Episode 6 - Edine Olijva-Watkinson

Mike is joined by Edine Olijve-Watkinson in Episode 6 of 365 a11y the podcast. Edine takes us through her thoughts and views of Accessibility and the role of AI now and in the future.

An entertaining and educational conversation that presents a personal perspective on the familiar core questions, accompanied by a healthy dose of laughter!

Transcript

Mike Hartley (00:00)
Hello there, everyone. This is Mike Hartley with you again for another episode of 365 Ally, the podcast. And today I am delighted to welcome somebody again who I am meeting for the first time for real and who I know from WhatsApp. And it is Edine Olijva- Watkinson. So, Edine, thank you so much. Welcome to the podcast.

Edine Olijve-Watkinson (00:26)
Thank you Mike and you pronounced that completely correct so kudos to you.

Mike Hartley (00:32)
So a

bit behind the scene fact for folks, I did make sure I asked Edine twice how to pronounce a name properly and I made sure I spelt it phonetically on my screen. yeah, I always like to get people's names right because the amount of times I get called Mark and it really bugs me because it's like, it's not my name, please. So I always do it. I know.

Edine Olijve-Watkinson (00:55)
It's not even close!

Mike Hartley (00:58)
Alright, anyway, Edine, tell us about yourself, introduce yourself.

Edine Olijve-Watkinson (01:02)
So yes, I'm Edine I live in the Netherlands together with my husband. We have two dogs and four cats. I work as an AI consultant that used to be a modern work consultant, but everything is about AI these days, so so is my function title. I've been doing that for a year at this current company now. We're a big Microsoft partner and it's been really fun.

Oh yeah, I'm also a Microsoft MVP and I visit a lot of conferences throughout the entire year. I really love the community aspect of conferences. That's also where I met you Mike in the WhatsApp group from the community. Before that sounds really wrong, but no, the Microsoft community WhatsApp group.

Mike Hartley (01:40)
Yeah.

Well, welcome. Yeah, I mean, I've got to say, I mean, my whole journey into community really sort of began well with user groups, but then conferences and just meeting so many awesome people. It's an amazing world, the Microsoft community, all the different elements of it, the modern work community, the Azure community, the data, and then I'm from the business applications.

side of things, although I do step into sort of the modern work and the M365 world as well. I, I, I do. Yeah. I, I do kind of crossover a bit, particularly with accessibility, content. So, I, I liked to my nose in every now and then into other areas. You've got to keep it interesting.

Edine Olijve-Watkinson (02:13)
Understandably.

you

You're going to keep knowledgeable as well as I often end up sticking my nose in business apps or in compliance because it has something to do with a co-founder, the co-founder studio or agents in any other way.

Mike Hartley (02:33)
Yeah

you've got to keep your knowledge across everything haven't you?

I guess really first question that I'm kind of asking all my guests is what does accessibility mean to you?

Edine Olijve-Watkinson (02:48)
To me, means that everyone should be able to act and to work in a way that suits them best. let's say if you want to be surrounded by people all day, because that's how you do your work best, there should be a place for you to work like that. And if you work your best when you're isolated in a quiet area, then that should be possible as well. And what do you need? A big screen or a small screen or sit with a noise-canceling headset on?

or have music playing that should all be possible.

Mike Hartley (03:18)
Yeah, yeah, no, but 100 % agree with that. Can't fault that one at all, yeah. It's interesting for me because I've got a really nice setup that I've kind of built up over a few years. I've got a nice way of working at home. But one of the things I struggle with is social anxiety that...

Edine Olijve-Watkinson (03:23)
Yeah.

Mike Hartley (03:41)
in all honesty is only getting worse as the years are going on which is interesting because conferences can be a challenge. I have to really push myself to leave the front door to go to a conference. I know I'll enjoy it but I also know social battery will burn out and because of that social battery, whereas I could easily work five days in the office

10 years ago and I had to because that's what we did. If I had to go to working five days in an office now, I don't think I'd be able to do the community stuff anymore because my social battery would be constantly burnt out. So yeah, I think making it that we allow people to...

be the way that they need to be to function effectively and to the best and to the most comfortable that they can be without worrying the more stressing them.

Edine Olijve-Watkinson (04:34)
I can actually really relate to that and it's funny that you say it because I was as you were saying it I was just thinking yeah I used to work in an office five days a week and I don't know how I did it I don't think I can do it anymore I don't think I have the mental capacity anymore to do it

Mike Hartley (04:46)
Yeah, yeah, it's a really funny one because I was thinking about it only the other day with somebody who was saying they were having to, because of a client, they were going to have to go into the office five days a week. And I was just like, could I do that? I'd struggle. So no, it's an interesting one. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. So what...

Edine Olijve-Watkinson (05:02)
do it temporarily,

Mike Hartley (05:09)
What does accessibility in your daily life look like? How does that feature in your daily life?

Edine Olijve-Watkinson (05:16)
Well, it's obviously the good balance between office and home. But more than that, I have a Microsoft 365 co-planned license and I don't think I could ever work without it anymore. If you just think about being able to recap a Teams meeting or being able to ask questions after or during the actual meeting so I can pay attention to what's being said instead of having to focus on writing down what's being said and just be there in the meeting.

And as someone with autism, I always have questions after the meeting and after the fact. They ask you on the spot, do you have any questions? say, no, no, no, it's clear. then five minutes later, I'm like, oh no, wait, I've got tons of questions now. So it's good. It's always good to be able to just ask how bad it was exactly been said. Has my answer been questioned? Or do I have to get back to that person by mail or by team's message to get some more? But it also just helps me to break down really big

tasks or ⁓ help me focus on something else. Like if I get a specific task and I break it up into ⁓ little bits. Basically like a Lego building that's for an idea manual. To help me what to do, what to prioritize, what to keep track of, at which point do I have to communicate back to the client what I've done, that sort of thing. This is basically my own project manager and my own colleague that I can ask all sorts of things before I have to go to an actual

human to check with them.

Mike Hartley (06:35)
I mean, I've got to say having a, co-pilot in teams and outlook, it's just for me is yeah. I'm, I'm one of those people that if I'm in a meeting, I don't like writing notes because I want to give people my full attention. so

Before COVID, if I was doing workshops, and obviously that's kind of before co-pilot, I would always make sure there was somebody else in the room to write all the notes from the workshop if I was leading. And I still kind of do that now, but I will often have a Teams meeting open and I'll be recording the workshop just so I've got the co-pilot there to be able to say,

Right. Okay. What are the actions from this? What were the questions? And like you say, were they answered? And things like that.

What is the impact of AI for you? I mean, it doesn't have to just be the positives, it can be negatives as well. And if there are any challenges it's presented or has it all been something that's been beneficial for you?

Edine Olijve-Watkinson (07:45)
me it's all been beneficial, I can see how it could be negative if you ask an AI too much or if you treat it as your personal counselor then that might not be the right way to use it. in my daily work it's only helped me. So I've only really had positive experiences with it. And basically with anything that I think, I need some help with this, I I can build an agent for that.

Mike Hartley (08:06)
cool, so you make use of sort of agentic AI as well as just the copilot elements. ⁓ cool.

Edine Olijve-Watkinson (08:12)
Yes. ⁓

Mike Hartley (08:15)
⁓ So what kind of agents have you built? What kind of thing?

Edine Olijve-Watkinson (08:20)
I asked my colleague once for a checklist of things that I should be doing before I even start a new project.

And he asked me like, okay, you need to research the company on like market value, what the company's like, what they do. If we've already had a project with them before, who's worked on it, who could you ask for help? can do that with an agent. have graph connectors to our CRM and have a web search and just that became my personal project in Coldplay Studio with different topics and child agents. And of course it went way out of proportion, but it was fun and I learned a lot and it's a very

useful agent, no?

Mike Hartley (08:57)
Yeah, no, that one sounds awesome.

That sounds really useful. That sounds cool. Yeah.

Edine Olijve-Watkinson (09:02)
I'm very happy with it.

Mike Hartley (09:03)
Yeah, I can believe it. Yeah. Because yeah, no, that sounds. I like that idea. might borrow that idea. Borrow, borrow, take, take inspiration, I think is the nice way of saying, isn't it? I'll take inspiration from you on that one. No, that's that's really cool. I like I like that one. And

Edine Olijve-Watkinson (09:12)
It's really useful. It just saves you so much time.

Exactly. Yeah.

Mike Hartley (09:26)
I mean, obviously copilot and agents have made quite a big difference. I mean, things, I don't know, the innovation just doesn't seem to stop at the moment. It's one of those time periods where it is really racing ahead. And I mean, what do you...

What do you see as being the sort of future of accessibility in this sort of AI world of ours that we're now part of?

Edine Olijve-Watkinson (09:51)
you

Well I think it will go towards agentic AI and I've been having some some green leaves about it. Obviously if you're dyslectic you can already have it read to you so you don't have to read it yourself or just dictate to it and it will write for you so you don't have to write it, can take that out of the mix.

At the same time, think if agents get a more advanced, you can create a body doubling agent that will just help you on your screen by helping you to continue working whenever you get stuck or if it's noticed that you've been staring at an email for 10 minutes without typing a reply. Just give you a heads up or a notch like do you need a little help with this?

Mike Hartley (10:42)
Hmm.

Edine Olijve-Watkinson (10:43)
And I think that would be really cool if agents go that way. I don't think agents are just to make your business more effective. I think they should also make your employees more effective.

Mike Hartley (10:52)
Yeah, yeah, no. There was a friend of mine talking about sort of implementing like eye tracking with AI to kind of help with sort of that staring into the distance, getting sort of locked in on something and not moving on from it. So, yeah, I think, yeah.

can definitely see that one.

Edine Olijve-Watkinson (11:14)
Yeah, eye tracking is

actually a really good one for that one. Yeah, that's really smart.

Mike Hartley (11:18)
Yeah,

yeah, no, that'd be that'd be something really really quite cool and Yeah, quite fascinating actually

Edine Olijve-Watkinson (11:25)
Yeah, I like

that one. I can actually see where agents would be just as normal to have as like your laptop, your mouse, your keyboard, your chair, your desk, just something you need to do to you need to do your work in a more relaxed way for you.

Mike Hartley (11:39)
Yeah, I mean, I mean, let's be honest, a lot of us have the various home devices that I won't mention in case any of them go off anywhere. We've all kind of got used to having having those ones around us and. Yeah, having sort of agents, I always I always regret that.

Microsoft seem to be, they seem to be very good at having ideas that are a few years ahead of the technology. And so I think about Xbox and the Connect bar. And it was like, that was a really, really cool idea and a really good idea, but it was just a little bit too early. And then Cortana.

I I'm a gamer. Yeah, I'm a gamer. And for me, sort of being able to say, Cortana was a really cool idea. But it just didn't function properly because we didn't have the AI capabilities. Whereas now, I would love to be able to say to my PC now, hey, Cortana and upward pop.

Edine Olijve-Watkinson (12:30)
yeah, Cortana massively flopped, but it's back now.

Mike Hartley (12:53)
Cortana and have that co-pilot in the background, that large language model to be able to respond to me. And I'm really hoping somebody actually does do something like that because I just think that would be so, so cool. And yeah, having having Cortana as my agent working alongside me and I just geek out completely over that. That'd just be.

Edine Olijve-Watkinson (13:11)
definitely.

Mike Hartley (13:20)
Awesome. And of course, the other one we would have to mention is bring back Clippy, but powered by Copilot in the background so that we can all have. Yeah, all the dog as well. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that that'd just be so awesome. So Microsoft, if you're listening, we want Cortana, we want Clippy and we want Ro, I think it was Rover, the dog. And there was a cat as well.

Edine Olijve-Watkinson (13:27)
Yes, order little dog. The dog skin you had for Clippy.

think it'd be great.

Mike Hartley (13:44)
I can't forget the cat, but I'm a dog person. yes, Microsoft, we want those as our agents. We want those as our agents, bring them back. ⁓

Edine Olijve-Watkinson (13:44)
I've got the neighbor cats. ⁓

I have four cats but I forgot the cats.

Yeah,

just imagine to have a Cortana gaming agent and I play a lot of World of Warcraft so I end up having to Google a lot of quests and all that sort of thing. It'd be so much nicer if Cortana would just look at my screen and I could say look, where do I need to go? I am lost, where do I find this item? Where do I get it from? What's the ductus for this boss?

Mike Hartley (14:10)
Yeah, well, I mean,

yeah, they've rolled out Xbox co-pilot. So all they've got to do is give it a face and allow us to call it Cortana. Allow us to name co-pilot Cortana. And all of a sudden you'd have an army of gamers loving, loving it. That would drive up adoption of gamers. that'd be cool.

Edine Olijve-Watkinson (14:23)
Good.

Blizzard just got rid of their add-ons.

I don't think there's enough gamers but it might be a use case.

Mike Hartley (14:41)
Yeah, you see, I think there's a lot more gamers than we realize. So it's always interesting. No, I like that idea. Come on, Microsoft. Listen to us. We'll give you that one for free. Just let us test it first.

Edine Olijve-Watkinson (14:57)
Exactly, you've already

bought Blizzard so just make it happen.

Mike Hartley (15:00)
Yeah,

we'll be to test it for you. Hey, so I mean.

Obviously, I nearly said Cortana there. Obviously, Copilot is a really big part of how you...

work and how you get through the working day and what have you. mean, what would, if you were to give one sort of personal hot tip to people about accessibility, what would that be from your perspective? What would your number one tip for people be with accessibility?

Edine Olijve-Watkinson (15:34)
Use the scheduled prompts from Co-Pilot. Plan 2, one at the start of your day one at the end of the day. Write a prompt that will sum up what Co-Pilot thinks you need to be doing today based on your chats, channels, files and your calendar. At the same time have one at the end of the workday, also a nice reminder that it's the end of your workday, and recap of what you've actually done that day.

Obviously that does mean you have to write in your calendar what your expectations are for that day, besides that it's a useful one, it's nice. Especially if you need to write hours and need to remember what you've done and what you've worked on.

Mike Hartley (16:08)
Yeah, no, I that. ⁓ I'll, yeah, can even be just simply looking at your outlook calendar and the email and the teams messages you've got in and be able to go, well, you spoke to this person and you emailed them and that was all related to this project. And, no, no, ⁓ no, that's cool. That is really awesome. so,

Edine Olijve-Watkinson (16:30)
⁓ and

I have another hot tip. I've used this a lot for my performance reviews, where you have to get back to your manager about what you've achieved.

Mike Hartley (16:32)
I'm gone.

Edine Olijve-Watkinson (16:40)
that's what you've achieved in the last six months. We have them twice a year. I've also asked Colpada to list every single project I've worked on, what my role was in it, and if there's been any feedback somewhere in the chest they could find about the project. But yeah, that's how I discovered I actually did a lot more than I thought I had done.

Mike Hartley (16:56)
Yeah, yeah, that's a really good one. Simon Owen, who's kind of quite well known in the Microsoft community, he's been delivering quite a few talks where I work, he works at the same place, where he's actually used Copilot to help him with his

annual objectives and also to help him as you say with those sort of keeping track of performance and everything else and so it's interesting that you say the same thing it's yeah I'm gonna I'm gonna have to put some time aside to do that it's one of those things I keep thinking about and forgetting about I am gonna have to get my act together and do it

Edine Olijve-Watkinson (17:30)
you

Yeah, Copa is more than a glorified search bot.

Mike Hartley (17:44)
And that I think is a fantastic tagline. Copilot is more than glorified search box. No, I think that's brilliant. Well, Edine, I've got to say this has been absolutely brilliant. It has been fantastic getting to know you. It's been fantastic getting to hear about your sort of usage of AI and technology from an accessibility standpoint and

Edine Olijve-Watkinson (17:52)
Yeah.

Mike Hartley (18:07)
I would just like to say a massive thank you for being a guest on the podcast and it has been an absolute delight and hopefully our paths will cross at a conference or an event sometime soon. It'd be lovely to actually meet you in person. But yeah, it's been fantastic. Thank you very much.

Edine Olijve-Watkinson (18:30)
Yes,

thank you so much for having me, also for doing this podcast. And I do really hope that we meet at a conference this year, I think that'd be great.

Mike Hartley (18:38)
It would be absolutely wonderful. So folks, that's it for another episode of 365 Ally the podcast. I hope you've really enjoyed it. Go away. Take the lessons from today with you. Go and play with Copilot, build some agents. Somebody please build Cortana. And remember that Copilot is not just a glorified search box.

And on that note, I look forward to catching you all on the next episode and until then, thank you very much and bye bye.