It started when we discussed how mail is still the prevalent business communications tool and how good or bad it is for collaboration.

Unusually for the M365 Distilled team of Steve and Marijn, things went a little sideways to start with but eventually got back on track. OK, maybe going sideways is just normal for us, but why change a good thing?

In this podcast, the boys talk about the definition of collaboration, check out the list of best practices to include in the collaboration process, take some statistics about communications, look at all the tools we have available and mash them all together...

And like all the other 143 podcasts before it, the whisky at the end makes it all worthwhile and helps you understand that it all does hang together into one aligned program of greatness...  and this time, it's an Indian Whisky that performs the alignment duty.  😉 

Poland was a blast at Collab days a few weeks ago. Steve and Marijn spend time in this podcast looking at Jenga and how they used to consider governance risk in their workshops.

Marijn recaps his SMART goals session, and each subject is finished with a Whisky—of course, two Polish whiskies, to be precise!

The Boys talk about the new gameshow “ IT Depends” which you can find here  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcB3Ba6K6N3HMUbt6yVT1Bg 

and then.... 🎙️ Ladies and gentlemen, fight fans from around the world, welcome to the podcast showdown of the century! Tonight, we bring you a clash of titans that will shake the very foundations of the digital realm! In the blue corner, hailing from the land of traditionalists, we have the undisputed champion of news dissemination, the Sultan of Press Releases, none other than Marijn "The Publisher"!

🥊 Marijn steps into the ring with a steadfast belief that the intranet is nothing more than a digital bulletin board, a platform solely designed for the dissemination of news, announcements, and updates. But will his perspective withstand the ferocious onslaught from his opponent in the red corner?

🔥 And in the red corner, we have the challenger, the master of efficiency, the architect of productivity, the one and only Steve "The Gatekeeper"! With a fiery passion burning in his eyes, Steve believes that the intranet is not just a news outlet, but a gateway to unlocking the true potential of workplace synergy and collaboration!

💥 Get ready for a battle of ideologies as these two formidable contenders step into the ring, each ready to defend their corner with everything they've got! Will Marijn's traditionalist approach to intranet dominance prevail? Or will Steve's vision of a digital doorway to productivity reign supreme?

🔔 The bell is about to ring, the tension is palpable, and the stage is set for an epic clash of perspectives! So grab your popcorn, settle into your seats, and prepare to witness history in the making as Marijn and Steve go head-to-head in the ultimate showdown for intranet supremacy! Let the battle begin!

We have a guest who has been listening to the podcast since Episode One “ Gianni Solito “ Gianni uses SaFe AGILE methods for managing adoption and change as we talk through how this model can be used to improve the process of keeping M365Distilled updated and aligned.  You can check him out here  https://www.linkedin.com/in/gianni-solito-2221561a3/ 

The Boys talk about the new gameshow “ IT Depends” which you can find here  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcB3Ba6K6N3HMUbt6yVT1Bg 

The boys with Gianni dig down into the roles and process of the SaFe AGILE framework and try to identify the simplicity in what feels like a lot of moving parts.

Marijn aligns SaFe Agile to the Fellowship of the Ring headed up by Gandalf in a SaFe role and it Kinda works... all working towards a big picture that they all know about....

It seems a long time since we talked about AGILE working and how M365 grows on our podcast as we add in SaFe where we look at Scaling the Agile Framework and finalise the way to look at update adoption and change through the SaFe process.   

Then we took a breath and drank a whisky from a distillery we had tasted before, but this time it was peated.  The Loch Lomond distillery is one of the most beautiful locations for a distillery and the Whisky is the same.  Loch Lomond Heavy Peated is a lovely peated dram which Steve does not fully agree with as he takes some time to feel the smoke.

Its an area of Scotland that the boys no well and re-live the small road and the experiences with the buses.  Driving to Oban along the loch is one of life's pleasures for anyone finding themselves in that area. 

As always the start is about our travels and community speaking events was from Miami to Bremen we talk about Tetsi flies and the rule of ‘Don’t look at the Boob’ when Steve knew it was the answer to another memory problem…

The Boys talk about the new gameshow “ It Depends” which you can find here  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcB3Ba6K6N3HMUbt6yVT1Bg 

After 15 minutes of community talk the boys went around the world… Ami Diamond posted a great LinkedIn article comparing M365 to the new wonders of the world.  It was so cool that we decided it required more in-depth expertise from Steve and Marijn.

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7159248067244765186?updateEntityUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afs_feedUpdate%3A%28V2%2Curn%3Ali%3Aactivity%3A7159248067244765186%29

So maybe this is AKA Jules Verne “Around the M365 World in 80 minutes”.

So, enjoy the humour of Steve and Marijn as they discuss Ami’s great post… check it out.

Listen to Steve try all the tough words from around the world as we describe the output from the post and add a bunch of disrespect and fun…

Then eventually the podcast gets technical as we bring in the M365 bits and break down the article from AMI.

Enjoy even if the Chat GPT analogies are weak, the humour is good supermarket listening.

Then we drank a whisky, I know a surprise right?  This was something interesting: a special bottled edition of the Edradour distillery from 1st fill Oloroso casks out of the smallest distillery in Scotland.  Dark and a powerhouse of flavour.

Imagine that you have 5 days to migrate a small company to M365 from Google Docs…  What would you start with, Apps, Email MS teams, Power platform… when the Boys put together the plan and decided what goes first…

And a few things to catch up with... Marijn as a Seamen, Life is about the basics first and complexities later and of course... CoPilot gets everywhere

In Short... the boys look at what is on the roadmap and mix them in with some of their own ideas that might not be true... can you work them out 😊 

We look at some of the great new innovations due and a few ideas that maybe should be put in place. Before tasting a whisky we come clean about which are from Microsoft and which are from the awesome imaginations of Steve and Marijn

Finally, Brian sent over a great whisky to taste, The Glendronach Parliament, 21 years old, which is a very Sherry Whisky, but from Oloroso and Ximenez barrels; what do you expect?  The finish is awesome, and the water drop brings in so much pepper it changes the drink.

Merry Christmas to every listener of M365, although we suspect that you will not listen to this before the 24th Dec, Monday's celebration day... but if you are listening to that, please accept the Best wishes for Xmas that Steve and Marijn sing as Episode 137 of M365Distilled kicks off.

The boys give themselves 10 categories to find their best of the best for 2023... Check out what Steve and Marijn decide on the best Conference or speaking location, their best community contributor and, of course, the best Whisky they have drank this year.

They discuss episodes, guests, Golden nuggets and the best Microsoft releases and upgrades.  Before thinking about their funniest 2023 moments, sessions they have listened to and finally the best titles.

Ever wondered how they choose the best title... when listen in and check it out.

Finally, Marijn dips into his whisky shelves and selects the Tullibardine 288 to taste on the podcast, and they find it delicious and very mature whisky with depth and satisfaction.

The Boys are back after a hectic time at Lisbon and ESPC where they created 9 podcasts from the CoreView stand @ESPC so this is a kind of recap of the people we met and included on the podcast created from the CoreView stand

We talk about AI and how it might be adopted, we talk about working lifestyles and finding time to think and workout strategies and solutions.  We talk about 2 great whiskies, yes we break the rules and do 2 whiskies as we have a truly relaxed conversation...

The last episode at #ESPC and we are here once more with Kas! This time we bring Jasper Oosterveld on board as a guest! He talks about business cases for Copilot and the issues of rolling it out just for testing.