsoft podcasts at aka.ms/microsoft/podcasts. Follow the Intrazone at aka.ms/TheIntrazone.
We focus on everything that landed this past April 2024: SharePoint brand center (Preview) with custom fonts support, Search from Viva Connections in Teams mobile, SharePoint: New feedback button, New Planner (GA), SharePoint eSignature and Approvals, SharePoint pages: New heading support, Clipchamp: Silence Removal, Microsoft Loop: Guest Sharing, and more. Plus a few audio clips from the recent New Planner launch events. And now, to the roadmap! Read this episode's corresponding blog post. Plus, click here for transcript of this episode. 01:22 Employee Engagement 05:33 Planner + AI and Copilot 09:01 Teamwork 14:37 Related Technologies 23:00 Teasers New Planner | GA Blog | "Meet the Makers" | New Planner AM SharePoint | Facebook | @SharePoint | SharePoint Community Blog | Feedback Mark Kashman |@mkashman [co-host] Chris McNulty |@cmcnulty2000 [co-host] Microsoft Docs - The home for Microsoft documentation for end users, developers, and IT professionals. Microsoft Tech Community Home Stay on top of Office 365 changes Upcoming events: Microsoft 365 Community Conference | April 30 - May 2, 2024, Orlando, FL European Cloud Summit | May 14-16,2024, Wiesbaden, Germany SharePoint Intranet Festival (Online from SWOOP Analytics | May 22) TechCon365 - Seattle | June 3-7, 2024, Seattle, WA Microsoft Ignite (+ more info) | Nov 18-22, 2024, "Save the date," Chicago, IL European SharePoint Conference | Dec 2-5, 2024 in Stockholm, Sweden And always review and share the CommunityDays.org website Discover and follow other Microsoft podcasts at aka.ms/microsoft/podcasts. Follow the Intrazone at aka.ms/TheIntrazone.
We chat with game developer Ubisoft about their use of custom Search in Microsoft 365. Franck Cornu, Mihaela Nite and Stephanie Daigle discuss their journey to update their old global search application - originally built on SharePoint Server 2013, now fully on SharePoint in Microsoft 365. Learn why they moved to the cloud, how they customized the Search experience in the cloud, plus tips and tricks for your consideration. Read this episode's corresponding blog post. Plus, click here for transcript of this episode. 09:15 Conversation with Franck Cornu, Mihaela Nite and Stephanie Daigle 51:34 Upcoming Events Franck Cornu | LinkedIn [guest] Mihaela Nita | LinkedIn [guest] Stephanie Daigle | LinkedIn [guest] SharePoint | Facebook | @SharePoint | SharePoint Community Blog | Feedback Mark Kashman |@mkashman [co-host] Chris McNulty |@cmcnulty2000 [co-host] "Ubisoft journey with Microsoft Search" [use case whitepaper] "Build Microsoft Graph connected web sites for a custom enterprise search experience" Jan 18, 2024 | Frank Cornu on Microsoft 365 & Power Platform Development community call. Microsoft Docs - The home for Microsoft documentation for end users, developers, and IT professionals. Microsoft Tech Community Home Stay on top of Office 365 changes Upcoming events: Enterprise Connect | March 25-28, 2024 | Gaylord Palms, Orlando, FL Microsoft Fabric Community Conference | March 26-28, 2024, in Las Vegas, NV SharePoint Embedded Developer Summit | March 26-27, Redmond, WA Special Planner event | April 3 at 10am PDT - sharing more about the New Planner AIIM | April 3-5, 2024, in San Antonio, TX North American Cloud & Collaboration Summit (NACS) | April 9-11, 2024, in Dallas, TX Microsoft 365 Community Conference | April 30 - May 2, 2024, in Orlando, FL European Cloud Summit | May 14-16,2024, in Wiesbaden, Germany) TechCon365 - Seattle | June 3-7, 2024, in Seattle, WA Microsoft Ignite (+ more info) | Nov 18-22, 2024, "Save the date," Chicago, IL European SharePoint Conference | Dec 2-5, 2024 in Stockholm, Sweden Discover and follow other Microsoft podcasts at aka.ms/microsoft/podcasts. Follow the Intrazone at aka.ms/TheIntrazone.
Summary In this episode, we're joined by Griffin Lickfeldt, a young professional in the Microsoft Dynamics space. Griffin shares his journey from graduating university to joining Hitachi Solutions America's launch program, where he received training on consulting and Dynamics. Griffin also shares his favorite learning resources, including Microsoft Learn modules and YouTube videos. He talks about his content creation journey on YouTube and offers insights into balancing content creation with work/personal life. Griffin Lickfeldt shares his experience of visiting a client's headquarters and presenting a blueprint for a project. Key Takeaways The Hitachi launch program provides a valuable opportunity for individuals without technical backgrounds to learn about consulting and developing for Dynamics. Microsoft Learn and Microsoft Docs are great resources for learning about Dynamics and Power Platform. YouTube videos can be an effective way to learn and digest content, especially for visual learners. Balancing content creation with work and personal life requires setting aside dedicated time and having a schedule. Presenting a blueprint requires careful preparation and communication with the client to ensure accuracy. Misunderstandings can occur, but it's important to handle them professionally and learn from the experience. Special Thanks to Griffin Lickfeldt for joining us for this episode! You can find their socials at: LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/griffin-lickfeldt/ YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@citizendeveloper365 Their Blog - https://citizendeveloper365.com/ KenLikeFit for providing music - Find out more here > https://linktr.ee/kenlikefit Resources Video | Microsoft Copilot - Is it worth the hype? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynBrpT1Cxfw Book | Will it make the boat go faster? - http://tinyurl.com/mryrb94d Book | Getting Naked - http://tinyurl.com/4vmbhdkw
Busy February - taking advantage of that extra day. We leap into everything that landed this past month: Copilot Dashboard for Viva Insights, SharePoint Premium: Translation (GA), Sample: Custom copilot in SharePoint with SSO, Signaling Viva Topics retirement (Feb 2025), Custom document library templates, Updated Lists apps: Sites/Teams/PWA, Copilot in Teams, Microsoft Clipchamp: Automatic captions, Teams: Hide General Channels, Initial Microsoft 365 apps on Apple visionOS, and more. To the roadmap! Read this episode's corresponding blog post. 01:34 Employee engagement updates 08:02 Teamwork updates 11:20 Related items and March Teasers SharePoint | Facebook | @SharePoint | SharePoint Community Blog | Feedback Copilot | Adoption center | @MSFTCopilot (X/Twitter) | LinkedIn Mark Kashman |@mkashman [co-host] Chris McNulty |@cmcnulty2000 [co-host] Microsoft Docs - The home for Microsoft documentation for end users, developers, and IT professionals. Microsoft Tech Community Home Stay on top of Office 365 changes Upcoming events: Microsoft Fabric Community Conference | March 26-28, 2024 in Las Vegas, NV AIIM | April 3-5, 2024 in San Antonio, TX North American Cloud & Collaboration Summit (NACS) | April 9-11, 2024 in Dallas, TX Microosft 365 Conference | April 28 - May 4, 2024 in Orlando, FL Discover and follow other Microsoft podcasts at aka.ms/microsoft/podcasts. Follow the Intrazone at aka.ms/TheIntrazone.
In this episode, we dig into two real-time, data-driven public service scenarios -- both about systems and people that support policing at-scale. You'll hear solution-oriented clips pulled from two episodes of the 'Public Sector Future' podcast, with show host Olivia Neal - Director of Public Sector Center of Expertise at Microsoft. First, Olivia speaks to Ian Bell, CEO of the UK's Police Digital Service, to give an inside look into harnessing the power of digital, data, and technology to better protect the communities they serve. Then a conversation with Joseph Courtesis, former Inspector of the NYPD who helped rationalize millions of data points from multiple data sources to save police time, in real time. Read this episode's corresponding blog post. Plus, click here for transcript of this episode. Olivia Neal | LinkedIn | Twitter | Public Sector Future podcast (Promoted by @MSFTNews) Ian Bell | Profile on PDS site | Twitter | LinkedIn | Police Digital (Twitter) | PDS on LinkedIn Joseph Courtesis | Twitter | LinkedIn | NYPDNews (Twitter) | NYPD (LinkedIn) | NYPD (Website) SharePoint | Facebook | @SharePoint | SharePoint Community Blog | Feedback Mark Kashman |@mkashman [co-host] Chris McNulty |@cmcnulty2000 [co-host] Public Sector Center of Expertise Microsoft for Public Safety and Justice Episode 51: The UK's Police Digital Service Episode 14: Real Time Crime Center Lessons from the pandemic are shaping the future of public safety (article) UK Police Digital Service (website) Microsoft Docs - The home for Microsoft documentation for end users, developers, and IT professionals. Microsoft Tech Community Home Stay on top of Office 365 changes Upcoming events: 365 EduCon - Seattle (plus PWR EduCon) | Aug.21-25.2023 SEF 2023 | Sept.11-12.2023 (Tekniska Museet – Stockholm, Sweden) Microsoft Power Platform Conference | Oct.3-5.2023 (Las Vegas) 365 EduCon - Chicago | Oct.30 - Nov.4, 2023 (Chicago, IL) European SharePoint Conference | Nov.27-30 in (Amsterdam, Netherlands) European Cloud Summit | Dec.4-6.2023 (Wiesbaden, Germany) Discover and follow other Microsoft podcasts at aka.ms/microsoft/podcasts. Follow the Intrazone at aka.ms/TheIntrazone.
A swell of innovation is coming, aiming to boost the creator in us all – to create faster, more intuitively, and with the help of AI – your intranet web design partner. In this episode, we talk with Adam Harmetz, Vice President of SharePoint Experiences at Microsoft. We get his perspective on the recent SharePoint announcements disclosed at the Microsoft 365 Conference on May 2, 2023, in Las Vegas, Nevada. These include insights on Copilot in SharePoint, all the coming site design goodness – including custom fonts and 'brand center', the updated capabilities when working with images and videos, plus one of the core aspects - design goals, if you will - to evolve the SharePoint start experience for when you're in creator mode. Click here for this episode's corresponding blog post. 02:04 Conversation with Adam Harmetz 16:10 Upcoming Events 20:03 Related Blogs Adam Harmetz | LinkedIn | Twitter SharePoint | Facebook | @SharePoint | SharePoint Community Blog | Feedback Mark Kashman |@mkashman [co-host] Chris McNulty |@cmcnulty2000 [co-host] "SharePoint in the AI Era: Introducing 'Copilot in SharePoint' and 10 more innovations for creators" by Adam Harmetz. "Welcome to the new era of SharePoint and OneDrive in Microsoft 365" by Jeff Teper. Microsoft Docs - The home for Microsoft documentation for end users, developers, and IT professionals. Microsoft Tech Community Home Stay on top of Office 365 changes Upcoming events: 365 EduCon - DC | June.12-16 Washington D.C. - USA CollabDays Central Europe | June 17th - in Technopark Zürich | 4 Tracks, with up to 20 Sessions in one day Microsoft Inspire | July 18-19 (virtual only event) European Power Platform Conference | June 20-22, 2023 in Dublin, Ireland Commsverse 2023 - June 21-22, 2023 - Surrey, United Kingdom CollabDays Zagreb - July 1, 2023 - Zagreb, Croatia 365 EduCon Seattle – August 21-25, 2023 - Seattle, WA, USA European SharePoint Conference | Nov.27-30 in Amsterdam, Netherlands Discover and follow other Microsoft podcasts at aka.ms/microsoft/podcasts. Follow the Intrazone at aka.ms/TheIntrazone.
April 2023 brought some great new offerings to SharePoint and Microsoft 365: Project integration in Viva Goals, Viva Connections: Mobile SharePoint site navigation, improved Graph Connector content results, eDiscovery document version shared, Microsoft Lists: Applied filters, Microsoft Loop: .fluid > .loop, new files experience in Teams, Create pages and news in the SharePoint app bar, and more. We chat with Ben Truelove, Principal Designer at Microsoft focused on Microsoft Lists about recent user interface updates - narrowing in on the new experiences when working with and creating views + what was released this past month: Applied Filters. April showers truly brought May Features. Click here to view this episode's corresponding blog post. Click here for this episode's full transcript. 01:13 Employee engagement 05:54 Conversation with Ben Truelove 18:11 Teamwork 23:05 Related Items 29:41 Teasers SharePoint | @SharePoint | SharePoint Community Blog | Feedback Mark Kashman |@mkashman [co-host] Chris McNulty |@cmcnulty2000 [co-host] Ben Truelove | LinkedIn [guest] Microsoft Docs - The home for Microsoft documentation for end users, developers, and IT professionals. Microsoft Tech Community Home Stay on top of Office 365 changes Upcoming events: Microsoft 365 Conference | May.2-4.2023 Las Vegas, Nevada CollabDays Poland | May.13.2023 Warsaw, Poland Power Automate & Power Apps Developer Bootcamp Automation Summit 2023 | May.19-20.2023 London, Paddington European Collaboration Summit | May.22-24.2023 Düsseldorf Fair, Germany Microsoft Build 2023 | May 23-25, 2023. Register now. The AIIM Conference 2023 | May.25-27.2023 Hyatt Regency, New Orleans CollabDays Netherlands | June.10.2023 Vianen, Utrecht 365 EduCon - DC | June.12-16 Washington D.C. - USA Discover and follow other Microsoft podcasts at aka.ms/microsoft/podcasts. Follow the Intrazone at aka.ms/TheIntrazone.
Alvin Ashcraft has over 27 years of programming experience in the healthcare, financial, and manufacturing industries. He is a Content Developer for Microsoft, creating docs for Windows developers on Microsoft Docs. He has authored a book for Packt Publishing titled Learn WinUI 3, and has just published his second book, Parallel Programming and Concurrency with C# 10 and .NET 6, out now. Alvin is one of the founders and organizers of the TechBash developer conference held annually at the Kalahari Resort in Pocono Manor, PA. In his previous life, he worked for consulting firms as a software developer. During those years Alvin developed solutions for clients in the manufacturing, financial, and healthcare industries. Alvin is a blogger, technology geek, family guy, and former Microsoft MVP. He has a wonderful wife and three amazing daughters. Topics of Discussion: [3:18] How Alvin got started with his blog, and how blogging made RSS a thing. [5:48] What exactly does NewsBlur do for you? [10:10] Are we overstating it when we say that people who work in development need to become expert users of all the frameworks and tools they intend to use? [12:20] Alvin talks about the inspiration behind his new book, and why he chose parallel programming and concurrency as the topics. [16:35] Okay, what is it really like having TechBash at the beautiful Kalahari resort? [22:00] What does the future hold for Windows development? [24:03] How else can we best be prepared for the future? Mentioned in this Episode: Architect Tips — New video podcast! Azure DevOps Clear Measure (Sponsor) .NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer's Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo — Available on Amazon! Jeffrey Palermo's YouTube Jeffrey Palermo's Twitter — Follow to stay informed about future events! Programming with Palermo programming@palermo.network Alvin's main blog Alvin's WinUI blog Twitter TechBash Twitter TechBash site Alvin's GitHub OpenLiveWriter plugin The Documentation landing page on MS Learn: Learn.microsoft.com/docs/ The landing page for Windows developer docs: Learn.microsoft.com/windows/apps/ A list of sample apps and samples repos for Windows developers Learn WinUI 3 book: Parallel Programming and Concurrency with C# 10 and .NET 6 book Newsblur.com/ Feedly.com/ Openlivewriter.com/ Github.com/MicrosoftDocs/win32 Github.com/MicrosoftDocs/windows-dev-docs Github.com/MicrosoftDocs/sdk-api TPL Data Flow library Want to Learn More? Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.
The team catches up with Aimee Littleton, PM on the Azure Networking team, to learn more about NAT Gateway and when customers should be using it. Short answer = whenever you have outbound network connectivity as part of your workload! Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode438.mp3 YouTube: https://youtu.be/cmU5hNEISlg Resources: What is Azure Virtual Network NAT? | Microsoft Docs Dive deep into NAT gateway’s SNAT port behavior | Azure Blog and Updates | Microsoft Azure Other Updates: General availability: Azure Communication Services support for Teams identities | Azure updates | Microsoft Azure
James Tabor from the Azure CXP CRE (Customer Reliability Engineering) team shares how he improves team productivity by building Power Platform Apps and gives us tips and tricks to get us started on the same journey. Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode437.mp3 YouTube: https://youtu.be/_t6BIh-9vHI Other Updates: Public preview: Ephemeral OS disks supports host-based encryption using customer managed key | Azure updates | Microsoft Azure Generally available: Live resize for Premium SSD and Standard SSD Disk Storage | Azure updates | Microsoft Azure Elevate your visualizations with Azure Managed Grafana—now generally available https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/elevate-your-visualizations-with-azure-managed-grafana-now-generally-available/ Microsoft Cost Management updates – August 2022 https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/microsoft-cost-management-updates-august-2022/ Azure private MEC—A thriving partner ecosystem https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-private-mec-a-thriving-partner-ecosystem/ Azure Virtual Machines with Ampere Altra Arm–based processors—generally available https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-virtual-machines-with-ampere-altra-arm-based-processors-generally-available/ Azure Cosmos DB integrated cache | Microsoft Docs Public preview: App Configuration references for App Service and Azure Functions | Azure updates | Microsoft Azure Generally available: Azure Functions extension for Event Grid blob trigger | Azure updates | Microsoft Azure
(00:00) - Intro and catching up.(06:22) - Show content starts.Show links- Best Practices for endpoint security (Well-architected Framework)- Security monitoring tools (Microsoft Docs) - Azure DDoS Protection simulation testing (Microsoft Docs)- Azure Front Door overview (Microsoft Docs)
It's OneDrive's 15th birthday, and all the presents are for you. On this episode, Ankita Kirti and Mark Kashman chat with Arwa Tyebkhan (Principal GPM | OneDrive) and Steven Bailey (CVP OneDrive and SharePoint engineering) to celebrate both OneDrive's 15th lap around the sun AND to hear more about the new OneDrive Home experience. We first go into the way-back machine to learn about the evolution from Windows Live Mesh, Grove.exe and SharePoint Workspaces, into SkyDrive and SkyDrive Pro, and land on OneDrive as we know it today. We also discover that it's not only OneDrive's birthday… the team has been hard at work redesigning the OneDrive Home experience to help you easily resume your work and catch up on what you missed while you were away – everything at-a-glance and easy to prioritize where to start working. Click here for this episode's corresponding blog post. Steven Bailey (CVP OneDrive and SharePoint engineering lead) | LinkedIn Arwa Tyebkhan (Principal GPM - OneDrive) | LinkedIn Mark Kashman |@mkashman [co-host] Ankita Kirti | @Ankita_Kirti21 [co-host] OneDrive | @OneDrive | OneDrive community blog | Provide feedback SharePoint | @SharePoint | SharePoint community blog | Provide feedback Resources: "OneDrive turns 15!" - A brief history and introducing a new OneDrive Home experience | by Ankita Kirti (blog, customer video, podcast) Short "OneDrive turns 15!" video + screenshots of new OneDrive home experience Microsoft Docs - The home for Microsoft documentation for end users, developers, and IT professionals. Microsoft Tech Community Home Stay on top of Office 365 changes Discover and follow other Microsoft podcasts at aka.ms/microsoft/podcasts Upcoming Events: 365 EduCon - Dallas (Aug. 8-12, 2022; Dallas, TX) HR Tech (Sept.13-16.2022; Mandalay Bay - Las Vegas, NV) Microsoft Power Platform Conference (Sept.20-22.2022; Orlando, FL) European Cloud Summit (Sept.26-28; Mainz, GE) 365 EduCon - Chicago (Sept.26-30; Chicago, IL) Microsoft Ignite (Oct.12-14; Hybrid) + FAQs + follow @MS_Ignite Microsoft Lists workshop [On-demand] Follow The Intrazone at aka.ms/TheIntrazone
It's OneDrive's 15th birthday, and all the presents are for you. On this episode, Ankita Kirti and Mark Kashman chat with Arwa Tyebkhan (Principal GPM | OneDrive) and Steven Bailey (CVP OneDrive and SharePoint engineering) to celebrate both OneDrive's 15th lap around the sun AND to hear more about the new OneDrive Home experience. We first go into the way-back machine to learn about the evolution from Windows Live Mesh, Grove.exe and SharePoint Workspaces, into SkyDrive and SkyDrive Pro, and land on OneDrive as we know it today. We also discover that it's not only OneDrive's birthday… the team has been hard at work redesigning the OneDrive Home experience to help you easily resume your work and catch up on what you missed while you were away – everything at-a-glance and easy to prioritize where to start working. Click here for this episode's corresponding blog post. Steven Bailey (CVP OneDrive and SharePoint engineering lead) | LinkedIn Arwa Tyebkhan (Principal GPM - OneDrive) | LinkedIn Mark Kashman |@mkashman [co-host] Ankita Kirti | @Ankita_Kirti21 [co-host] OneDrive | @OneDrive | OneDrive community blog | Provide feedback SharePoint | @SharePoint | SharePoint community blog | Provide feedback Resources: "OneDrive turns 15!" - A brief history and introducing a new OneDrive Home experience | by Ankita Kirti (blog, customer video, podcast) Short "OneDrive turns 15!" video + screenshots of new OneDrive home experience Microsoft Docs - The home for Microsoft documentation for end users, developers, and IT professionals. Microsoft Tech Community Home Stay on top of Office 365 changes Discover and follow other Microsoft podcasts at aka.ms/microsoft/podcasts Upcoming Events: 365 EduCon - Dallas (Aug. 8-12, 2022; Dallas, TX) HR Tech (Sept.13-16.2022; Mandalay Bay - Las Vegas, NV) Microsoft Power Platform Conference (Sept.20-22.2022; Orlando, FL) European Cloud Summit (Sept.26-28; Mainz, GE) 365 EduCon - Chicago (Sept.26-30; Chicago, IL) Microsoft Ignite (Oct.12-14; Hybrid) + FAQs + follow @MS_Ignite Microsoft Lists workshop [On-demand] Follow The Intrazone at aka.ms/TheIntrazone
We chat with Nir Mashkowski, Principal PM Manager, about the evolution of PaaS since its inception 10+ years ago, some of the usage patterns that he has observed, the benefits and reasoning of using PaaS services, and the future of where Azure PaaS services is headed. Media File: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode431.mp3 YouTube: https://youtu.be/b3zUtaCnhTE Resources: Overview - Azure App Service | Microsoft Docs Azure Functions Overview | Microsoft Docs What is Azure Static Web Apps? | Microsoft Docs Azure Container Apps documentation | Microsoft Docs Dapr - Distributed Application Runtime KEDA | Kubernetes Event-driven Autoscaling
The guys are going back to the Usage Scenarios series in the Microsoft Docs, focusing on the scenarios below: Personal (review from last week) Team Departmental Enterprise https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/guidance/powerbi-implementation-planning-usage-scenario-overview Get in touch: Send in your questions or topics you want us to discuss by tweeting to @PowerBITips with the hashtag #empMailbag or submit on the PowerBI.tips Podcast Page. Visit PowerBI.tips: https://powerbi.tips/ Watch the episodes live every Tuesday and Thursday morning at 730am CST on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/powerbitips Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/230fp78XmHHRXTiYICRLVv Subscribe on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/explicit-measures-podcast/id1568944083 Follow Mike: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelcarlo/ Follow Seth: https://www.linkedin.com/in/seth-bauer/ Follow Tommy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tommypuglia/
One Outlook, Microsoft's VPN, Windows 11 Broad Deployment One Outlook Microsoft starts rolling out new 'One Outlook' Windows email client to testers Quick Hands-On: Outlook (Pre-Release) Microsoft 365 Microsoft Teams Lands on the Windows 10/11 Microsoft Store Microsoft Announces Secure Network for Edge Windows 11 Windows 11 known issues and notifications | Microsoft Docs Microsoft Corporate Microsoft to Adjust Employee Compensation Microsoft Channel Chief Rodney Clark departs Microsoft goes public with planned changes to undo restrictive cloud licensing policies in Europe Xbox Microsoft Imagines System Giving Disc-less Consoles Access to Physical Games Jurassic World Evolution 2, More Coming to Xbox Game Pass in May Bethesda's Starfield and Redfall Have Been Delayed to 2023 Sony Reveals Games Included With its New PlayStation Plus Plans Tips and Picks Tip of the week: Go back in time with Google Maps App pick of the week: Alternative browsers, again Vivaldi & Brave Enterprise pick of the week: Microsoft's eval center is broken. Here's a workaround Codename picks of the week: Delridge and Quinault Beer pick of the week: Talea Haba Haba Splash Hosts: Leo Laporte, Mary Jo Foley, and Paul Thurrott Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly Get episodes ad-free with Club TWiT at https://twit.tv/clubtwit Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com Check out Mary Jo's blog at AllAboutMicrosoft.com The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin. Sponsors: kolide.com/ww go.acronis.com/ww drinktrade.com/windows
One Outlook, Microsoft's VPN, Windows 11 Broad Deployment One Outlook Microsoft starts rolling out new 'One Outlook' Windows email client to testers Quick Hands-On: Outlook (Pre-Release) Microsoft 365 Microsoft Teams Lands on the Windows 10/11 Microsoft Store Microsoft Announces Secure Network for Edge Windows 11 Windows 11 known issues and notifications | Microsoft Docs Microsoft Corporate Microsoft to Adjust Employee Compensation Microsoft Channel Chief Rodney Clark departs Microsoft goes public with planned changes to undo restrictive cloud licensing policies in Europe Xbox Microsoft Imagines System Giving Disc-less Consoles Access to Physical Games Jurassic World Evolution 2, More Coming to Xbox Game Pass in May Bethesda's Starfield and Redfall Have Been Delayed to 2023 Sony Reveals Games Included With its New PlayStation Plus Plans Tips and Picks Tip of the week: Go back in time with Google Maps App pick of the week: Alternative browsers, again Vivaldi & Brave Enterprise pick of the week: Microsoft's eval center is broken. Here's a workaround Codename picks of the week: Delridge and Quinault Beer pick of the week: Talea Haba Haba Splash Hosts: Leo Laporte, Mary Jo Foley, and Paul Thurrott Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly Get episodes ad-free with Club TWiT at https://twit.tv/clubtwit Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com Check out Mary Jo's blog at AllAboutMicrosoft.com The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin. Sponsors: kolide.com/ww go.acronis.com/ww drinktrade.com/windows
One Outlook, Microsoft's VPN, Windows 11 Broad Deployment One Outlook Microsoft starts rolling out new 'One Outlook' Windows email client to testers Quick Hands-On: Outlook (Pre-Release) Microsoft 365 Microsoft Teams Lands on the Windows 10/11 Microsoft Store Microsoft Announces Secure Network for Edge Windows 11 Windows 11 known issues and notifications | Microsoft Docs Microsoft Corporate Microsoft to Adjust Employee Compensation Microsoft Channel Chief Rodney Clark departs Microsoft goes public with planned changes to undo restrictive cloud licensing policies in Europe Xbox Microsoft Imagines System Giving Disc-less Consoles Access to Physical Games Jurassic World Evolution 2, More Coming to Xbox Game Pass in May Bethesda's Starfield and Redfall Have Been Delayed to 2023 Sony Reveals Games Included With its New PlayStation Plus Plans Tips and Picks Tip of the week: Go back in time with Google Maps App pick of the week: Alternative browsers, again Vivaldi & Brave Enterprise pick of the week: Microsoft's eval center is broken. Here's a workaround Codename picks of the week: Delridge and Quinault Beer pick of the week: Talea Haba Haba Splash Hosts: Leo Laporte, Mary Jo Foley, and Paul Thurrott Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly Get episodes ad-free with Club TWiT at https://twit.tv/clubtwit Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com Check out Mary Jo's blog at AllAboutMicrosoft.com The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin. Sponsors: kolide.com/ww go.acronis.com/ww drinktrade.com/windows
One Outlook, Microsoft's VPN, Windows 11 Broad Deployment One Outlook Microsoft starts rolling out new 'One Outlook' Windows email client to testers Quick Hands-On: Outlook (Pre-Release) Microsoft 365 Microsoft Teams Lands on the Windows 10/11 Microsoft Store Microsoft Announces Secure Network for Edge Windows 11 Windows 11 known issues and notifications | Microsoft Docs Microsoft Corporate Microsoft to Adjust Employee Compensation Microsoft Channel Chief Rodney Clark departs Microsoft goes public with planned changes to undo restrictive cloud licensing policies in Europe Xbox Microsoft Imagines System Giving Disc-less Consoles Access to Physical Games Jurassic World Evolution 2, More Coming to Xbox Game Pass in May Bethesda's Starfield and Redfall Have Been Delayed to 2023 Sony Reveals Games Included With its New PlayStation Plus Plans Tips and Picks Tip of the week: Go back in time with Google Maps App pick of the week: Alternative browsers, again Vivaldi & Brave Enterprise pick of the week: Microsoft's eval center is broken. Here's a workaround Codename picks of the week: Delridge and Quinault Beer pick of the week: Talea Haba Haba Splash Hosts: Leo Laporte, Mary Jo Foley, and Paul Thurrott Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly Get episodes ad-free with Club TWiT at https://twit.tv/clubtwit Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com Check out Mary Jo's blog at AllAboutMicrosoft.com The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin. Sponsors: kolide.com/ww go.acronis.com/ww drinktrade.com/windows
One Outlook, Microsoft's VPN, Windows 11 Broad Deployment One Outlook Microsoft starts rolling out new 'One Outlook' Windows email client to testers Quick Hands-On: Outlook (Pre-Release) Microsoft 365 Microsoft Teams Lands on the Windows 10/11 Microsoft Store Microsoft Announces Secure Network for Edge Windows 11 Windows 11 known issues and notifications | Microsoft Docs Microsoft Corporate Microsoft to Adjust Employee Compensation Microsoft Channel Chief Rodney Clark departs Microsoft goes public with planned changes to undo restrictive cloud licensing policies in Europe Xbox Microsoft Imagines System Giving Disc-less Consoles Access to Physical Games Jurassic World Evolution 2, More Coming to Xbox Game Pass in May Bethesda's Starfield and Redfall Have Been Delayed to 2023 Sony Reveals Games Included With its New PlayStation Plus Plans Tips and Picks Tip of the week: Go back in time with Google Maps App pick of the week: Alternative browsers, again Vivaldi & Brave Enterprise pick of the week: Microsoft's eval center is broken. Here's a workaround Codename picks of the week: Delridge and Quinault Beer pick of the week: Talea Haba Haba Splash Hosts: Leo Laporte, Mary Jo Foley, and Paul Thurrott Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly Get episodes ad-free with Club TWiT at https://twit.tv/clubtwit Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com Check out Mary Jo's blog at AllAboutMicrosoft.com The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin. Sponsors: kolide.com/ww go.acronis.com/ww drinktrade.com/windows
In today's episode Carl Layton returns to the podcast to discuss Azure Functions. What are Azure Functions and how do they work? Functions are one of the serverless compute options from Azure. You can use Functions to build web APIs, respond to database changes, manage message queues, and more. Beyond that we look at the security, performance and scaling of Azure Functions. What is it like to write code, debug and deploy Functions? What costs are involved to use Azure Functions and is it worth it for you or your company. Have you used Azure Functions? What is your experience? Let us know on Twitter at @dotnet_Podcast (https://twitter.com/dotNET_Podcast). Sponsors Top End Devs (https://topenddevs.com/) Coaching | Top End Devs (https://topenddevs.com/coaching) Links Azure Functions documentation | Microsoft Docs (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-functions/) Integration and automation platform options in Azure | Microsoft Docs (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-functions/functions-compare-logic-apps-ms-flow-webjobs) CarlServer (https://www.carlserver.com/) Picks Caleb- Ozark Trail 10-Person Dark Rest Instant Cabin Tent - Robot or human? (https://www.walmart.com/ip/Ozark-Trail-10-Person-Dark-Rest-Instant-Cabin-Tent/51718436) Carl- Ninja® Foodi™ Digital Air Fry Oven | Toaster | Air Fryer (https://www.ninjakitchen.com/exclusive-offer/SP101WBKT/ninja-foodi-digital-air-fry-oven/) Shawn- Watch Is It Cake? | Netflix Official Site (https://www.netflix.com/title/81333845) Special Guest: Carl Layton.
What is Azure Chaos Studio? (Microsoft Docs) Built-in faults (Microsoft Docs) Supported resources (Microsoft Docs)
Fellow Windows Insider Program team member Brandon Leblanc is our guest this month as we cover a variety of topics including Surface devices, features in recent WIP builds, the seventh anniversary of the Windows Insider Program, and even TikTok videos! Tune in for the variety, stay for the fun! Click here for transcript of this episode. Microsoft Docs - home for documentation and learning for developers and technology professionals. Windows Insider Program insider.windows.com Windows Community community.windows.com Windows Insider Twitter | Instagram Discover and follow other Microsoft podcasts at aka.ms/microsoft/podcasts
In this episode of the Armchair Architect series of the Azure Enablement Show, David Blank-Edelman is joined by Uli Homann, Microsoft Corporative Vice President and Distinguished Architect, and Eric Charran, Chief Architect at Microsoft in a deep-dive conversation into observability of hybrid and multi-cloud applications.✅Resources:Management and Monitoring patterns - Cloud Design Patterns | Microsoft DocsSidecar pattern - Cloud Design Patterns | Microsoft DocsObservability patterns | Microsoft Docs[00:00] Introduction[01:22] From an architectural perspective, what do we need to do to build and run resilient, self-healing applications?[04:22] Is monitoring from within the app itself an anti-pattern? Should sidecar patterns be used instead?[06:21] What's the best method for Observability? Push or Pull?[09:16] Can you use AI to monitor logs and report anomalies?[10:19] Azure uses ML to predict host failure, then proactively removes VMs and takes the host out of the cluster[12:15] Apps and microservices create so many logs; how can you tie them all together to track and understand an event?
Christian Espinoza and Gilles Boevi from the Microsoft Customer Engineer team join to discuss the Dynamics 365 and Power Platform 2021 release wave 2. We talk about the features in wave 2 that affect model-driven apps and will be automatically enabled for users. Being that these features could affect the user experience, we are covering them in a separate epsisode.Release Plan Links:Dynamics 365 Release PlanPower Platform Release PlanFeatures discussed in this episode:New and planned features for Power Apps, 2021 release wave 2 | Microsoft Docs
One piece of paper might be easy to find. One document within twenty million – well, that leads to time-waste greater than a needle in a haystack. In this episode, we focus on Northumbrian Water's migration of 20M documents, the benefits of a Knowledge Discovery Workshop, applying both SharePoint Syntex and Viva Topics for improved intake recognition and better people and content discovery. Plus a fun story of a very important, nearly irreplaceable van. Click here for this episode's corresponding blog post. Resources: Gabriel Karawani | LinkedIn | Twitter || ClearPeople (Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook | Vimeo) [guest] Craig Stanley | LinkedIn | Twitter || Northumbrian Water (Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook | YouTube) [guest] Mark Kashman | Twitter [co-host] Chris McNulty | Twitter [co-host] Microsoft 365 Content Services Partner Program Microsoft Partner Network SharePoint | Syntex | Facebook | @SharePoint | SharePoint Community Blog Viva Topics | Resource center | #MSFTViva | Viva community blog Microsoft Docs - The home for Microsoft documentation for end users, developers, and IT professionals. Microsoft Tech Community Home Stay on top of Office 365 changes Events: Microsoft Ignite (Nov.2-4.2021; digital event) European Collaboration Summit (Nov.29 - Oct. 1.2021) Microsoft 365 Collaboration Conference - Vegas (Dec.7-9.2021) Microsoft Lists workshop [available now on-demand] Discover and follow other Microsoft podcasts at aka.ms/microsoft/podcasts Follow The Intrazone at aka.ms/TheIntrazone
Throughout time there have been many dynamic duos which left their mark on the future. In the modern era, few, if any, combinations have been more impactful than the blending of hardware and software. Dani Tene joins us this month to discuss mixing hardware, software, your career, and more! Click here for transcript of this episode. Microsoft Docs - home for documentation and learning for developers and technology professionals. Windows Insider Program insider.windows.com Windows Community community.windows.com Windows Insider Twitter | Instagram Discover and follow other Microsoft podcasts at aka.ms/microsoft/podcasts
Azure AD Graph is retiring June 30, 2022 (Azure Updates) Discover Azure AD Graph Apps (GitHub) Azure Functions: Configuring the Node version (Microsoft Docs) Azure Functions: Configuring the Python version (Microsoft Docs) Azure Functions: Configuring the PowerShell version (Microsoft Docs) Cross-resource query Azure Data Explorer by using Azure Monitor (Microsoft Docs) Azure Disk Storage: Automatic key rotation of customer-managed keys (Microsoft Docs) Screen capture protection for Azure Virtual Desktop (Microsoft Docs) Upgrade Azure AD connect (Microsoft Docs) Multi-step web tests will be retired - see TrackAvailability() (Microsoft Docs) VM's retiring (here, here, and here) Cloud Services (classic) deployment model replacement (Microsoft Docs)
On this episode, we bring order to legal use cases of Microsoft Lists. We chat with Wendy Rubas (General counsel) and Janessa Nelson (Legal operations manager) from the legal organization within VillageMD – a national leader in value-based primary care. We cover a lot of ground how useful integrations between Lists, Power Platform, and SharePoint help optimize people productivity and document automation with visual analytics to improve the patient experience. Click here for this episode's companion blog post and links. People: VillageMD | Website | LinkedIn | Twitter Wendy Rubas (General Counsel) | LinkedIn Janessa Nelson (Legal Operations Manager and Training Executive Producer) | LinkedIn Mark Kashman | Twitter [co-host] Chris McNulty | Twitter [co-host] Resources: SharePoint | @SharePoint | SharePoint community blog Microsoft Lists | Resource center | Adoption | Posts within Microsoft 365 community blog Microsoft Docs - The home for Microsoft documentation for end users, developers, and IT professionals. Microsoft Tech Community Home Stay on top of Office 365 changes Events: Commsverse (Sept.15-16.2021); a Microsoft Teams Community Event) [hybrid: UK - in-person and online] Thrive Conference (Oct.19-20.2021) Microsoft Ignite (Nov.2-4.2021; digital event) - Save the date just announced Microsoft Lists workshop [available now on-demand] Follow The Intrazone at aka.ms/TheIntrazone, and discover other Microsoft podcasts: aka.ms/microsoft/podcasts.
Today Lee and Dan talk about GAN'S, Games and other goodies from using AI to upscale games and 80s TV shows to GitHub Autopilot. Links: OpenAI Reveals Details About Its Deep Learning Model 'Codex': The Backbone Of Github's 'Copilot' Tool | MarkTechPost NASA is using AI to take better pictures of the sun as space telescopes can be damaged staring at it | Daily Mail Online AI breakthrough could spark medical revolution - BBC News This YouTube channel is using AI to 8K-ify classic game intros and cutscenes - The Verge Think, fight, feel: how video game artificial intelligence is evolving | Games | The Guardian Microsoft-powered autonomous beach-cleaning robot is here to clean our shores - Roadshow (cnet.com) New toolkit aims to help teams create responsible human-AI experiences - AI for Business (microsoft.com) GitHub - microsoft/ML-For-Beginners: 12 weeks, 25 lessons, 50 quizzes, classic Machine Learning for all Collections - JenLooper-2911 | Microsoft Docs
Are you a fan of voice typing? How about the touch keyboard? If you're interested in Windows 11 and the evolving landscape of device input methods, you won't want to miss this conversation as we deep-dive into these topics and more with Program Manager Hadley Griffin and Senior Designer Julia Carlson. Join in! Click here for transcript of this episode. Hadley Griffin | Twitter [guest] Julia Carlson | Twitter [guest] Microsoft Docs - home for documentation and learning for developers and technology professionals. Windows Insider Program insider.windows.com Windows Community community.windows.com Windows Insider Twitter | Instagram Discover and follow other Microsoft podcasts at aka.ms/microsoft/podcasts
It's time to go beyond what Microsoft Viva is, and move into implementation, deployment, and adoption. We've got a terrific "knowledge roundtable" discussion with four Microsoft MVPs: Dux Raymond Sy about Viva Connections, Susan Hanley about Viva Topics, Asif Rehmani about Viva Learning, and Robert Mulsow on Viva Insights. This episode is filled with great tips, tricks, and challenges when configuring and rolling it out Viva for your company and colleagues. Click here for this episode's companion blog post and links. 00:00 Intro 09:00 Roundtable 01:13:00 Events People: Dux Raymond Sy | LinkedIn | Twitter | AvePoint [guest] Susan Hanley | LinkedIn | Twitter | SusanHanley.com [guest] Asif Rehmani | LinkedIn | Twitter | VisualSP [guest] Robert Mulsow | LinkedIn | Twitter | SkillBridge [guest] Mark Kashman | Twitter [co-host] Chris McNulty | Twitter [co-host] Resources: SharePoint | @SharePoint | SharePoint community blog Microsoft Viva | #MSFTViva | LinkedIn | Site | Blog The Intrazone episode with Microsoft CVP, Jared Spataro: "Viva Las Microsoft" aka, the Viva 101 podcast. Microsoft Docs - The home for Microsoft documentation for end users, developers, and IT professionals. Microsoft Tech Community Home Stay on top of Office 365 changes Events: Commsverse (Sept.15-16.2021); a Microsoft Teams Community Event) [hybrid: UK - in-person and online] SharePoint Fest DC + dedicated 'Teams Fest' track (Sept.20-24.2021) [in-person] HR Tech Conference 2021 (Sept.28-Oct.1.2021) [in-person] CollabDays New England (Oct.9.2021) [in-person] Jeff Teper kicking it off + Chris McNulty live. Check out Jeff Teper's related t-shirt tweet SharePoint Fest Dallas (Oct.11-15.2021) [in-person] - co-keynote (Chris & Mark) Microsoft Ignite (Nov.2-4.2021; digital event) Microsoft Lists workshop [available now on-demand] Follow The Intrazone at aka.ms/TheIntrazone, and discover other Microsoft podcasts: aka.ms/microsoft/podcasts
GitHub is the collaborative developer community, a place to share and review code, then deploy it to any operating system, any cloud and any device. On this episode, we speak with Martin Woodward, one of the original members who onboarded Microsoft to the open-source world, and Tetsuya Kawahara, a Microsoft MVP expert in Microsoft Lists customization (JSON). We learn how they use GitHub to share their knowledge, connect with other developers, and create the world's most important technologies. Click here for this episode's companion blog post and links. Click here for transcript of this episode. 11:00 Conversation with Martin Woodward 42:00 Conversation with Tetsuya Kawahara [with English interpreter] 56:15 Events 1:02:15 Conversation with Tetsuya Kawahara [full answers in Japanese] People: Martin Woodward | LinkedIn | Twitter | GitHub [guest] Tetsuya Kawahara てっちゃん (Microsoft MVP) | LinkedIn | Twitter | GitHub [guest] Mark Kashman | Twitter [co-host] Chris McNulty | Twitter [co-host] Resources: SharePoint | @SharePoint | SharePoint community blog GitHub | @GitHub | LinkedIn | Site GitHub Docs Tetsuya's list formatting samples (GitHub) Microsoft PnP community list formatting samples (GitHub) | Microsoft 365 community (guidance, best practices) Microsoft Lists resource center Microsoft Docs - The home for Microsoft documentation for end users, developers, and IT professionals. Microsoft Tech Community Home Stay on top of Office 365 changes Events: North American Collaboration Summit (Aug.9-11.2021) [hybrid; Branson, MI and online] "SharePoint, Teams, Lists, Viva, The Intrazone - oh my!" (Aug.10.2021 - online) Adelaide AUS user group meetup Commsverse (Sept.15-16.2021); a Microsoft Teams Community Event) [hybrid: UK - in-person and online] SharePoint Fest DC + dedicated 'Teams Fest' track (Sept.20-24.2021) [in-person] HR Tech Conference 2021 (Sept.28-Oct.1.2021) [in-person] Microsoft Lists workshop [available now on-demand] Follow The Intrazone at aka.ms/TheIntrazone, and discover other Microsoft podcasts: aka.ms/microsoft/podcasts
With the variety and importance of conversations surrounding Windows 11, what does this new version of Windows mean for the Windows Insider program? How are we delivering this release to Insiders? Amanda Langowski and Brandon LeBlanc join Jason Howard to discuss these topics and more! Click here for transcript of this episode. Amanda (McClellan) Langowski | LinkedIn [guest] Brandon LeBlanc | LinkedIn [guest] Microsoft Docs - home for documentation and learning for developers and technology professionals. Windows Insider Program insider.windows.com Windows Community community.windows.com Windows Insider Twitter | Instagram Discover and follow other Microsoft podcasts at aka.ms/microsoft/podcasts
Are you an IT Pro and want to learn more about Azure, but just don't know where to start? Join April Edwards on a guided tour of Microsoft Certifications, Instructor Led Training, Microsoft Docs and GitHub with tips and tricks for IT Pros.✅Resources:Microsoft CertificationsInstructor-led TrainingMicrosoft DocsGitHub[00:00] Introduction[00:45] What will you find when you first visit Microsoft Certifications, and how do you get started?[01:25] Why should IT pros seek out Microsoft Certifications?[01:43] How should IT pros get started with Microsoft Certifications?[02:17] What content should IT pros pay particular attention to?[02:50] What things might IT pros not know about Microsoft Certifications?[03:57] When you look into it for the first time, how do you get started with Instructor Led Training?[04:21] Why should IT pros seek out Instructor Led Training?[04:46] How should IT pros get started with Instructor Led Training?[05:39] Are their any tips for IT pros around Instructor Led Training?[06:20] What's one thing most IT pros might not know about Instructor Led Training?[07:06] What's Microsoft Docs, and how do you get started with it?[08:13] What are some tips and tricks for using Microsoft Docs?[09:39] How does Microsoft Docs help IT professionals succeed?[10:26] What is GitHub—what do you find there, and how do you get started using it?[10:48] Why should IT pros go to GitHub as a learning destination?[11:29] How should an IT pro get started with GitHub?[12:06] Are there any GitHub features IT pros should pay special attention to?[12:41] What's one thing IT pros might not know about GitHub?
Are you a manager and want to help your team learn more about Azure, but just don't know where to start? Join April Edwards on a guided tour of Microsoft Certifications, Instructor Led Training, Microsoft Docs and GitHub with tips and tricks for managers.✅Resources:Microsoft CertificationsInstructor-led Training Microsoft Docs GitHub[00:00] Introduction[00:42] Why should managers pay attention to certification?[01:27] How can managers get started with certification?[01:51] What are some features that managers should pay attention to?[02:29] What is one thing that managers might not know about Certifications?[03:27] Why should managers pay attention to Instructor-Led Training?[04:01] How should a manager get started with Instructor-Led Training?[04:29] What are some tips and tricks you would share with managers?[05:10] What's one thing that managers might not know about Instructor-Led Training?[06:02] What is Microsoft Docs, and how can a manager get started with it?[07:09] What are some tips or tricks for using Microsoft Docs?[08:34] How does Microsoft Docs help people succeed?[09:19] Why should managers go to GitHub?[09:55] How can managers get started with using GitHub?[10:22] What GitHub features should managers pay attention to?[11:06] What's one thing that managers might not know about GitHub?
Cloud Adoption Framework (Microsoft Docs) Ctrl+Alt+Azure Episode #026 - Succeeding with Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF) Azure Automanage overview (Microsoft Docs)
Did you know Microsoft Lists could do this or that? In this episode, we hope you'll find a few useful, hidden gems to jumpstart your information tracking in Microsoft 365. Maybe you're just getting started or have been at it for a while. Regardless, Lists can help you and your team across numerous scenarios - tracking issues, managing assets, supporting an internal event. Lists are simple to create and highly customizable based on whatever you want to track, organize and automate. And we're here to help you. Gem hunters, ready? Give it a listen and learn as you go. Click here for this episode's companion blog post (includes 5 more gems, a new demo video, screenshots, and links to further documentation) People: Jeff Teper | LinkedIn | Twitter [guest] Andrea Lum | LinkedIn | Twitter [guest] Mark Kashman | Twitter [co-host] Chris McNulty | Twitter [co-host] Resources: SharePoint | @SharePoint | SharePoint community blog Get the Lists app for iOS today (App Store; works on iPhone and iPad) Microsoft Lists resource center Microsoft Docs - The home for Microsoft documentation for end users, developers, and IT professionals. Microsoft Tech Community Home Stay on top of Office 365 changes Events: Microsoft Inspire 2021 (July 14-15, 2021) [virtual] SharePoint Fest Chicago (July 26-30, 2021) [in-person] North American Collaboration Summit (Aug.9-11, 2021) [hybrid; Branson, MI and online] Microsoft Lists workshop (on-demand + materials to redeliver in your organization) Follow The Intrazone at aka.ms/TheIntrazone, and discover other Microsoft podcasts: aka.ms/microsoft/podcasts
Jussi's ground floor chart Azure Data Encryption at rest (Microsoft Docs) dm-crypt (Wikipedia) Get-AzVMDiskEncryptionStatus (Microsoft Docs) Securing your Linux VMs in Azure with Azure Disk Encryption (Jussi)
The Windows 11 journey is officially underway! There are lots of changes to explore, but it's important to understand the backstory of those changes and the process and efforts that drove them. Sheetal Agarwal from User Research and Hanna McLaughlin from Design join us this month to cover these topics and more! Click here for transcript of this episode. Sheetal Agarwal | LinkedIn [guest] Hanna McLaughlin | LinkedIn [guest] Microsoft Docs - home for documentation and learning for developers and technology professionals. Windows Insider Program insider.windows.com Windows Community community.windows.com Windows Insider Twitter | Instagram Discover and follow other Microsoft podcasts at aka.ms/microsoft/podcasts
Hi All... We are at the start of July and we have a new preview release... /Tobias & Johan Links: Platform updates for version 10.0.20 of Finance and Operations apps (August 2021) - Finance & Operations | Dynamics 365 | Microsoft Docs What's new or changed in Dynamics 365 Finance 10.0.20 (August 2021) - Finance | Dynamics 365 | Microsoft Docs Preview of Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management 10.0.20 (August 2021) - Supply Chain Management | Dynamics 365 | Microsoft Docs Preview features in Dynamics 365 Commerce 10.0.20 (August 2021) - Commerce | Dynamics 365 | Microsoft Docs
Microsoft Power Automate is a service that helps you create automated workflows and streamline repetitive tasks. Our guest, Barret Blake, walks us through what Power Automate is, how it works and how it fits into the Microsoft Power Platform. We discuss why you would want to use process automation over code, some of the integrations it provides, the difference between Power Automate and Logic apps and more. If you have to manually perform a taks more than a handful of times it is a great candidate for automation. Join us for this episode and find out if Power Automate is the right tool for you. Panel Caleb Wells Shawn Clabough Wai Liu Guest Barret Blake Sponsors Dev Influencers Accelerator Links Power Automate documentation | Microsoft Docs barret-codes - Barret's coding blog LinkedIn: Barret Blake Twitter: Barret Blake ( @BarretBlake ) GitHub: Barret ( barretb ) Picks Barret- Carrier Deck Barret- JavaScript & Friends Conference Caleb- Speedzen+ Shawn- Office Envy | This Company Makes Workspaces Personal Wai- Exchange Traded Funds Contact Caleb: Caleb Wells Codes Twitter: Caleb Wells (@calebwellscodes) Linkedin: Caleb Wells Facebook: Caleb Wells Contact Wai: Linkedin: Wai Liu Facebook: Wai Liu Contact Shawn Twitter: Shawn Clabough (DotNetSuperhero)
In this episode, Chris and Mark talk with Thomas Trombley (Senior program manager - Windows Servicing and Delivery) and Jason Howard (Senior program manager - Windows, Developers, and Experiences (WDX)) about how the Windows desktop and ecosystem supports modern work in the context of Microsoft 365. We dig into helping customers plan for hybrid work, best practices for systems and services for IT to tune and optimize, and how to get into and remain in a good run state for managing it all from "the chip to the cloud." Click here for this episode's corresponding blog post. Click here for transcript of this episode. People and related products: Thomas Trombley (Senior program manager - Windows Servicing and Delivery) LinkedIn [guest] Jason Howard (Senior program manager - Windows, Developers, and Experiences (WDX)) LinkedIn | Twitter (@NorthFaceHiker) [guest] Mark Kashman | Twitter [co-host] Chris McNulty | Twitter [co-host] Windows | Twitter Windows Insider Program | Twitter | Windows Insider Podcast SharePoint | @SharePoint | SharePoint community blog Resources: "Microsoft 365 - Modernize your enterprise deployment with Windows 10 and Microsoft 365 apps" (Learning pathway on docs.microsoft.com) Microsoft Docs - The home for Microsoft documentation for end users, developers, and IT professionals. Microsoft Tech Community Home Stay on top of Office 365 changes Events: Microsoft Viva AMA (June 23, 2021 at 9am PT) [Within the Microsoft Tech Community] What's next for Windows event (June 24, 2021 at 11am ET) [Livestream] Inspire 2021 (July 14-15, 2021) [virtual] SharePoint Fest Chicago (July 26-30, 2021) Discover and follow other Microsoft podcasts at aka.ms/microsoft/podcasts Follow The Intrazone at aka.ms/TheIntrazone, and discover other Microsoft podcasts: aka.ms/microsoft/podcasts
Microsoft Power Automate is a service that helps you create automated workflows and streamline repetitive tasks. Our guest, Barret Blake, walks us through what Power Automate is, how it works and how it fits into the Microsoft Power Platform. We discuss why you would want to use process automation over code, some of the integrations it provides, the difference between Power Automate and Logic apps and more. If you have to manually perform a taks more than a handful of times it is a great candidate for automation. Join us for this episode and find out if Power Automate is the right tool for you. Panel Caleb Wells Shawn Clabough Wai Liu Guest Barret Blake Sponsors Dev Influencers Accelerator Links Power Automate documentation | Microsoft Docs barret-codes - Barret's coding blog LinkedIn: Barret Blake Twitter: Barret Blake ( @BarretBlake ) GitHub: Barret ( barretb ) Picks Barret- Carrier Deck Barret- JavaScript & Friends Conference Caleb- Speedzen+ Shawn- Office Envy | This Company Makes Workspaces Personal Wai- Exchange Traded Funds Contact Caleb: Caleb Wells Codes Twitter: Caleb Wells (@calebwellscodes) Linkedin: Caleb Wells Facebook: Caleb Wells Contact Wai: Linkedin: Wai Liu Facebook: Wai Liu Contact Shawn Twitter: Shawn Clabough (DotNetSuperhero)
Sarah Barrett is a principal IA Manager at Microsoft. She's been writing compellingly about information architecture in Medium, and in this conversation, we focus on her most recent posts, which deal with how architectural scale affects our perception of information environments. Download episode 64 Show notes Sarah R. Barrett @documentalope (Sarah Barrett) on Twitter Known Item (Medium publication) Microsoft Learn MSDN docs.microsoft.com World IA Day Breadcrumb navigation Rachel Price Websites are not living rooms and other lessons for information architecture by Sarah Barrett Understanding Architectural Scale: Tabletops and landscapes by Sarah Barrett Microsoft Bob The Informed Life episode 17: Rachel Price on Improvisation Some show notes may include Amazon affiliate links. I get a small commission for purchases made through these links. Read the transcript Jorge: Sarah, welcome to the show. Sarah: Thank you for having me. This is so exciting. Jorge: Well, I'm excited to have you here. For folks who might not know you, would you mind please introducing yourself? About Sarah Sarah: Sure. My name is Sarah Barrett and I lead the information architecture team for Microsoft's Developer Relations organization. So, in addition to the kind of stuff that you might think of as standard developer relations, like advocates going out and doing talks about Microsoft technologies and that kind of thing, we also have a huge web presence. So, we publish Microsoft Docs, developer.microsoft.com Learn, which is a training and kind of like micro-learning platform. All of the information about Microsoft certifications, a Q & A site, a whole bunch of other stuff. So, it's really everywhere where we're not trying to sell you stuff; we're just trying to teach you how to use all of Microsoft technical products. It's a really fun, huge problem. And we've got a good-sized information architecture team for information architecture teams, which tend to be small. So that's really exciting. Before that, I was a consultant and I worked with a lot of different companies looking into how they solve their information architecture problems. But I wanted to go in-house somewhere, so I could actually sit with a problem and work with people in order to make it happen rather than just creating some shelfware, which everybody does, no matter how good your work is because organizations just aren't ready for it. So, I've been in house there for about three and a half years. It's been a really fun challenge. Jorge: That's great. I think I'm going to be revealing my age here by saying that at one point, I had an MSDN subscription where I would get these big boxes full of CDs, basically. And I'm guessing that with the advent of the internet, those things are no longer distributed on CDs and your team looks after the organization of all that content. Is that right? Sarah: Yeah. So, I mean, the funny thing about information is that it did not arise with the internet, as you know. This stuff has been around for a really long time. And even you know, a tech company like Microsoft is newer than many others, but like all of that information about MSDN did not go away. And MSDN TechNet, which was kind of IT pro side... originally, they would mail you physical CDs, and that was kind of the gold standard. Then all that stuff got put on websites. There was msdn.com. And we just finished migrating all of msdn.com over onto Docs - docs.microsoft.com. A lot of that information is still stuff that we're half-heartedly organizing and trying to find a place for because that history is so long. Jorge: From my brief experience with it, I get the sense that it is a massive amount of content. And it's also content that is undergoing constant revisions, because it deals with the documentation that developers need in order to use Microsoft's products and platforms, correct? Sarah: Yeah. So, it's a funny thing, because I sort of feel like if you were to go to docs.microsoft.com, which is the main thing we publish, you'd look at it and go, "somebody does the IA for this?" Like, it doesn't look like there's a lot of IA there — which, I promise you, we do! And we're even good at it. It's just a huge... it's a huge problem. It's a huge space. It's an enormous ecosystem of things. And a lot of the work we do is really around strategy and policy and winning hearts and minds and that kind of thing. It's been a long process. And yeah, because it is so big, so many different teams at the company publish to it, it's really more of a platform than a product. The way you talk about websites as places and emergent places rather than products or services or something like that, is extremely true for us, because it is something that lots of people are creating in an ongoing way all together, in perpetuity. And it changes constantly. So, a lot of what we do is try to adjust rules, try to incentivize different behaviors, create standards and structures around what people do rather than just architecting a site and saying, "cool, it's architected. There's your IA! It's done." There's no room for that in our work. Jorge: What I'm hearing there is that you are more the stewards of the place than the people who are structuring the nitty gritty content. Is that fair? Sarah: Absolutely. You know, we create guidelines for how you structure a table of contents or the kinds of things you put in navigation. We don't actually do any of it for you if you're a publisher on our platform. How websites are not living rooms Jorge: Well, that sounds super interesting, exciting, and necessary, I would imagine, especially in such a large distributed system. I've been wanting to have you on the show for a while, but what prompted me to reach out to you was a post you published to Medium called, "Websites are Not Living Rooms and Other Lessons for Information Architecture." I was hoping that you would tell us a bit about this. What do you mean by "websites are not living rooms?" Sarah: This article that you're talking about came out of a workshop I put together for World IA Day, when you and I last met in Switzerland. And the idea of the workshop really arose out of this work I was doing at Microsoft, which is so different from the consulting I was doing before. I often found, as a consultant, people are very ready to treat you as an expert. And oftentimes when you come in as part of a consultancy or an agency, some project sponsor or kind of some champion for there even being an information architecture problem that needs to be solved by a consultant, has done so much legwork for you in convincing everybody that this is a problem, in convincing everybody that information architecture is a thing. You know, somebody has done so much of that work. And so, everybody's very primed to treat you like an expert and accept the basics of what you're telling them when you come in in that context. When I started at Microsoft, I was the only information architect. There are more of us now, but at the time it was only me. And in retrospect, like I still can't figure out why they hired me, because I spent the first, probably 18 months I was there going to meetings with extraordinarily nice and talented people who I adore... but going to meetings with them and then being like, "I don't see why you have to have breadcrumbs. I don't see why things in the navigation all have to go to the same website. Why?" And it was... it wasn't hostile, but it was a challenge to explain the first principles of everything that tend to be true about information architecture. Like, "yes, you ought to have breadcrumbs on every page." Like, "yes, the steps in the breadcrumbs should go to pages where you can get to the subsequent breadcrumbs!" Very nitty gritty details like that, where I had never had to explain how breadcrumbs worked before because usually we all just have such a shared mental model about them. And one of the things that comes out of this so frequently, and the example I use in the article actually comes from my colleague Rachel Price, from her consulting days where people often come with a very simple idea of how they feel like it should just work. And those ways, like, "why can't we just..." so frequently comes from an experience in the real world, where I think the example that Rachel has is she was working on a product that was for college students. And the product manager was like, "why can't it just be a dorm room? And my backpack is on the floor and my wallet is in my backpack. And if I need to change something about my payment, I go in the backpack and I get my wallet. Why can't it just work that way?" And as an information architect, like I know in my bones that the answer is, "it can't. That will not work!" But it's really actually very hard to explain why, other than like, "that's weird and we tried it in the nineties! But it won't work." And so, a lot of this article is about like, okay, why does that idea of structuring something like physical space — why does it feel so appealing? Why does it seem so easy? And then why is won't it work? Why is it a red herring? Jorge: And what you're talking about here, I want to unpack it for the folks who are listening, is the idea that you can structure a digital system in ways that mimic the ways that we structure our physical environments, where we do things because, hey, we're used to operating in a living room or an office or what have you, why can't we just have the same affordances and signifiers, but presented in a two dimensional screen somehow. Is that right? Sarah: Yeah. And it seems like it ought to work, but it really doesn't. And it's because... and the point I'm making in the article is that there are implicit rules to how physical spaces work and I'm actually working on the next article in this series to unpack some of those more. I'm trying to get it published this week as we record it. But I have a two-year-old, so we'll see how that works. There are implicit rules to how these spaces work in the real world. And it's easy to mimic the look and feel of a physical space without actually following those implicit rules. So, we need to unpack what the implicit rules are. Jorge: The example that you bring up in the article is one that... again, I'm going to reveal my age by saying this, I remember being on the market, which is Microsoft Bob. And there might be a lot of folks in the audience who are not familiar with Microsoft Bob. How will you describe It for someone who hasn't seen it? Sarah: It wasn't the only one of these kinds of products. I think there were a lot of them in the early days of software and the internet. We didn't have this one, but I remember the very first computer I used that accessed the internet... it had other things that were like this. But it was basically that Microsoft was trying to sell the idea of an operating system and a personal computer to a home market. And in order to make it more accessible and appealing, they tried to structure the desktop, or like the operating system, as if it were a house. And so, the idea was that your accounting would be in a checkbook that was on a little drawing of a desk, which was in a study. And if you wanted to look at your contacts, that was in a Rolodex on the desk. If you wanted to do something that wasn't in a study or an office context, you would go to a different room, and that would be there instead. And it has some weird rooms. I've never actually used it, so I've only been able to kind of piece it together from stuff on the internet. But there's like a barn or something — it gets very strange! There are obviously parts of it that are just silly, where, you know... why do you need that room? But there are also parts of it that just, again, they don't follow the rules of how architectures are going to work, so it's not going to work. And it provides a kind of fun counterpoint to realistic requests and objections that you do get doing this kind of work. Metaphors Jorge: We use the desktop and file folder metaphor in interacting with our… let's call them personal computers as opposed to mobile devices. And that is a metaphor; it's not inherent to the underlying technology. Why would you say that the desktop and file folder metaphor works whereas the architectural metaphor doesn't work as well? Sarah: Yeah. I think there are a couple of things going on. This is very much like the subject of the next article that I'm working on. Which is that I would argue that our brains understand space at different scales. And we understand what I call tabletops, but you could also call a desktop or something like that in a very different way than we understand larger scale physical space, like a room, a house, a city, and then you even get into a nation and understanding that scale of space, which is huge. We understand those things in very different ways, and a lot of the ways that the personal computer and like the notion of the desktop have evolved to work mirror the ways our brains expect tabletop-like spaces to function. Tabletop-like spaces, I think in general... you can see them all at once or at least see how you would get to all of their pieces at once. And they consist of small moving parts. In a very similar way to how, if you're working at an analog desk, you can just have your stuff around you and you see it in your peripheral vision and you can affect most of the things around you. This is very different to how larger scale spaces work, where you can't see them all at one time and you have to construct a mental model of that space by moving around it and stitching those pieces together over time. There's a whole neuro-biological component to this where we have certain kinds of cells called place cells that fire in certain kinds of circumstances that tell you, “Ah, this is a new place." And that doesn't happen when a small object moves around you on a tabletop. It does happen when you move from room to room. And so when we're in more operating system-like experiences or more app-like experiences, you know? You and I are talking to each other on Zoom right now. That really functions like a tabletop. Everything's right there. I could open stuff up, but it works more like drawers or something like that. It's not at all like something like Microsoft Docs or the BBC's website or any other kind of like large, content-based website, which is really much more like a landscape where you have to kind of move around from place to place and reconstruct a picture of it. And so, the big argument there — and this is something that I work with my designers on a lot — the big argument there is you have to be really clear about what you're building so you know what kinds of rules to use, because those things are actually really different. And most of the time we just kind of go, "eh, it's sort of like an app, right?" Like, "what is this app like?" And it's like, "Oh, its website-like." We know that Zoom and the Wall Street Journal don't and shouldn't work the same way, but we have a hard time articulating why. And for me, it's that difference in architectural scale and how our brains understand it. Agency Jorge: I find that idea super intriguing. I'm wondering if you could elaborate or give us examples of how something like the Wall Street Journal would differ from something that is more... I don't know, a communication tool like Zoom. Sarah: Yeah. So gosh, I wish I'd opened the article up, because I haven't thought about this a couple of days, but they vary in some kind of predictable ways. One is the scale of the things around you. Something like Zoom tends to have a lot of little pieces or I use Keynote as an example too. The reference, in the real world that you're using as metaphors, tend to be smaller and the actual elements in the interface tend to consist of a lot of little things. Whereas in a more landscape-like environment, you're dealing with a few big things. In a real-world landscape, those are buildings. Those are landmarks. They are mountains that are far away, as opposed to like objects that you have on a table around you. And we have a similar scale with the tabletop kind of apps versus landscape-y websites. You also get different degrees of agency. I have a lot of say over exactly what Zoom does. Perhaps not as much as one might like, but I can customize something about it, and I would expect that customization to persist. I can rearrange things. There's not a lot of expectation that I can do anything to gov.uk, other than maybe put my information in a form. I'm not going to do a lot of customization. It's not going to remember a lot of details from time to time. We also talk about kind of how you interact with the thing. The best way to learn something like Zoom, even if they put an overlay on it, is just to kind of poke at stuff. You know, turn that on and off and see what it does. You move things around you, open up settings. It really rewards interaction. Whereas with a large content-based landscape-like website, you have to move around. You're walking around and looking at stuff. You're moving from page to page and forming that mental model rather than poking at stuff to see what it does. There are a few different things like that. And then they come with different expectations too. There's a real expectation of intimacy with tabletops or with app-like experiences, even if they are a web apps. You kind of expect that it's yours in some way, and you don't expect that kind of of more websites that seem more like public goods. And we run into funny situations with that, like with things like Twitter, which I would argue functions like a tabletop, even though it's kind of a web app. You can experience it as an actual app too, but it's mine. I don't go anywhere. I just push buttons and do things on it and my stuff is there. And there all kinds of stories about people getting wildly upset about a new line showing up or a design change happening. I remember how much everybody freaked out when they went from 140 to 280 characters. You tend not to get such a feeling of ownership and people being so concerned about changes in websites that feel like public accommodations. You know, people have lived their lives in docs. They spend tons of time there. They don't tend to care very much about the exact details of the design or something like that. Because it doesn't feel like theirs. Jorge: If I might reflect that back to you, this principle of understanding the scale at which we're working seems to have something to do with the degree of agency that you have over the thing that you're interacting with. And the more granular the level of control that you have with the thing that you're interacting with, the more... I'll use the word intimate, maybe the more like personalized... it's something that you use as opposed to something you inhabit, in some ways. Is that right? Sarah: Very much so, yeah. And I think it's really like, "does your brain think that this is a place or not?" We don't expect places for the most part to be only for us that no one else could ever get into. It's an easy jump to be like, "ah, yes. Other people are here too. This is not just only for me." Whereas something at a much smaller scale... like, I don't expect other people to be messing around with my nightstand. Or my desk at work. Even though theoretically they could, but it's my stuff and I left it there. And there's that greater expectation of control and of intimacy. Naive geography Jorge: Great. So, I don't know if to call these principles or just things to be mindful of when doing this kind of work. You've mentioned scale as one of them, and you've already said that there's another post coming out specifically on that. In the post that is currently published, you mentioned three other principles, if we might call them that. And I was wondering if you could, recap them for our listeners. So, scale is one. A second here you say, "leverage the principles of naive geography." What does that mean? Sarah: I came across a really interesting article a few years ago that is by geographers for geographers, which is like not a field I'd thought about at all. And I was looking into the idea of cognitive maps and cognitive mapping with the idea of like, "oh, do people have like complex maps in their heads that they navigate and are those things the same in the real world and the digital world?" And the answer is, for the most part, no, we don't have maps that have any integrity to them. There are a couple of exceptions, but this was the theory for a while, and it's been pretty disproven. It's not a thing we have. We do, however, have representations of ways to get places in our head. I distinguished between the kind of tabletop more small-scale and the landscape more large-scale because we don't need these representations and we don't form them for small scale experiences. If you can rely on everything you need being in your peripheral vision, your brain doesn't bother remembering where everything is. Because it can get that kind of continuous sensory input. But for these larger-scale experiences where you have to construct a representation over time, and you have to reason against that to figure out where you're going. We construct those representations. And the interesting thing about it is that we're very good at it. I talk about that a little bit in this article with all kinds of cultural traditions that rely on remembering things by relying on how good humans are at remembering places and how to get between places. We're very good at it. But like more interestingly to me, we also make a lot of mistakes while we do it and we make those mistakes in predictable ways. So, one of the principles of naive geography that I think is just fascinating is that for the most part, when we remember things, we remember the earth as flat and square. We're very bad at remembering or estimating depths and heights in comparison to lengths and widths and distances and that kind of thing. Our brains really smoosh everything down. We also, for instance, think about distance in terms of time, not absolute distance. And so, they have eight of these or something like that. And the idea was that naive geography is how everybody understands geography and makes geographic calculations, even if they are not geographers. And they compare it to the idea of naive physics, which is that you can tell what's going to happen when you throw a ball without being a physicist. Like we can figure that out. The same way as we can give directions, we can make judgments and we can reason based on distances without being a geographer. And we're good at it, but we're also bad at it in these kinds of known ways. And I found that almost all of those ways are relevant for digital spaces as well as physical spaces. So, we go into exactly how those work and how you can apply them to your designer information architecture work. Wayfinding Jorge: Another principle here says, "check your wayfinding." That sounds like it's related to this concept of naive geography. What's the distinction here between wayfinding and what we've been talking about so far? Sarah: Yeah. I think of it as, naive geography is what humans do. And developing wayfinding principles or instantiating those way-finding principles in our designs, is what we as information architects do. Basically, it's great to know that people's brains mislead them in this standard way that we can predict, but you have to turn that into something that we can use because nobody I work with cares as much about neuroscience as I do, you know! Or geography, or cognitive mapping, or any of these things. We have to change it into guidelines and principles that I can give to product designers and developers and that kind of thing. And so, for wayfinding, it's really bringing it out of the more esoteric and theoretical space of like landscapes and tabletops and whatever is happening with cognitive geography and this kind of thing into like, "okay, what does that mean?" It's very simple stuff that I largely adapted from museum exhibit design, where it's like, "hey, you need to make sure people have landmarks. You need to pave paths so they know where to go." And we tie that back to the principles of naive geography to figure out why. I tend to illustrate this with grocery stores because I find that they have great wayfinding and it is way more accessible than a lot of the other examples people use like airports, especially with none of us have been in an airport for a year. And grocery stores make a lot of complex things very findable. I often have conversations with stakeholders where they're like, "well, no wonder nobody can find anything. We have 200 products!" And like the average grocery store has something like 800,000 SKUs, and you never are surprised that you can find your brand of maple syrup or be sure it's not there. Which is like the gold standard of wayfinding as far as I'm concerned. So, you can use the structure well enough to be sure that something doesn't exist. "Oh, that's so findable, it's great!" So, we talk about the specific things that you need to check that you're doing in your experience to make sure people can use those naive geographic skills they have. Jorge: And that's a learned skill, right? Knowing to expect something to be there and realizing that it isn't because of its absence is something that you have to pick up. This weekend, I took my kids to Barnes and Noble. They were wanting to buy some books and as convenient as it is to do it online, it's still quite pleasurable to browse through the shelves. And I was explaining to them how the books are organized alphabetically by the author's last name on the shelves. And that came up in the context of looking for a specific book and realizing that it wasn't there because the author's name wasn't on there. That's kind of what we're talking about here. Sarah: Yeah, absolutely. Jorge: This example of the grocery stores is also useful in that perhaps we understand these organization schemes at different levels of granularity. Once we understand how a grocery store is organized, we can find our way from the very highest level of the organization scheme all the way down to a specific product. And, at the highest level, the distinction that sticks in my mind is this phrase that I've heard used for people looking to eat healthier. They say, "shop the perimeter." Shop the edges of the grocery store, because that's where the fresh foods are kept. Whereas all of this stuff in the middle is processed foods. And that's a very high-level distinction that once you understand it, you can navigate that environment differently. Sarah: Yeah, that's also a great example of being able to reason based on a structure, rather than on content. Which is another gold standard of doing information architecture, I think. If somebody can understand the structure and your wayfinding and experience well enough that they can go, "hmm, I'm going to go around the edges!" Rather than saying, "I'm going to go to the lettuce and then I will go to the chard!" You know, that's what we dream of creating for our users. Standard elements Jorge: I want to move on to the last of the principles that you present in the article. It says, "use standard elements intentionally." What do you mean by 'standard elements'? Sarah: Occasionally, I get comments or people worrying that our information architecture isn't innovative enough that we're not doing anything surprising or introducing anything brand new. And I feel very strongly that your architecture is not the place to surprise people. Like, there are actual architects out there building very innovative homes that no one wants to live in. And I have no interest in doing that. I really want us to use the oldest, most standard, most expected way of doing things. I think the example of the grocery store is another great way here. There's a lot of benefit to not innovating in the layout of a grocery store. There probably is some benefit in innovating a little bit around the edges or in some details, but you gain a lot from making it legible and making it expected for people. And so, that one is really about... okay, given these things that we expect to have: we expect to have global navigation, we expect to have metadata on content, we expect to have titles and breadcrumbs... how do we unpack what each of those things is doing for us and make sure that between the suite of those elements we are using? Because you never use just one, you use lots of them together. Between all of those elements, we are presenting a coherent, complete view of the wayfinding people need. And this comes up a lot for us in things like design reviews, where the group will decide that we really don't need a content-type label on that card. And I'll say, "okay, the thing that that is doing for us is this thing!" Like, it is fulfilling this wayfinding need. How else are we going to do that? Because if you want to take this label off, I have to pick up the slack somewhere else. Whereas if somebody says, "oh, hey, I think we don't actually need..." I don't know, "we don't use breadcrumbs on this page or something." I can say, "okay, cool." Because actually that same need for being able to zoom out or being able to orient yourself relative to a landmark is actually being taken care of in these three other ways on the page already. So, if we lose that one, it's okay. It can help you make decisions about those trade-offs with design elements. It can also help you check the things that you absolutely need to be coherent with each other, that you need to be consistent because they're trying to do the same thing. And if they give people two different sets of information, that's worse than not having it at all. Jorge: It's an exhortation to be mindful about not just the elements you're using, but why they're there, right? Sarah: Yes, and all of this is really because, again, I had ideas about what I was doing as an information architect and I didn't have great answers for the little granular-wise. And so this is a result of my exploration of, okay, well, why? Why do we need them to work that way? And so, I'm sharing it with everybody else. Jorge: I'm wondering how thinking this way has affected your own work? Sarah: So much of information architecture is in the people and not the models. And so, my work has been about gaining allies and building relationships and getting people on board, and a good explanation that you can be confident about that doesn't rely on, "just trust me!" goes a really long way. Being able to break it down and decide where I make trade-offs and where I can accept more dissent, where I can encourage that and really learn from it versus where I really need to double down and say, " no, we need this." That's made a huge difference in my ability to get things done and to just build better experiences. Closing Jorge: Well, that's great. I'm very excited to see the upcoming posts in the series. It sounds like you're well ahead with the one about scale. Where can folks follow up with you to keep up to date with what you're writing and sharing. Sarah: Yeah, you can find me on Twitter @documentalope, or you can find everything I and my colleague Rachel Price write at a Medium publication called "Known Item." Jorge: Fantastic. And I have to call out that Rachel is a previous guest in the show as well. And I'll link to the conversation we had in the show notes. It's been so great having you on the show, Sarah. Sarah: Thank you so much. It's been fun. Jorge: Thank you.
Get ready to take your diagramming skills to the next level! In this episode, Chris and I talk with Mukul Kumar (Senior product manager) and Nishant Kumar (Product manager) from the Visio team at Microsoft. They have some exciting news that's ‘goodness at no cost' to a lot of people in Microsoft 365. We'll dig into this and all things Visio – its place in the world of productivity, use cases for beginners to experts, web to desktop, and more. The goal of you finishing this episode is that you'll be fluent on diagramming in your sleep. Click here for this episode's corresponding blog post. Click here for transcript of this episode. Resources: Mukul Kumar | Twitter | LinkedIn [guest] Nishant Kumar | LinkedIn [guest] Mark Kashman | Twitter [co-host] Chris McNulty | Twitter [co-host] SharePoint | @SharePoint | SharePoint community blog Visio | @MSVisio | Visio community blog “Announcing Visio in Microsoft 365 - Visual collaboration for teams everywhere” (related Visio announcement blog post) "Recapping Ignite with the five biggest Visio updates" (recent Ignite blog post) Visualize with Visio (video series) Learn more about Microsoft Visio (support.microsoft.com) Microsoft Docs - The home for Microsoft documentation for end users, developers, and IT professionals. Microsoft Tech Community Home Stay on top of Office 365 changes Events: Microsoft 365 Collaboration Summit (June 8-10, 2021) Microsoft Viva AMA (June 23, 2021) [Within the Microsoft Tech Community] Inspire 2021 (July 14-15, 2021) [virtual] SharePoint Fest Chicago (July 26-30, 2021) Discover and follow other Microsoft podcasts at aka.ms/microsoft/podcasts Follow The Intrazone at aka.ms/TheIntrazone