08Sep2020
01Sep2020
A simpler Conditional Access baseline
Some folks have written to me about the "complexity" of my Conditional Access guide and were hoping to find something a bit simpler. This surprised me, and initially I shrugged it off. But I have heard this feedback more than once now, so I decided to take this thought experiment...
18Aug2020
Behold: The Power of Sensitivity Labels
Even though some people are aware of the concepts of Data Classification and tools such as Microsoft 365 Sensitivity Labels, I do not think that many of us out there have yet grasped the full implications, or taken the long view, so to speak. Note: this is a longer read....
04Aug2020
A Brief History of Collaboration and Governance
I have slowly been converting people to the "modern collaboration mindset" during the past couple of years through my op-ed style of writing. I think you can appreciate that changing minds through writing is something which rarely if ever happens in areas like politics, but it turns out this can...
28Jul2020
Is “Best Practices” a myth?
I often find myself musing over this question these days. Granted, I actually do publish something called The Microsoft 365 Best Practices Checklists--but really these are more like recommendations. In fact, I recently updated them to include governance decisions around collaboration (e.g. affecting apps such as...
21Jul2020
My opinion on Microsoft Threat Protection for the SMB
Since I released my guide on Microsoft 365 E5 Security and Microsoft Threat Protection, I have been getting a lot of questions and comments about my stance on the use of these products for SMB customers. I left it too neutral, I guess, in the original...
14Jul2020
U.K. Cyber Essentials Simple Assessment Tool
I recently came across the U.K.'s Cyber Essentials, as published by the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC). Not two days after I learned about this simple control framework while on a conference call spanning several time zones with friends from around the world, that I received...
07Jul2020
Yes, you really can let go: Microsoft 365 Groups and Teams creation policy, revisited
I have to laugh because this is still such a seemingly controversial idea. "Should users be allowed to create their own Teams?" I have written about this topic many times before, but I still get the best comments about it from non-believers. The real issue is...
30Jun2020
Troubleshooting weird Azure AD Join issues
If you are starting to do more Azure AD Join (or disjoin/rejoin) operations, you may run into some issues at times where the computer reports an error. These can take several forms, but generally the message is, "Sorry dude, but you can't join/register this device." Here are a few scenarios that...
26Jun2020