I headed into the city early yesterday morning to present on ROI and Office 365. It’s almost an hour from my place to where the session was being held, and not wanting to get caught in the morning rush hour traffic, I left while it was still dark. I stopped at the mall to pick up a couple of items that I needed for my talk (e.g., Vapodrops for a clear throat), and made it to the presentation location just a few minutes after 8am. Don was waiting at the front door to get me through building security – things have changed a bit with corporate locations in Christchurch after the horriffic March 15 attack – and we made our way to the presentation room. We got set up for the session, talked about running, cycling and swimming (and the Apple Watch!), and welcomed people as they trickled in. There was a smaller group than usual for the presentation, but that made for a close knit feel and a good discussion at the end. I had to remember to present to a small group not to a large one – there are some different approaches to employ when the group size is at the lower end of the scale.

Discussion questions revolved around the need for factoring in the costs of training in an ROI calculation, and that’s indeed true. It wasn’t something I had discussed explicitly, although having written a couple of books on user adoption, I’m well aware that executing an adoption strategy (something more than just training) is essential and not free. Another observation – as part of the training discussion – was that people are starting from different places in their competence and capability with tools like Office 365, and so some people will require more guidance than others. That too is correct, and while it’s not in a “book” as such, there is an appropriate focus on this idea in my Driving Effective Use of Office 365 workshop – for which the slides are available. And there was also a discussion about who carries the responsibility for knowing how to use Office 365 (and similar tools) – the individual as part of their background professional competence, or the organisation into which they are situated. That’s a topic for another day, but my fast answer is that each party carries a share of the responsibility – albeit in different ways.

I was grateful for the opportunity to present to the SharePoint and Office 365 User Group meeting in Christchurch. Thanks to everyone who attended and participated in the discussion, and special thanks to Donald for the space to speak.