Microsoft Teams: Your virtual office

I was recently asked by someone new to Teams this simple question:

Is there any Teams etiquette for new people - would it be appropriate to introduce myself in the General channel and ask others to do the same?

This got me thinking about what a Team actually is and a Team is, quite simply, your virtual office.

In the office: you overhear conversations your colleagues are having; In Teams: you see conversations others are having in the various channels.

In the office: you share paper documents and talk about them; In Teams: you share electronic documents and have conversations about them.

In the office: Several people might scribble comments on a paper document; In Teams: several people might comment on / amend the same document in the Files tab (and, even better, they can do it at the same time!). 

In the office: you talk to each other and point at a screen when reviewing information; In Teams: you talk on a video call and share your screen to point at things with your mouse.

In the office: you form ideas and solutions in a meeting room with the aid of a paper flip-chart or white-board; In Teams: you form ideas and solutions in a Teams meeting with the aid of an electronic whiteboard.

In the office: you'll signpost people to other sources of information by sharing a website address; In Teams: you signpost people to other sources of information by adding websites as tabs in the relevant channel.

Continuing this theme, if you walked into a new office and didn't know people, you'd probably introduce yourself. It's therefore entirely appropriate to do the same in a new Team and invite others to introduce themselves as well.

Whether you're a dab hand with Teams or brand new to it, I'd thoroughly recommend watching the Microsoft Teams video training to see exactly how all this works. They're all 2-3 minute videos with some additional notes to help you out, so well worth going through if you can find a spare hour or so.