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Need to use a SharePoint intranet due to internal policies, company transitions, or legacy systems? When all the available information is overly technical or negative, where do you turn? Enter Fresh Perspectives: Living in the reality of SharePoint intranets. We provide useful, jargon-free insights and real-world examples to help you maximize the benefits of SharePoint intranets and tackle its challenges. Pro-SharePoint but realistic, we debunk misconceptions and share product management insights from Fresh Intranet.
A new season, David. We made the second season.
Season two. We were renewed by the network.
It's amazing. You know, people have been writing the comments, we need a second season and a second season. Yeah.
One did that. No one did that. No. It's fine. Well, there we go. Cesar Antrim, Champers Host, Senior Product Manager for Fresh intranet with a new t shirt this time.
There we go. SharePoint Chatbot.
Human edition.
And I am still David Bowman, product director for Fresh Intranet. Jarbas, what have you been up to over the summer?
It's quite nice. So I went to Anaheim in California, north for Disneyland, so it was not a vacation. I was actually joining an event. So it was the Reagan Experience event in Anaheim. It was at the Disneyland Hotel, so I got to see Mickey and a lot of the Disney characters there.
Were they at a conference?
Unfortunately not.
Okay.
Well, but they were very close.
We had a lot of people coming to learn, people in telecommunication, HR, marketing, so coming together to learn about the different topics that they were covering there. We were their sponsors and got to have a lot of interesting discussions with the attendees and with other people there as well.
What was the, what was the sort of feedback like from these conversations? Because, you know, this is internal comms pros there to hear about digital employee experience, intranets, internal comms. What's, what's the reactions that you, that you got at the conference as you're there as a SharePoint intranet vendor?
Exactly. So we are very focused on SharePoint and we get to ask them things like, are you using SharePoint and do you like SharePoint? The reaction is things that we have already kind of discussed here. So we got to hear a no, right? Which at this point, I'm not surprised anymore.
So I'm kind of used to that type of - You're waiting for it now.
You're waiting for it.
Yeah, I'm waiting for that. So, it's surprising when someone says I love it and then you're like, wow.
Yes.
But yeah, so you get to hear those things, right? So, SharePoint is boring.
SharePoint provides a disconnect experience, especially when you have multiple departments and you want to bring everyone together. So the larger organization is, the more complicated this gets for people, especially when they are just relying on out of the box features that SharePoint provides.
Did I say boring? Yeah, I said boring. And it's hard to hide to it's complicated to find information. Right? So the search aspect is always something that people are struggling with.
Yeah, but the good thing is also that people are looking for a way to improve that experience. Yeah, yes. That's where we can see where we can add value in those discussions.
Yeah, those conversations are very rarely about ripping out and replacing it with something else. It is, how do I go from where I am today to what I'm seeing on your screen that you're showing me on this demo?
So I think people are generally engaging with a really positive mindset of how do we move to a better place.
Yes, yes, definitely. And what about you David? What have you done?
I've been on holiday. Basically that is what I've been doing for the entire summer but that's probably the standout memory for me. Not in Anaheim but somewhere equally glamorous. I've been sitting on the beach, I've been drinking a lot, I've been eating a lot. That is basically all I've been doing.
We should do more of that. Yeah. Everyone.
Yeah. It was good. Happy times.
I think the sun liked you.
Yes. Yes. Yeah. It's pretty rare that I get to spend a lot of time just sitting around doing nothing but we were in a part of the world where the Wi-Fi was terrible and is on our red list. So I was unable to access our network even if I wanted to.
So it was really nice to have a complete disconnect, sit in the sun.
I think first two days I looked a lot redder than I do now.
Like did you get to talk about AI, SharePoint in your vocation?
No. I was using ChatGPT a bit, but no, was a complete disconnect from work. I think the closest that I came to work at any point in time on holiday was we were walking off to the buffet one evening and ahead of us were a couple wearing their backpacks that were checking out or something.
And the guy's backpack had the Microsoft logo on the back. So that was as close as I came to work.
It's following you. It's following you.
Or, yeah, or I was following him. One of those would happen.
Either way, there we go. Well, that's great. So I hope you have enjoyed your time. So it looks like you had a great time, which is good.
Yes, yes, yes.
Let's talk a bit about SharePoint news then because, you know, it's been a while since we've since we've done one of these.
What's been changing in the world of SharePoint? There's been a couple of things that have happened that are probably of of kind of notable mentions.
Let's start with one that appeared and disappeared really quickly. It was a kind of now you see it, now you don't. Yeah. Tell us what happened.
It's a magic show. Yeah. Live, like happening at the client's tenants in production. So, well, we are talking about the modern page template experience, which So, you know, SharePoint already has had an option for people to create pages using page templates. So when you go and click the, I want to create a new page, a new new post, a dialog opens currently and it shows you the templates that SharePoint provides out of the box and the organizational templates that are available for this site. That experiences is what we're talking here and that changed. So when you clicked on, I want to create a new post or page, you got redirected to a new page, a full experience where by default you saw fifty plus out of the box page templates that Microsoft provides.
And those page templates basically, I think reflect the art of the possible with the latest additions that SharePoint has had in SharePoint pages. There is the flexible layouts, section background, and those page templates were basically showcasing all of these different options.
At the beginning, the initial launch of this feature, your page templates were not visible on that experience, which is not ideal for organizations. You want to use the things that you have created and you could not hide the out of the box templates from Microsoft.
So a lot like those are some of the issues that people have been talking about and actually, yeah.
There was quite a lot of feedback about this wasn't there as this was unfolding?
Exactly. So there is the official marketing announcement on the tech community website for Microsoft. You'll see in the comments section how many comments they got around that feature, which is quite hard for people who are probably building that experience.
But they got a lot of to hear directly from the clients who are using that now.
The result of that was basically that they have rolled out.
They have removed the feature from SharePoint. So it's not available there currently and probably coming back at some point.
That is a kind of temporary thing and there's been no further update on when that feature will be back. I felt nothing but pity for the people at Microsoft that are involved in this. I think it's really easy to kind of take the high road on these kind of things.
The problem is when you're building a product at the scale that they are building at, it is very difficult to keep everybody happy at the same time when you're releasing new features.
So, you know, I'm sure that they will resolve the situation to everybody's satisfaction and it'll be a great feature once it's completed.
Yeah, like Microsoft continues the pattern of improving the experience, like the default experience, the pages, now kind of the page templates. Interesting about this feature is also what the feature might bring. So they already gave a bit of some insights on the future roadmap. So they are talking about having global page templates so that as an intranet manager, you're going to be able to manage that at a global level, maybe the brand center, I don't know.
Co pilot powered enabled templates so that you could also manage and maybe choose that templates from that experience.
Yeah, you guys can't think of the first release, first cake slice of a bigger, very useful feature.
Yeah, but what else? What else did they introduce?
So the new magic and floating SharePoint AI button.
I don't think that's its official name. What is it actually called?
It's the AI Quick Actions.
AI quick actions for SharePoint. So this is a little floating button that appears on a SharePoint site when you have Copilot licenses and gives you quick access to any AI enabled features in the SharePoint site that you're currently in. So for example, if you click on that button and you're on a SharePoint page, you've got a quick way, quick link to be able to do a summary of the current page that you're looking at or be able to access any agents that are created in that SharePoint site. So this is a kind of brand new thing that turned up in Tenants last week. Super useful way of being able to access the AI features.
Yeah. So you did the Copilot license. So if you want to use that, this floating element, another aspect is also like it's a floating element on the bottom of any page actually, right? So that's actually appearing everywhere. So in terms of customization, because a lot of people, they customize SharePoint different ways. So there could be some conflict there. I wonder if Microsoft is also providing a way for hiding that button if people don't want to use it.
Yes. Yeah, well, I think as we were saying when we were talking about this before that know Valo Intranet as an example that used to have its own kind of admin enabled experience, that that was a floating button on the bottom right hand side of a page. There's likely to be a conflict there.
And as you say, other product vendors doing similar things as well.
And know I think the thing that I'm interested in, this is a sort of SharePoint product vendor, is the potential for extensibility options there of being able to layer in our own AI extensions into that feature so that as well as SharePoint, third party product vendors in SharePoint are able to extend that component and this becomes a central way of being able to access a lot of useful AI functionality.
Yeah, that was like the Valve toolbox that you are referring to.
Valve is now discontinued so that will not be a problem for existing customers. But yeah, definitely everyone who has done some sort of customization at that level will experience some sort of conflict. But yeah, as you said, so for people building in SharePoint, we would look for the integration possibilities. Would be nice if this becomes the central way of kicking off interactions with AI.
Yes, yes. If you're listening to Microsoft, we would love to extend that further.
We would.
All right, other news then.
ChatGPT five released over the last couple of weeks as well. Have you had a chance to play around with that yet?
I have. So I think you should go more on vacation, David.
So many things happen when you're on vacation.
If only, I was the center of the universe, and these were all related to me.
Look at that. Maybe it is. So maybe not. ChatGPT five is a new addition from OpenAI. So they have introduced GPT five that's then, of course, available in ChatGPT, and also available in Microsoft Copilot. Microsoft managed to have a sync release of the capabilities, which is of course very great for the Microsoft clients as well. And we as Microsoft users, customers can also take advantage of that great functionality now.
So what does GPT-five bring, David?
Well I think from a kind of end user experience, conversationally this is much more like talking to an adult.
You know kind of knowledgeable third party, whereas you know conversations with previous versions whilst they've always been improving obviously you know maybe been a bit stilted. It feels much more natural when you're engaging with this thing as an end user. And you know have to admit I probably use this more in chat GPT than I've used it in co Pilot. Have you used it there yet?
Yeah. So not in CoPilot that much, but yes, like in ChatGPT as well.
But the thing that I like is like everything is So before gpd5 or gpd5, you had to switch between the models. So if you wanted to have reasoning, would choose an all three model. If you just want a chat experience, you would go with the four something version.
Now everything is combined in one model. So as an end user, it doesn't really make a difference because you just go, you enter your prompt and then the GPT-five model will understand based on your prompt how it should behave or should react. It might start thinking. You see this shimmered experience on the top of the chat, or it will just straight away go and answer your question. I think as an end user, that's what we want, right? So you don't want to be technical and start understanding what model I should choose when.
Yeah. Anything that's going to reduce the amount of thinking that the end user is doing about which model to use, Really good step forwards.
They already have like a very simple user experience and now they have even removed the option for choosing the AI model. You just need to chat basically.
Yeah, yeah. You just start. It's going to make decisions for you.
That's great.
One other, one other piece of news that we should mention as well from, owners of Fresh, Advania UK, completed the integration of the acquisitions that they made in twenty twenty four, Servio and CCS Media joining the Advania business.
Hugely impressive, complicated integration of those two businesses in a really short space of time as well, given that the acquisitions were only at the end of twenty twenty four.
The the Advania UK business are the people that own Fresh Intranet. That is an organization in the UK now that is worth more than four hundred and fifty million pounds in revenue.
The group business, Advania Group, worth over a billion pounds.
Fifteen hundred employees, that is the total size of the UK business and over ten thousand customers as well. So congrats to the Advania UK team for a successful integration of those acquisitions.
It's a huge achievement and shows like I think how strong we are now. So what does that mean like for Fresh in the end?
Yeah, good question and useful context I guess for people to understand that Advania UK clearly a very commercially successful profitable business growing with kind of aggressive plans for further growth in the UK as well.
So it's great to have Fresh Intranet backed by this hugely impressive commercial organization and sees Fresh as being a key piece of the commercial offer as well.
So congratulations to the senior leadership team at Avaya UK.
Congratulations.
Right, now we've done enough ass kissing for today.
That was the intro. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because what we were actually supposed to do was talk about season two because we've got another twelve or so episodes that we're going to be running in this season. And you know, I guess lessons learned from seasons one.
Know, Jarbas, we enjoy talking to each other. We've ended up recording a lot of our one to one meetings and using them as podcast episodes.
I guess we've had to accept though that not everyone agrees that we're the most interesting people and the episodes that have had the greatest take up have really been where we've had these fantastic guests that took time out their schedules to join and talk to us about their areas.
The people are great. So that's how it is.
Yes. Well, and often much more interesting than either of us as well. So we've done a couple of these already, haven't we? That we've got in the bag that we're going to be releasing.
Exactly. So for the next season, so this one, it's starting now. We talked to two clients already. So the first one was Abby Webster from TD Bank, and we talked about the topic.
So yeah, now I kind of have this one song in mind because it was about I'm looking for an intranet in finance because she's like Which was based on the now somewhat dated meme of I'm looking for a man in finance.
Being an old man who has teenage kids, I pick up on a lot of memes that are doing the rounds. And this is one that stuck out for me.
Yeah, that was the excuse now. Yeah, so it's not because you are following like these topics. Can be honest.
No, no, of course, of course. I would never be involved in anything so frivolous.
Yeah, yeah. Because as you said, like at some point, we're grumpy man and.
Yes. Yeah.
But well, it was I'm looking for an intranet in finance. I need to really pay attention to that. And I wondered if David Gatt would reach out to us. If you get for some reason to be listening to this podcast, we would do something around SharePoint and finance and Yes.
Who knows?
Well, in any case, so that was the topic we covered. We talked about their journey on they were looking for new intranet and all of the process and how they went through that.
And then, like, going to the intranet for very large They're a huge organization, a lot of employees, lots of different roles, lots of frontline workers, hugely complicated IT estate as well, lots of systems.
And I think what I really like about them as a company is they've got a really great organisational culture, really supportive of people, kind of a people first intranet and the team that run the digital employee experience, intranet included, the kind of people first approach there has been really nice to hear about.
Yes, that was. So more of that on one of the episodes that we have in the second season.
And we also talked to Alex Pearce from The LA Piper, right, about how to build an intranet.
Yes, And talking about the, you know, the transition from what was a we've got to replace our on premises SharePoint intranet and move to Microsoft three sixty five. So it was a big kind of technical driver that was running that project initially and how Alex and the team have kind of progressed that more to being about people, content, narrative, stories, all around employees. So, you know, a really nice transition from intranet is driving a kind of intranet driven by a technical objective and becoming something that's much more part of the organizational fabric.
Yeah. So like people driven as well, like similar to the episode. So it was like they are focused on storytelling and how they did that, giving some examples also. Worth listening. And we'll be releasing that soon.
Yep. And then we've also got some conversations lined up with some Microsoft people that are involved in SharePoint itself.
We're gonna be talking to some implementation consultants about what people need to do to get ready for intranet success.
And any other interesting influences, know, a number of those that we're getting conversations lined up with.
Yes. So a lot of great discussions coming up.
Main objectives for season two, very similar to season one then, sharing information and stories and filling this content gap between what can appear to be fairly technical content about SharePoint intranets at one end and at the other end fairly easy to find SharePoint bashing content. We want to find ourselves somewhere in the middle of those two, probably closer to the former than the latter.
Yeah, we're balancing the discussion, bring kind of a different angle, a positive angle also like to SharePoint. We're almost addressing the reality, right? So talking about modern page templates and some chances are there. So that's all part of the context, but addressing that from a neutral point of view.
Neutral ish.
Yes.
All right. Closing this episode off then, Jarbas.
We're gonna try and get a couple of questions in to our guests on these episodes as well.
What are you currently most excited about?
Yeah. It's good question. So we have a series of events coming. I'm covering more like those happening here in Europe. So we have call updates event happening in Helsinki in a few weeks, and I'm looking forward to going there.
We are going to meet our Advania Finland partner who is part of our Advania group. So it's they have been very great partners. I've been working so many projects with them, and I'm looking forward. Yeah.
I like to meet them, having conversations, talking about ongoing projects. Of course, at the conference then meeting former colleagues. So I used to work for Volvo, who is kind of from Helsinki. So meeting my former colleagues there and like the people from the Microsoft community.
And then a few other events that we also have lined up.
So that's what I'm looking for. And what about you, David?
Yeah. Similar theme. We've got a number of events coming up in the US on the East Coast and West Coast throughout the end of this year towards the end of kind of conference season.
And looking forward to trying some new things out there based on lessons we've learned and conversations we've had this year. So yeah, just looking forward to progressing some of those initiatives.
Yes, it's going there, getting challenged when we are talking to people in telecommunication and the topic is sometimes SharePoint as we mentioned at the beginning. But yeah, bring those learnings back and improving our narrative and also our solution. So that's where those events also help us.
Yeah.
And one other question that we have also been asking the guests, what is your favorite app?
Favorite app. So both of which on my mobile phone.
The first of which being ChatGPT. Is just more and more I'm using this in my daily life. I was using it lot on holiday for identification of what is this weird insect that I found in this weird shell that's moving across the beach.
It's helped me learn a lot about hermit crabs.
That was a fascinating topic for me while I was away. So yeah, chat GPT is an obvious one. Second one, Candy Crush Solitaire is something that I've really been getting into. So I've spent a disproportionate amount of time on that.
Having fun, it's good.
I don't know how to consider having fun. It's more of a sort of a developing addiction, I think.
Yeah. We all have some of those apps, but maybe like for me now, like the apps.
ChatGPT is really like one of my favorite apps and I spend time talking to it using the voice mode to having a chat that way.
Have you been calling it, Dave?
Yes, every now and then. Now I first practiced podcast there before I go have it with you.
Nice. Good, good, good.
Yeah. Maybe we should release that version as well.
Well, in any case, so it's- I'm being replaced gradually.
There we go.
We're all being like, we talked about that previously. So if ChatGPT five is giving you the option to talk to an adult, so what will be ChatGPT six then?
Yeah, yes. A replacement for all of us.
All of us, but hopefully that will remain a development for of I'll be able to spend more time learning about hermit crabs.
Or like the Candy Crash app that we So you're right. And the other app is Google Maps. So we travel a lot and that helps me get everywhere I want.
And so that's like my favorite.
Yeah, think it's one of those things that I think I probably really take for granted these days as to just how reliant I am on Google Maps, Apple Maps. It's one of those I think they're both kind of apps that when you drive a lot the kind of infuriating experiences you have on lanes not being clear or signage not being clear but you know still I wouldn't be able to do without it these days.
Yeah. It has not always been like that. No.
With apps and No.
No. I remember pulling up next to people on the street when I was learning to drive and asking them for directions.
Cool. Nowadays would be a weird situation.
Yes. Right. Before we deteriorate into full on reminiscing about the good old days, let's wrap it up there.
Thanks for that, David. It was great talk to you as always, and I'm looking forward for what season two will bring.
Indeed. Speak to you later.
Cheers.