Recently I’ve stumbled across a few instances of people making reference to Teams and Channels within MS Teams - dialogue, discussion and Q&A is taking place across a range of channels and subjects on the platform - but people didn’t know they existed. Which is great for those inside the loop; but less good for those who want to get in - but can’t; or could contribute, but didn’t even know it was there in the first place!
It reminds me very much of a Johari’s Window situation - or Donald Rumsfeld’s interpretation of it in his “Unknown Unknowns” speech;
This can - and does - compound the feeling of silo working and echo chambers. But how do we fix it?
Whilst small, limited and restricted view Teams and Channels are really useful for discrete events, policy development with SMEs etc, should there be broader directory of Teams and Channels to help increase the knowledge base, engage relevant CFAV within the organisation and - perhaps - tap into the untapped knowledge, skills and experience within the organisation?
In Teams if you go to
Teams → Join or create team → Join team
You can see a list of all the public teams in the Org, I’ll admit it’s not massively helpful as the ones which should be public (VoV for example) aren’t
Part of the problem, looking at the broader picture is when people don’t use MS Teams for conference calls or training etc but use other apps/sites such as Zoom. RAFAC as an organisation need to have a policy of MS Teams is the licenced product under Microsoft, everyone in Bader setting up events should record on Teams and no other product so these are available if needed for auditing. This could also be argued for transparency regarding Civ comm meetings/AGM’s although certain items might not be suitable for the everyday eye to see, I don’t see why these can’t be streamed and recorded (even if no-one is watching the stream)
Regarding Teams channels although they can be annoying especially if your work day job also uses them, with constant pings and updates they can be a useful resource to share information and look back too.
You can mute channels and teams, or set quiet hours in the mobile apps.
so RAFAC teams could be muted during the working day but active of an evening/weekend.
I would be hopeful that is the case, I have seen Wing arranged courses with a Zoom link as recent as June this year. It could be the case they are unaware but can’t really use that as an excuse these days.
@Sm12310 if you know of anyone hosting stuff on other platforms, it should be reported per that ACTO.
Arguably, the policy states “meetings with cadets”, so in theory you can use other things for CFAV only meetings. But that is just silly when we have our own platform. I’d seriously question why someone would be using Zoom when we have perfectly good access to Teams, and it’s been made explicitly clear that is what we should be using.
Can’t say I’ve found it that difficult to change between accounts recently. Just have to make sure Teams is running in the right account before hitting a link, but if it’s in the calendar anyway then you can just go from there…
I have had more issues logging into work Teams and RAFAC trying to force me to log into my account than the other way round. Seems to be Teams though, OneDrive and office happily let me switch.
