The 25th of April is the day we in Australia pause to remember those who have served. This includes those in times past as well as in the present. The 25th of April is the anniversary of the Australian and New Zealand (ANZAC) forces landing at Gallipoli in 1915 as part of a campaign to shorten the first World War.
The sad reality was that nine months later no strategic value had been achieved and the forces were withdrawn and transferred to the Western Front to battle the Germans over the remaining years of World War I. Those nine months at Gallipoli resulted in around 9,000 of these forces being killed and around 18,000 being wounded. It was a high price to pay for a continued stalemate far away from home against a determined enemy defending their homeland.
The positives of this action are probably only best viewed with the benefit of hindsight. The largely represent the beginning of the appreciation that Australia was now a unique nation on the world stage and was united as it had never been. It also created a legacy of remembrance and recognition of service to the nation that endures today. Such appreciation has waxed and waned over the years but now appears to be as strong as it has ever been.
It is strange how ANZAC day bring people together now like few other modern causes or challenges. It is easy to judge sacrifice through the lens of history whilst enjoying all the benefits. We hope that we will never see the need for such service again but we also hope that if it is required that the sacrifices of the those before inspire those that need to. We know that for a select few who serve us today, it does.
One of the unique things about the ANZACS through their time in World War I is that they remained an entirely volunteer force, unlike many other nations who enacted conscription to fill their ranks. This, I believe, is what truly makes the ANZAC spirit unique. They were perhaps nieve but when most chose to remain and serve their ‘mates’ above all else. This is the true legacy I suggest they leave us all these later. This is the reason those who serve today do. They do so for other and the greater good. This is what we need to celebrate and honour.
Such an ideal is not something that you can put a price on or measure with a ruler but it is the reason why the majority of us are able to enjoy the lifestyle and freedoms that we. Our only duty, is therefore, to at least stop, remember and say thank you for what these people did and what other continue to do for us today. These commitments are the reasons why we enjoy our freedoms today.
Lest We Forget
For those interested in learning of the continued sacrifices that the ANZACs made after withdrawing from Gallipoli in World War 1, when they went to fight in northern France until the end of the war, should visit my web site:
The biggest challenge for SMB with the AI offerings from Microsoft is to determine exactly which Copilot is being talked about. This is because there is a Copilot for just about everything now. From Copilot for Github, to Copilot for Security, Copilot for the Power Platform and so on. Job number one therefore is focusing on which Copilot will provide the most benefit for the organisation.
Before you rush in purchase any Copilot ensure you understand the financial commitment required as well. For example, currently, Copilot for Microsoft 365 is an annual up front commitment of around AU$45 per month paid in advance. So even though AU$45 per month may sound enticing, the billing is actually around AU$540 up front before you even get started! The cost of various Copilot licenses vary, so it is important to determine what you need and what the cost and cashflow of this investment will be ahead of time. With Copilot for Microsoft 365 remember that once you purchase it you’ll have it for at least 12 months. You should ask yourself the question as to whether it will be used for the full period that you have paid for? If implemented inside a business correctly I feel there is little doubt that the benefits will be forthcoming but importantly, just buying and assigning the licenses to users is no guarantee of success with any Copilot.
No matter which Copilot you do focus on, that Copilot will not be an ‘everyone’ license. What that means is that not all employees of the business will gain the benefits from the license. Thus, you need to target the Copilot you want at those who will get the most from it.
In this case I’ll focus on Copilot for Microsoft 365 which is targeted at improving the productivity of knowledge workers. The best candidates for this license are those users who ‘create’ things. Think of people who create reports, create marketing material and so on. Little benefit will be had providing Copilot for Microsoft 365 to those that merely ‘process’ information. That is those say entering accounts or stock information.
It important to appreciate that Copilot for Microsoft 365 is neither The Terminator or C3PO. This is because the actual work still needs to be done by a person. Copilot for Microsoft 365 will assist in this process and make it easier and faster but it will not do the complete job end to end just yet. This means it is important to see Copilot for Microsoft 365 as an intelligent assistant that works beside the individual who has access to it, rather than a replacement for that individual.
Copilot for Microsoft 365 surfaces itself in a variety of locations in the Microsoft 365 environment. One of those is chat like so:
Here is probably the most general place you can use Copilot for Microsoft 365. Ask it any question and it will reason over your data as well as potentially from the web
Provided you enable the plugin as shown above first.
If prompt it with something generic like ‘Test me on some japanese phrases‘ you see the response it returns with above. If I expand the References you can see that Copilot for Microsoft 365 has returned material from the web (12-rules-to-learn-languages-in-record-time as well as referring a document that is in SharePoint. It is important to note that benefit this provides over other stand alone AI chat programs like ChatGPT that only return information from the web. Thus, the biggest different with Copilot for Microsoft 365 is that is works across the web and data in Microsoft 365.
The simplest way then to think about Copilot for Microsoft 365 is that it is a search engine on steroids. It is important to remember that what you see is largely based on search, that is, what it finds. This means that if you haven’t properly secured your Microsoft 365 environment Copilot for Microsoft 365 is going to find stuff you may not realise it can. That isn’t because Copilot for Microsoft 365 is doing something wrong, it is in fact that you have left the door open on your data and you need to tighten your permissions. The reality is that same information could have been found with standard Microsoft 365 search. Copilot for Microsoft 365 simply does a better job of finding and displaying it.
The takeaway here then is that your business needs to ensure you have appropriate permissions prior to implementing Copilot for Microsoft 365 or you maybe surprised at what pops out.
If I now ask chat to create an image for me based on a prompt you’ll see from the above that it can’t. It instead gives me a handy tip as to how to achieve this. Not only do you need the right Copilot for the job you also need to use Copilot in the right location to get the result you want. As I said, currently, Copilot for Microsoft 365 is not C3PO that can solve any task you give it from anywhere.
If I ask Copilot for Microsoft 365 to summarize a document by only giving it the name of the document it does an amazing job as you can see above.
But if I ask it to convert this PDF to a Word document it again is not something that can be done here.
It is also important to remember that Copilot for Microsoft 365 responses are not immediate. They take a few moments to generate. That can be frustrating for people who are used to “immediate’ responses and are time challenged. Again, Copilot for Microsoft 365 is great research tool that you spend time with, it not a tool that you fire rapid questions at expecting an immediate response, just yet.
If I ask Copilot for Microsoft 365 to convert a PowerPoint document you’ll see I get a response that gives me a little more more information about what I should do.
However, when I do the same thing in Word I get the result that I really wanted. The take away is that a large amount of Copilot for Microsoft 365 how and where you use it. Yes, it can convert stuff into Word but you need to use Copilot for Microsoft 365 inside Word to achieve that. I’m sure that will change over time, but for now, keep that in mind when using Copilot for Microsoft 365.
Where Copilot for Microsoft 365 really shines is in creating new content from scratch. If I start with a blank document in Word and prompt it with the above, the result is:
Which saves me hours and hours when I need to generate new content. Keep in mind however, generating new content constantly is not always the job of everyone inside a business.
Another area where Copilot for Microsoft 365 really shines is summarizing information as seen above. Here, I’ve had it work on a 72 page document, which was a transcript of a webinar session, and produce the summary.
As you can see, that summary includes references and I can continue asking questions about that.
Summarization also works well in the chat interface, even with external websites like what is shown above. The same is also evident inside Teams.
If you plan to use Copilot for Microsoft 365 with Teams you’ll typically have to enable both recording and transcriptions on the meetings to get the benefits. There is the option to automatically a recording with every Teams meeting but my question is, are the really all worth recording?
Thus, a reason you may want to consider it for more people inside your organization is if they are required to wade through a lot of information as part of their role.
The same summarization capability is surfaced in Outlook as shown above.
As well as generating new content for emails. The current limitation here is that to get the most benefit from Copilot for Microsoft 365 you’ll need to be using the New Outlook, which I feel is still missing many important features that the classic desktop version has (e.g. drag and drop of attachments to Windows Explorer). I’m sure these will come to classic Outlook over time and it is easy enough to switch back and forth but, for now, New Outlook is where Copilot for Microsoft 365 really works best.
Without doubt Copilot for Microsoft 365 has big benefits with email, however it again comes down to how people use Outlook. In my experience, most people do not need to write or read long complex emails. They simply send and reply using brief responses. For these people Copilot for Microsoft 365 isn’t going to provide huge benefits but if your role does involve working with long and complex subject matter in emails (think lawyers for example) the Copilot for Microsoft 365 would be a huge productivity benefit for them.
The summary would be that you firstly need to define exactly what processes in you business you want to make more productive (email processing, document creation, etc). You then need to select the appropriate Copilot for that (typically Copilot for Microsoft 365 to work with emails, documents, etc). Then, you need to identify those users in the business who will gain the most from using Copilot, and this typically will not be every user initially. With all that identified you should then ensure you have permissioned your data appropriately and then purchase the appropriate licenses and assign them to those selected users. The last task will be to train those selected users on how to use the Copilot you have selected because you cannot and should not assume they will natively know how to get the most out of it. You need to train them to help them understand the most effective method for them to use in their day to day work and when it is appropriate use and when it is not.
The Copilot for Microsoft 365 you see today is only the beginning of how AI will become infused throughout Microsoft 365. Today, it is like you manually needing to run spell checker, soon spell checker will happen on the fly. That is what we can expect sooner rather than later when it comes to Copilot for Microsoft 365.
November the 11th is the anniversary of the end of the ‘Great War’ as it was known. Millions and millions of people had their lives shortened and their existences turned upside down by the trauma of that event. Even those as far as here in Australia were impacted by such events all those years ago. Many left our shores in search of what they thought was adventure only to die in a muddy quagmire in northern Europe were the reality of industrial modernity provided the ultimate reality check to the ‘innocence’ of ideal. Many now lie in unmarked graves remembered only be name.
Perhaps it was this ‘loss of innocence’ that makes the result of World War One even more poignant. We look back with a degree of detachment believing, but more likely, hoping that it will never happen again. The only arbiters of that will be ourselves. We only have to look at current world events to appreciate that, unfortunately, war is part of human nature and is never far away.
This is why it is important today to pause and remember all who died in all conflicts, whether they be combatants or simply innocent victims. War is not glorious, it is horrific and most will luckily live their lives devoid of experiencing it first hand. For those who lived and died in the firing line of human conflict we say thank you for your service. Many did not know exactly what they were fighting for but they went, suffered and died for something they believed in. No matter which side of a war people found themselves on, the commonality was nothing short of horrific where the real enemy was the spectre death not the opposition.
Most of today’s memories will be for the ‘glories’ of the ‘winners’. That is not what we should focus on. It is the individual who bears the greatest cost for events like these. It is their families who wear the scars for generations as even those that return from conflict are ‘never the same’. Our energies should be focus not on the ‘glory of victory’ but on celebrating the courage of the individual who endured the worst that humanity can throw at them. Most all, we should remember all those who never had a chance to fulfil their potential as war cut their them down in their prime.
So on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, pause, reflect, and remember those who lived and died through the unspeakable. Don’t celebrate victory, celebrate humanity and resilience. Finally, take a moment always to be a little kinder to someone else as this is the only way that we have a hope of avoiding war and changing the human propensity for it.
Lest We Forget.
If you are interested in the history of the ANZAC battlefields of World War One visit my site – http://www.anzacsinfrance.com/
April 25 is when Australia and New Zealand pause to remember those who sacrificed, now and in the past. It is the anniversary of the very first time that we fought as nations and fought together.
In military terms the whole campaign that gave birth to this day was ill fated and failed to meet its objectives making it a historical failure, but from it was born a sense of nationhood that is probably more what we celebrate today.
How the world has changed from all those years ago in 1915. How the world will continue to change in the years ahead. But let’s hope that the coming together and respect we see here is something that continues beyond just today and into the future. We lives in times that are perhaps more focused on the ‘me’ than the ‘we’ and ANZAC day is a reminder that one of our purposes in life is to serve others.
So today, take a moment to say thanks on those who have served you not just in the armed forces but anywhere. Pay them service by offering to serve others without desire for compensation. These are the things that make a society great. Let what we see today extend beyond the ceremonies and festivities into something that is evident everyday. ANZAC day demonstrates that the spirit is present but we need to manifest on more than just one day a year. Do it for them, if no one else. Commit as many did all those years ago.
Lest We Forget
If you want to learn more about the ANZAC battlefields in northern France, visit my web site – www.anzacsinfrance.com.
Today marks the anniversary of the cessation of hostilities in the First World War. It was a multi year bloodbath that killed millions, many in the most terrible of ways. Many of whom have no known grave.
Today we pause to remember all those whose lives have been affected by war. Any war.
Today, many people are still experiencing war and many live with the threat of imminent war. For them we hope that horrors of the past remain in the past. Unfortunately, all too often, history repeats and brings death and destruction to their door step through no fault of their own. Let us hope that todays brief remembrance reminds everyone of the immense and continuing impact war has and why it should be prevented at all costs, not with empty promises and gestures, but real action.
Times may change but the impact of war hasn’t. This seems to be a lesson we fail tor learn.
In times like these we celebrate and remember the human spirit of the those that sacrificed for others. Those that put the needs of others ahead of their own, and for those that put their lives on the line to save others from harm. These are the special people, who come from all walks of life but had the single purpose of service to a greater good. They are special and worthy of our utmost respect.
War is a human construct. born of the worst aspects of the human condition. It is however also something that we can just as easily could and should prevent. As those that went before, we can prevent these horrors by thinking of others before ourselves and working for the common rather than individual good.
Every day is a blessing and life is far too short. For those that we remember today, it was cut short for reasons that fad with the passing years. Let the memory of the reasons fad but never those who have paid the ultimate price.
I am once again happy to report that I have been renewed as an MVP for 2022-23. This is now my 11th year as an MVP and I am honoured to have been recognised.
Many people are not aware that the MVP award is annual. It isn’t something you ‘apply’ for, it is given is recognition of the work you do from the community around a Microsoft product or service in the previous year. For me, that is Microsoft 365. Thus, to continue to be recognised as an MVP you need to make relevant community contributions annually.
As always, I take this opportunity to thank Microsoft for this award. I have made so many great contacts there that help me every day in all sorts of ways. I am truly grateful for their assistance. Of course I also thank other members of the MVP community who also help me everyday by providing information that I simply couldn’t find elsewhere. Their real world application and implementation of Microsoft technologies is amazing! Finally, there is community of people using and implementing Microsoft cloud technologies that continue to provide real world questions that challenge me to assist and find solutions for. For all these people I also say thanks because this is where the rubber hits the road.
Hopefully, as we move to a world that is more open, it will be possible to once again travel and catch up with all these marvellous people face to face and strengthen the bonds that we have and share yet more information that I can then provide to my community, again face to face I hope.
Again I say thanks for the recognition and being award as an MVP for another year and I’m ready to continue to share my learnings and knowledge with the community at large.
Today we take a moment to commemorate ANZAC day here in Australia. It is probably the one day that truly unites unites Australia. This is largely due to it harking back to a time when Australia came together as a nation for the first time. The benefit of historical hindsight may question the value of that military action all those years ago but the core values that came from that are what should be celebrated. It cemented the bond between unknown individuals who came together in truly terrifying circumstance to survive, flourish and in many ways, give birth to a nation on the back of their commitment to each other.
The actions all those years ago, across many battlefronts, brought many Australians face to face with other Australians they would have probably never met had the circumstances been different. It thrust them into life and dead experiences that many would have never expected. It thrust the average Australian into circumstances that would truly demonstrated man’s inhumanity to man. Yet, through all this adversity, Australians began to forge a bond, a concept of mateship, that lives on today.
This is something that perhaps we now need more than ever as we face an uncertain and divided world. The past few years have seen many live through life changing and unexpected circumstances that have irrevocably altered our community and the world. They have perhaps, cemented the fragility of life in people’s mind and hopefully made them appreciate how truly lucky we are every day. Our celebration today should look to the example these people provided us all those years ago.
Of course, not everyone is lucky. As with that day back in 1915, many paid the ultimate price and had their lives cut sort by simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. A unique fact about Australian troops throughout World War One was that they were a total volunteer force. Each one, chose to be there. Many chose to remain, through the horrors of war, to be with their mates and do what they could for each other above all else. Today we also remember those in our community that continue to live and demonstrate that spirit to service.
This is the sacrifice and commitment we honour today. It is about what people do for others. It is about what people did that they thought was right. It is about what people did for what they believed was the greater good. You can judge their motives and ideals through the lens of history but you can’t question their devotion to each other and to their commitment. Today, we celebrate their devotion to each other.
Their hope, after enduring war, was that no one else would have to go through the same experience. The ‘war to end all all wars’ as it was known, sadly did not eventuate. That failure lies on the shoulders of modern society, who do not readily learn the lessons of history. Who lets their world view become full of negativity, impatience, violence and revenge all too readily. We should take a leaf from our ANZAC forebears and focus on what is truly important, our mates.
Lest We Forget
If you want to learn more about the ANZAC battlefields in northern France, visit my web site – www.anzacsinfrance.com.
CIAOPS 