May 2017 Content Wrap-Up

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May was my second busiest travel month for the year, having logged four trips (but only one international this time) as I prepare for a crazy fall schedule, and it is good to be home — and get actual work done. Quite a few things in the hopper this month, but let’s talk first about what happened last month…

I kicked off the month with a trip out to Minneapolis for another SharePoint Saturday Twin Cities event, where I was able to live stream most of Microsoft CVP Jeff Teper’s keynote, and then sit down with Jeff and Dean Swann (@sdeanswann) from tyGraph to record a CollabTalk podcast where we discussed the evolution of the SharePoint community, and also get his thoughts on the results of the hybrid SharePoint study my team completed.

imageFollowing Minneapolis, and what seemed like an endless series of conference calls with customers, I headed back to the Puget Sound for a few days meeting with friends, customers, and Microsoft product team members. I spent part of a morning with Bill Baer (@williambaer) in his office in Building 1 walking through various hybrid scenarios and whiteboarding them, which we captured in soon-to-be-released videos. Wrapping that up, as we walked out, I was able to say hello to Dan Holme (@danholme) and his entire team, including newest addition Naomi Moneypenny (@nmoneypenny) who brings her extensive experience with Yammer, SharePoint, and machine-learning to Microsoft. While in region, I was also able to host a small SharePint event at the Parlor in downtown Bellevue and see some great friends, including one of our newest MVPs, Chris Slemp (@cslemp), good friends jeff Shuey (@jshuey) and Michelle Caldwell (@shellecaldwell), and former president of the Puget Sound SharePoint User Group, Gregory Frick (@gregfrick). I wrapped up the week by attending the Bellevue MVP community Connect event, where I was awarded with a certificate for “Widest Reach in the West Coast MVP Region” by the Microsoft MVP community leads.

clip_image001clip_image001[7]Heading back home to Salt Lake City, I was able to watch Microsoft’s SharePoint Virtual Summit event with a large viewing party through the Utah SPUG, and then hosted another CollabTalk TweetJam to capture feedback on what was shared — and then a panel discussion with PixelMill founder and fellow MVP Eric Overfield (@ericoverfield) and good friend + UTSPUG president Ryan Schouten (@ShrPntKnight), also discussing our thoughts on the Virtual Summit.

After that, I was back on an airplane, this time heading down to Auckland, New Zealand for another Digital Workplace Conference, where I provided a keynote on change management and business transformation, as well as a couple regular sessions, multiple podcast recordings, and a fun live streaming failure (with the help of Darrell Webster, @darellcwebster) when the fire alarm went off right as we were getting started, and needed to evacuate the building. It made for some excellent video, let me tell you. And yet we soldiered on…

While in Auckland, I was able to join members of the AvePoint team for a webinar discussion on hybrid SharePoint, as well as hang out with fellow MVP Jeff Willinger (@jwillie) as we took a ferry out to one of the islands in the bay and hiked a small volcano for incredible views of the city and surrounding islands.

imageimageAfter being on the road for a week, nothing like coming home for 3 days, only to turn around and fly out again, this time to Denver for SharePointFest. I believe this was my 4th SPFest Denver event, where I introduced one new topic and shared an updated topic, and once again recorded a few podcasts with some of the other speakers. I wrapped up the trip with a visit to an indoor gun range, which was a blast (sorry), and finally found my way home.

And that brings me to the content from the past month. You’ll see a few of the live stream links via Facebook below, so that you can relive all the fun of a fire alarm going off mid-presentation. But here’s a collection of content around the Virtual Summit, including the CollabTalk tweetjam blog and Twitter detail, and our antics from Auckland as we *tried* to talk about the summit on stage:

clip_image001[5]I was finally able to launch the CollabTalk Podcast after a few months of prep, and am working with the same production guy that Andrew Connell (@andrwewconnell) uses for his podcast (Thanks for the referral, AC!). Watch for more episodes soon:

You’ll be hearing about hybrid all year long from me as I continue to work with Microsoft and various sponsors to further explore the nuances of moving to the cloud one small step at a time:

Of course, no monthly summary would be complete without a spate of articles on the broader topics around social and collaboration — my meat and potatoes — which come from my daily reading and customer interactions:

And finally, there is the people side of the equation. These articles, while still focused on collaboration, cover some of the human factors that go into successful collaboration:

And that’s it for me for May. June has been much quieter, with me heads down on some client work, and a single trip later this month to the UK, where I’ll be spending a couple days driving the Scottish Highlands with Mike Watson (@jmikewatson), hanging out with Mike and Laura and their boys for a couple days in Edinburgh, and then making my way back down to London for SharePoint Saturday London. Looking forward to getting back to London — it’s been a couple years (sitting at the airport and waiting for a connection doesn’t count).

Of course, the biggest news of the month is that later this morning I will drop off my 3rd child, Nicholas, at the Provo Missionary Training Center (MTC) where he’ll be for 6 weeks before departing to Stockholm Sweden for 2 years to serve an LDS church mission. I am going to miss my boy, but am incredibly proud of him for dedicating his life for 2 years to serving others. We’ll get to hear from him weekly through email, and then have a Skype chat with him at Christmas and Mother’s Day, otherwise we won’t see him until end of May 2019. Still getting used to the kids leaving home, with 3 now gone and our youngest departing next year after his senior year in high school. Looking forward to all of us being back together sometime in late summer 2020.

Christian Buckley

Christian is a Microsoft Regional Director and M365 Apps & Services MVP, and an award-winning product marketer and technology evangelist, based in Silicon Slopes (Lehi), Utah. He is the Director of North American Partner Management for leading ISV Rencore (https://rencore.com/), leads content strategy for TekkiGurus, and is an advisor for both revealit.TV and WellnessWits. He hosts the monthly #CollabTalk TweetJam, the weekly #CollabTalk Podcast, and the Microsoft 365 Ask-Me-Anything (#M365AMA) series.