Advance Praise for Partnering with Microsoft: 'Partnering with Microsoft is the first great book about the breathtaking culture, opportunity and roadmap for joining Microsoft's 850,000 partners cutting an impressive B swath in the marketpl

A breakthrough book on the transformative power of collaborative thinking Collaborative intelligence, or CQ, is a measure of our ability to think with others on behalf of what matters to us all. It is emerging as a new professional currency at a time when the way we think, interact, and innovate is shifting. In the past, “market share” companies ruled by hierarchy and topdown leadership. Today, the new market leaders are “mind share” companies, where influence is more important than power, and success relies on collaboration and the ability to inspire. Collaborative Intelligence is the culmination of more than fifty years of original research that draws on Dawna Markova’s background in cognitive neuroscience and her most recent work, with Angie McArthur, as a “Professional Thinking Partner” to some of the world’s top CEOs and creative professionals. Markova and McArthur are experts at getting brilliant yet difficult people to think together. They have been brought in to troubleshoot for Fortune 500 leaders in crisis and managers struggling to inspire their teams. When asked about their biggest challenges at work, Markova and McArthur’s clients all cite a common problem: other people. This response reflects the way we have been taught to focus on the gulfs between us rather than valuing our intellectual diversity—that is, the ways in which each of us is uniquely gifted, how we process information and frame questions, what kind of things deplete us, and what engages and inspires us. Through a series of practices and strategies, the authors teach us how to recognize our own mind patterns and map the talents of our teams, with the goal of embarking together on an aligned course of action and influence. In Markova and McArthur’s experience, managers who appreciate intellectual diversity will lead their teams to innovation; employees who understand it will thrive because they are in touch with their strengths; and an entire team who understands it will come together to do their best work in a symphony of collaboration, their individual strengths working in harmony like an orchestra or a high-performing sports team. Praise for Collaborative Intelligence “Rooted in the latest neuroscience on the nature of collaboration, Collaborative Intelligence celebrates the power of working and thinking together at the highest levels of business and politics, and in the smallest aspects of our everyday lives. Dawna Markova and Angie McArthur show us that our ability to collaborate is not only a measure of intelligence, but essential to solving the world’s problems and seeing the possibilities in ourselves and others.”—Arianna Huffington “This inspiring book teaches you how to align your intention with the intention of others, and how, through shared strengths and talents, you have every right to expect greatness and set the highest goals and expectations.”—Deepak Chopra “Everyone talks about collaboration today, but the rhetoric typically outweighs the reality. Collaborative Intelligence offers tangible tools for those serious about becoming ‘system leaders’ who can close the gap and make collaboration real.”—Peter M. Senge, author of The Fifth Discipline “I have worked with Markova and McArthur for several years, focusing on achieving better results through intellectual diversity. Their approach has encouraged more candid debate and collaborative behavior within the team. The team, not individuals, becomes the hero.”—Al Carey, CEO, PepsiCo

Advance Praise for Partnering with Microsoft: 'Partnering with Microsoft is the first great book about the breathtaking culture, opportunity and roadmap for joining Microsoft's 850,000 partners cutting an impressive B swath in the marketpl

Refresh the Road Ahead is a book about Microsoft and how to partner with Microsoft. The idea to write this book originated during Microsoft ́s Inspire event in July 2017, formerly called the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference. Microsoft just announced a new organizational structure and I decided to write an article on LinkedIn analyzing the reorganization and what it would mean for partners. In less than two weeks' time, I had over 20.000 views and more than 5.000 of those came directly from Microsoft employees. There had been many rumors and there was much secrecy around the reorganization. Other partners at the conference suggested that I write a book to help them, so during my holidays in August 2017 instead of reading books, as I normally do, I started writing one. I interviewed 40 partners from 19 different countries, half of them CEO ́s and half of them global award winners. They all openened up completely about their business models, success, failures and how they transformedThe latest book you can find on engaging with Microsoft dates to 2009. Originally the subtitle of this book was a ́practical ́ guide to successful business partnering with Microsoft but I soon figured out that what was needed for this book to be useful was to create something that would not be completely out of date in one fiscal year. Therefore, I have tried to stay away from short term and very timebound tips and tricks as much as possible and have tried to take the long view. Additionally, I wanted to write a book for partners without it being a marketing outlet for Microsoft. I hope that because I am personally living and driving the transformation at the company I work at as a CEO this might give some additional credibility compared to what you can get from other sources.Microsoft wants you to transform as a partner and they explain the why and sometimes the what, however they come short on the how as very few field people in Microsoft have lived through what it takes to transform as a company. Transformation is hard, painful, and costly. You will see several examples in this book. Some partners had to reduce their staff by over 50 percent to transform, others built completely new businesses.This book will help you understand how to build or transform your business together with Microsoft. This book is intended to be helpful both to companies that want to start to work with Microsoft and existing partners that want to improve the outcomes of their business working with Microsoft. For existing partners, it is important that I dive into how things were before just to put some of the changes into perspective. I hope that for the new partners this doesn ́t become too complex or boring. One specific call out I would like to make is that this is not just a book for alliance or channel managers. If you want to be successful in a partnership, you cannot abdicate the strategy and the management of that partnership to the alliance person. It needs to be a top down and bottom up approach. This book is for CEO ́s, CMO ́s, Practice managers, CTO ́s and partner roles. Everybody in your organization that has something to do with Microsoft can benefit from reading this book.

Work with the powerful subscription software, Office 365 to increase your organization's efficiency by managing file sharing, email exchange and much more. Key FeaturesBecome well versed with Office 365 and leverage its capabilities for your businessSpeed up your workflow and effectively collaborate using Office Web AppsLearn to set audio and web conferences and seamlessly access your workspaceBook Description Microsoft Office 365 combines the popular Office suite with next-generation cloud computing capabilities. With this user guide, you'll be able to implement its software features for effective business communication and collaboration. This book begins by providing you with a quick introduction to the user interface (UI) and the most commonly used features of Office 365. After covering the core aspects of this suite, you'll learn how to perform various email functions via Exchange. Next, you will learn how to communicate using Skype for Business and Microsoft Teams. To boost your productivity, this book will help you learn everything from using instant messaging to conducting audio and web conferences, and even accessing business information from any location. In the final chapters, you will learn to work in a systematic style using file management and collaboration with OneDrive for Business using SharePoint. By the end of this book, you'll be equipped with the knowledge you need to take full advantage of Office 365 and level up your organization's productivity. What you will learnUnderstand the UI of Office 365Perform a variety of email functions through ExchangeCommunicate using Skype for Business and Microsoft TeamsExplore file management using OneDrive for BusinessCollaborate using SharePointUnderstand how to leverage Office 365 in your daily tasksWho this book is for If you are an IT professional who wants to upgrade your traditional Office suite, this book is for you. Users looking to learn, configure, manage, and maintain an Office 365 environment in their organization will also find this book useful. Some understanding of Microsoft Office Suite and cloud computing basics will be beneficial.

How do you start? How should you build a plan for cloud migration for your entire portfolio? How will your organization be affected by these changes? This book, based on real-world cloud experiences by enterprise IT teams, seeks to provide the answers to these questions. Here, you’ll see what makes the cloud so compelling to enterprises; with which applications you should start your cloud journey; how your organization will change, and how skill sets will evolve; how to measure progress; how to think about security, compliance, and business buy-in; and how to exploit the ever-growing feature set that the cloud offers to gain strategic and competitive advantage.