The Future of Technical Training According to Microsoft

Today, I’m completing a four-day course from Microsoft (AS-104 if you are curious). It’s all virtual, of course, through Microsoft Teams, and instructor-led. We’re a group of 50 people from all around the world, primarily from the US, from what I can see. The one fascinating thing is how pushy the instructors are for us to use… Copilot. They use it all the time to answer questions and paste the answers in the group chat. They offer ways to utilize Copilot to prepare for the certification exam. Etc. Copilot is really their assistant, the undergraduate who’s doing the dirty job, the gopher, if you will. The course is so strictly structured and formatted that I’m seeing a future where there won’t be any instructors. Only Copilot. 😳

To everyone who is afraid of losing their job because of generative artificial intelligence (or one of its variations), now is the right time to ask yourself: am I giving my best at work? Don’t give your employer any reasons or desire to replace you with AI.

Fun fact: I keep a log (or a journal) of everything I do in a day at work. I’ve been doing this for decades. I always used digital tools for that but the guy who gave me the inspiration for doing this when I started my career was doing the same but on paper. I thought Incould improve his process. I did.

I often repeat this thought in my head when I’m in challenging times: “everything around me has been done by people not smarter than me.”. It’s inspired by Steve Jobs’ words from an interview he did in the early 1990s, where he was reflecting on how empowering it is to realize that the world is built by people just like us — and that we can reshape it too.

For the first time in twenty years, I don’t have any business-related apps on my mobile phone, except one for 2FA. No email, no instant messaging, no documents, nothing! I feel some sort of hard-to-describe relief.

What, You Have a Blog? Really?

I overheard people at the office talking about their weekend activities. I wasn’t in the conversation, but I’m always prepared for those. I never talk about my writing hobby or the many websites I maintain. Most people would find this strange. They’d say things like, “What, you have a blog? Really?” Yes, that’s right. I prefer to skip all that and talk about a walk in the park, in the forest, and maybe about photography. Blogging is like people collecting stamps back in the day. Sad.

Having to immerse myself in a different digital ecosystem, specifically Microsoft’s, helps me appreciate the strengths of both Apple and Microsoft. Does this mean I should consider switching to Android? I’ll leave that for you to guess. 🤭

One of the fun things when starting a new job with a new set of digital tools is to rethink old habits and change what was broken. Information classifications and tasks management are seeing a big rethink which is, of course, highly tied to Microsoft 365 tools (To Do, OneNote, Outlook and their tied integration).

Today, I tested my LG UltraFine 4K monitor on my wife’s Windows 11 laptop, but the monitor wouldn’t power up, and the Windows Device Manager also failed to recognize it. This means I’ll probably need a USB hub to go with my future work laptop if I want to use that monitor. I’ll probably buy a new monitor specially for my work laptop, since the company will be paying for it.

I'm Already Feeling The Upcoming Loss

The last time I used a Windows PC was with Windows 10 sometimes around 2020. Since then, Windows 11 came out with a few major releases along with it. I’ll have to relearn so many small things to flex my muscles memory. Also, and it’s probably the biggest lost: so many small utilities like Raycast, CleanShot X, Paste, PopClip and so many more that were making me much more productive are gone with Windows 11. Am I going to survive?