Russell Smith

Many organizations are rushing to adopt artificial intelligence (AI), but according to Troy Norcross, AI Governance Advisor and Founder of SERTeam, they are approaching the challenge from the wrong direction. In a recent episode of Petri Dish, Norcross explained that too many companies are starting with AI and looking for places to use it, rather…

Microsoft 365 is the productivity backbone for many organizations, but it doesn’t include a ‘complete’ backup solution out-of-the-box. Microsoft has improved the native story with Microsoft 365 Backup and Microsoft 365 Backup Storage, but third-party backup solutions remain important because they often cover more workloads, offer richer retention and recovery options, and provide additional data…

AI is changing almost every part of the tech hiring process, from how candidates tailor résumés and apply for roles to how employers screen, assess, and communicate with applicants. But as both sides lean more heavily on automation, the process risks becoming noisier, less personal, and harder to trust. In this episode, I’m joined by…

Microsoft Entra ID is now the identity control plane for many organizations, but managing Entra ID well is no longer just about creating users, assigning groups, or enabling multifactor authentication (MFA). Identity teams are dealing with hybrid Active Directory (AD), Microsoft 365, SaaS apps, privileged access, contractors, lifecycle automation, audit evidence, service accounts, and identity-based…

Copilot Cowork is here but so are Copilot Credits, cost controls and awkward ROI questions. This month, Russell Smith and Craig Birch also dig into Windows Ready Print, NTLM’s future, and Microsoft’s passkey push. Episode overview Thanks to Cayosoft for sponsoring this episode!

Is your organization building real business value with AI or just putting on a show? In this episode of Petri Dish, Russell Smith speaks with Troy Norcross, Founder of SER Team, Fractional COO and AI Governance Advisor, about why so many enterprise AI projects fail to deliver meaningful results. Instead of starting with a clear…

Finance wants to become more strategic, but IT has to provide the governed, trustworthy data foundation first. In this episode of Petri Dish, I’m talking to Brian Kobleur, who is Vice President of Ecosystems at Vena Solutions. We discuss how the humble Excel spreadsheet is still quite often the core tool used by financial planning…

ASUS has announced the ASUS Ascent QN10, a compact Windows on Arm mini PC powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X2 Elite, pairing an 18-core Oryon CPU with an 80 TOPS Hexagon NPU, up to 32GB of RAM, and up to 4TB of NVMe storage in a small 130 x 130 x 40mm chassis. In this episode,…

I recently sat down with Brian Alvey, CTO of WordPress VIP. We chatted about how WordPress has evolved from a blogging platform into a critical piece of enterprise infrastructure, powering some of the world’s most demanding, high-traffic websites. “We host the biggest and most important WordPress websites on earth… and we have to make sure…

AI agents are moving beyond simple productivity helpers and becoming autonomous workers across Windows, Microsoft 365, and enterprise systems. In this episode of Petri Dish, Russell Smith talks with Craig Birch, Principal Technologist at Cayosoft, about Microsoft’s AI agent announcements from Build, including Agent 365, Microsoft 365 E7, agent identity, permissions, governance, and the risk…

Microsoft 365 Copilot User Subscription License (USL) is a paid add-on license for users who want Copilot inside Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Teams. To buy it, you need a qualifying Microsoft 365 or Office 365 base plan. It isn’t included by default in Microsoft 365 E3 or E5, and smaller organizations on Microsoft 365…

The new Low Latency profile is a noticeable improvement to Windows 11 responsiveness, particularly in parts of the interface that previously felt inconsistent. Why this update feels different I’m usually skeptical when Microsoft talks about performance improvements in Windows 11 because too many of them are hard to feel in day-to-day use. The new Low…