Hosting a Teams Live Event

In these pandemic times with mass WFH (work from home), it is becoming more and more important to understand how to host online events. Physical audiences are turning into virtual audiences, spread throughout the world.

Microsoft Teams is a communication and collaboration platform that supports peer to peer video conferencing of up to 250 participants. For larger events, up to 10,000 attendees as of this writing, you can use Teams Live Events.

This is a guide to a practical use of Teams Live Events to host your own large event. From my own experience, I will describe what went well and what could go better for future Teams Live Events. This will be a blog post chock full of links & screen shots.

NOTE: Before executing a Teams Live Event, please make sure that running one and writing about it afterwards does not run against your internal company policies on using new technology by consulting with whatever group claims ownership. Internal compliance to standards is a bellwether of a healthy organization.

Every teams live event is segmented into 3 types of users:

1. Producers get to control what content (PowerPoint presentation) and what webcam feed (if any) gets shown to the attendees. Producers can be Presenters as well (I was a Presenter as well as a Producer).
2. Presenters get to speak about the content.
3. Attendees can only listen, and, if the meeting is configured for it, ask questions through the Q&A panel. Because the live event is recorded and buffered, attendees may be witnessing the content at different points in time, and not be in "real time".

To create a Teams Live Event

1. Launch Teams (web or exe) and visit Calendar.
2. New Live Event from the upper right corner UI
3. Fill out the first page for the live event. Pick Presenters from the Invite presenters UI on the right. You can make people Producers here, which may be nice to have as a backup, but too many cooks...
   
   
   Press Next
4. Fill out the second page. I prefer "Org-wide", but I think you can segment this where only specific people are attendees.
   I also like checking "Q&A" to enable attendees to send questions, and filling out a Support url,
   
   
   
   
   Press Schedule. Your Presenters and Producers that are not you will get the email invite.
5. Click on the created Calendar invite in Teams. You'll see a "Get attendee link". Copy that and communicate that url to attendees by whatever means you want (outlook meeting, internal company social media post, cleverly crafted interpretive dance with QR codes, ...)
   
   
   
   
   as these urls are long & ugly, I really like using the "CTRL+K" insert link feature to add them to outlook or your internal company social media system, and to create some nice human readable display text. People like seeing something like chickens with pants | google vs a huge wall of url text that causes content to scroll off the bottom.

Done - you've now scheduled your event

Make sure to do "dry runs" of the live event with your other producers and presenters AND SOME VOLUNTEER TEST ATTENDEES, so you develop a good flow. Creating multiple live events leading up to the real deal is, as far as I know, free and easy to do. Practice makes perfect.

On the day of the Live Event

1. You can either create a separate "green room" teams meeting for last minute coordination with the other producers and presenters, or you could probably use the live event as a means of coordination.
   
   As producers and presenters join the Teams Live Event, they can speak with each other, but attendees cannot hear them until they press the magic "Start Live" button.
2. Remove distractions. Mark yourself Do Not Disturb in Teams. Close outlook. Power down Alexa.
   
   
   

To start & run the Live Event

1. The Producer should start the PowerPoint presentation. I'd recommend a multi monitor configuration, where you have monitors, from left to right of:
1. Presenter View for slide deck - the one that shows presenter notes, the next slide coming up, etc.
   
   
   
2. Teams Live Event view - this is where the Producer will send Presenters live, and control what content shows.
   
   
   
3. Slide show view - this will be the content you send to the Live Event
   Control that monitor here:
   
   
4. The Producer wants this monitor configuration because you'll be mousing back and forth to the Teams Live Event view and picking Presenters to place in Queue & to send Live. The less distance you have to traverse, the easier. Trust me.
2. The Producer makes a choice of displaying either just a presentation, or a presentation and a video feed by picking from this UI under the yellow "Queue" window.
   
   
3. The Producer will share the presentation by picking "Share" in the lower right corner, and then choosing the Slide show (NOT the presenter view). Select the Content with your mouse in the yellow Queue window, and pick the Content of what you're sharing
   
   
   
   If you want to queue a video feed of a presenter, you can do the same. Click the right hand side video feed in the yellow Queue window, and then click a Presenter or Producer.
4. Click Send live and then Start Live on the live event. You're live to your attendees!
5. What shows on the right hand side window for the Live event is what attendees see.
   
   
   
6. The Producer moves through the slide show, and places speakers and content in Queue, by clicking at the appropriate place on the left hand yellow Queue window and then clicking on Presenters or Producers below.
   
   Move a Presenter to the live event by Queue'ing them and then pressing "Send live"
   
   I'd recommend sticking with a single piece of shared Content for an entire live event. It's a bit awkward to stop content and reshare new content. 
7. All Producers and Presenters have their audio playing on the live event, so MUTE YOURSELF IF YOU ARE NOT PRESENTING.
   
   Use the attendee chat to do coordination with presenters and producers. Watch that key clicks don't go in the audio feed (more muting!)
   
   
8. If a Presenter has bad internet and wants to use a dial in number, that is an option.
9. Somebody should monitor the Live event Q&A and field questions, promoting them from New to Published or Dismissed as appropriate.
   
   
10. Lather, rinse, repeat 
11. Press "End" to stop the Live Event. Once stopped, it cannot be restarted.
12. High fives, you're done

After the Teams Live Event

1. Visit the Teams Calendar event again to download a copy of the Recording (mp4, you can upload to microsoftstream.com), Q&A report, Attendee engagement report, etc.
   
   
2. The attendee engagement report will have an entry for each attendee for each join, so if internet blocks some attendees & they drop, you'll see them join multiple times.

What could have gone better

1. We wanted to have intro and exit music and some funny videos. Teams doesn't yet support routing PowerPoint audio as input to the Teams Live Event audio feed. I'm sure we could get some 3rd party software to create a fake audio input device that would "wrap" a microphone and audio out.
   
   Instead, the Producer (me!) leaned his head down next to the speakers so his microphone picked up the audio. For real.
2. One of the Presenters kept losing webcam feed, so the Producer had to re-queue their webcam as it came back. Luckily, audio was not lost, so this was probably not noticed by anybody.
3. As producer, seriously, watch the monitor configuration (details above). The less mouse gymnastics around queueing content and presenters, the better.

The "Lydia"

1. Glass of ice
2. 1 shot St-Germain
3. 1+ tablespoon cardamom simple syrup
4. top off with fizzy lemon water
5. Ignore the butter in the background. You don't want that in your drink.
6. garnish with lemon and the hopes of your ancestors

Called "The Lydia" after my neice, who is, unsurprisingly, named Lydia - her idea for cardamom simple syrup & elderflower as a combination.

CBFT

Creme Brulee French Toast

Ingredients

1. 1 stick of butter
2. cup of brown sugar
3. 1 baguette
4. 5 eggs
5. 1.5 cups half & half
6. vanilla
7. amaretto or some other fancy liqueur 
8. salt
9. cinnamon

Directions

1. melt butter, dissolve in brown sugar, pour in baking dish
2. cut crusts off of baguette (this is a PITA but really important. feed the crusts to your chickens)
3. Slice into half inch slices and place over the brown sugar
4. mix 
1. eggs, 
2. half & half, 
3. vanilla, 
4. tsp salt, 
5. .5 tsp cinnamon
6. glug of fancy liqueur
5. pour over bread
6. Cover, let set in a refrigerator overnight
7. Bake 350 35-40m

This is 100% an Easter staple for us. While my wife sets an amazing table with multiple dishes, this is my single paltry contribution, but it is fairly popular. I've gotten a few requests for the recipe, so here it is.

Note: this was largely driven by the allrecipes recipe, although I've done this one enough that I was able to type this one out from memory with my own tweaks.

Gin Drink With a Thousand Names

1. 1 Unit of Malfy's Blood Orange Gin. Yum.
2. 1-2 Tablespoons of simple syrup, infused with ginger & lemon.
3. Top off with Aldi Belle Vie lemon soda water. Known in the Kostrzewa household as "lemon sad soda"
4. Garnish with an overwhelming sense of optimism.

Crowdsourcing a name to this gin drink resulted in:

1. The Snotty Biotch
2. Ginger Maryanne Gilligan
3. Scurvy no more
4. The Headache
5. The Ron-Draco Ship
6. A Bloody Ginger Rogers
7. Pink Passion
8. Futile Breeze
9. Three Hour Tour
10. Heaven’s Stank 

My recommendation is that, like all things beautiful, it can be both every name and no name simultaneously.

Now, to deal with the fact that COVID-19 has taken all my gin away.

On the Theory and Practise of Hot Ham Water

At a venerable 50 years old, I attribute my longevity to two main pursuits: Daily-ish workouts in Wu style T'ai Chi Chuan, of which I am a registered disciple, and multi-day consumptions of a concoction that I call "Hot ham water".

Hot ham water is hot, but contains no ham. It's name derives from a single throwawy gag of an episode of Arrested Development. "So watery, yet there's a smack of ham to it!"

Making hot ham water is simple:

Ingredients

1. A teapot
2. Water
3. A knuckle of ginger. Please support your local Asian market by purchasing from them - it'll be much cheaper. Dressing your ginger as a lobster is optional.
   
   
   
   
   
4. A lemon. I care less where this is purchased.
5. A device to heat the water. I use a kettle. Others use other things.
6. (optional) Sweet osmanthus tea. I find the flavor pairings lovely, and I use this when I want an extra caffine boost beyond the 47,000 cups of coffee I drink each day.

Directions

1. Heat water to a boil.
2. Chop a thumb size of ginger into smaller bits.
3. Slice lemon in half, and then quarter it.
4. Ginger, quartered half-lemon, and optional tea goes into the teapot infuser (as a side note, it took me a while to figure out that was called an infuser. I did web search "teapot schematic". While not helpful, it was an interesting rabbit hole).
5. Pour water over the good stuff.
6. Drink in your favorite mug.
   
   

I will make about 4-5 pots of this throughout the day. When the ginger is less gingery, I'll throw the stuff away & start anew.

Special thanks to my many Indian friends & coworkers that extol the virtues of ginger. I often think of this as the "chicken soup" of India - a food that solves most physical and emotional problems. 

Peace to my original hot ham water custom designed mug

that was lost in Kalamazoo's own Lawson Ice arena while distracted by chaperoning a middle school party. I will see you at the crossroads, friend.

Vegetarian curry noodles

One of our daughters is originally from China and she is obsessed with noodles. My wife makes awesome miso kimchi noodles, that is a go-to.

As one of my favorite foods from pre-veg days was Singapore chow mei fun (Singapore style fried rice noodles with curry sauce & meat), I wanted to try to make something similar.

Making this is fairly effortless now, so I don't follow much of a recipe - it's mostly an excuse to "eat down" whatever vegetables are still good, but a little long in the tooth. I'll try to call out the important bits.

I'm also awful with sizing things. Pours are a "bloop", spices are a "blop". You know when you've done wrong.

Ingredients

1. Dry rice noodles & water to cook said noodles. Maybe 2-3 blocks of noodles.
2. Oil
1. canola, vegetable - the cheap stuff - used for frying
2. sesame oil - the expensive stuff - used for final dressing.
3. 2 eggs
4. Spices
1. curry paste or powder
2. cardamom powder
3. salt
4. pepper
5. Chopped Vegetables
1. Ginger (if you don't have ginger, you can substitute with spice powder. I also really like buying tube ginger when I find it. So much easier than mincing ginger).
2. Garlic and/or Onion - your aromatics
3. (Frequently) Mushrooms
4. (I would use, but she's not a fan of) Carrots
5. (ALWAYS) Cabbage, pref nappa. 
6. (Sometimes) Zucchini
7. (Frequently) Bell peppers
8. Other veggies - sure! I've even thrown in some chopped avacado after the cooking is done. Make sure to salt it with a nice chunky salt.
6. Sour liquid
1. I like & use mirin a lot - it's a good, kind of sweet flavor, but sometimes will use cooking sake. Whatever my hand hits first in our "cooking supports" cupboard.

About that cabbage - I fell like cabbage gets such a bad rap, and it's delcious. Stays crunchy on a fry, I love the texture. Cabbage all the things!

Steps

1. Get water boiling for noodles. Don't put your dry noodles in yet - they will cook in about 2m, and you want them slightly not done, so they can finish cooking with the good stuff below.
2. Get your wok on med/high heat with a bloop of frying oil. Let it heat up. If you don't have a wok, a regular pan is fine, as long as it has sides so stirring veggies doesn't make a stove mess.
3. Beat eggs with curry paste/powder, salt and pepper.
4. Cook your eggs, but not completely. Cooking will happen super quick & they should a bit liquidy . Throw them right back in the container you used for beating.   
5. If you need an extra bloop of frying oil, add it here.
6. Add your ginger, garlic / onion
7. Throw a little bit more curry paste / powder & cardamom on. Stir together for about 30s, so they cook but do not burn.
8. Throw in your other chopped veggies. This being a stir fry implies that you will stir, while they fry.
9. Salt & pepper the mix. Cook maybe 2-3m. It's an art, not a science.
10. Remember the boiling water? You're going to want to throw in the noodles here.
11. Add a bloop of the mirin or sake (or whatever sour liquid you pick). Cover the veggies & let them steam in it. 
12. When the noodles are not quite done, pull them out & throw them on the wok & mix with the rest of the stuff.
13. Remember the eggs? Throw them in now too.
14. Stir. Fry, maybe another 2-3m
15. Turn off the heat. dress with a little bit of the expensive sesame oil. Mix. 
16. Salt to taste to get flavors to pop.

Enjoy!

Photos
Ignore the mess. Life is suffering and chaos

stir fry

nappa cabbage!

noodles, quick boil

steam veggies in cooking sake

final mix with egg

Zoom resources

Available to the public

• Zoom installation
• Zoom meeting setup
• Zoom backgrounds

Labelling as alcohol, because zoom is where I'm meeting friends for drinks during Covid 19.

How I work

In no order, and in a list that will be augmented over time, here's some best practices that I've developed for work. This is tech heavy.

YMMV. No animals were harmed in the creation of this list.

1. If you are bored doing a thing, go do a different thing.
2. Microsoft OneNote is your friend. It should be always open on every computer you use and you should be effortless with its usage.
1. Assign a Windows HotKey to OneNote. Windows+7 (lucky number) gets me there on every computer I own.
2. Create a diary tab. Every day gets a diary page in that tab, which will have cruddy notes about what you're working on. 
3. Do NOT curate your diary entires. Write it and walk away. Curation is a suckers game here and you will lose; The idea is just to write something down as you're doing it.
4. Create a contacts tab. That's where you list who you know & what they do.
5. Create a TODO tab. This contains checkbox lists of parked things that YOU and YOU ALONE are working on. Check the boxes as the jobs get done. It should be effortless to add a TODO.
6. My TODO tab has 2 pages, one for personal TODO and one for subjects I need to discuss with my supervisor that do not require immediate attention.
7. Create an interview tab for notes during interviews, duh.
8. Other tabs for more significant projects that you're working on, pages in those tabs. 
9. OneNote is designed to be a hot garbage mess of your thoughts. It's ok.
3. Tasks that require collaboration or more ceremony should be thoughtfully put into whatever task tracking system you use. We use Azure DevOps. Others do not.
4. While trite, "Be the change you wish to see". Seriously. Complaining = volunteering to own a problem.
5. Everything is absurd.
6. Make a good playlist for getting stuff done. Here is mine.
7. Allocate an hour of time a week to go over your backlog of work. Block it on your calendar and don't let anybody schedule over it. This is time for you to go over any personal or group tasks and curate them - is it really active? is the language precise about what needs to be done? We're not writing Tolstoy, but collaborative tasks should be written in a way that all stakeholders can understand them.
8. Going from 0 to 1 is hard. Going from 1 to 2 is easy. Better to get something written and iterate towards better than wait until the initial delivery is perfect.
9. Do you work out loud and model good behavior for those around you.
10. In computer programming, there is no magic. Everything happens deterministically for a reason. That reason can be highly complex, but is not magic.
11. Eat your own dog food. Use the tools you create, so you can make them better.  
12. "Make the space better for me having been there". Every time I edit a file to make a change, I see if there's other work that I can do that would be safe but make the file a little bit better - better comments, more tests, etc. See safe refactoring rules.  
13. Everybody's time is precious. Remember your "pleases" and "thank you's". Politeness is a sign of a well functioning social order.  

Drink recipe: Brenda

1. Shot of gin
2. 1 Tbps of rosemary syrup (simple syrup & throw in a big sprig of rosemary. you're welcome).
3. fill the remainder of the glass with equal parts 
1. cheap Aldi Belle Vie Lemon Water 
2. cheap Aldi Burlwood extra dry sparkling
4. Shake, serve over ice, garnish with a dagger

I call it Brenda.  Pairs well with Lays sour cream & onion chips.