Right now, people around the world rely on digital tools that enable collaboration, creation, and connection. Whether people are getting together for remote work or distance learning, a happy hour with old friends or a family game night, we\u2019ve seen Microsoft Teams become an essential tool. Teams is a reliable, secure<\/a>, and accessible platform that brings together video conferencing, file sharing, and so much more into a central hub for teamwork. Coupled with across-the-board support, Teams has quickly become the tool businesses, governments, and educators (including the world\u2019s oldest university<\/a>) choose.<\/p>\n We\u2019re providing critical solutions for healthcare organizations on the front lines. St. Luke\u2019s University Health Network in Pennsylvania<\/a> is using Teams to video chat with patients most vulnerable to COVID-19. And when a hospital in Shanghai needed a communications tool<\/a>, we got it up and running in days.<\/p>\n When an elementary school needed to stream its graduation ceremony<\/a>, we helped them coordinate everything in less than a week. From supporting big moments like these to providing digital, industry-specific training, we try to anticipate people\u2019s needs and help them navigate our products.<\/p>\n One thing I\u2019ve loved seeing is how Teams encourages people to dream bigger and try new things, from graduations to global wine tastings. Despite all that\u2019s happening around us, people continue to adapt, and what they come up with can surprise and inspire us all.<\/p>\n We\u2019re thinking creatively about how to support our employees and our customers. <\/strong><\/p>\n When we made the tough decision to temporarily close our Microsoft Store locations, we offered our store associates<\/a> an entirely optional opportunity to work from home\u2014and even though they didn\u2019t need to do it, nearly 80% raised their hand. Moments like these leave me in awe because it speaks volumes to the kind of people that make up Microsoft. These are people who say \u201cyes\u201d because they see the value in what we\u2019re doing together and believe that we each can play an important role in helping others.<\/p>\n True to form, our associates have exceeded our expectations. Every day, they bring their skills and knowledge to support customers, from enterprise to education, with energy and enthusiasm. They\u2019re leveraging their talents in new and interesting ways\u2014in just one month, they\u2019ve trained 65,000 people<\/a>, addressed hundreds of support questions, assisted with numerous outbound sales calls, and conducted virtual meetings to demonstrate tech. This has enabled us to keep our company moving forward, empower our employees, and respond to increased customer demands\u2014a win-win-win!<\/p>\n We\u2019re innovating to support customers, partners, and the changing landscape. <\/strong><\/p>\n Once we realized that people around the world would need to shift to virtual events, our production teams quickly mobilized to provide the support<\/a> needed to make those digital transformations. We\u2019ve developed a scalable framework<\/a>, and we\u2019re sharing best practices<\/a> we learned along the way, working with our customers to reimagine what\u2019s possible and create successful solutions and experiences for all. For example, when Nuance Communications needed to pivot its global R&D conference to virtual-only<\/a>, we helped make that happen\u2014helping them save money, decrease the event\u2019s overall carbon footprint, and more importantly enabled them to keep people excited. We\u2019re also putting these learnings into action within Microsoft as we look to pivot all future events in the next fiscal year to digital-first experiences.<\/p>\n Moving forward, we remain committed to providing <\/strong>spaces <\/strong>where connections are formed, innovation is accelerated, and new paths are forged with our customers and partners.<\/p>\n We\u2019re doing our part to support our communities.<\/strong><\/p>\n We\u2019ve partnered with The Seattle Foundation, United Way King County (UWKC), and other businesses to develop the COVID-19 Response Fund<\/a>. We\u2019ve donated medical supplies<\/a> and meals<\/a>. We\u2019ve encouraged a culture of giving. But to address the severity of this pandemic, we know it\u2019s going to take much more\u2014and it\u2019s going to take everyone.<\/p>\n That\u2019s why we recently launched Give with Bing<\/a>, a new way to support the causes people care about by simply searching with Bing. All a user needs to do is switch on \u201cGive Mode\u201d to join Microsoft Rewards, and their searches will earn points that are automatically donated to a nonprofit of their choosing. It\u2019s an easy way to give back and raise money for vulnerable communities.<\/p>\n Microsoft employees are also mobilizing within their communities, putting into action the mission and values that underscore all we do. Follow #MicrosoftTogether on Twitter and LinkedIn and help me celebrate the work our teams are leading, from gathering food donations, raising money, and bringing forward innovative and inclusive design ideas.<\/p>\n The reality is that we\u2019re not sure what\u2019s to come. What we do know is that we\u2019re in this together. People and organizations across communities are coming together in new ways, going above and beyond what\u2019s expected. Take UWKC\u2014not only have they partnered with us, the team has also established a COVID-19 Community Relief Fund<\/a> designed to further fill gaps to ensure people can access essential items and housing assistance during this time.<\/p>\n I\u2019m humbled by the work people are doing within and beyond Microsoft to address this pandemic. As the weeks go on, I hope we can continue this momentum and move closer toward a solution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Every one of us has experienced an upheaval in how we operate day-to-day the past few weeks. Some moments are tough. Others pull at your heart. But within all of that, people have shown they can adapt, grow, and learn together. My team at Microsoft, Marketing and Consumer Business (MCB), has been working around the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[946,50],"class_list":["post-111521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-microsoft-news","tag-covid-19","tag-recent-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111521\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/div>\n
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