Infinity 365

A warm Servus from Salzburg I wish you all. I'm sitting here right now at the really beautiful and tranquil airport of Salzburg and am once again way too early. So I thought it would be a good opportunity to review the last three days and share my thoughts with you.

Arriving in Salzburg early Sunday evening at a crisp 31 degrees, I went straight to the hotel and actually just wanted to have a bite to eat and then have my rest. Salzburg had other plans for me. Arrived at the really stylish, exciting and beautiful Fourside Hotel, I had to realize that both the restaurant and the bar are closed on Sundays. No matter, I just went for a walk and looked for water. As a new coastal kid, I have acute withdrawal symptoms, especially when I see high mountains (aka Alps) around me. Then I found both a nice river and a snack nearby and Sunday was saved.

Workshop day: Infinity 365 "Self-Service-Workplace" by and with Nicole Enders

An overall successful workshop, which, as expected, was sovereignly held by Nicole (despite a fading cold). Many new impressions, many new approaches on how to organize oneself as an employee. Ok, I admit that the really great Viva Parts were mostly new to me, but they encouraged me that I am on the right track in my development.

But then a really exciting topic was another aspect of the Self-Service Workplace called Power Platform. I know the Mircosoft nerds among you will probably frown in amusement now, but for me as a no coder (I learned that was my word of the day 😊) it was a closed book before. I wouldn't say now that I've become a Power Automate pro, but I know theoretically what's possible with it, and can now give my customers the right push in that direction as well.

The first day and the evening program

Then finally the wild adventure started. Fireworks of information, I think the official word was that there would be over 60 sessions on 4 tracks over the next two days. Everything the Microsoft 365 heart desires. Personally, I learned a lot and made a lot of social connections (that was also very important to me, you'll find out why at the end of the talk). There were sessions on Teams, Viva, New Work, PowerApps and lots of security. As much as you could ask for. Too much to go into everything in detail.

My key takeaways from the first day were: Adaptive Cards in Viva are no magic and super cool. Interesting statements were made that you need to engage end users more when it comes to Microsoft 365 digital overflow (keywords: user adoption, key users). In this context, the "wise" words of a colleague in my project came to mind: "We don't have a technology problem, we have a people problem." I believe that it is becoming increasingly important for organizations to continuously drive User Adoption, whether it is before deployment, during deployment, or even in operation after.

Microsoft has been moving at such a rapid pace with M365, updating their services (we've all heard the "huh, what's that button all of a sudden"), that it's actually negligent for companies to not regularly bring users along with them and give them the opportunity to train and learn (cue Viva Learning 😉).

The evening event was really successful. When I volunteer to stay until the last guests leave, it's a clear sign that it was a successful event. Delicious burgers and currywurst with fries from various street food stalls, an endless amount of beer and the odd schnapps (that's what they do in the alpine country, I've learned) led to many animated and/or happy conversations and some new contacts (Simon, I'm counting on you in August at the user group 😉).

The last day and the insights

A little groggy, we headed back to the fairgrounds in good spirits on the third day. Luckily the hotel was only a 5 minute walk away, a blessing after the mostly standing event the night before.

In the first lecture, I listened in a relaxed manner to how, for example, the M365 Roadmap or the Newscenter can be set up relatively easily in a Planner (I didn't know this before, great tip, I'll implement it at home right away). Then I was really "brainwashed" in the second presentation. I've been following Alex Eggers for 1.5 years, but never had the luck to see him live. That has now changed and as I said, after his talk I was finally awake 😊 I had first considered whether I would take the topic "So gefolgt remote Leadership". After all, I'm not a leader myself, but even for me there were some really good insights. Of course, people were happy to refer to various Viva products there as well, which always makes me happy as a Viva fanboy.

But, to be honest, by far the most lasting talk of the whole conference (at least for me) was the talk by the really great Bianca Paulus "Mental Health at Work: employee retention beyond salary and benefits". I was still thinking about it all evening afterwards, and even today the topic won't let me go. Those who know me know why. Those who don't know me should come to #TeamsNue UG in August, then you'll understand why. 😊 So enough advertising done, I hope my boss is happy again now.

A few more general words: In every second lecture, of course, the buzzword "copilot" came up, and there's no getting around it. Yes, I fully agree with this statement. I'll even go so far as to say that AI will destroy jobs. But that's what all great advancements have brought, even the assembly line destroyed jobs back then, namely those that didn't advance, those that refused to learn and advance. Especially in IT, I think if we don't keep up with ChatGPT, CoPilot, Joshua 😉 and all the others, we shouldn't be surprised if we get left behind at some point. And since I'm a smart fox, I'm going to combine the useful with the pleasant and keep a close eye on the CoPilot issue in Microsoft Viva products in the near future. 😊

However, I have to admit that I probably need some more practice, as my Bing Copilot just made clear to me:

My AI-based copilot for the web says to Infinity365:

I found the following information: The Infinity365 conference was held in Salzburg and is the largest industry gathering around the Microsoft365 cosmos in the German-speaking world. The conference took place in June 2023 and included 3 conferences (#aMSBerlin2023, #mbuf, #Infinity365) with many attendees and speakers. There were many presentations and discussions on Microsoft 365, SharePoint, Microsoft Teams, Power Platform, Viva, Dynamics 365 and Copilot.

I guess I still have to practice a little bit there, that is Copilot and me, but we will work on it, I promise! 😊

So, on that note, I have to get on the plane. Have a good weekend and see you soon.

Yours Michael