As part of the I4ESnacks (Intune 4 Education Video Snacks) series at http://aka.ms/I4ESnacks, I’m starting at square one (highlighted in yellow below)! This means setting up a demo Office 365 for Education tenant and getting it populated with Fac/Staff and Students. First video is posted at https://youtu.be/22crDXOIdDE . School Data Sync is coming up next!
As you’ve seen in some previous posts, I’ve been traveling around the world to listen and interact with our customers or potential customers. One thing (possibly two) became VERY clear to me!
I’ve been a little bit quiet doing some research and sharing this feedback with our team. To that end, I’ve been looking at documentation, PowerPoint decks, YouTube content and anything else I can get my hands on! (Leave a comment if you’ve got a secret “go to” place) The next step is to do a classic gap analysis of core assets and what are customers asking for; is there a gap? In the end, I’ve come up with the consultative answer! It depends! 🙂
In all seriousness, it depends where you’re at on the spectrum of adoption and deployment. Our mission on the Microsoft Intune for Education CxE Customer Pursuit Team, is to accelerate adoption / deployment as well as improve our product. So, think of our team as prior to adoption or right at the point of making that decision. That’s the lens we’re looking through.
As I look through our collateral, I’ve found some good stuff out of the gate! I’d love to get feedback on who’s seen or used this site on Microsoft Education Documentation and Resources. For me, it captured the essence of the first point above. As seen below, there’s the “Why Microsoft 365 Education” as well as the Deployment Overview. Then we have the following steps:
However, in our typical fashion, I found these to be lengthy articles or “how to’s”. Granted, we’ve broken it down into five or so steps in each section. However, I’d like to take it one step further and create “workshop” based materials with corresponding videos breaking the steps down further. (Based off of the “tasked-based video” concept of I4ESnacks / http://aka.ms/I4ESnacks.) I believe this will further visualize and bring to life the docs which are out there.
Please leave feedback, thoughts or questions! There will be more regarding the second reflection point later!
I heard LOUD and CLEAR that Twitter is one of the BIG ways that the Brainstorm attendees keep in contact. I’ve had my personal account however I just started my professional one @MSClassroomGeek . Let’s keep the conversation going!
As in any good road trip, I need to get my exercise in! (Connect with me on Strava if you run, lift or bike!) Mondays are my lifting day however it’s difficult to get a decent one in with just dumbbells. Do what you can do is what my personal trainer would tell me. Before everyone makes a judgement on “…the Microsoft guy having a personal trainer”, must be nice! I have to frame out the day in the life of my role. As a Program Manager, my role is to be the glue between interacting with customers and translating those needs back to our product devs. In order to meet customers face to face, that means traveling all over the world (see below, right?). The years have been good but without the proper nutrition and exercise over the years, I’ve grown ‘robust’..shall we say? So, I’m actually on a weight management program which allows me to meet with a personal trainer and nutritionist to get my personal health back on track.
From a traveling perspective? Yes, it’s a ‘glam life’ traveling to all these places, right? No way in heck! I LOVE my role and interacting with customers, but it comes at a price. I remember my first years as a buck consultant and being married… my new wife thought I lived a glamorous life jet setting to new cities, staying in nice hotels and eating at great restaurants all the time. So, I decided to bring her on one of my engagements to see what it was like! I booked it in Peoria, IL making sure I stayed at a hotel which was behind a strip mall (bad view) and some of the worst restaurants around. She now respects my view of traveling! 😊
Yesterday evening at Brainstorm was the Welcome Reception. For those who REALLY know me, you know that I’m not a social person. Yep, seriously! A room full of strangers can be very overwhelming and intimidating to me. However, I put on my best game face and dove in! I was able to visit and sit in with two different tables during the time. Once that initial ice is broken, I ALWAYS love talking / discussing stuff! I leave that general because I try to mix work with personal things which I enjoy like fitness or coffee. In the end, I always loving hearing our customer’s perspectives! Believe it or not, most everyone is a Microsoft customer one way or another!
I believe that’s why I enjoy speaking. Today was not an exception. There were two Intune for Education sessions schedule. It was prearranged that I’d be in the room to give any support needed or assist with questions. Well, as life had it, I was ask 5 minutes ahead of time if I could cover the first session! Yep, no prep and no deck. Just talking off the top of my head about our product! So, if it seemed a little random or winding… well, that’s because it was! I apologize to the attendees but I was covering for a co-worker that got slammed into another meeting! To top it off, because I was unrehearsed, I was over on time! This left me in the middle of a topic with several still to cover. Bringing me into the second session! Yep… back to back, unrehearsed and unscripted sessions! This second session was even MORE challenging than the first because about half of the attendees were in the first session! So, I had to bridge the gap of bringing everyone along for the ride! I promise, next time I’ll sign up for my own sessions so it doesn’t come off so poorly! Needless to say, it was a stressful day!
The start of Brainstorm (or any conference) always intrigues me. You never know if there will be patterns, trends or themes that emerge. I believe the Day 1 sessions always set the tone; however, I believe Day 1 of Brainstorm is actually a pre-day. None the less, we were in a packed room on Sunday afternoon to listen to a “Windows 10: Modern Device Management Workshop” by Doug Wilson.
One of Doug’s first slides was about community. This topic is near and dear to my heart since I was part of the systems management community way back in the Swynk.com (I believe that was the spelling!) days of SMS. Through the years, I grew up working in public schools doing edtech but actively participating on MyITForum.com. At the time, that was “THE place” where all the smart consultants and MVPs hung out. I remember being envious of the breadth of knowledge they had and their willingness to share it back to that community.
As I grew technically, it was my goal to be able to be at that level of knowledge as my peers had. After many hours and carving out my niche area on the Internet, I was able to return that knowledge back in the form of task-based videos in SMS / SCCM and MOM/SCOM. Those are the technologies which I’ve built my career on and allowed me to be in the ranks as a Microsoft MVP.
I find myself, years or even decades later, faced with the same situation with different challenges. As I’m sitting in the back of this session, I have a very different vantage point from when was first starting out my career. I look down at my conference badge which reminds me that I’m a Program Manager with Microsoft in the Intune for Education Product Group. How can I assist those around me and hopefully allow them to stand on my shoulders as those did for me in years past? I attempt to remain respectful to the presenter as he makes his way through his material but the same question keeps running through my mind: “Where do these peers go to gain that knowledge as I did in years past?”
I put it out there, but I really don’t get a clear sense of “a place” where my technical peers go. Sure, I get the feedback of going to the Microsoft documentation and such… but where do you REALLY go? Conferences are a GREAT place to make those connections with your peers but how do we keep that conversation going throughout the year? This is an open thread which I’m going to keep asking and digging into…
ClassroomGeek.com 