News from Inspire for businesses of all sizes

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As written by Kirk Koenigsbauer on blogs.office.com
At Microsoft Inspire in Washington D.C., we introduced a fundamental shift in how we will design, build and go to market to address our customers’ needs for a modern workplace.
Introducing Microsoft 365—Satya Nadella unveiled Microsoft 365, which brings together Office 365, Windows 10 and Enterprise Mobility + Security to deliver a complete, intelligent and secure solution to empowers employees. To address the commercial needs from the largest enterprise to the smallest business, we introduced Microsoft 365 Enterprise and Microsoft 365 Business. Read our summary from Microsoft Inspire to learn more.
New business apps in Office 365 Business Premium—We also introduced the preview of three new apps in Office 365 Business Premium: Microsoft Connections, Microsoft Listings, and Microsoft Invoicing. These apps are designed to help you run and grow your small business, and are part of the new Office 365 Business center. MileIQ—the leading mileage tracking app—is also now included for Office 365 Business Premium subscribers. Read the announcement to learn more.

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Create and present more effectively with updates to Office apps
This month’s Office 365 updates make it easier to create professional-looking presentations and to identify and correct errors while editing documents.
Turn text into timelines in PowerPoint—Now PowerPoint Designer recognizes times, dates and topics on your slides and intelligently redesigns your content into professional-looking timelines, making it easier than ever to create high impact presentations. Start with a list of dates, then simply select Design Ideas in the Design tab and choose your favorite layout from the set of suggestions.

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Support for 3D in Office apps—Starting this month, you can now add and edit 3D objects in Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Easily insert a 3D object from the Remix 3D catalog or your desktop, change its perspective and use transitions like Morph in PowerPoint to create cinematic animations between slides to bring 3D objects in your presentations to life.

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Read Aloud in Word—We continue to improve the Learning Tools available in Word and have moved Read Aloud to the Review tab. This latest update allows your document to be read back to you with simultaneous highlighting—from right within your workflow. This makes it easier to recognize and correct errors as you write, improving reading and editing accuracy for everyone, especially users with learning disabilities such as dyslexia.

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Additional updates for Office 365 commercial customers
Updates to Outlook and StaffHub make it easier for our Office 365 commercial customers to connect and manage tasks across their organizations.
Outlook adds a smarter To: line and redesigned conversation view—Powered by intelligence from the Microsoft Graph, Outlook on the web and Windows desktop now offer improved contact suggestions and profile pictures when composing an email. This update makes it easier for you to find and communicate with the right people throughout your organization.
Additionally, the redesigned conversation view in Outlook for iOS shows more of your discussion at once, allowing you to quickly review your message history and pick up right where you left off.

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Enhancements to Microsoft StaffHub—Throughout July, we made several updates to Microsoft StaffHub, an Office 365 app designed to help Firstline Workers manage their workday. In industries like manufacturing, retail and healthcare, firstline workers often serve as the first point of contact between a company and its customers. Now team members can use the StaffHub app to assign, manage and complete tasks from co-workers and management, as well as access company-wide announcements—making it easier to keep everyone in sync.

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Learn more about what’s new for Office 365 subscribers this month at: Office on Windows desktops | Office for Mac | Office Mobile for Windows | Office for iPhone and iPad | Office on Android. If you’re an Office 365 Home or Personal customer, be sure to sign up for Office Insider to be the first to use the latest and greatest in Office productivity. Commercial customers on both Current Channel and Deferred Channel can also get early access to a fully supported build through First Release. This site explains more about when you can expect to receive the features announced today.

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Five steps to a strong company culture

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Five steps to a strong company culture

"Great leaders inspire. They pull in talented and high-performing staffers. But behind each powerful leader you'll find something equally powerful: a company culture that motivates people to work hard and stay with the business."
As long as you have a business, you have a company culture. Instead of leaving it to grow on its own, you can nurture it and make it into something that will breed loyalty and motivation. Creating a strong culture—one of fun, sharing, collaboration, and connection—can be done in five simple steps, according to Carol Skube, a Minneapolis-based human resources consultant.

Step 1: Understand

A strong culture is founded on more than just paid lunches or personalized parking spaces. Great leaders understand what is important to their employees. As a business leader, developing a strong company culture starts when you take steps to find out what motivates the people who work for you.
The process of understanding starts with communication. Talk to your employees to find out what you both expect from the job, Skube says. This will help you clarify your expectations of your staff and, in turn, help you learn what motivates them. It will also send a message to your staff that collaboration and communication are important to your company.
As you talk to your employees, you also will learn what's important to them. This understanding will help you build a culture of fun and sharing that is appropriate for your company, rather than one based on your idea of what people might enjoy.

Step 2: Take action

Once you've taken the time to understand your employees, it's time to take action. This follow-through is important, as it shows that you have taken your employees' interests and concerns to heart.
Try this simple exercise: Divide a blank piece of paper into four quadrants labeled fun, sharing, collaboration, and connection. For each heading, brainstorm a list of actions you can implement to improve your company culture in this area. For example, under "fun" you may have things like a Friday drawing for free passes for dinner, a movie, or some other treat.
When you take action, it's important to set yourself up for success. Rather than doing everything at once, try implementing a selection of ideas that you know you can do and do well. Highlight a few of the items from your brainstorming list that you'd like to implement immediately. The rest you can save on a prioritized wish list of things to do later.

Step 3: Involve

A company culture comes from all employees. When it's successful, it's something that you start and that your employees continue.
Ask your employees how they think they can contribute to the success of the business and its culture. Encouraging them to take a personal stake in the company can nurture a new and positive energy, Skube says. When this happens, your employees have gone beyond their day-to-day duties. They now feel responsible for the company's success.

Step 4: Collaborate

At this stage, your employees should be involved in your company culture. Now comes the time to grow, deepen, and further develop it. This is where collaboration really comes into play.
Give your employees the room they need to follow through with their own ideas. This doesn't mean allowing them to go off in all kinds of different directions. In your pivotal role as the leader, it is up to you to oversee and guide this creative force along the right path. Encourage them, but discuss concrete ways of putting ideas into action, and hold them to any agreed-upon action plan.
It's important the employees understand that the perks and benefits they enjoy come as a result of this work. Individuals who view them as an expectation can potentially affect the entire group attitude in a negative way. "Are people going to be held accountable for meeting their objectives and delivering their commitments? If I'm not held accountable, I may or may not do it," Skube says.

Step 5: Demand accountability

Company culture isn't something you start and then ignore. Like a well-tended garden, a strong culture is the result of creativity and care. Make accountability part of your culture, through strong communication and follow-up. Make it easy to communicate with tools like Yammer and Lync Online in Office 365.
You will know if your culture has been built effectively if your employees are not only trying out new ideas but meeting expectations and commitments regularly. Their interests and needs will change as your company grows. Take the time to re-evaluate these motivation factors if you find a change in performance.

Source: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/business/articles/five-steps-to-a-strong-company-culture

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