Microsoft 365 Strategies for Internal Communications: Using Teams, SharePoint, Yammer and more for Employee Collaboration & Engagement in a Social Distancing Era
Microsoft 365 Strategies for Internal Communications: Using Teams, SharePoint, Yammer and more for Employee Collaboration & Engagement in a Social Distancing Era
December 09, 2020 - December 10, 2020 | 10:00am - 3:00pm CST
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Benefits of Attending
Discover solutions to your biggest challenges
Network with 50+ internal communications professionals
1 track learning environment
Real-world practical use-case sessions you have access to anytime, anywhere
Networking opportunities from the comfort of your home & office
Take Your Internal Communications & Employee Experience to the Next Level
Learn how to utilize Microsoft 365 features – including Teams, SharePoint, Yammer and more – to improve internal communications, productivity, foster collaboration & increase employee engagement
Learn best practices to help you keep remote employees engaged, drive productivity across the organization, and foster collaboration. Hear from:
Dayna Lovelady
Digital Communications Specialist II
The Christian Broadcasting Network
John Twombly
Senior Consultant, Academic Communications
BJC HealthCare
Peter Stern
Digital Communications Manager
Ferguson Enterprises
Becky Shvartsman
Digital Communications Specialist
Vertex Inc.
What You Will Learn
Anytime, anywhere access.
All organizations have been forced to rethink how their people and teams communicate and collaborate.
Attend this virtual event to see how your peers from a variety of organizations are now navigating a new COVID-19 response phase, moving on from “remote everything” to a more sustainable, hybrid workplace, blending remote work and physical offices.
See how leading organizations are using Microsoft 365 to change day-to-day work.
Innovative engagement strategies to maximize user adoption, manage content and governance, and drive employee collaboration and productivity will be shared.
You’ll have the chance to see live examples, screenshots, and solutions of how your peers are using Teams, Yammer, SharePoint and O365.
This internal communications conference has been designed to help you utilize Microsoft 365 to its full potential by implementing cost-effective tools and strategies, gain buy-in from leadership and your workforce, and integrate new social tools, including how to:
Create a conversation and gather opinion around key topics that are important to your employees
Increase awareness of the tools and features available to employees
Provide a low-maintenance way to write, share, and engage with content
Layout the information employees need in a simple, easy to find way
Drive user adoption – from launch and years after
Involve employees in the revamp of your SharePoint or O365 layout
Integrate gamification to help drive participation and reward involvement
Increase employee engagement and motivation
and more!
Who Should Attend
Internal Communications
Employee Communications
Employee Engagement
Intranet Strategy
Intranet Content Development
Business Analysts
Community Managers
Enterprise Community Management
Workforce Collaboration
Intranet Management
Human Resources
Web Management
Web Editor
Digital Strategy
Enterprise Portal Solutions
Employer Branding
Learning & Development
Corporate Communications
Organizational Development
Internal Social Platforms
Global Communications
Social Enterprise
Knowledge Management
SharePoint Administration
Intranet UX
What People are Saying
There were so many nuggets & strong takeaways I am excited to bring back to my workplace! This won’t be my last time taking advantage of [ALI Conferences]!
Communications & Publications Manager
TN Comptroller of the Treasury
Good variety. Attendees and speakers very knowledgeable and passionate about what they do. Left with a great deal of applicable knowledge. Would definitely attend again! Loved the format.
User Experience Design
Mayo Clinic
These are people just like me! It was great to network and share ideas.
Manager, Internal Communications & Events
Pet Supplies Plus
Learn more about ALI Conferences
Learn more about our services, conferences, trainings, and how you can connect with us.
Join as we quickly set the stage for this exciting ALI virtual conference.
10:05 am - 10:20 am
Chairperson's Welcome and Speed Networking - C5 Insight
Geoff Ables, Managing Partner | C5 Insight
Let’s kick off the event by turning on your camera to "meet" and connect with your communication peers from across the nation. You'll have this opportunity to discuss challenges and solutions with your peers and share common experiences as we all navigate dramatic change.
We’ll encourage you to connect via LinkedIn to stay in touch post-training to help you manage it all successfully.
10:20 am - 11:00 am
Mini Workshop: Sharepoint Is from Venus, Teams Is from Mars: How to Integrate Your Sharepoint Intranet with Microsoft Teams - C5 Insight
Kelly Jones, Director, Collaboration Technologies | Atrium Health
Geoff Ables, Managing Partner | C5 Insight
SharePoint is the standard intranet and document-sharing solution for many organizations. Teams integrates with SharePoint.
So how do you setup a digital workplace that uses both Teams and SharePoint while keeping it simple to communicate and collaborate across your organization?
You’re not alone if you’re asking those questions.
In this session, we take a practical look at how organizations of all sizes are successfully navigating this challengeand provide you with a practical framework to develop your own SharePoint and Teams integration strategy.
11:05 am - 11:20 am
Using SharePoint to Drive Collaboration Across Your Organization - Wounded Warrior Project
Learn how Wounded Warrior Project effectively used digital workplace tools to equip their employees with the resources they need to get their job done on a day to day basis, including how to:
Enable employees to collaborate more efficiently
Break down organizational silos
Share news and information globally
11:25 am - 11:40 am
Driving Adoption of Teams to Connect Employees and Transform Your Business - Ferguson Enterprises
Peter Stern, Senior Digital Communications Manager | Ferguson
Learn how Ferguson, the world's largest specialist trade distributor of plumbing and heating products to professional contractors and a leading supplier of building materials, with $21.8 billion in FY20 sales is using Microsoft 365 to engage 26,000 associates and find innovative ways of serving customers during an unprecedented year. Ferguson has fully embraced Microsoft's modern suite of tools, including:
Automating Q&A
Empowering peer-to-peer communities
Providing virtual customer consultation
Enabling a company of communicators through digital media
11:45 am - 12:15 pm
Deep Dive: Driving Adoption of Teams to Connect Employees and Transform Your Business - Microsoft
Laurel Dzneladze, Employee Communications Digital Platforms Leader | LinkedIn
It’s more critical than ever to connect, inspire, and activate people. But it is also more difficult than ever. While many people may have adapted to working remotely, it’s challenging to connect people, particularly outside of their core working groups, to drive culture and communication, and foster knowledge sharing and innovation.
Hear about the latest Microsoft 365 innovations to help you transform workplace communications, and empower communicators with integrated storytelling tools to inform, engage and inspire people across the organization, including:
Home site app for Microsoft Teams. Bring your home site and the best of your intranet directly into Microsoft Teams—seamlessly. The home site app gives your users global navigation across sites, communities, and teams; quick access to sites they use regularly; and a personalized news feed.
SharePoint app bar. Create a consistent navigation experience to every site on your intelligent intranet, featuring quick access to important sites across the organization, personally relevant sites, and the news feed.
Boost news in SharePoint. Prioritize important news and announcements to appear at the top of news feeds across Microsoft 365. You can boost the visibility of a news article for a set time, until an employee has seen your content, or until a viewer has seen the item in their feed a set number of times.
Share news to email, Microsoft Teams, and Yammer. Share a news article directly to your audience’s team, community, or inboxes.
Enhancements for communicators in Yammer. Send notifications for priority announcements to the inboxes of all community members or raise the visibility of a post by featuring it in the community and discovery feed. And, with delegate posting, designated users can share messages and announcements to the organization on leadership’s behalf.
Built-in templates. Quickly deploy robust scenarios by using predefined sites that integrate the superpowers of Microsoft 365. Easily customize built-in templates to your needs, such as the template for Leadership Connection, and apply them to any existing SharePoint site to give it new superpowers and a beautiful design.
Insights for communicators. Understand your reach, impact, and engagement across Microsoft 365 by using new analytics in SharePoint, such as dwell time on content, heatmap views of interaction, and automatic analytics digest powered by AI. Combined these insights with analytics in Yammer, such as enhanced Comm
Don’t miss this session to get all of your Microsoft 365 questions answered from Microsoft!
12:20 pm - 1:15 pm
Refresh & Recharge - Sessions Resume at 1:15 p.m.
This time is dedicated to you.
Turn your camera off, grab a bit to eat, catch up with work, take a walk. We'll see you back on camera at 1:15.
1:15 pm - 1:55 pm
Mini Workshop: A Step-By-Step Process to Link Your Communications to Organizational Strategy and Measure Its Impact - Sinickas Communications, Inc.
Angela Sinickas, CEO | Sinickas Communications, Inc.
It’s hard to connect our work with our organization’s desired results unless we plan our communication strategies from the beginning to help deliver those results. This workshop will give you an easy-to-follow, step-by-step process to connect communication to business goals—and then prove the value of the communication.
Specifically, in this session, you will learn the difference between communicating about an organizational strategy and communicating in a way that actually fulfills the strategy—sometimes without even mentioning the strategy itself.
You will also be provided with a step-by-step process for engaging your executive management in communication planning in a way that feels like other, logical business processes they are comfortable with, including:
Determining which stakeholder groups are most important in helping to achieve a particular goal
Identifying the ideal behaviors for each stakeholder group to reach the goal
Discovering through informal research which knowledge and attitude messages are contributing to the current (incorrect) behaviors and which messages would better motivate the ideal behaviors
Choosing the best channels for the ideal knowledge and attitude messages
Setting measurable objectives for the messages and channels
Developing measures that will connect your communications with achievement of the ideal behaviors and organizational goals
2:00 pm - 2:15 pm
Virtual Town Halls: Taking Transparency to the Next Level - BJC HealthCare
Brad Lechner, , Senior Media Services Consultant | BJC HealthCare
John Twombly, Senior Consultant, Academic Communications | BJC HealthCare
Hear how 3500 staff at St. Louis Children’s Hospital are doing what’s right for kids. They’ve created virtual town halls to better inform and listen to their front line, dispersed workforce during changing times.
Learn why virtual town halls began and how Microsoft Teams was introduced, including how:
Employee feedback was gathered in the process
The process was executed using slido, scripting, email alerts and live and recorded video
Transparency thrived, resulting in more questions submitted
Results are measured
Mistakes happen, have fun and more!
Leave this session with a list of practical, how-to tips to start or improve your own virtual town halls.
2:20 pm - 2:50 pm
Panel Discussion: Microsoft 365 during a WFH Era—the Good, the Challenging & the Unknown
Naomi Rettke, Communications Principal | Prime Therapeutics
Becky Shvartsman, Digital Communications Specialist | Vertex Inc.
Windy Roy, CFO | Duncan-Parnell
Loni French, Associate Director, Internal Communications | Microsoft MVP
Geoff Ables, Managing Partner | C5 Insight
Support and empower your employees, wherever they are, with Microsoft tools. Discover what has worked, hasn't worked, and changes that have had to be made in this WFH era. With many organizations communicating with dispersed employees for the first time - learn how Microsoft tools have made the transition easier.
Mini Workshop: From Theory to Action: Creating a Behavior Change Strategy to Nurture New Ways of Working & Microsoft 365 Adoption - Intactic
Preston Lewis, Founder + CEO | Intactic
Attend this session to learn:
A proven, human-centric approach to communications planning
The key success factors to technology adoption efforts
Tips for supporting ongoing behavior change
Ideas for crafting the overall business case for change
11:05 am - 11:20 am
Using Fun Work from Home Video Content in Microsoft Stream to Boost Morale in Uncertain Times - The Christian Broadcasting Network
Dayna Lovelady, Digital Communications Specialist II | The Christian Broadcasting Network
In this session you will learn how to:
Plan video content that tells a story while building community and boosting employee morale
Drive employee engagement during the creative process
Use Microsoft Stream and other Microsoft 365 tools to showcase videos and drive engagement
Share engagement results with leadership to influence culture
11:25 am - 11:55 am
Refresh & Recharge
Take a short break.
12:00 pm - 12:15 pm
Three Tips for a Top-Notch Teams Live Event - U.S. Cellular
Thomas Lawler, Senior Content Creator | Ascension
The good news: Microsoft has added a powerful tool for hosting large meetings to its Microsoft365 productivity suite that builds on many of the features you know and love from Teams. The bad news? You probably don’t how to use it yet, and your CEO is asking for a virtual town hall in the next 30 days. Could Teams Live could meet this need? It certainly can, but only if you can quickly ramp up your Teams Live knowledge.
Join us for a session that will share three essential tips for making your first Teams Live event a smashing success:
How to ramp up your knowledge quickly using the best online resources.
Identify the roles you’ll need for your Teams Live event and build out your practice schedule and meeting breakdown for seamless event.
Drive engagement during and after your event to drive your desired communication outcomes.
All this, plus a scintillating Q&A session awaits you!
12:20 pm - 12:35 pm
Using Yammer to Build an Open Culture and Engage Employees - Blue Cross North Carolina
Mark Stinneford, Senior Communications Advisor | Blue Cross NC
Hear how Blue Cross NCbuilt engagement in Yammer before the actual launch, including how:
Yammer became one of the preferred employee communications
Yammer became the go-to place for announcement by executives
The company has used the channel for sensitive news and conversation
You’ll hear how to better leverage Yammer for your own employee communications while improving engagement across your workforce.
12:40 pm - 12:55 pm
Microsoft Teams & Yammer: Why They're Not the Same and How Each Enhances Collaboration
Loni French, Associate Director, Internal Communications | Microsoft MVP
Need to tap into the collective knowledge of colleagues AND provide an integrated, collaborative solution for colleagues working together on projects, in departments and around company initiatives? In this session, get a better understanding around:
The difference between Yammer and Microsoft Teams
Real-life use cases for each type of collaboration within your organization
Launch, adoption best practices and how to incorporate colleague feedback
You will leave this session with practical advice and insights that provide clarity on how to leverage Microsoft’s collaboration suite of tools and provide business value.
12:55 pm - 1:00 pm
Key Takeaways + Final Words - C5 Insight
Geoff Ables, Managing Partner | C5 Insight
As a group, you will share your 'golden nuggets' and top take aways, along with what you plan to do first when you return to your work. We'll ask for everyone's ideas and will share the final list with the group in the follow up link of materials and resources.
Speakers
Naomi Rettke Communications Principal | Prime Therapeutics
John Twombly Senior Consultant, Academic Communications | BJC HealthCare
Brad Lechner , Senior Media Services Consultant | BJC HealthCare
Kelly Jones Director, Collaboration Technologies | Atrium Health
Windy Roy CFO | Duncan-Parnell
Becky Shvartsman Digital Communications Specialist | Vertex Inc.
Amy Kaiser Internal Communications Manager | Wounded Warrior Project
Dayna Lovelady Digital Communications Specialist II | The Christian Broadcasting Network
Preston Lewis Founder + CEO | Intactic
Peter Stern Senior Digital Communications Manager | Ferguson
Mark Stinneford Senior Communications Advisor | Blue Cross NC
Loni French Associate Director, Internal Communications | Microsoft MVP
Thomas Lawler Senior Content Creator | Ascension
Laurel Dzneladze Employee Communications Digital Platforms Leader | LinkedIn
Geoff Ables Managing Partner | C5 Insight
Angela Sinickas CEO | Sinickas Communications, Inc.
What People are Saying
There were so many nuggets & strong takeaways I am excited to bring back to my workplace! This won’t be my last time taking advantage of [ALI Conferences]!
Communications & Publications Manager
TN Comptroller of the Treasury
Good variety. Attendees and speakers very knowledgeable and passionate about what they do. Left with a great deal of applicable knowledge. Would definitely attend again! Loved the format.
User Experience Design
Mayo Clinic
These are people just like me! It was great to network and share ideas.
ALI heard your requests and concerns loud and clear. All fall and winter conferences will be held virtually.
This is your chance to attend this top-rated communications conference from the safety and convenience of your desk: No travel concerns, hotels, or extra costs associated with attending the event live.
This virtual event will still provide the high-quality content, leading speakers, and interactive breakout sessions ALI conferences deliver in person.
*Alumni Rate: Past ALI conference attendees may use Promo Code "ALUM" to receive $200 off. Contact us if you have any questions.
*Team Discounts: Attend this training with your colleagues. Contact us for promotion codes.
Team of 2 save $200 each, Team of 3 save $300 each, Team of 4 save $400 each
* Non-Profit / Government Discount: Contact us to receive your promo code for $200 off.
*Available on the 2-day all-access pass only.
Terms & Conditions:
Visit our Terms & Conditions for full information about payment, cancellation, postponement, and substitutions.
Payment by check or invoice option is available on the registration form.
Payment or proof of payment must be received prior to the start of the meeting.
Substitutions are welcome. Please contact us before the event with your substitute's information. No refunds on virtual conferences. All attendees will receive the event recording and copies of the presentations after the event is held.
Testimonials
"Loved that it was heavily focused on exactly what we do and could all relate to the struggles/challenges we all face." —Sr. Communications Specialist,Children's Health
"I am very impressed with the content and discussion generated during this conference! This was a valuable experience for me as an internal comms professional. It felt like this conference was planned for me!" —Internal Communications Specialist, Northwestern Medicine
“I will DEFINITELY be back for more ALI Conferences! I feel so inspired & I’m currently prepping for a pitch to our executives & plan to use so much of what I learned last week. THANK YOU SO MUCH this conference could not have come at a more perfect time." —Director of Marketing, Infrastructure & Energy Alternatives, Inc.