Session Abstract

As a company owner, I had to admit something to myself that honestly scared me a little: Me and my team wasn’t lacking motivation. Their brains were simply full. Unread emails. Constant follow ups. Meetings that create more meetings. People spending entire days reacting instead of creating, thinking, or focusing. And the worst part? We started accepting this chaos as “normal work”. In this session, I’ll share the uncomfortable lessons I learned while building a modern company drowning in communication overload and why Microsoft Copilot became less of an AI tool and more of a survival tool for everyday work. Together, we’ll walk through real situations from my own daily business life: overflowing inboxes after vacation, lost tasks hidden in endless mail threads, and the exhausting feeling of never mentally leaving work behind. Takeaways: How communication overload silently destroys focus and creativity Practical ways Copilot can reduce mental load in everyday work Why the future of productivity is not working faster but thinking clearer

Sandra Kiel

I’m Sandra Kiel – gamer, Playpreneur and founder of Event Punks. I help organisations turn dry, complex topics into playful experiences: from gamified Power Apps and Copilot adoption journeys to learning quests in Microsoft 365 and Gaming Platforms like Minecraft. My heart lives where people, play and technology meet. I work with game design principles, storytelling and UX to make change, learning and new tools feel less scary and more human. As an introvert, a mum and a non-native English speaker, I don’t fit the classic “loud tech speaker” stereotype – and I’m totally fine with that. On stage, I share real-world projects, honest lessons and practical patterns teams can reuse the next day. My talks are for people who want less buzzword bingo and more concrete ideas on how to bring play, curiosity and adoption into their everyday work.