This is a great podcast worth a listen if you’re any level endurance athlete. Dr. Jeff Sankoff gives legit medically science based research focused on athletes and has great guests. youtu.be/v41qc_azSUw?is=2obA… #Triathlon #Knee #Running

I think about 13 year old me, watching the U.S. national team play in the World Cup on T.V. In 1994 and how awesome that was as young soccer player, and I think about how all over America a generation of other kids got a huge lift when they saw our team play a fun, skillful, aggressive game yesterday against Paraguay. Regardless of how far the U.S. team will go, we have already won the most important game out there for those kids who watched the game.

Inject this finish into our veins 🇺🇸

The emerging “customer zero” story of Microsoft’s completely internal grassroots adoption of Scout is a leading indicator that there’s something truly magical about what it does for your typical business user. youtube.com/shorts/3Jv_QBKel… @OmarShahine

People should not be judging AI-augmented coding by “1 shots.” If someone told you that their model did a “one shot of Minecraft” and they’re impressed by that, you need to consider how much semantic heavy lifting the word “Minecraft” is doing in that prompt. Ask them to one shot Minecraft without using the word Minecraft. It’s not trivial to one shot something unique, because programming is the art of making the ambiguous incredibly specific through sculpting. AI sculpting is less about vibes and more about finding the specificity you want and keeping the system stable through changes. Good SDLC practices still matter, historical context still matters, and knowing how things work matters, shout out to @Grady_Booch. It’s a cool party trick to one shot Mario Brothers or space invaders, but then you’ll end up with the most mid version of both. Literally mid. You’ll get the statistical fat part of the Bell curve version of these mythical games. You’re telling the model to close its eyes and draw the face of these games from memory. As high-level programming cedes way to the prose compiler, making your goals and specs well understood to the ambiguity loop and showing good judgment is going to matter more than ever. Consider all of your words and make sure that certain words aren’t carrying all the semantic load, hidden or otherwise.

I interviewed the leader of Microsoft’s U.S. Digital Natives business, Mike Gaal , and he changed my mind about using AI as a tool to improve the ability to do something innately human - how to have an effective 1:1 conversation with an employee. He used GitHubCLI to create this as a Skill/Automation, and I’ve ported it over to Scout since then and have used it a lot… Needless to say, I was humbled by the results and need to improve my 1:1s! Watch to hear/see that and more : #Microsoft #Scout @grantwe lnkd.in/gfPZC-8n

Well said.

Quick work story (trigger warning yes, there are multiple paragraphs): A few weeks ago, I created and shared a skill I built that enabled anyone within our sales org to pull a ton of data from our revenue recognition reports and accurately/ automagically enter it into our compensation estimation system. It took me about an hour on a Sunday to get it to work reasonably well and I shared it with many others immediately. Up until that afternoon, the manual process was supremely painful - but that’s been the only way to do it up until Microsoft Scout came along and enabled me to simply have it do it for me. The vast majority of folks I shared it with were really grateful/thought it was cool and it’s been a very popular skill since I shared it. BUT, there was some notable push back by others. 🧐🤨Specifically, I also heard that by doing this I wasn’t solving the real issue which was a very complex/murky comp tool/process and hard to understand source data set. This was of course very true, and illustrated the impact of this new super powerful AI tool in terms of organizational change. The likelihood I was going to fix the macro - company wide system as a front line manager is close to zero on a Sunday afternoon - but if I could pragmatically get to the same result in far less time (~1 hour of creating and fiddling with the skill in SCOUT), I’m just as happy. 👀Did I solve the macro issue? No. Does the macro issue still exist ? Yes. Should it still be addressed? Yes, but really because it’s probably a symptom of other issues. it’ll take awareness by leaders to 1.) support people moving fast to use AI like I did and 2.) continue to fight for organizational change to get to the root of the problem and not accept that the “lipstick on the pig” that we just solved with the smart AI SKILL/Automation means it’s no longer a pig. I suspect, the push to solve the bigger problem can be sidestepped a bit more often now - and that may or may not be a good thing in all cases. 💥💥It also illustrates why it’s so important to give tools like this to your front line employees and encourage them to experiment and to use it. They’ll solve hard problems and help your company go faster. You’re going to hear hundreds of stories like this from within Microsoft and thousands from others outside of the company as Scout usage grows @OmarShahine

A pretty common question I get from people is what’s the difference between a “Skill” and an Automation and how/why should I make a skill in Microsoft Scout or Copilot Cowork. Simply put, if you’re going to potentially do whatever you did a second time - there’s zero harm in simply telling it “save this as a skill (insert name or let it choose one.” An automation is just like telling an employee “hey when this happens / or on this schedule, I need you to do (whatever, typically involves some skills you have made), with the ultimate outcome of (whatever you’re really hoping to get out of this, sometimes less is actually better!).” Check this out - it’s how I took Mike Gaal’s amazing idea/prompt to get an evaluation of every 1:1 I have, and created a skill and an automation base on it in Microsoft Scout. Quick video. youtu.be/UtU13tJbD4c?si=5nk7…

The coolest thing about Scout isn’t necessarily the “how” it does stuff, it’s watching people go from the merely curious to the “holy sh*t - this thing is amazing” within about 10 minutes or less of initial use. Usually that happens because for the first time ever, it just took work OFF their plate that they never liked doing anyway and suddenly they can dream of their job being a bit more fun than it was 10 minutes ago. That’s Scout.

It’s been wild seeing how #MicrosoftScout is enabling people inside MSFT to work through/around previously impossible internal bureaucratic blockers. Folks are literally unleashed by this tool to move faster and to help their employees be more successful. Exciting times!

Check out @jraphael10 Microsoft Scout app overview. Justin is one of our most engaged member of our internal Scout community and has done a great job sharing his experience with Scout.

It’s pretty awesome to be able to show the power of Microsoft Scout - use AI to “AI-ify” itself on your behalf - act as your business travel agent- uses are truly only bounded by your imagination. #Microsoft @OmarShahine @BradGroux youtu.be/OpwOvyvox3A?si=CSze…

Introducing Microsoft Scout, the first autopilot agent from Microsoft - 57 days after starting my new job, we are launching Microsoft Scout to our Frontier customers. Big day for the team and for @openclaw #MicrosoftBuild microsoft.com/en-us/microsof…

Starting the week with a legit useful email from a manager is a rare event for most people, but #CopilotCowork makes it not just possible but probable: #Microsoft @Copilot youtu.be/-IFbRVKiNsA?si=zsYy…

What if your AI could read every Teams call, email, and Slack chat… and tell you which Q4 deals are about to blow up — before your CRM even knows? 😳 I built the exact Copilot Cowork prompt that runs my entire book of business. It spots the delta between what sellers say and what’s actually happening. Steal it before Q4 hits. Watch here → youtu.be/38mp7QyXjH0 #Sales #MicrosoftCopilot #SalesManagement

Absolutely love the @WynnLasVegas - service is best in the industry. Thank you!

TJ Devine from Microsoft 365 didn’t mince words. Most companies are wrongly ambitious about AI—waiting for transformation or trapped in long‑range planning. Model Council runs Claude GPT side‑by‑side. youtu.be/nVuduzu0n90?si=tkB1… #Microsoft365 #Copilot