At IT conferences I always try to attend sessions that are not only technical but also focus on management and collaboration. I always wonder how a given feature or solution would influence the productivity of the teams I work with, and whether it would help at all, or whether the result would be the exact opposite of what was expected.
I’ve heard of companies blocking internal IM features in Skype for Business due to the fact that some employees spent too much time chatting, and that the key employees were constantly flooded with IMs until they decided to permanently log off from the program.
Obviously, the tool is just a tool, and some internal rules are always required to use it properly. But a user is just a user and “old habits die hard”. Just take a look at Public Folders and how many times Microsoft has tried to publicly assassinate them.
I was, however, surprised to see how many IT pros at this year’s IT/DEV Connections in Las Vegas and UC Day in Birmingham expressed their interest in Office 365 Groups. It’s not just Microsoft’s sales pitch and global marketing explosion, it’s really the users who are actively interested in this feature. Since Office 365 groups are pretty new, it’s still hard to tell whether it’s just an attractive feature or a solution that will ultimately change the way of collaboration of Office 365 users. Continue reading...
Microsoft Exchange Conference (MEC) made its return in 2012 after 10 years of hiatus. Microsoft is, however, not planning to make us wait another decade to hang out with the Squeaky Lobster as they already told us to save the date for March 31 – April 2 2014. 
This year we’re going to be exhibiting at some great events in Europe. We’re almost ready to head to Madrid for Microsoft TechEd Europe 2013, so if you’re attending this amazing conference, it would be great to meet up and talk!
