Untitled

[jwillinger-blog-blog]

SharePoint Conference 2014 After Hours and Best Practices/Tips

This is a video highlighting dome tips and best practices when coming to Vegas! 

https://vimeo.com/86454707

Feel free to pass along to colleagues and friends-best way to get me is text, 312-622-2300 or Facebook messenger or Rightpoint email.  All events are free and if you did not register, I can assist in getting anyone in to any event.

 Sunday:

•             I get in @1 and staying at Palazzo-hopefully I will be at pool in the afternoon

•             4-6pm Aqua Knox in Venetian Hotel-Sitrion(formerly Newsgator)

•             7pm SharePint The Bourbon Room Venetian Hotel CASH bar

•             9:30pm I am going to Michael Jackson show at Mandalay Bay-tix are available $75-$170…I got a single ticket

  Monday:

•             Rightpoint Happy Hour and heavy appetizers Pinot Brasserie on March 3 from 6:00-8:00 pm

•             I have two dinner invites: one from HiSoftware at Sushi Samba and one from MSFT at Public House at Venetian

•             AvePoint Red Party at Tao at Venetian 9-12am

  Tuesday

•             SPC conference soiree at racetrack-looking for alternatives

  Wednesday

•             Metalogix big blow out and awards ceremony(I get honored at top SharePoint Influencer) Marquee nightclub, Cosmopolitan Hotel

  Thursday

•             I travel to Austin for SXSW plane leaves at 4:30pm and love to split taxis…

[jwillinger-blog-blog]

Best of 2013: Music and Apps

Before I share my top music and app lists, I want people to remember this in 2014: If you're not making someone else's life better, you're wasting your time.  I hope that as we go about our day to day lives remember this and shine your light on others daily...

Now my top songs of 2013...note that I am a runner and appreciate upbeat, fun, pop meets alternative meets classic rock....enjoy!

 In no particular order:

Best Day of My Life by American Authors

Kids by MGMT

Pompeii by Bastille

Changing of the Season by Two Door Cinema Club

Suit and Tie by Justin Timberlake

Take Back the Night by Justin Timberlake

Out of My League by Fitz and the Tantrums

Rosarito by Long Beach Dub All Stars

Diane Young by Vampire Weekend

Miss Jackson by Panic! At the Disco

Howl by JC Brooks and the Uptown Sound

My top apps on my iPhone 5s are the usual suspects, followed by more interesting ones that I use often and make my life easier...enjoy!

In no particular order:

Twitter

Instagram

Google Maps

Facebook Messenger

MapMyRun

SkyDrive

Yelp

Starbucks

LinkedIn/CardMunch

SoundHound

iExit

InstantMeeting

Southwest Airlines

TripAdvisor

Mynd

I hope i gave you some good music to listen to and some apps that may make your life easier.  When you're living a distracted life, you feel like you must be checking something off the list, staring at a screen, or rushing off to the next destination. And no matter how many ways you divide your time and attention, no matter how many duties you try and multi-task, there's never enough time in a day to ever catch up. Cheers to catching up and getting ahead in 2014.

I am curious as to your favorite songs or apps from 2013...please add to the list!

[jwillinger-blog-blog]

Thankful For

I look forward to one of the most American of holidays every year: Thanksgiving. Turkey, pumpkin pie, long hours of cooking and relaxing with family and friends make the day a particularly fun one. I also look forward to Thanksgiving for another important reason: it is a day that reminds us of the importance of expressing gratitude and thanks.

Even though many of us have numerous occasions to feel grateful in both our personal and professional lives, we often miss out on opportunities to express gratitude, especially at work. A recent survey found that people are less likely to feel or express gratitude at work than anyplace else. We are not even thankful for our jobs, which tend to rank dead last when asked to list the things we’re grateful for in our lives.

Failing to express gratitude when we can is a missed opportunity. First, feeling grateful has several beneficial effects on us: gratitude enables us to savor positive experiences, cope with stressful circumstances and be resilient in the face of challenges, and strengthen our social relationships.

Counting our blessings doesn’t just cheer us up; it can also improve our health and well being, and a second reason, to pause to express gratitude is that even simple expressions of gratitude can have powerful and long-lasting effects on those who receive them.

Thanksgiving is a great time to think about gratitude, and it is clear that we should be doing more of it throughout the year.  I appreciate my kids and the ones that I love and I need to work better to make sure they feel that every day-it does not take long!

[jwillinger-blog-blog]

Making Friends on an Airplane

      Just read this on airbnb, and with all the flying I do, thought these were some excellent tips to make friends on aiplanes...or just read your book!

With summer high season upon us, flights are packed to the gills. The good news is that each plane trip presents an opportunity to create your own midair social network.

Here's how to start your very own movement of friendly fliers:

Exchange your aisle seat for a center one... This almost unthinkable act of generosity will make you a loyal friend for life.

...Then get tight with your new neighbors. Beam ear to ear as you're sitting down and proclaim, "Gee, TWO new friends! This is my lucky day."

Distribute bite-sized chocolates. For cranky adults or hyper kids, a spoonful of sugar (and more) will keep their mouths shut and gain the adoration of those around you.

Hold someone's baby. Find that poor person trying to juggle a screaming baby, a dirty diaper, and a milk bottle - and save the day!

Make the plane all yours. If making friends on a plane is too hard, then just bring the plane to your friends.

[jwillinger-blog-blog]

Automatic Reply: Out of Office - Unplugged but not Disconnected

Having just finished being 'out of office' for the past week on vacation, I am reflecting on all of those friends and colleagues that actually completely unplug.  How do you feel when you write someone and get the "Out of Office, AUTO REPLY" ?  And by unplug, I mean complete disconnect, and when I say disconnect that means: no mobile, no tablet, no computer and to an extent no television(who watches TV any more?).  I believe there are versions of each that will make the return to reality far less painful, and more productive.

I fall into the bucket of hybrid, or passively connected.  The passive connectors are the folks that like to have their devices available, and will even check their email while on vacation, but they don’t reply or respond. They use it more as a way to stay in the know. If you’re like many people who dread the thought of coming back to an inbox of thousands of emails, you can use this passive connected path to triage your inbox and stay up-to-date, but stay out of the fray.  I have heard from a number of friends returning to 1000+ emails and only to complain about their situation.

This past week, I took three conference calls and replied to about 30 emails.  Did any of that activity interfere with my vacation or my family time?  I would say NOT...in fact, i felt better knowing when i returned to the office, it would not take me 2-3 days to catch up.  I came from a culture at Dunn and Bradstreet where if you replied to an email or took a phone call related to business on vacation, you would get reprimanded.  We live in a society where the first thing we do when we check into a hotel or rent a house, is to check for WiFi.  As much as we like to unplug, we cannot disconnect.

According to a survey by the folks at Prosper Mobile Insights 79 percent of mobile users who go on vacation say they take a smartphone or tablet with them and use it all the time, while 19 percent take their device and rarely use it, and only 2 percent say they leave their devices at home. Which of these buckets do you fall into?

[jwillinger-blog-blog]

harmon.ie 4.0 Proves to be Game Changer for Mobile Users

harmon.ie is the user experience company for the mobile enterprise, provides products that deliver a consistent user experience on mobile devices, the desktop, and the cloud, for a host of social and collaboration platforms from vendors such as Microsoft and IBM.  Their most recent product release 4.0 I have been experimenting with, using iOS and makes my life easier, being a road warrior. 

The latest version bundles Office Web Apps to edit, collaborate and share documents with my colleagues on iPads and other mobile devices. With the advent of harmon.ie 4.0, workers now have a consistent, unified user experience of Office Web Apps, SharePoint, Yammer and SkyDrive Pro, in all the places people want to work – mobile devices, the desktop and the cloud.

harmon.ie 4.0 provides the following key Office 365 capabilities:

The only native app experience for Office 365 on all popular mobile platforms, including iOS, BlackBerry Z10 and Q10 and Android (available in Q3’13).

Enterprise document security on mobile devices, including support for data-less mobile devices with Office Web Apps and documents residing on the cloud without compromising the device, as well as secure offline support for BlackBerry 10 out of the box.

A social Yammer experience integrated into Outlook and Outlook Web Apps 2013. Now users can micro-blog using Yammer in the email window, hold group conversations, preview documents, and @mention colleagues to get them into the discussion – from the same window where people spend much of their work time.

Support for new Office 365 features, including SkyDrive Pro and document preview inside Outlook. With SkyDrive Pro, you can make SharePoint content available offline and selectively share documents with partners who don’t have access to your SharePoint services. Document preview allows you to quickly browse SharePoint documents without having to download each of them to your device.

As the workforce continues to demand a similar user experience and interface on the desktop as mobile, products like harmon.ie 4.0 will continue to make that transition and experience a flawless happening.