Tag Archives: microsoft

What Good Are Notebooks?

(Imagen 4)

Whenever I bought a car or a computer, I used to buy a small spiral bound notebook to log important things, such as repairs.

And I always failed to log the important things.

I took a new approach on Sunday when Bredemarket bought a new computer.

(It was time. For the last five years, Bredemarket has been operating on a Windows 10 computer with 4 GB RAM from 2017.)

As I started setting up the new computer, I started an ONLINE log stored on a cloud service. And accessible from the new computer and several other devices.

So even if the computer is inaccessible, I can log things from my phone or another computer.

Hopefully I’ll be more faithful in logging this time around.

As long as my cloud service doesn’t fail. Then I’m screwed.

It’s like, um, life during wartime or something.

You Have the Interview Transcript for a Case Study. Now What?

(Imagen 4)

Back in May 2021 I was in the midst of ghostwriting case studies for a Bredemarket client. I didn’t know at the time that I’d end up creating a dozen of them.

At the time I wrote about how I obtained the raw material for the case study.

“As part of the work that I do for one of my clients, I participate in half-hour interviews with the client’s customers and ask them questions about the client’s software. Before the interview begins, the client asks the customer for permission to record the conversation. After the interview is over, I can then refer to that recording to extract nuggets of information.”

Except that I didn’t refer to the recording, but to a TRANSCRIPT of the recording in Microsoft Word. I describe how I created the transcript here.

From Microsoft Office 365.

But that was in 2021. Four years later we can access easy-to-use generative AI transcribers.

Now what?

But obtaining the raw interview material is only the beginning. 

Now you need to extract relevant text and fit in into the STAR method: Situation, Task, Action, and Result.

No you don’t.

Rather than arrange our case studies into four parts, my client and I agreed on a three-part outline that effectively combined “S” and “T.” Our outline? Problem, Solution, and Result. The STAR people were horrified, but we didn’t care. The client was a maverick anyway.

Not the other maverick. By Warner Brothers Television – eBayfrontback, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30035548.

I should note that before the interview took place, the client had already provided me with a general idea of what its end customer faced: the problem, the application of the client’s solution, and the results that solved the problem. 

So we already knew what we wanted the case study to say, and the interview let us concentrate on the sexy points and correct any facts we had wrong before the interview. Yes, the client’s software delivered the solution in 8.675309 seconds. No, it didn’t use laser technology to do it.

So when I drafted the case study, I wrote it in the problem, solution, results format. And then I increased its effectiveness by sprinkling customer quotes throughout the case study.

Adapted slightly.

Since the original transcribed text looked like this:

“(SPEAKER 3) So then I um submit the search and the system gave me a candidate list pretty quickly like in 5 seconds or so excuse me I still got this cold sorry and um the boyfriend was second on the list.”

In my draft the raw text was reworded ever so slightly.

“According to Sgt. Preston of the Yukon Detachment, ‘I submitted the face search to SuperInvestigator, and the system gave me a candidate list in 5 seconds. Connie’s boyfriend was second on the list, giving us an investigative lead for further analysis.’”

(Because you ALWAYS have to treat facial recognition results as investigative leads.)

Once my text was combined with the end customer’s quotes and the client’s graphics, we had a collection of powerful case studies that resonated with the client’s prospects. Because bad boyfriends are in many jurisdictions.

What about your prospects?

So that’s how my client and I worked together to create effective case studies.

Can I work with you?

Stop losing prospects! Use Bredemarket content for tech marketers
Content for tech marketers.
Content for tech marketers.

Why I always write the first draft

As a postscript, I want to provide a peek into how this post came to be.

Actually, I already provided the peek in an early morning post in the Bredemarket Technology Firm Services Facebook group. I’ll just give you the TL;DR version: here’s what Google Gemini gave me for a title and abstract.

“From Conversation to Conversion: Leveraging Interview Transcripts for Marketing Magic

“Abstract: The spoken word holds immense value for your marketing content, especially with the rise of transcription tools. This post examines how to transform raw audio from customer interviews into compelling case studies, testimonials, and other marketing assets. We’ll discuss the process of extracting key insights and transforming them into persuasive written content, bridging the gap between customer conversations and tangible marketing results.”

As you can see, I avoided some of the wording (“marketing magic”???) but kept the basic idea.

Thanks Danie. And if I’m stuck for future content I have four additional ideas.

The Joy of Spreadsheets

Spreadsheets are wonderful things. Not just for numbers people (the real CPAs). But also for words people (the content-proposal-analysis folks).

Whether you use Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets, or something else, the ability to sort the data in multiple ways is a godsend.

I am gathering requirements for a Bredemarket client, and my spreadsheet allows me to logically sort and group the requirements.

Better than taking time to cut and paste blocks of text to order them properly.

Voracious Crawlers: Cloudflare and AI

(Animals strike curious poses. Imagen 4.)

Matthew Prince of Cloudflare recently described an alleged imbalance affecting content creators, and what Cloudflare and others are doing about it. It turns out that today’s AI web crawlers behave differently than yesterday’s search web crawlers.

The revolution 

Prince began his article by describing a win-win deal facilitated by a content-gathering company known as Google. Google’s web crawlers would acquire site content, but the content creators would win also.

“The deal that Google made with content creators was simple: let us copy your content for search, and we’ll send you traffic. You, as a content creator, could then derive value from that traffic in one of three ways: running ads against it, selling subscriptions for it, or just getting the pleasure of knowing that someone was consuming your stuff.”

Sounds like a win-win to me.

The new power generation

What Prince didn’t say is that not everyone was thrilled with the arrangement.

Let’s start with Spain, and the relationship between Spanish online publications and Google Noticias (Google News). 

Imagen 4.

The publishers thought they were getting the raw end of the deal, since Google would present summaries of the publishers’ content on Google pages, but no one would go to the publishers’ pages. Why bother? Google had shared the important stuff.

So Spain passed a law in 2014 requiring Google Noticias to pay…and Google Noticias shut down in Spain in December of that year.

“Reacting to a law that requires news sites in Spain to charge for their content, Google shut down its Google News service in the country….The tech company and other news aggregators would face steep fines if they publish headlines and abstracts without paying.”

At the time, I cast this as a battle between the nations and plucky individuals fighting for freedom…ignoring the fact that Google (cited twice below) was more powerful than some nations.

“So it’s possible for individuals to flout the laws of nations. The nations, however, are fighting back. Spain has passed content laws that are forcing Google to shut down Google Noticias in Spain. Swedish laws have brought the Pirate Bay offline. Russia is enacting laws that are forcing Google (again) to take its engineers out of Russia.”

As an aside, it’s worth noting that several nations subsequently banded together to implement GDPR, shifting more power to the governments.

Oh, and the Spanish law was changed to conform with European Union copyright law. As a result, Google Noticias came back online in Spain in 2022, eight years later.

3rdeyegirl (bear with me here)

Back to Cloudflare’s Matthew Prince, who talked about a brand new voracious web crawler that didn’t feel like a win-win. Rather than presenting links to outside content, or summaries of content accompanied by prominent links, AI tools (including Google’s own) would simply present the summaries, burying the links.

“Google itself has changed. While ten years ago they presented a list of links and said that success was getting you off their site as quickly as possible, today they’ve added an answer box and more recently AI Overviews which answer users’ questions without them having to leave Google.com. With the answer box they reported that 75 percent of queries were answered without users leaving Google. With the more recent launch of AI Overviews it’s even higher.”

Imagen 4.

So the new AI-sponsored web crawlers and their implementation effectively serve to keep readers in the walled gardens of OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, and the rest.

Walled gardens again? It’s just human nature. Having to click on a link to go somewhere else causes friction. This very post links to Cloudflare’s article, my old Empoprise-BI blog, and a multitude of other sources. And I bet you won’t click on ANY of those links to view the other content. I know. WordPress tells me.

As Prince himself puts it: 

“…increasingly we aren’t consuming originals, we’re consuming derivatives.”

Ran out of band names

Back in 2023 I already noted a move to block AI web crawlers.

So what’s Cloudflare doing about the AI web crawlers that are sucking information away with little or no return to the content creators?

Blocking them by default.

“That changes today, July 1, what we’re calling Content Independence Day. Cloudflare, along with a majority of the world’s leading publishers and AI companies, is changing the default to block AI crawlers unless they pay creators for their content. That content is the fuel that powers AI engines, and so it’s only fair that content creators are compensated directly for it.”

Cloudflare envisions a marketplace in which AI companies will pay creators for high quality content.

However, today’s content creators may face the same challenges that Spanish periodicals faced from 2014 to 2022. They may prevent their content from being ripped off…but no one will ever know because the people who go to ChatGPT will never learn about them.

Because in the end, most people are happy with derived content.

But your hungry people want to hear from you.

If you are a tech marketer who needs help creating content, talk to Bredemarket.

Stop losing prospects! Use Bredemarket content for tech marketers
Content for tech marketers.

On Complexity (the Ray Ozzie quote)

I recently referred to a nearly 20 year old memo (remember memos?) from Ray Ozzie, then-Chief Technical Officer at Microsoft.

Perhaps you remember this quote:

“Complexity kills. It sucks the life out of developers, it makes products difficult to plan, build and test, it introduces security challenges, and it causes end-user and administrator frustration. Moving forward, within all parts of the organization, each of us should ask “What’s different?”, and explore and embrace techniques to reduce complexity.”

Applying Common Sense to Employment Fraud

Jobseekers need to know their potential employer when something about a job opportunity doesn’t feel right. And there are ways to do that.

Trusting the person who says to trust your gut

I’ve previously talked about how common sense can minimize the chances of being fooled by a deepfake.

But common sense can help prevent other types of fraud such as employment fraud, as noted by Rachel Lund, chief risk officer with Sandia Area Federal Credit Union.

“Trust your gut- if it feels off, it probably is.”

But can we trust Lund? 

Using search engines for employment fraud scam research

Let’s look at another tip of hers:

“Research the company: Google “[Company Name] + Scam” and see if anything comes up.”

Although you can use Bing. Google isn’t the only search engine out there.

So I entered “Sandia Area Federal Credit Union Scam” into Bing…and found out about its warnings about scams.

From Microsoft.

As far as Bing is concerned, Scandia Area Federal Credit Union is not a scammer itself.

But Bing (and Google) are old fashioned dinosaurs.

Using generative AI for employment fraud scam research

So I clicked on the tab for Copilot results. (ChatGPT isn’t the only generative AI tool out there.)

From Microsoft.

Well, it’s good to know that a regulated credit union isn’t a scammer.

So credit unions are fine

But what about something with a slightly sleazier reputation…like stuffing envelopes?

From Microsoft.

OK, Copilot isn’t hot on envelope stuffing opportunities. 

So envelope stuffing isn’t fine

But what if we get personal?

From Microsoft.

TL;DR: “That’s not us.”

Know your business. Know your employer.

The Reality of Content Calendars and Content Management

(Imagen 3)

I have worked with several companies’ content calendars over the years.

  • Two of Bredemarket’s clients are using Jira to manage their content calendars.
  • Another of Bredemarket’s clients doesn’t (as far as I know) have an official content calendar, but is tracking some content in a go-to-market Excel workbook.
  • If I remember correctly, MorphoTrak also used Excel for content management. MorphoTrak’s parent Morpho used a social media management platform, but I can’t remember which one.
  • At the time I was at Incode, the company used Asana to host its content calendar. (I have no idea how Incode has managed its content since May 2023.)

Bredemarket creates its own content (this is an example), and I also use Asana as my official content management platform.

Sharp-eyed people spotted how I worded that last sentence.

What did I just say?

If you read it again, you’ll see that I only discussed my OFFICIAL content management platform.

Some content, including this blog post/LinkedIn post/wherever else the text ends up, never gets logged in Asana. I just started writing it in iOS Notes and I will add various checkboxes up top as I share it on the blog and social channels.

Some other content, also not logged in Bredemarket’s Asana, is repeatable content that I store in Notes and repost periodically.

Something I post to my identity-related social channels (BIFS = Bredemarket Identity Firm Services).

And sometimes—a lot of the time, actually—I just go to a platform and WRITE stuff.

As a sole proprietor, I enjoy absolute control over Bredemarket’s messaging, and therefore the blog and social media approval process is very…streamlined. That isn’t the case elsewhere, where even a simple tweet requires approval. This makes it hard to live-tweet an event when the approver is unavailable…but there are workarounds. Perhaps I will reveal them one day.

What about process?

But if your corporate environment requires you to impose a strict content management structure, where all content is logged in the content calendar and all content requires approval, make sure that your content logging and approval process protects your company but DOESN’T silence it.

Because if your content approvals are too onerous, you will end up with no content at all.

Or you will end up with…perhaps I will reveal that one day.

The Single Solution Microsoft E5 License vs. Best-in-class Individual Solutions

The phrase of the day is “Microsoft E5 License.”

Identity Jedi used is in the 82nd edition of his newsletter.

The biggest threat to every single vendor in the identity space right now are the following words: Microsoft E5 License.

If you read that and shuddered, I’m sorry.

The argument for a single solution

From https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/enterprise/e5.

Sounds scary. But isn’t Microsoft here to help? Threatscape makes the case.

The cohesive suite of security and productivity solutions provided by an E5 licence can significantly streamline your technological landscape, doing away with a number of on-premises and SaaS tools.

While many organisations opt for the lower-cost E3 licence, they may find this soon requires a supplementary selection of single-solution tools from alternate vendors to patch gaps in its capabilities.

Too many solutions means confusion, an often-disjointed workflow, potential overlap and overspend, and crucially, increased security risk.

By consolidating your collaboration, productivity, automation, and security solutions into a single trusted vendor platform, IT management becomes simplified, redundant solutions can be axed, and ROI can be better measured.

The Microsoft E5 Security Components

So you get everything from a single source with no finger pointing. What could go wrong?

Plenty, according to those who still think of Microsoft as an evil empire.

By Lucasfilm – Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=38430548.

Let’s return to the Identity Jedi.

Microsoft is making a compelling case to businesses to consolidate into the Microsoft umbrella of products. The ease of use, and financial motives just make too much sense. Now do those customers get a great IAM experience with that? Meh…kinda. Entra SSO is solid product, Active Directory/EntraID is solid, MIM…well….we don’t talk about MIM.

Microsoft Identity Manager

Well, I will talk about MIM, or Microsoft Identity Manager.

From https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-identity-manager/install-mim-sync

Actually, we’re talking about Microsoft Identity Manager 2016.

Microsoft Identity Manager (MIM) 2016 builds on the identity and access management capabilities of Forefront Identity Manager (FIM) 2010 and predecessor technologies. MIM provides integration with heterogeneous platforms across the datacenter, including on-premises HR systems, directories, and databases.

MIM augments Microsoft Entra cloud-hosted services by enabling the organization to have the right users in Active Directory for on-premises apps. Microsoft Entra Connect can then make available in Microsoft Entra ID for Microsoft 365 and cloud-hosted apps

Is it any good? Sources say that, from a quantitative perspective, Gartner Peer Insights ranks several products higher than MIM’s 4.3 rating, including:

  • Okta Advanced Server Access (4.4)
  • Ivanti Security Controls (4.5)
  • One Identity Active Roles (4.7)
  • Imprivata’s SecureLink Customer Connect (4.8)
  • Bravura Safe (5.0, 1 rating)

The argument against a single solution

But what of the argument that it’s better to get everything from one vendor? Other companies will tout their best-in-class products. While you’ll end up with a possibly disjointed solution, the work will get done more accurately.

In the end, it’s up to you. Do you want a single solution that is “good enough” and is already pre-made, or do you want to take the best solution from the best-in-class vendors and roll your own?

Divide and Conquer When Providing Deliverables to Clients

(Delivery van image by Unisouth at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3897499)

All of my Bredemarket work involves providing deliverables to clients in some way:

  • Text for blog posts, case studies, or white papers.
  • Text for proposals.
  • Market/competitive analyses.
  • Other stuff.
By AlexanderVanLoon – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24261584.

For all but one Bredemarket client, I provide my deliverables via email. The deliverables usually consist of items such as Microsoft Word documents, Microsoft Excel workbooks, and Portable Document Files.

Easy to email.

Except in one case.

The work

Not real Bredemarket research and analysis. By Calvinius – Own work : http://www.martingrandjean.ch/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/HumanitesNumeriques.jpg, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29275453.

As I mentioned above, Bredemarket often performs market/competitive analyses. In fact, one of my clients likes my analyses so much that they keep on coming back for more analyses to cover different markets.

For the last three analyses for this particular client, my deliverables have consisted of the following:

  • An overall report, in PDF format.
  • The raw data, in XLSX format.
  • Extracts from the raw data, in PDF format.
  • The raw text of the report, in DOCX format.
Not a real Bredemarket report. By National Highway Traffic Safety Administration – National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Publication Number: NHTSA-DOT-HS-5-01160, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6709383.

In my analyses I referred to the companies’ publicly available websites to gather information on the competitor products, as well as the markets they address. (Using a made-up example, if my client provided its products to convenience stores, and a particular competitor ALSO targeted convenience stores, my client would obviously want to know this.)

The opportunity

But for this third analysis I didn’t just look at the websites. I also looked at the product brochures that I could download from these websites.

Not the tangible collateral I collected for my client. From https://bredemarket.com/2021/07/12/my-prediction-of-the-death-of-tangible-collateral-was-premature/.

This gave me an idea.

Since I was downloading all the publicly available brochures from the various competitors, why not provide all of these brochures to my client?

It seemed like a great idea. Since I had gone through all the work to collect the brochures, might as well let my client make future use of them.

The problem

So as I wrapped up the project and prepared the deliverables for my client, I discovered that I had amassed over 100 megabytes of brochures. (That’s what happens when you analyze over 100 competitor products.)

Not how zip files are compressed. By Only in Oregon – https://www.flickr.com/photos/46052415@N08/38372168986/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=115966874.

So my idea of zipping all the brochures into a single file wouldn’t work. Even the zip file exceeded the attachment sending limits of Bredemarket’s email service provider, Google. (And probably exceeded the attachment receiving limits of my client’s email service provider.)

And if you’ve already figured out the obvious solution to my problem, bear with me. It took me several days to realize the obvious solution myself.

Anyway, I hit upon a great solution to my problem…or so I thought.

The solution, first attempt

But that wasn’t a problem for me. Along with my email account, Google also provides Bredemarket with Google Drive. While the contents of my Google Drive are private to the employees of Bredemarket (all 1 of us), I can designate individual files and folders for access by selected people.

So I set up a designated folder for my client’s access only, uploaded all the deliverables including the 100+ MB zip file to the designated folder, and provided my client’s contact with access.

I then told my client that all the deliverables were in the Google Drive folder and asked the client to let me know when they were downloaded.

Which is when I encountered my second problem.

For security reasons, the client’s IT department forbids employees from accessing unauthorized Google Drives.

So I jumped back to Plan A and emailed all the files to my client except for the one 100+ MB zip file.

Now I just had to get that zip file to the client.

The solution, second attempt

That’s when I recalled the Dropbox account I set up for Bredemarket some time ago.

It was a quick process to upload the single 100+ MB zip file to a designated folder in Dropbox and give my client access.

But the client isn’t allowed to access Dropbox from work either.

The solution, third attempt

By the time that my client was contacting his IT department for a possible fix, I realized the solution that you the reader probably realized several paragraphs ago.

By FranHogan – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=92636750.

Instead of emailing one zip file, why not email multiple zip files in multiple emails, with each zip file under Google’s 25 MB limit?

So I sent six emails to my client.

This FINALLY worked.

I should have divided and conquered in the first place.

Can you use Bredemarket’s deliverables?

Do you want Bredemarket to send you 100 megabytes of brochures, now that I know how to do it?

More importantly, do you want Bredemarket to send you a market/competitor analysis to your specifications?

Talk to Bredemarket and discuss your needs. Book a meeting with me at calendly.com/bredemarket. Be sure to fill out the information form so I can best help you.

From calendly.com/bredemarket.

If You’re Using ChatGPT Commercially, Are You Violating Reddit’s Terms?

By Videoplasty.com, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=66925603.

How to give a privacy advocate a coronary? Have OpenAI and Reddit reach an agreement.

Keeping the internet open is crucial, and part of being open means Reddit content needs to be accessible to those fostering human learning and researching ways to build community, belonging, and empowerment online. Reddit is a uniquely large and vibrant community that has long been an important space for conversation on the internet. Additionally, using LLMs, ML, and AI allow Reddit to improve the user experience for everyone.

In line with this, Reddit and OpenAI today announced a partnership to benefit both the Reddit and OpenAI user communities…

Perhaps some members of the Reddit user community may not feel the benefits when OpenAI is training on their data.

While people who joined Reddit presumably understood that anyone could view their data, they never imagined that a third party would then process its data for its own purposes.

Oh, but wait a minute. Reddit clarifies things:

This partnership…does not change Reddit’s Data API Terms or Developer Terms, which state content accessed through Reddit’s Data API cannot be used for commercial purposes without Reddit’s approval. API access remains free for non-commercial usage under our published threshold.

And, of course, OpenAI’s “primary fiduciary duty is to humanity,” so of course it is NOT using the Reddit data for commercial purposes.

And EVERY ONE of the people who accesses Reddit data through OpenAI’s offerings would NEVER use the data for commercial…

Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36441320.

…um…

…we’ll get back to you on that.