Christophe Fiessinger's Blog

Microsoft, Yammer and Office 365

Christophe Fiessinger — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 23:49:21 GMT

Following last week’s TechEd in New Orleans and the level of interest from attendees on how is Microsoft using Yammer today, please find below some recent articles on the subject:

How Microsoft got its own employees to use Yammer – CITEworld, June 2013
Microsoft Creates ‘Yammer North’ in Redmond to Learn New Software Tricks - The Wall Street Journal, May 2013
Making Microsoft a Connected Enterprise with Yammer and SharePoint - Microsoft Enterprise blog, March 2013

Please note you can also watch both of the enterprise social/Yammer sessions delivered at TechEd here (click on session link to download the recording and slides).

Last but not least, I am excited about today’s announcement I made on the Office 365 Technology blog: Make Yammer your default social network in Office 365

PS: Please meet Munchdog Director of Barketing

The Rise of Enterprise Social Networks by @markfidelman

Christophe Fiessinger — Wed, 22 May 2013 06:14:35 GMT

The following white paper was released this week and available for download from Microsoft: The Rise of Enterprise Social Networks. This 26 pages whitepaper from Mark Fidelman is a good read to help you help understand the business value of Enterprise Social and how to get started :

Social technologies, combined with data analysis and mobile technologies are significantly enhancing an organization’s ability to be responsive to market changes and will enable employees to work on the tasks that most benefit the company at any given point in time. In the near future, companies utilizing enterprise social software will be able to spot trends, provide information to thier employees in context, and leverage the wisdom of the organization to rapidly complete tasks and surface previously hidden pockets of valuable information.

Chapter summary:

Welcome to the Enterprise Social Revolution
You Need a Digital Village
The Evolution of Enterprise Collaboration
The Business Value of Enterprise Social
The Four Building Blocks for a Successful ESN Building
Mapping the Strategy for the Rest of the Business
Success initiatives for enterprise social companies
Why Microsoft is Best Positioned in the Space
Tying it all together
Action items & Questions to ask your organization

I have also read this book from Mark Fidelman which I also recommend: Socialized! How the Most Successful Businesses Harness the Power of Social (Social Century Series).

Happy reading!

Practice 39 languages at work thanks to Yammer & Microsoft Translator!

Christophe Fiessinger — Thu, 16 May 2013 04:49:06 GMT

Yammer message translation is now live on a network near you! Following this announcement last February: Yammer Announces Message Translation to Ignite Multilingual Collaboration, It’s exciting to see the functionality live as shown below on one of my network from my second favorite company after Microsoft: Contoso (a little bit of French, Greek, Japanese, Italian and Spanish below).

It only required one check box to enable it on my Enterprise network and voila! 39 news ways to engage, collaborate and innovate thanks to Yammer and Microsoft! Guess what there is so much more innovation to come it’s hard to stay quiet….

Enterprise Social & Yammer presence at both TechEd North America & Europe 2013

Christophe Fiessinger — Mon, 13 May 2013 20:30:55 GMT

Please find below the two Enterprise Social/Yammer/SharePoint sessions that will be delivered at both TechEd North America in New Orleans, June 3-6, and at TechEd Europe in Madrid in June 25-28. Yes we will also have a Yammer/Social booth staffed by Yammer & Microsoft experts so don’t be shy and please swing by to ask all your enterprise social questions!

SES-B206 - Overview of Enterprise Social from Microsoft – speakers: Dave Cohen & Christophe Fiessinger
Enterprise Social is enabling organizations to transform their businesses, to harnesses the power of their most valuable asset, their people, by connecting employees, partners, and customers. Microsoft has made significant investments in Enterprise Social in Office 365, SharePoint 2013 and with the acquisition of Yammer. In this session we cover our vision and roadmap for this transformative technology, in addition to highlighting the significant opportunity for business value using case studies and demonstrations.
SES-B207 - Enterprise Social Network Scared Straight: Learn By Doing – speakers: Allison Michels & Steve Nguyen
Companies of all shapes and sizes are still trying to make sense of enterprise social networking. Regardless of where you're at in your journey, there will be pitfalls along the way. Steve and Allison have been through the trenches as former customers embarking upon this space. Come for an interactive demonstration and hear about their experiences as customers and how they are now working with Microsoft customers to transform the way people work.

Project 2013: Guide pratique pour les chefs de projet

Christophe Fiessinger — Tue, 07 May 2013 17:54:10 GMT

Félicitation a Vincent Capitaine pour ce nouveau livre sur Microsoft Project 2013: Project 2013 – Guide pratique pour les chefs de projet » désormais disponible ! J’aime beaucoup ce format compact qui couvre l’essentiel des fonctionnalités en 130 pages avec des captures d’écrans à l’appui.

Je vous souhaite une très bonne gestion de projet avec Microsoft Project 2013 !

I’m Yammer Certified, are you?

Christophe Fiessinger — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 23:50:03 GMT

During the past few months, I have taken and passed both the Yammer Power User and the Yammer Administration certification.

Even though I had been using Yammer for a while, I’ve learned a lot personally on how to use Yammer and how to administer it. I highly recommend these certifications to customers but more importantly to partners that want to ramp up on Enterprise Social. Both the Power User & Admin courses are self paced with hands-on exercises in YammerU with a final test at the end. I also enjoyed working with the training team running these programs, very friendly, responsive and engaging!

I’ll be starting the Yammer Community Manager’s next week and I’m really looking forward to learn how to built “engagement” and sharpen my #ESN skills!

Project Online & Project Server 2013 training for IT pros and developers

Christophe Fiessinger — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 23:44:30 GMT

Important announcement from Jan Kalis this week: Project 2013 training for IT pros and developers a.k.a. Project Ignite recording available!

Find technical how-to training and walkthrough videos with this quick start interactive course about Project 2013 and Project Online.

CIOs and Enterprise Social Networking recent articles #esn #socbiz

Christophe Fiessinger — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 16:15:16 GMT

Following recent discussions with CIOs in different geographies and industries, there is a lot of interest around enterprise social networking (ESN) and hence I’ve compiled below a few articles and key quotes I’ve read recently on successful ESN adoptions and journeys from customers. Another great read are both the Yammer’s 2013 Business Value Survey Results Are In! and this latest McKinsey research: Evolution of the networked enterprise: McKinsey Global Survey results.

Enterprise social networking - Ignoring new trend should be a crime

“Technically, Yammer was a gift for IT – it is, dare I say the word, a cloud based solution meaning it was ‘instant on’.”

“Social networking on the enterprise may be in its infancy and considered an optional extra, however, the increasing demographic within large multi-site and international businesses brings about a compelling need for co-operation and collaboration that cannot be ignored.”

Red Robin CIO Drives Change Through IT Management

“Our job is to turn the lights on for new business benefits and possibilities. We can’t live in a technical engineering box where all we’re doing is turning on tools. IT executives have to put business needs in front of their own desires and express everything they do in terms of business value and outcomes”

When social tools go viral, Some Australian organisations are embracing enterprise social media tools

“once Yammer was identified as a key tool within the bank its technology security team conducted a full review, and subsequently adopted an enterprise licence.”

“Because they are so flexible and can be used in so many different ways they have to be adopted from the ground up and be made sense of by the people on the ground”

See you all the Midwest SharePoint and Project Conference in Chicago on April 15th

Christophe Fiessinger — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 16:32:35 GMT

I’m looking forward to deliver the keynote at the Midwest SharePoint and Project Conference in Chicago (W Chicago) on April 15th.There is a very exciting line-up of sessions with lots of great speakers & experts from Microsoft and our rich partner ecosystem. Looking forward to meet you all share our latest innovation & value and hear how you are using our products. I’ll also be attending Yammer on Tour the next day (JW Marriott, April 16th).

Both events are free and have limited seating so don’t wait any longer and REGISTER TODAY!

PS: I’ll also be doing the opening of the SharePoint Saturday Houston on Saturday April 13th if you are in Texas!

Register for Yammer on Tour & Transform Tour13 US events this spring #esn #socbiz

Christophe Fiessinger — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 15:33:47 GMT

Microsoft Yammer is organizing a series of FREE half day events in major US locations this spring (starting in early April) focused on Enterprise Social. We organized similar events worldwide for the past few months and I attended and delivered content at a few and all have been very well attended with great attendees feedback on the value of these event, so don’t wait any longer and register today!