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Microsoft 365 community podcasts

overhead shot of a cellphone between a mug and headphones

Looking for a new podcast to listen to in the Microsoft 365 space? I asked my connections on Twitter and LinkedIn for their favorites and am sharing the full list here in no particular order. Thanks to all who contributed!

Cloud Conversations

Azure McFarlane (@amac_ncheese), Ru Campbell (@rucam365), Kat Greenan (@GreenanKat), and Peter Rising (@M365Rising) talk about Microsoft 365, Azure, career and life journeys, and much more!

GreyHatBeard&Princess

A Modern Workplace podcast brought to you by Al Eardley (@Al_Eardley), Garry Trinder (@garrytrinder), Kevin McDonnell (@kevmcdonk) and Luise Freese (@luisefreese).

Microsoft Spotlight

The Microsoft Spotlight discussing #diversity #equality #inclusion #mentalhealth #neurodiversity with #WomenInTech.

Head in the Cloud, Heart in the Community

Head in the Cloud, Heart in the Community is a series of community tech talks hosted by Holly Lehman (@Lehman_Holly) and Isidora Katanic (@IsidoraKatanic). Together they virtually “travel” to speak with people around the world to shine a light on the fantastic work their guests are doing. They highlight the good in the world while creating a platform to discuss diversity & inclusion, career, life, love, tech, hobbies, dreams, ambitions, family and much more.

SharePoint Maven

Whether you’re an overwhelmed administrator looking for answers, or simply a user who needs help implementing and adapting to SharePoint and Microsoft 365, this weekly podcast from Gregory Zelfond (@gregoryzelfond) is a quick, approachable, free resource designed to build your confidence in your SharePoint abilities.

The Practical 365 Podcast

Steve Goodman (@stevegoodman) and Paul Robichaux (@paulrobichaux) deliberate the top tech headlines each week and report on any updates that may impact your daily roles. In true Practical spirit, both MVPs will be commenting on real-world examples gained from their on-the-ground experience within different areas of Microsoft 365.

365 Message Center Show

Join Daniel Glenn (@DanielGlenn) and Darrell Webster (@DarrellaaS) for the weekly podcast reviewing the #Microsoft365 Message Center – what is coming for organizations & what the changes mean.

The Intrazone by Microsoft

The Intrazone is a bi-weekly conversation and interview podcast hosted by the SharePoint team (specifically Mark Kashman @mkashman and Chris McNulty @cmcnulty2000). The show highlights usage, adoption, and how SharePoint works for you. You’ll hear from guest experts behind the scenes and out in the field. It’s all about how SharePoint fits into your everyday work life – the goal being to more easily share and manage content, knowledge and applications, and to empower teamwork throughout your organization with the technology you already have.

Presentation Podcast

The Presentation Podcast is conversations from inside design studios about presentation design, tools, tips, and running a presentation agency. Led by Troy Chollar, Nolan Haims (@NolanHaims), and Sandy Johnson (@PPTWiz).

MS 365 Refresh Show

The Matt & Sean (MS) 365 Refresh Show is your weekly deep dive into what’s new, changed, or removed from the Microsoft cloud world, plus some insights, opinion, and a joke here and there. Led by Matt Wade (@thatmattwade) and Sean Bugler (@sbglr).

Office 365 Distilled

Marijn Somers (@marijnsomers) and Steve Dalby (@seisteve) are two experienced Office 365 and SharePoint consultants. They talk about Office 365 and then introduce you to what they hope is a new Whiskey.

The Shift Show

Join Dewayne Hyatt and Joe Gasper (@ReactorJoe) on their journey as they navigate the shifting space of the modern workplace. #ShiftShow

Microsoft Roadmap Roundup

Patrick Fenninger’s (@blog_afraIT) weekly short-form podcast posts each Sunday featuring highlights from Microsoft’s Roadmap. Sometimes, it also covers features from the message center.

Ragnar365 Nuggets

Ragnar Heil (@ragnarh) shares short news and personal insights about modern workplaces built on Microsoft 365. Specifically, topics include Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, Outlook, OneDrive, Yammer, Stream, ToDo, Power Platform, and beyond.

Microsoft Cloud IT Pro Podcast

Ben Stegink (@benstegink) and Scott Hoag (@ciphertxt) lead this weekly podcast on various topics and news around Office 365 and Azure from the perspective of IT pros and end users.

Graham McHugh (@GrahamRMcHugh) has also put together a great list of more podcasts you can check out here.

Have one to add? Let me know!

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Aw, PIVOT! G-rated profanities and swear-alternatives inspired by Microsoft 365 apps

A while back, I shared some reactions one might see if NBC’s The Good Place deployed Microsoft 365. In the show, profanities are auto-filtered and replaced with something a little more G-rated. For example, “holy sh**” becomes “holy shirt!” So even though PG-13 profanities can’t be used, the characters can still get their emphatic points across.

In that spirit, I present some M365-inspired (but G-rated) profanities and swear alternatives to incorporate into your daily vernacular.

M365 appOffice-appropriate swear alternative
DelveMotherBOARD.
ExcelAw, PIVOT!
FormsSon of a BRANCH!
ListsFishTEMPLATES!
OneDriveUPLOAD yours!!
OneNote I don’t give an INK-TO-SHAPE.
OutlookWhat the FLAG?
PlannerSon of a BUCKET!
Power AppsDon’t be an APPhole.
Power AutomateFor FLOW’s sake!
Power BIBalderDASHBOARD!
PowerPointMORPH it.
SharePointHeavens to WEB PARTS!
StreamWhat in TRANSCRIPTION??
SwayGosh CARD it!
TeamsCheese and CHANNELS!
WhiteboardOh, SNAP.
WordHoly WORD WRAP.
YammerJumpin’ COMMUNITY!
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Spam on the rise! GIFs to help you tell the cautionary tale

Spam is no joke. But when we educate users about it, we can have a little fun. A few months ago, my director sent out an email with the subject line “Spam on the rise” which I felt needed a little cinematic pizzazz. Without further ado I give you Spam on the Rise, ready for your PowerPoint slides or digital resources.

Click any to see/save full-size.

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Use Microsoft Forms and Flow to create Mad Libs

Have a holiday party coming up? Staff meeting you want to spice up? Send a form out to attendees in advance to collect adjectives, nouns and verbs and showcase your favorite completed libs at your meeting. Or just do it for fun – because work should be fun. Go ahead and try my test version to see for yourself!

Make your own (short version)

  1. Create a form at forms.office.com with questions for adjectives, nouns, etc. Be sure to collect email addresses as well so you can send participants the completed mad lib. You can use my template
  2. Create a flow at flow.microsoft.com that pulls responses into an email template. You can import the flow I built

Detailed steps

Create the form to collect words

Go to http://forms.office.com

Create an account if you don’t already have one (it’s free!)

Note: It must be an organizational account – Flow cannot currently connect to “personal” Forms accounts.

Create a new form or use my template (open link and click “Duplicate it” at the top)

  • If you just created an account
  • If you already have an account

Add a title, subtitle/instructions and then any questions/word parts you want. You must include email address as a required field if you intend to email the results to someone.

If you’re giving people multiple mad libs to choose from, you must also require a choice field like in my example.

Create the flow to send completed mad libs

This is the part that takes form submissions and turns them into the actual mad libs. It’s easiest to import the flow I built.

  1. Log into your account at https://flow.microsoft.com
  2. Go to your flows, click Import and upload the zip file you downloaded

Now select your existing connections for Forms and Outlook.

If you don’t already have an Outlook and/or Forms connection, you’ll need to click “Create new” and add them, then come back to connect them in the previous step. You can also modify the Flow to use Gmail or HTML emails instead. If you use HTML emails, however, they’re more likely to go to spam or be blocked since they come from a well-known “marketing” address rather than an individual (yourself).

Once you’ve set your connections, click “Import” (you should no longer see red x’s next to the connections under “Related resources”)

Once imported, click “Open flow”

Check every step, especially the “Forms” step to set the correct Form connection, and correct other fields like “email body” variables as needed.

Note: My Flow template has multiple mad lib options. If you just have one, you don’t need the “switch” at all (which is really just a conditional statement).

When finished, click “Save” in the upper right, go to your flows and make sure it’s “On”.

Finally, copy the “Share” URL from your form and send it to people to complete! Have fun!

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If “The Good Place” had Office 365

If you’ve watched NBC’s “The Good Place,” you’ll enjoy this post that much more. My CIO loves the show and recommended it so I started watching it. And then I couldn’t stop. I just couldn’t forking stop.

Seeing the hub site mega menu feature for the first time

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When a Flow works on the first test

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Trying to get AI bots to work in Teams

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When someone added the entire department to the “Owners” group

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When someone says all their forms are built in InfoPath

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Looking at the shared network drives after implementing OneDrive for Business and SharePoint

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When someone says they prefer Google Drive

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But then someone on my governance committee suggests we crack down on shadow IT things like DropBox and Google Drive being used outside the organization for work

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The secret to high governance committee and user group attendance

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When someone visits me after an update to SharePoint breaks all the workflows that have to be rebuilt asap

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When a new app is rolled out without administrative or governance controls

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When someone has ten levels of folders in a document library

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When someone sends a link to file on SharePoint or OneDrive instead of attaching it

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When someone suggests we utilize Power BI for data visualization instead of Excel

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When an email subject line reads, “Woops”

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Trying to explain a mandatory migration to Office 365

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When someone says “search sucks” and I give up and hire Bad Janet to take its place

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National Cookie Day: Microsoft’s new icons are tastier than ever

This National Cookie Day, I took Microsoft’s new icon set and gave them a festive frosting. If you have an awesome bakery nearby like KC’s Cakery in Tampa (thanks, Jon Levesque for the recommendation) maybe you could have these made up for your next governance committee meeting or a “launch party” announcing this change to the user experience.

P.S. If you do, be sure to share photos!

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