Honored to have delivered the keynote and a modern #SharePoint session at #SPSOslo this weekend. Met some really amazing people and of course, saw my #Microsoft #Office365 Family again. The keynote was about Digital Literacy and Citizen Developers and as usual I got pretty emotional about a couple of things. Something happened after the session though that inspired this post 🙂
I’m a little bit behind on my Movember challenge, but the important thing is to not give up, so let’s play catch-up.
Let’s first create some awareness. I have way to many awesome men in my life that I want to be around when I grow old.
More about Movember:
STOP MEN DYING TOO YOUNG
Sign up to raise funds and awareness for all the dads, brothers, sons and friends in your life. Together we can make a difference for men’s health – in prostate cancer, testicular cancer, mental health and suicide prevention. Click here to learn more or register (ZA link, should reroute to your region).
#SPSOslo:
After my session I met a lady by the name of Karin Synnøve Løkke and was pretty inspired by her ‘story’ (I’m trying to convince her to tell it soon). Anyway, in my session I explained that I was rather ‘aggressive’ about what I do and my passion to help people. I spoke about values and self esteem, and how we’re so much more than just the jobs we do. I also begged everyone to have more empathy with others, we all just need a little TLC you know….
She showed me the Viking Laws, explaining that it made her think of me, and I immediately noticed the following:
Viking Laws:
The Viking Laws are the perfect framework for good user adoption, project and change management. Why on earth do we run around grabbing at models and methodologies when we have perfectly good ‘laws lying around’ which are even better to follow?
Below you’ll see these laws as well as my notes on how I would apply those in everyday #Microsoft #Office365 life.
Be Brave and Aggressive
- Be direct
- Grab all opportunities
- Use varying methods of attack
- Be versatile and agile
- Attack one target at a time
- Don’t plan everything in detail
- Use top quality weapons
My notes: Be honest, take chances, communicate your failures and successes, don’t keep technology back because you’re scared something will go wrong. Fail fast, fail often. Try not to micro-manage everything, yes, I struggle with that. But when we get stuck in the detail, we very seldom achieve a lot. Know your products and use them well.
Be Prepared
- Keep weapons in good condition
- Keep in shape
- Find good battle comrades
- Agree on important points
- Choose one chief
My notes: Stay up to date with latest releases and new features, train your users, start a mentoring program to keep people up to date and continuously share the features and updates. Define measurements and success criteria (or you’ll never know if you succeeded.). Find your evangelists, setup forums with leaders to guide and help.
Be a Good Merchant
- Find out what the market needs
- Don’t make promises that you can’t keep
- Don’t demand over-payment
- Arrange things so that you can return
My notes: These are good tips for Microsoft partners, but also for the internal customer relationship between IT and Business. I don’t think I have to explain how important honesty, transparency and fairness / decency is to me.
Keep the Camp In Order
- Keep things tidy and organized
- Arrange enjoyable activities which strengthen the group
- Make sure everyone does useful work
- Consult all members of the group for advice
My notes: Just because we’ve gone all Agile and Cloud, doesn’t mean you don’t need your ‘paperwork’ anymore. I still build portals with product pages which supplies the business and IT governance as well as training and other resources. Remember that we’re supposed to be happy, if you’re unhappy at work, you’re doing it wrong. Also remember you create your own happiness so don’t wait for someone else. Keep your end users in the loop, and make sure they’re fully equipped to use #Office365. Never forget that the best suggestions normally comes from business / end user side as they deal with the painful stuff every day.
Take care! 🙂
Resources:
Image credits: Photos I took on my walkabout in Oslo, Norway. Made beautiful using Design Ideas in #PowerPoint.
I’ll be speaking at The European SharePoint, Office 365 & Azure Conference in Copenhagen, 26 – 29th of November. #ESPC18 @EuropeanSP Also honored to be a community reporter at the event. Hoping to see you there!
“You can also find me contributing to REgarding 365. I’m a member of a group of enthusiasts, sharing their stories, thoughts and opinions about Microsoft 365. Catch us at https://regarding365.com | @regarding365 on Twitter and regarding365 on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/regarding365 ”
Disclaimer: I create content about Office / Microsoft 365. Content is accurate at time of publication, however updates and new additions happen daily which could change the accuracy or relevance. Please keep this in mind when using my blogs as guidelines.
New Initiative:
Every couple of months I’m going to travel to a new country, rent a motorcycle, and travel to as many communities as possible, for 15.2 days. Purpose would be to create awareness around Digital Literacy and give users an overview of Office 365 Apps and Services and how it can transform their lives. I’ll do video and written blogs to capture and share my journey and experiences.
Feedback would be crucial, and I’ll be using Microsoft Forms & Flow to gather valuable feedback for myself and Microsoft. I will be inviting other community members to join me on my journey when I’m in their respective areas.
Of course it wouldn’t be possible without sponsorship to help support this cause. Reach out if you’re interested on getting involved in any way, here’s a link to a Microsoft Form that can be completed: https://bit.ly/2LaQBRQ
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