RunAs Radio

What's your Productivity Score? Richard talks to Ulrika Hedlund about productivity in 2021 - the impact of the pandemic on work, and how IT can help. Ulrika discusses the rush to work remotely and the move into the cloud, including Microsoft 365. But the move is not enough - you have to train and learn how to use the new tools available. The conversation focuses on the etiquette of chat, email, video, and audio meetings - and the difference in formality between work and home uses! Ulrika also talks about the Productivity Score that M365 can provide to help IT understand how folks are using the technology so that they can provide support where needed.Links:Microsoft TeamsMicrosoft Surface HubMicrosoft Productivity ScoreStoryals

Happy New Year! A year ago Richard flew solo to talk about what IT looked like in the new decade. And then the pandemic hit and changed everything. With vaccines beginning to roll out, it's a good time to look at what 2021 is going to look like. What changes have been made in your organization, and how many of them will stay as the pandemic ends? Richard also dives into the predictions he made at the beginning of 2020, and how they look a year later. This is also the end of the Pandemic Series - thanks so much for listening!

What can GitHub tell us about DevOps? Richard talks to Nicole Forsgren about her new role at GitHub, studying the behavior of developers (and many others) using the massive set of aggregate data that exists within GitHub. Nicole talks about expanding the annual State of the Octoverse report to dig deeply into development productivity, security, and the community of source code contributors. This opens the door to some great ideas on how operations and development can work together - and isn't that what DevOps is all about?Links:AccelerateDevOps Research & AssessmentState of the OctoverseGitHub Security

Christmas time with COVID! Richard invites Mary Jo Foley on the show to celebrate a bit of Christmas and reflect on what a crazy year 2020 has been. Mary Jo talks about the early days of the pandemic when the tech companies sent everyone home and the challenge of keeping the internet and cloud providers working while the loads went up... it may have been a near thing! The conversation ultimately turns to gratitude for friends, family, and a great career in this industry. All the best to you and yours!Links:All About Microsoft 

What role does PowerShell play in DevOps? Richard talks to Rick Taylor about his experiences building deployment pipelines for development and operations using a variety of tools, including PowerShell. Rick talks about how each tool, including PowerShell, can be the easiest solution to a given task. The conversation also turns to cross-platform deployments, where the implementations of tooling vary from platform-to-platform. PowerShell can help there too, but you do have to learn the platform you're working from! In the end, even PowerShell is just a tool, and DevOps is more about culture and process - and the conversation goes there too!Links:TerraformAnsiblePowerShell for macOSPowerShell for LinuxAzure DevOpsPesterServiceNow  

A year into the pandemic - how have things changed for IT? Richard talks with Stephen Rose about his experiences working with organizations during the pandemic, from the rapid move to the cloud, facilitating work-from-home, sending all work online, and more. Stephen talks about the social changes happening at work that aren't likely to go away when the virus does. The relationship with IT has evolved also - how are we going to be different in the years to come?Links:Office 365 MFAAzure Power Platform

How can Query Store help you participate in the DevOps cycle? Richard chats with Erin Stellato about the power of SQL Query Store - born out of Azure SQL, Query Store keeps a record of every unique query that is run, along with its query plan and stats. How does this help with DevOps? By providing data for DBAs to talk to developers about how to make improvements to applications that will have a real impact on customer value in the long run!Links:Erin's BlogDocs on SQL Server Query Store

How has the pandemic affected work? Richard chats with Karoliina Kettukari about the concept of Modern Work and the tools that make it possible. Karoliina points out that only a year ago, the discussion was about the modern workplace - but with the pandemic, the workplace can be anywhere, and the focus is on work. The conversation digs into the role that Office 365 Teams plays in helping teams to collaborate, keep track of cooperative work, and to maintain the connection between team members!Links:Teams

What do you get an IT person for Christmas? Richard chats with Rick Claus and Joey Snow about what's on their list for Christmas - some gadgets expensive, some not so much... but all cool stuff that you could get for yourself, or put on your list for a loved one! Heck, play the show for them - we'll share the ideas directly. The best gadgets are things you'll use, but perhaps not buy for yourself because they are a bit indulgent... or maybe you just haven't thought about it. Here's to a great holiday season!Links:iFixIt Pro Tech ToolkitAmplifi AlienUSB Power MeterFizzicsUKeg NitroCell Phone StandsSmartphone UV SanitizerMeaterThermoworks Mini Thermocouple MeterLogitech Gaming HeadsetsRazer BlackSharkRode VideoMicKaotica Eyeball

How can you empower your users to change their own passwords? Richard chats with Jan Bakker about the self-service password options in Azure and Microsoft 365. With more people working from home, the usual ways of changing passwords using the help desk have gotten harder - you can't do in-person authentication! Jan talks about utilizing Azure AD and M365 features to get additional authentication methods available for users with Microsoft Authenticator, text messaging and more. Once that's set up, you have more choices to make, including allowing Microsoft's Identity Protection to recognize when a password should be changed!Links:Microsoft AuthenticatorMicrosoft Identity ProtectionHave I Been PwnedPassword Reset WritebackAzure AD Authentication OptionsJan's Blog