021 - Copilot for Microsoft 365 Adoption Agency

Bringing home the toddler Copilots - what could go wrong?

Hey Friends!  Welcome back to the world of GenAI and Automation.  Or the Microsoft corner of the GenAI and Automation world, anyway.

Some things I hear a lot when speaking about GenAI (and I typically speak from the perspective of ChatGPT, just because it’s a general purpose entry point to GenAI) is:

1)       How do I keep GenAI from stealing my data, and

2)       Why don’t you speak more about Copilot, since that’s what we have?

To the first point, and especially around the topic of adopting Copilot for Microsoft 365, I want to direct you to this 90 second video that will address any concerns about Microsoft using your data to train their models and THEN direct you to this longer video that talks about the REAL data security issue with Copilot (hint: the call is coming from inside the house).

To the second point, I don’t speak more about Copilot because there are lots of Copilots and they all do different things and I want to get folks comfortable with just using GenAI in general.

BUT, I feel like we can chat more about the Copilots in this space, right?  Y’all brilliant and beautiful humans already know everything you need to know about how to make general GenAI do stuff?

So, let’s talk about Copilot for Microsoft 365.  Specifically, about bringing it into your organization.

Implementing Copilot for Microsoft 365 – What Not to Do

Imagine this - you are eager to get your own herd of toddler Copilots rolled out into your organization.  Sure, you could go to the Microsoft Adoption page for Copilot for Microsoft 365…

…but that has SO MANY WORDS.  And a PowerPoint or three?  What do I do with these downloads???  It’s so colorful!!!!

Instead, you decide to do what I like to do when it comes to assembling IKEA furniture – how hard can it be to figure it out?  Instructions are for the weak and unimaginative!  (I would recommend not actually using any of my furniture due to safety concerns).

To save you time, I’m going to jump you ahead to what probably will happen:

You either get a Copilot subscription only for yourself to try it out or you get it for your whole organization and say, “Look at this marvelous thing!  Do marvelous things with it and be all the productive! You are welcome!”

In scenario #1, what will most likely happen is that you’ll get the Copilot turned on and then, because you’re the boss and have absolutely zero time to experiment, you will do nothing with it.  In three months, you’ll say “this is a waste of money!”

But let’s talk about scenario #2, because we’ve just unleashed a little AI gremlin in our organization without properly preparing our data or our security…

Tossing AI Willy-Nilly into Your Organization

Your data is a mess.  You haven’t had a coherent filing system since Aught Four (which I believe means 2004…).  You didn’t take the Optimization Assessment.  Well, I did. And as you can see, it said I wasn’t ready to implement Copilot?  Did that stop me?  Heck no!  IKEA and Copilot – how hard can it be?

Why did I get such a low score?  Because I answered as if I didn’t have any scenarios or any data policies in place.  And maybe you’re like that too.  I’d recommend taking the assessment, if only to learn about data and security policies that need to be shored up in your organization.

Also, if you want to find out how your data security is doing, check out your Secure Score in your Security Admin Center.  You can learn more about it here.

Keeping up with Scenario #2 – you haven’t locked down your user rights, so your data is just floating around, ready for the cute little Copilot to dip in and pick it up for WHOMEVER asks.  Got some salary data in your HR folders?  Copilot is happy to wander in and retrieve it for that first-year staff person.  Confidential company documents that are only available to senior executives?  Copilot will cheerfully pick those up and deliver them to your temp contractor. 

If the idea of that makes you queasy, may I suggest that you look into folder permissions and data policies. 

Humans are going to human

But what about your employees?  Are they now so grateful that you’ve deployed this technology that they’re leaving thank you notes under your door?

Probably not.  I’m sorry.

You will always have those curious employees that, instead of working, are playing around with the new technology.  And then you will have the rest of your employees that just want to get the job done and go home.  Which doesn’t leave a lot of time for exploring this new technology.

If only you had downloaded the User Onboarding Toolkit with eight weeks of pre-created emails to get your employees started.

OR checked out the Scenario Library (pssssst, there’s one for Finance AND Legal) and got some juicy use cases that everyone could get excited about.

OR shared the Copilot Learning Hub in Microsoft Learn (which, may I add, seems excessive.  Back in my day, we just had to throw a bunch of words at the AI and see what happened.  Uphill.  Both ways.  In the snow.)

You Can’t Say They Didn’t Warn You

There are even more resources in the Adoption Center, not only for employee training but also around leadership understanding, timelines, technical requirements… 

…It’s actually a lot.  Like, a lot a lot… 

Let’s just take a quick peek at some of them – you can find these resources a little way down the adoption page.

Leadership Resources

If you are an organization leader or someone that has been added to an AI Committee because it “seemed like you liked technology”, this is a great place to start.  The ‘Implementation Summary Guide’ (purple box, first column) is a wonderful downloadable PowerPoint presentation that will blast your eyeballs with too much information all at once.

…breathe…

…breathe again…

This is a long-term tool, not a one-and-done.  I’ve looked at this half a dozen times already and picked up something new each time.  If it seems like a lot, that’s just because there are a lot of things to think about in deploying Copilot in your organization. 

The two other links I’d strongly suggest checking out are the ‘Microsoft Learn: AI learning hub for leaders’ where you will learn enough to know what you need to know without being bored to death with all of the minutia and ‘FastTrack for Microsoft 365’ which, based on the size of your organization, can get you free assistance from Microsoft to deploy Copilot.

User Enablement Resources

This might shock you, but the Purple Box Download in the first column of this table is ALSO a PowerPoint.  This is a very PowerPoint-heavy series of resources.  But who doesn’t love giving PowerPoint presentations to friends and neighbors anyway, amirite?

I will say, the content in this PowerPoint is good, its just…  they used really big words.  If I were you, I’d huck it into Copilot and ask for something at the 5^th grade reading level because honestly, you don’t need to be impressed, you just want a checklist.

But, to reiterate, they’ve got some solid advice in this PowerPoint and some really fun flowcharts.  So, take what you need and appreciate all the effort that went into making the deck.

Two other resources from this area that tickle my fancy (in addition to the ones for users mentioned earlier) are ‘Copilot Lab’ and the ‘Training Content Map’ download (column 2).  Both are full of fantastic information.

Technical Readiness Resources

Purple Box alert!  Remember that horror story I told you above about how a tech contractor is going to get access to all of your confidential company secrets and sell them on eBay via Copilot and your poor data security policies?  Well, if that didn’t sound like a good time, THIS is the Purple Box Download that you want to check out.   It walks you through the optimization assessment and the results

Here is the slide for the results (remember that I got a result of ‘Core’?  At least I’m in the middle of the pack in unpreparedness).

For professionals that are tasked with a high level of data security anyway, this Purple Box Download is pure gold, with or without wanting to deploy Copilot.

Regarding the other resources in this section, a lot of the good ones are already mentioned in other sections, but I’d *highly* recommend checking out the ‘Microsoft Mechanics’ playlist as well (I love that YouTube channel).

I Know, It’s A Lot

But guess what?  You don’t need to learn it all in a day or even a week or a month!  But maybe a month would be a good goal if you really want to deploy this technology.

The key is to make sure that your systems and data are ready FIRST before YOLOing into Copilot.  And this is a great opportunity for revisiting data and security policies and cleaning up your systems.  You can also identify those folks in your organization that would naturally be tinkering with this when they’re supposed to be working and provide them with the tools to become your Champion for deployment. 

Lots of work but lots of resources and lots of opportunities. Also, let me know if you need any IKEA furniture assembled.

Happy Chatting!