In his keynote titled Work
Like a Network: The Future of Collaboration and Work, Microsoft Senior
Director of Enterprise Social Bryan
Goode showed us how enterprise
social can be integrated into our organization and change the way we get
work done.  He began by sharing one of
the worst kept secrets in today’s workplace – the world has become a giant
network and changed how we share information.
As a result of this shift in the paradigm, our consumers are now
expecting more of us.  As these
expectations change, it is up to us as organizations to bring new tools to the
table and play catch-up.

According to Bryan, one of the key things we can do to meet
and exceed expectations is to learn how to Work
Like a Network.  Specifically, the
foundation of working like a network revolves around three key pillars: Listen, Adapt, and Grow.  When we apply these by doing things like
listening to conversations that matter and adapting to make smart decisions, we
can achieve quantifiable benefits.

So now that we have an idea of some of the benefits of
working like a network, what are the keyframes that are necessary to achieving
this?  In his presentation, Bryan
identified three main components:

• People – Create a first class experience for your users
• Groups – Train the group in order to get work done
• Network –
  Increase information discovery by increasing your networking and leveraging
  second and third level connections

Knowing what the key framework to working like a network
looks like, what are some of the tools that Microsoft is introducing to help accelerate
the adoption of the work like a network
philosophy?  One of the first things
Bryan introduced was the concept of Document
Conversations.  Document conversations enable individuals to make informed
decisions and quickly respond to changes by allowing users to start conversation
about a document FROM the actual document itself, rather than by having to
switch applications (e.g. Yammer).  Additionally, Bryan discussed the use of Groups in Microsoft Office.  Groups
enable teams to self-organize, focus, and collaborate more effectively.  By utilizing tools such as group calendars
and group document repositories, we can link our conversations outside of Yammer and across different
applications.

Perhaps the most powerful tool that Microsoft is introducing
to help us work like a network is
the Office Graph.  As described by Microsoft, the Office Graph is “the power of social,
cloud, big data, and machine learning coming together. Office Graph powers many new personalized and contextual
experiences for people using Office 365.”  Essentially, what the Office Graph does is weave social through different apps in a way
that maps people in a company, as well as content and documents.  Sitting on top of the Office Graph is an app that has been code-named Oslo.
With Oslo, users can take
advantage of social capabilities to browse their graph.  Specifically, Oslo surfaces what is important to users based on what they’re doing
in their other applications such as: Outlook,
SharePoint, Office, and Yammer.

To end his conversation, Bryan gave us a sneak peek of
Microsoft’s Enterprise Social Product
Roadmap.  Included in this roadmap were
the three key components previously discussed: People, Groups, and Network.  Additionally, the roadmap not only detailed
what Microsoft is doing today, such as improving Yammer and integration; but also showed us what Microsoft’s
vision of tomorrow is.  This includes a
more connected experience across Office
365, Microsoft products, and beyond.