From Finance to Microsoft Tech - Caroline Kallin's Journey - Microsoft Innovation Podcast

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Mark Smith (00:06):
Welcome to the MVP show.
My intention is that you listento the stories of these MVP
guests and are inspired tobecome an MVP and bring value to
the world through your skills.
If you have not checked it outalready, I do a YouTube series
called how to Become an MVP.
The link is in the show notes.
With that, let's get on withthe show.

(00:31):
Today's guest is from Sweden.
She works at XOBE as a changeand adoption driver.
She was first awarded MVP in2024.
Her aim is to help people worksmarter with digital workspace
in order to free up time andbrain power Some of you all need

(00:51):
more of.
You can find links to her bioand socials in the show notes
for this episode.
Welcome to the show, Caroline.
Thank you so much.

Caroline Kallin (00:58):
So glad for you to have me here.

Mark Smith (01:01):
It's great to have you on the show.
This is my first episoderecording post-MVP Summit 2025.
I was going to say 2024.
And I feel there's just so muchto talk about.
Before we get started, tell meabout food, family and fun.
What do you do when you're notin the IT trenches?

When I'm not in the IT trenches.
Food, food.
I love food.
Um, I think my most favoritefood might be vietnamese spring
rolls and family.
I have a husband here in swedenand two kids and a dog who
actually barked just just theother minute, so I hope you
didn't get that on recording.
And for fun, I love themountains.

(01:43):
I go skiing or trail running orjust hiking and enjoying the
fresh air.

Mark Smith (01:51):
I love it.
I love it, and what a perfectlandscape that you live in to do
that.
Tell me about your journey intotech.
How did you you know, wherewere you and how did your career
take a tech turn tech?
How?

did you you know where were you and how did
you take your career, take atech turn?
Yeah, I actually studied tobecome uh within finance, so I
studied finance and but then Irealized that, well, when I was
working as a cfo and stuff likethat, I always ended up doing
the tech parts.
I was the one who said no, weneed to make this more efficient
, we need to have a bettersystem for this.
So I was super user in allkinds of programs, but then

(02:28):
something hit us in 2020.
It was this kind of weirdpandemic going on Maybe you
remember that one and then I wasthe first to roll out teams at
my organization.
So then I realized this is somuch fun, maybe I can work with
this whole time, maybe.
So I started sending out someemails to companies nearby and
said this is so much fun, maybeI can work with this whole time,
maybe.
So I started sending out someemails to companies nearby and

(02:49):
said I don't understand anythingabout your ads, but I'm a fast
learner and I really likeworking with Microsoft products
because I've been programming inExcel previously and stuff like
that and really enjoys it.
And so then I got a hit.
Somebody actually thought thatit would be a good thing to bet

(03:09):
on me, and the rest is history.
So I've been working within itfor soon.
Yeah, four years or somethinglike that wow, wow.

Mark Smith (03:17):
That's.
That's awesome.
That's epic and your focusright now.

Correct me if I'm wrong you're pretty focused
on m365, co-pilot that area oftech yes, and I mean, if you,
the that area of tech is so newso you don't have, you don't
need to have like 20 years ofknowledge to actually be good at
it.
You only need to be curious andto be I don't know how to say

(03:41):
it but yeah, yeah, you need tobe interested in it.

Mark Smith (03:45):
So change and adoption very interesting topic.
I find, for the first time inhistory of tech, that change and
adoption is taking much more ofa front seat in the AI era that
we're in.
You know, people are finallylooking at the data for the last
20 years which shows 70% of ITprojects fail because and

(04:09):
generally it's because noadoption program has been put in
place.
Tell me about when you think ofadoption and change as a formal
activity to do in bringingpeople on a journey.
What do you think about?

I think, exactly as you say, all of a
sudden it's in the front seatbecause it's so important.
I mean, in the most IT projectsthat fails is due to lack of
adoption.
So I think that's why it's somuch fun to be working within
this industry with user adoptionright now, because now it's
more focused and also you get tosee, with the whole AI era, you

(04:46):
see that people get moreinterested in other tools as
well, because all of a suddenthey're like Luke, what is that?
Oh, planner, we have somethinglike Planner.
Oh, but what is this?
Can you do this?
Or maybe I can do this withCopilot.
And then I say, well, you havealways been able to do that,
because that is a feature withinPowerPoint, for example.
And they go what?
So it's like Aladdin.

(05:09):
You know, we got to showJasmine a whole new world and I
love that.

Mark Smith (05:14):
I like it, and you mentioned a range of products
there that all seem to involveCopilot to some degree.
Like you know, one of thethings I I find with pages as
they talk about in co-pilot isreally all done in loop and and
loop is becoming a prettyimportant product in in the
suite that microsoft has hereyes, absolutely.

I mean with now, when you have the meeting
agenda in loop in teams and nowthe facilitator will operate in
the loop agenda as well thefacilitator, the facilitator
agent.
Maybe I should add uh, so yeah,it's so exciting because
finally, I mean, I I have Ithink that people have thought I
thought it would be hard.

(05:57):
What is loop?
Where do I add loop into myalready busy schedule of apps?
But now loop has has actuallyjust, yeah, came on top.
I like it.

Mark Smith (06:07):
Yeah.
So tell me, what do you do ifyou land a new project and
you've got to think about changeand adoption?
How do you drive that?

How do I drive it?
Yeah, that's a hard questionbecause it depends on the
organization.
But I really want to findsponsors first of all, to find
those in top management thatactually are willing to be on my
back, so to speak, and also tomake them look like heroes.

(06:39):
I always suggest that we havelike digital PT hours for the
management, where they can feelcomfortable addressing
everything they don't know, sothat I can learn them to be the
great ambassadors that we wantto have.
Because if the management isnot a part of the adoption and
change journey, no change willtake place.

(06:59):
But it's also important to findthe ambassadors or the
champions in the grassrootslevel as well.
So I think it's both abottoms-up and a top-down
journey that needs to be takingplace.

Mark Smith (07:15):
That's interesting about it definitely being a a
bottoms up as well as a top down, because, you know, in pro sci
they talk about very much aboutgetting your sponsorship in
place and getting that seniorleadership, you know, but it's
so, so critical, as you say, toactually um look from you know

(07:37):
the individual people that aregoing to use this technology and
and the impact that it's goingto have on them.
Are you finding that AI and thediscussion around things like
Copilot is quite different thanany other change work in the
past?
In that you mentioned MicrosoftTeams.
When you implemented thatinside organizations, nobody

(07:59):
worried that Teams was going totake their job.
But we hear in the media allthe time that we adopt AI, ai is
going to take our jobs.
That's got to have a rub effecton the change journey with
individuals, right, because allof a sudden now you're dealing

(08:20):
with somebody that's perhapshighly skeptical of why do I
want to learn about AI?
Because will I have a job infive years' time?

Yeah, and that's very important to address
that early on in the adoptionjourney, I think, Because AI
won't take our jobs, but peoplewho know AI will probably maybe
take your job.
So I mean it's important to beearly on to this journey, I
think.
But of course, we need toaddress that, and I think that's
maybe that's hard when you'retalking to management, because

(08:55):
they only focus on the ROI, onthe return on investment, right
when they buy these licenses.
And then all the calculatorsthat you can see, or in all the
calculators you can see that,okay, we save two hours a week,
we save this much time, but thetime is actually people.
So I think it's very importantto address early on that this is

(09:16):
not so that we will get paid,that people will be laid off.
We do this to decrease sickleave, perhaps to decrease that
employees will rotate and change, because that costs a lot and
this is something that's hard tomeasure and therefore it's so
important to have managementwith you so that management

(09:39):
doesn't come knock on your doorand say I need the figures, how
can we be profitable with thehelp of these, Instead of focus
on the value it actually adds?

Mark Smith (09:50):
When you think about the skills that somebody is
going to need, let's say, in thenext five years, in an
information worker type role,we're seeing more and more
agents.
You mentioned there an agent inthe meeting to, to, to
coordinate the, the agenda andand whatnot.
Are we, are we going to need todevelop different skills in an

(10:16):
ai world as as informationworkers?

yes, I think, but I think also that I don't
believe that everybody needs tohave those skills, but we need
to have people that can drivethis agentic world.
We need to have people who knowshow to, or that is curious to
set things up, can do it'sactually will become more easier

(10:43):
for end users.
I mean Microsoft, for example,has introduced several buttons
that will help instead ofprompting, and I mean these
buttons can help by themselves.
I'm talking about you know, theglitter pen in Teams or that
can help you write your messagesso that it becomes easier if

(11:03):
you're dyslexic or something,and also the schedule with
Copilot.
So I mean all these small kindof buttons will help us with AI
and with agents Also.
I mean just to mention an agentand you will get help.
You don't need to know how tocreate that agent in order to
use it, because everybody isused to using bots on different

(11:24):
sites.
So I think we need some ones.
That's on the front that willhelp to help all the companies
move further.
But maybe not everybody needsto be agentic experts.

Mark Smith (11:38):
Yes, have you worked at implementing champion
programs inside organizations?
Tell me about that.

Well, that's always a journey and it's always
hard to keep them enthusiasticand along, but it's important to
find those people that arereally engaged, and you can look
at that.
Okay, let's start from thebeginning.
If you want to create achampions network, I think it's
important to dig into the datafirst to see which people in the

(12:08):
organization actually uses lotsof the platform, because you
can see that in the admin portal, because then you will find
people that are actuallyinterested.
So my first 10 cents is to goand ask them do you want to be a
part of this and can we enhanceyour knowledge even further?

(12:28):
And then you have to really behelpful and give them swag, give
them your time, give thempersonal trainers or whatever
they need in order for them toexcel, so that they can
distribute their knowledgefurther, because that's the very
important part.
That is the most hardest part,because usually people in the

(12:48):
champions parties are like, yay,I want to come, I want to learn
, but when it comes to investingfurther to their colleagues,
that can be hard.
So you need to be very, veryclear to begin with that this
will take some time for you tolearn to distribute your
knowledge further yes, and andhow do you equip them to

(13:11):
distribute their knowledge?

Mark Smith (13:12):
like, how do you, um , you know, do you provide them
resources, do you set up kind ofuh, a cadence of meetings?
Like, how do you encouragethose champions to, to, to talk
about, to share, to, you know,spread out their ideas and
thinking?

and, and, uh, you know, in regards to the, the
co-pilot technology, when itcomes to the Copilot technology,
I think it's easier becausethen you can use Copilot to
actually write those tips.
You need to distribute andstuff like that.
And I think also when I'm doingChampions Network within
Copilot, I like to keep themsmaller.

(13:52):
If you do Champions Networkswith a whole Microsoft 365, it's
okay to be a larger groupbecause then you distribute, you
can have like meetings, meetingscheduled meetings and stuff
like that.
But when it comes to copilot, weneed to all the time be top of
mind for all our colleagues touse copilot.
So you need to be moreefficient with your or have more

(14:15):
high frequency within your tipsor how to say it.
So if I had budget, I wouldgive them a lot of swag every
time they post something, butotherwise I mean it's the
knowledge they get.
I mean if we sit down first wetalk about what have happened
and then they will distribute,by the end of the meeting we

(14:37):
will all come together anddecide okay, you can take this
tip that we, or this prompt orthis function that we now.
Okay, you can take this tipthat we have, or this prompt or
this function that we now havelearned.
You will post that next weekand then I take it the other
week, so that you have aschedule that's running out.
I think you need to do it insome kind of way like that.

Mark Smith (14:54):
And then you know, have you been involved in things
like prompt-a-thons andagent-a-thons or any of these
type of things to grow the buzzinside an organization around
the art of what's possible?

I haven't yet, but I really want to because it
sounds like so much fun.
Yeah, yeah, I see thatMicrosoft that's on top of my
bucket list.

Mark Smith (15:14):
Yeah, microsoft are bringing out Agent Days now,
which I think they're wanting toget into 200 different
locations around the world.
Those events, so I thinkthere's, yeah, lots of new
opportunity, uh, in this spaceto develop, um, your thinking.
Tell me, how did you getnominated as an mvp?

uh, it was, after I've been a part of teams
dog again, a teams conference insw.
I was sent in, I submitted fora call for content and I got
chosen.
And then they liked me theorganizers and asked do you want
to come and join us organizing?
And I thought, whoa, yes, ofcourse that sounds super fun.

(15:54):
And then they said you're aperfect fit as a MVP.
And I was like what is that?
Almost Because I was so new inthe business.
So that was.
And that guy who nominated mealso became my colleague.
Oh wow.

Mark Smith (16:13):
That's so cool and tell me the best part of being
an MVP.

The community, I mean I love people and I love

(16:41):
the, because there's jobs forplenty of us.
And I also got job proposalsfrom fellow MVPs who said that,
oh, this is an assignment I cantake this and I think you will
be great in it, and I was likewhat?
This would never have happenedin my previous field of work and
I really love that.
And also I mean tech people.
I mean, if we are honest, techpeople can be pretty introvert.

(17:07):
And now you take the percentageof tech people that are
extroverts or most of them arenot all, of course, but most of
them actually like to speak atconferences and like people,
which makes it so much fun.

Mark Smith (17:21):
I like it.
My last question for you whatwas the highlight of MVP Summit,
your first MVP Summit?

I think it was the people and also to get to
chitchat with all theseMicrosoft people that I only
seen, like on Ignite, on thescreen getting to shake hands
with Karana, that was a bighighlight.

Mark Smith (17:44):
Hey, thanks for listening.
I'm your host businessapplication MVP Mark Smith,
otherwise known as the NZ365 guy.
If you like the show and wantto be a supporter, check out
buymeacoffeecom forward slashNZ365 guy.
Thanks again and see you nexttime.
Thank you.

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From Finance to Microsoft Tech - Caroline Kallin's Journey

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}From Finance to Microsoft Tech - Caroline Kallin's Journey