Kurt Shintaku's Blog

Join us for an exclusive ‘behind the scenes’ experience where you’ll have the opportunity to:

• Get hands on with the Microsoft Surface family of devices and experience real life examples of digital transformation in action.
• Hear and learn from other customers about their digital transformation initiatives.
• Learn about the latest trends driving workplace transformation – from enabling teamwork with the new Surface Hub 2S and Microsoft Teams, to increasing the efficiency of your field workforce with predictive analytics from Dynamics 365 and Surface Go.
• Access programs, resources and solution experts from Microsoft and our partners to help develop and activate your workplace transformation strategy.
• Network with peers while enjoying nibbles and drinks.

Event Agenda

• 4:00pm – 4:15pm
  Arrival and networking
• 4:15pm – 4:35pm
  Welcome remarks
• 4:35pm – 7:00pm
  Tour the Surface experience while enjoying refreshments

Surface Fall Roadshow – Los Angeles

• Date: Tuesday, October 22, 2019 | 4:00 PM – 7:00 PM
• Location: SKYstudio
  1150 S Olive St, 30th Floor, Los Angeles, CA, 90015
• Registration:
  https://www.microsoftevents.com/profile/7961647
  Register here

(Event also stopping at Chicago, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Houston, Dallas, and Portland)

NEW! Transcribe audio files or record your own while staying in the flow in Microsoft Word – coming in early 2020.

We spoke with researchers, reporters, lawyers, and teachers, and learned that people spend a ton of time recording audio interviews on their phone, and then spend even more time transcribing those conversations into Word.

Today, we’re announcing a solution that helps busy professionals upload their own audio files or record new ones on the fly, all within Word. Once your audio has been uploaded or recorded, Word—leveraging your OneDrive account to securely store the audio files and Azure Speech Services under the hood—displays a written audio transcription in the side panel and allows you to quickly and easily bring relevant snippets or the entire transcript into your document to edit. The transcript itself is automatically separated by speaker and into relevant chunks of content, and the interactive panel allows you to easily jump around the recording to find and verify the perfect quote.

Audio transcription in Word will be available in early 2020 in Word for the web, with integration into the Word desktop and mobile apps following in the spring. Exact plans and pricing will be announced closer to general availability.

…

Read about this and more on the Microsoft 365 blog:

• Microsoft 365 makes work and play more intuitive and natural with innovations in voice, digital ink, and touch
  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2019/10/02/microsoft-365-intuitive-natural-innovations-voice-digital-ink-touch/

Here’s a new Office 365 bingo card for those of you wondering “why that new Office 365 feature has been disabled by your IT department”.  (Courtesy of Jamie LaPorte)

Enjoy.

Learn how to create, promote, and manage live events in Microsoft 365.

This deep dive will walk through the best practices and technical steps so your organization can start empowering leaders to connect with their employees, deliver impactful training, and improve communication and culture using Microsoft Teams, Stream, and Yammer.

• WEBINAR: Host Live Events in Microsoft 365 (1hr)
  https://aka.ms/Webinar/HostLiveEvents

(Originally recorded Tuesday, October 08, 2019, 09:00 AM  – 10:00 AM  (PDT))

With business applications forming the backbone of any organization, staying competitive requires app modernization. And that means migrating to the cloud.

Read Expedition Cloud: Inside Microsoft’s Cloud Migration and Application Development Journey for detailed guidance on how Microsoft planned and implemented its own app modernization strategy. By following Microsoft’s approach, you’ll learn how to:

• Assess your applications to identify when each app should be migrated.
• Understand the five different migration approaches: rehost, refactor, rearchitect, rebuild, and replace.
• Choose the best application migration approach and solutions.

Get the eBook here:

• DOWNLOAD: eBook – “Expedition Cloud: Inside Microsoft’s cloud migration & app development journey”
  https://azure.microsoft.com/mediahandler/files/resourcefiles/inside-microsoft-cloud-migration-journey/Inside_Microsoft’s_cloud_migration_journey.pdf?ocid=mkto_eml_EM485491A1LA1&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTVdWallqYzFabUkwT0RabCIsInQiOiJnTXU1NE5PckloeUpWT0JXNkNrb29yMHBoblduUzlmS09JUUY0TXdPc2pEdlNsTUJHK2FnVFpBUll6dlBOTlN4Z3BObTh0XC85NGVhXC9XWXRpdkFpRUtRanROdzV5dlwvXC9DNldJR1ZkQkhEQnRha0RPQ0lHRTFFcWNNYmZneEJIaDVlaXJHNjhPMFVaSU5yVjBvN1wvV1FQZz09In0%3D

Download the new Microsoft Intune adoption kit and customize your own communication plan.

We are excited to announce the updated Microsoft Intune Customer Adoption Pack is now available. It is a set of content and guidance that IT administrators, trainers, champions, and change management professionals can use to drive Microsoft Intune adoption in your organization and help ensure your users get up and running quickly.

…

The Intune Customer Adoption Pack includes:

• Email Templates for Communications Plan (Value, expectations, schedule, availability, instructions for enrollment, reasons for migration)
• Intune End User Enrollment Guide:
  Reference document in PDF or .DOC – customizable with internal resources
• Step-by-step videos to aid users in enrolling devices for Intune
• Enroll your Android device for full management
• Enroll your Android device for Work Profile management
• Enroll your iOS device
• Enroll your macOS device
• Enroll your Windows 10 device

Read more at the announcement blog post:

• BLOG: Microsoft Intune customer adoption pack is now available
  https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Enterprise-Mobility-Security/Microsoft-Intune-customer-adoption-pack-is-now-available/ba-p/679866
• DOWNLOAD: Microsoft Intune Adoption Pack
  https://aka.ms/IntuneAdoptionKit

The Lessons learned from the Microsoft SOC blog series is designed to share our approach and experience with security operations center (SOC) operations. Our learnings in the series come primarily from Microsoft’s corporate IT security operation team, one of several specialized teams in the Microsoft Cyber Defense Operations Center (CDOC).

Here are the series releases to date, with more coming:

• Part 1: Organization
  https://www.microsoft.com/security/blog/2019/02/21/lessons-learned-from-the-microsoft-soc-part-1-organization/
• Part 2a: Organizing people
  https://www.microsoft.com/security/blog/2019/04/23/lessons-learned-microsoft-soc-part-2-organizing-people/
• Part 2b: Career paths and readiness
  https://www.microsoft.com/security/blog/2019/06/06/lessons-learned-from-the-microsoft-soc-part-2b-career-paths-and-readiness/
• Part 3a: Choosing SOC tools
  https://www.microsoft.com/security/blog/2019/10/07/ciso-series-lessons-learned-from-the-microsoft-soc-part-3a-choosing-soc-tools/
• …more on the way.

(Graphic of the Microsoft SOC philosophy is available as a poster at https://aka.ms/minutesmatter)

SharePoint is a great organizational data store.  SharePoint lists offer a quick and easy way for users to store and share millions of items, while document libraries have become the industry standard for document management, supplying secure, reliable storage. SharePoint libraries supply the backbone for document storage in all of Office 365. When you add documents to Microsoft Teams, or Yammer, they’re stored in a document library. 

In addition to lists, documents can also contain valuable data. For example, where one user may create a list to store data in rows and columns, another user may choose to do so in Excel, and then save the Excel file to a document library. Both containers hold valuable data, and as with most data, there will be a need to report on it. 

Once the reporting needs go beyond the features available in a SharePoint view, a different reporting platform is necessary. 
There are several different platforms and technologies for working with SharePoint data, such as Power Query, Excel, Power BI, SQL Server Reporting Services and SQL Server Integration Services.

Your choice of reporting platform depends on the report type, data, storage, and your skill level.  With a wide variety of choices available, it is important to understand the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches to choose the right tool for the job. 

This white paper examines the different platforms and approaches that can be used to report on SharePoint data and explains the procedures.

• WHITEPAPER: Using SharePoint as a data source for Modern Reporting (19pgs, PDF)
  https://resources.techcommunity.microsoft.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/White-Paper-Using-SharePoint-as-a-data-source-for-Modern-Reporting.pdf

This is a great edit of the entire Microsoft event from October 2nd, 2019 with most of the announcements, culled down to 15 minutes.

If you only have 15 minutes, give this a view. 

If you’d like to watch the entire event, here’s the recording:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/microsoftevent

(Note: There are official videos for each announced product available here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNA-j_cL4mUTrUHNAt6gnxNckcmA50YD-)

Panos Panay, Microsoft Chief Product Officer, announced what’s coming next in Microsoft’s Surface family as well as Windows & Office. 

He sent a summary of the announcements to us at Microsoft that I thought I’d share some of:

Today we came together as a company in New York for an incredible event, sharing what’s next for Microsoft in Surface, Office, and Windows.

We announced new products lead by new silicon, new experiences, new platforms, and a new expression of Windows 10. Our company is evolving, and today was a big moment for Surface and Microsoft. As we came off the stage this morning all I could think about is how humbled and grateful I am to have had the support of so many across the company, both in creating the products and experiences we shared with the world today, and in making this event happen.  Thank you so much for the hard work that got us here, and your continued hard work to get these products and experiences into the hands of our customers.

In case you didn’t get to watch today’s announce, we’ve included a summary of what we shared below as well as an early look at what the press and our fans are saying about the line-up.

• Surface Laptop 3
  • The new Surface Laptop 3 provides the perfect balance of power and elegance. Now twice as fast with the same slim design and all-day battery life and offering a choice between colors – Matte Black, Cobalt, Platinum, or the all new Sandstone, materials – fabric or all metal aluminum chassis, size – 13.5” and 15” displays, and silicon – Intel 10^th generation processor in the 13.5” and the custom AMD Ryzen Surface Edition in the 15”.
• Surface Pro 7
  • Surface Pro 7 has been redesigned from the inside out, now twice as fast with a new 10^th generation Intel core processor, both USB-A and USB-C, and all-day battery. While Surface Pro 7 keeps the iconic design customers love and businesses rely on, it has more performance and amazing new experiences across Office.
• Surface Pro X
  • Surface Pro X is about what’s next for the 2-1 category. At 5.33mm and 1.68 pounds with LTE advanced connectivity, pen storage and charging, and the thinnest bezels of any 2-1 ever created, it’s an incredibly thin, light, connected, and powerful product for our customers who want the most modern device.  The new Microsoft SQ1 processor co-designed with Qualcomm for Surface Pro X pushes 2 teraflops of graphics processing power, and 9 teraops of computational power, making it the fastest Qualcomm processor ever created for a PC. 
• Surface Earbuds
  • Featuring an ultra-comfortable and stable fit, premium sound, and all-day battery-life, Surface Earbuds offer intuitive touch and voice controls for music, calls, and incredible integration with new Office features like transcription, translation, and slide control.
• New accessories
  • We’re also announcing a range of accessories– from type covers, pens, and mice designed to work with our Surface products to a selection of accessories to help you be more productive from any PC. We built on decades of experience delivering workspace comfort with new Microsoft Ergonomic keyboard and mouse, and are adding  new sleek, affordable Bluetooth®  products including a keyboard and compact, colorful Bluetooth® mouse, as well as bringing new colors for our popular Arc Mouse.
• New Office Features
  • New Office enhancements include transcription in Word for the web, inking capabilities in Excel that leverage the new Surface Slim Pen and ultra-portability of the Surface Pro X, gesture support in PowerPoint for the new Surface Earbuds and ink and voice comments in Word.
• Surface Neo – Coming in 2020
  • Surface Neo is our new dual-screen device powered by a new expression of Windows – Windows 10X. It’s built for productivity and creativity from anywhere with a 360-degree full-friction hinge that connects two 9” screens, enabling Surface Neo to adapt to you with every posture you need.  When you open it up you have a full-size 13” display with the thinnest LCD in its class.
• Windows 10 X – Coming in 2020
  • Windows has a long history of enabling productivity for people. To support Surface Neo, we are evolving Windows 10 with a new edition of the Windows product line – Windows 10X – to enable breakthrough dual-screen experiences. With Surface Neo the combination of hardware and software from across Microsoft empowers you to be productive from anywhere.
• Surface Duo – Coming in 2020
  • Surface Duo is the first Surface to fit in your pocket. It brings together the best of Microsoft productivity experiences, Android mobile apps, and Surface hardware design into a single device you can take with you anywhere.  With two paper thin 5.6-inch screens that unfold to 8.3 inches and a 360 degree hinge enabling dual-screens and a variety of postures, along with the ability to make phone calls and texts, Surface Duo is the ultimate in mobile creation and productivity. 

We’ve seen incredible feedback already from press and fans about these products:

• The Verge: Microsoft Surface First Look: The future of Windows 10X is dual screen
• MKBHD:2019 Microsoft Surface Family Impressions!
• Gizmodo:The Surface Pro X Is a Really Big Deal
• CNET: Microsoft Surface Neo is the foldable, dual-screen tablet you didn’t know you needed
• TechRadar: Microsoft Surface Duo is the foldable Surface Phone we’ve been waiting for
  The Verge: Inside Microsoft’s New Custom Surface Processors with AMD and Qualcomm
• Ars Technica: The Surface Phone is real! Microsoft surprises with a dual-screen Android phone
• Quartz: Microsoft just unveiled the future of the laptop
• Buzzfeed News: Microsoft Just Announced New Earbuds And Foldable Dual-Screen Tablet
• The Verge: The new Surface Earbuds are Microsoft’s first truly wireless earbuds
• Engadget: Surface Neo and Duo hands-on: Our dual-screen future

• @JezCorden –Apple who? Samsung what? Microsoft crushed everyone today. #Surface
• @SmashDawg –Over 60 coax cables –each thinner than a human hair — connects the two screens on the Surface Neo — the coolest thing you’ve seen in computing in years.#SurfaceEvent
• @RealTonyBradley – Microsoft unveiled an array of innovative hardware at the Surface Event: Surface Laptop in 13” and 15”, Surface Pro 7, Surface Pro X, Surface Earbuds, and the future of the Surface line—Surface Neo and Surface Duo.
• @briantong –What @Microsoft brought to the table today just moved us, competitors and the entire industry forward. LOVE IT. Can’t wait to get my hands on this stuff!#MicrosoftEvent @surface #Surface #SurfaceNeo #SurfaceDuo
• @JoannaStern –Most exciting Microsoft event I’ve been to since the original Surface event in Los Angeles. A dual screen Windows tablet, the Surface Neo. A dual screen phone, the Surface Duo.

These products are the culmination of incredible partnerships across Microsoft. It’s been an amazing experience seeing so many teams come together to make this launch a reality. The innovation in form and function, the joining of software and hardware experiences, and the focus of putting people at the center of our products is all thanks to the hard work of people across the company. 

I truly believe that products are a reflection of the people who make them and the people who use them.  Each of the products we announced today is a reflection of the passion, dedication, and care of so many. THANK YOU…product-making takes a village, and Microsoft is a great one.