Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to the video of the first video of the first video of the first video of the first video of the first video of the first video of the first video of the first video of the first video of the first video of the first video of the first video of the first video of the first Hello. Hello. Welcome to Microsoft Community Insights Podcast, where we share insights from community experts. This is Day to Day Microsoft. I am Nicholas. I'll be your host today. In this podcast, we'll dive into a theme of future work empowering people through AI and community. Before we get started, everyone follow us on social media so you never miss an episode and help us reach more amazing people like yourself. Today we have a special guest called Heather Cook. Can you please introduce yourself?

Speaker 2: 1:19

Sure, Hi Nicholas. Thank you so much. Hello everyone, Thank you for having me on. My name is Heather Cook. I'm coming to you from Los Angeles today.

Speaker 1: 1:27

So no worries. So can you, before we get started, can you explain, like, what you do and who you are? I'm going to guess.

Speaker 2: 1:37

Yeah, you bet Absolutely. I am a principal PM manager on the customer advocacy team for Microsoft 365. So I work at Microsoft. I've been in my role just over I don't know about a year and a half on the M365 side of the house. I was on the Power Platform Community and Dynamics 365 team, leading that team, for a few years, and then I've been in and around Microsoft It'll be 25 years next year with many hats. Sometimes I've been a full-time employee, other times I've been a vendor. I've been a partner, microsoft MVP for Microsoft 365. I run community events. I've been an event producer for a very long time and I was a theater major back in the day at the University of Washington in Seattle. Go Huskies, okay.

Speaker 1: 2:24

So if we rewind in the day, at the University of Washington in Seattle go Huskies. Okay, so if we rewind in the past, what was your first role at Microsoft and how did you get into Microsoft?

Speaker 2: 2:34

Sure, yeah, well, my first role at Microsoft was actually as a consultant vendor back in 2001. And uh, I had been looking, I'd gotten um laid off from a, uh, this really great sort of machine shop engineering shop for digital film cameras, uh in seattle. Yeah, back when we actually, you know, we took pictures with film, yep, and uh, I sent out an email to a bunch of friends and I had been doing some marketing consulting in town, uh, helping arts organizations, and a friend of mine that I went to college with at UW, who graduated with me, his wife was working at Microsoft. And he said, you know, I think Nancy needs some help doing some case study writing and some things. And he's like I know you're a writer as well as a, you know, actor and stuff, so maybe you should talk to her. And I said, cool.

Speaker 2: 3:24

So he introduced me and we met and she was the first group product manager for SharePoint, and that was in 2001. And so she hired me to write the first 150 case studies ever written on SharePoint. So that was my first job in and around Microsoft. It was super fun. So, yeah, a long time ago.

Speaker 1: 3:45

So, you learned quite a lot in SharePoint, so that was my first job in and around Microsoft. It was super fun. So, yeah, long time ago.

Speaker 2: 3:50

So you learned quite a lot in.

Speaker 1: 3:51

SharePoint.

Speaker 2: 3:52

Yeah, for sure it was. You know it was like SharePoint team services and Windows SharePoint services and SharePoint portal server. So yeah, back in the beginnings of this, you know we just reached 1 billion users literally last month. So, like from writing the first case studies to watching this product grow to 1 billion users has been a pretty cool journey. So yeah, okay.

Speaker 2: 4:23

So you know, in a few years' time after that, how did you get into the 365 community? You know, for me it was because, uh and in. So I started working in and around microsoft in 2001, yeah, and I was working on marketing, kind of marketing projects, you know. Um, I was working with, uh, the fellow who was leading partners, which his name was joel fronheim back in the day, and he, he had me actually onboard the first 50 partners that SharePoint ever had. So I called everybody up and, you know, said, hey, do you want to, you know, be a SharePoint partner? And people were like, yeah, of course, that's what. It was a lot of ISVs, you know that they were building solutions and so, and then we wanted to put on an event, and so we decided to put on the first event on campus and it was actually, funnily enough, it was called a SharePoint Smackdown. It was kind of like a wrestling tournament where people brought their web parts that they were creating.

Speaker 2: 5:20

Yeah, and there was this contest about who had the best web part.

Speaker 2: 5:23

Oh, it's like a challenge, yeah yeah, it was kind of a little hackathon and that was flashed in 2003 and so then we decided we wanted to put on a, an actual bigger conference. And then that was the first sharepoint conference where we had mr gates bill great speak and we had it on campus and um, yeah, and that was yeah 2003. So to me that was I. I got into the community because, um, I was helping bring people to sharepoint, so I was connecting the people who the community, who was already making, you know, all of these solutions, to the product teams, who was making sharepoint. And so I was kind of, I would say I was kind of a conduit actually in between.

Speaker 2: 6:04

It was like, hey, community folks, come do these fun things. And hey, product team, you know, meet the community. And so I was in the middle of really that moment of like, hey, you know, wait a minute, there's all these people are super psyched about this product. And hey, there's the product maker. So I kept getting projects and things from Microsoft that kind of helped, you know, facilitate those meetups and then those you know, user groups and the SharePoint Saturdays and different contests and hackathons and that kind of thing. So I was kind of that middle person between everybody helping create that, and it was really organic. You know, it wasn't like I'm going to build this community or we're going to build community. It was the community existed or was starting to exist, and then it just, you know, kind of started snowballing from there, which was really cool yeah.

Speaker 1: 6:57

Is that? Is that how you like? Get started in 365 community and then enjoy the community and from there and progress.

Speaker 2: 7:09

Yeah, absolutely. I was lucky enough to just continue to get projects, so I was a vendor of what they call a VDAS or consultant, and I worked through many cool, wonderful businesses. And yeah, and I kept getting hired by other you know internal Microsoft employees that were like, oh, I heard you did this project and oh, I heard you, you know, did logistics or produce this event. And I'd be like, yeah, I did. And so they would be like, well, do you want to do one for us? And so I basically just said yes, you know, to anybody everybody, you know I was like it's work and money, Yay, Right, yeah.

Speaker 2: 7:46

And then, you know, it was one of those things where I got to use my creativity and theater, in that I got to dream up events and projects and prizes for contests, and so I had all of that stuff that was coming from me and then I was learning about, you know, working for an enterprise class company like Microsoft.

Speaker 2: 8:08

You know process procedures and I've always loved gadgets and technology too. So you know, like, with SharePoint, when it started it was like I was building SharePoint sites internally all the time to run our events. You know, like I would create a new SharePoint site to run whatever event we were doing. So I was learning how to build on the technology. At the same time, I was bringing creative ideas about how we should do fun things and celebrate people all at the same time. So it was a great learning experience for me as a technologist and as someone who really had that creative side of my education. But then I really got my computer and business education from truly working at Microsoft and working as a vendor and then as an employee and all kinds of different things.

Speaker 1: 8:58

Yeah, because you're quite popular in the physics community. So I see you're quite there, so I know that you're quite popular. But do you want to talk about some of the community work you've done? And you can mention the microsoft community initiative that you and et oh yeah, like. How is it founded as well? What's the main purpose of it?

Speaker 2: 9:20

yeah, well, thank you for saying that. I, you know it's I. I feel very lucky. I work really hard too, but I feel very lucky that you know I've had a lot of really great people in my life, great mentors and people who've given me opportunities to, you know, to to use my skills. And you know, at heart, I think I'm a producer, you know, and so I love producing things and moments and events and all that. So, yeah, I think so, gosh, you know I'll go back a little to the SharePoint Saturdays, right?

Speaker 2: 9:54

So, yeah, the SharePoint Saturdays, that whole thing again started super organically as well. As you know the SharePints of like going and you know meeting up with people and having, you know, doing a social activity, you know, out somewhere, and what happened was during, you know, the COVID pandemic that you know, as we were moving into 2020, you know everything went from you know the physical, in real life, to digital right, we all went online and I think at that time, you know SPS events, which was the nonprofit that Susan Lennon and Eric Harlan were running, that housed you know the website for all of the SharePoint Saturdays. You know they've been running it for a really long time and it had just grown and grown and grown. And any given Saturday, as you know, there were like three SharePoint Saturdays going on somewhere in the world Right, which was so cool, and you know MVPs, microsoft most valuable professionals and user group leaders and regional directors, and you know people in their communities, you know, decided to, you know, put on these shows year after year with so many volunteers and partner sponsoring and everything, and I think everybody, you know, was like what are we going to do? You know, like, like what happens if we can't get together? And so that kind of converged at the same time of that of the, the nonprofit, being around for a long time, everything trying to flip to digital and um, and, and I think you know Eric, eric and Susan had decided that they were going to close the nonprofit and close the spseventsorg site, and so everybody was like, oh, my goodness, what are we going to do? You know we can't let that happen, you know, or what you're, how should we pivot? You know.

Speaker 2: 11:39

And so there were lots of conversations. There was a big conversation actually on Facebook about it and there was a lot of talk of like how do we keep it going? And so, you know, there was a lot of different conversations that were going on. And then I heard that Tom Daley, who's a Microsoft MVP out of you know. You know, tom out of New York, said we're going to build a new site. You know, we're going to take, take up the reins and continue this great thing. And I was like oh my goodness, and I was on the Power Platform team at the time and I reached out to Karuana Gatimu, who is now my manager and somebody I've worked with for a long, long time now, and I said, hey, and I think she had heard it too. She was like I heard about this and I was like, cool, I was like we should talk to tom. And so we did and said to tom hey, you know, like you and the other folks that have been, working on these things.

Speaker 1: 12:32

You know, let's have you. Yeah, build it. And yeah, yay, maybe microsoft can support it. So we can put it on microsoft infrastructure community daysorg formed.

Speaker 2: 12:36

Yes, exactly yeah, so that's communitydaysorg. That's how that website happened, yeah, and so you know that's, and it's still that same way right now is. Tom is a board member of the Microsoft Global Community Initiative, mgci, which you were referencing, which I'm happy to talk about. That all got, you know, started kind of at the same time and, yeah, it's become really the place where people list their Microsoft community events paid events and free and hybrid and all of that. Tom and team of volunteers still keep up that site and then it is on Microsoft infrastructure, meaning it's, you know, it's in our community tenant and all that. So that communitydaysorg started and then we thought, you know, let's, maybe you know we need something around that that is going to help event producers and people who want to put on events existing event community. You know people who are already doing it, but then also new people who might want to start. So we created the Microsoft Global Community Initiative, which we you know we love our acronyms, right so MGCI and so, and that has become a place that the communitydaysorg connects into and it's connected to it.

Speaker 2: 13:50

But the initiative itself is a place where people can find event templates, how-tos, it's a place where people can talk together. It's a place where you can learn from other event organizers. We have an event training once a month. We have a general session once a month. Those are all online meetings, teams, meetings that we record and then we put those on the Microsoft Community Learning YouTube channel so that people can learn. We have a site up on adoptionmicrosoftcom for MGCI that explains all about it, and it's 10 board members from the community and 70 regional leaders, as you know. Yay. So thank you, yay. And so we've got all of that good stuff up there. So the people, and then we actually were moving our discussions and blogs and all of that stuff. We already have moved it to the Microsoft tech community. So there's a community hub there for MGCI where people can ask questions in the forum. We can post blogs and we're putting up all of our events. Those general sessions and the event training are all up there too. So, yeah, that's how that evolved and started.

Speaker 1: 14:55

Nice. So fast forward to the present days. Do you think the community today would change with AI around? Would it make things easier to organize things?

Speaker 2: 15:09

I hope so. Yeah, I mean, I'm already dipping into it for sure. And yeah, I think you know I mean using tools like SharePoint agents, github, copilot. I'm using M365 Copilot every day to help me, you know, write certain things. And I'm just started using researcher, which is unbelievable. I mean wow, like how cool is that? So, yeah, I do, I think I think it will. You know I'm.

Speaker 2: 15:39

What's one of the things I'm actually, funnily enough, I'm doing this summer is that, you know, we just ended our fiscal year and so I did a bunch of recaps and so I used M365 Copilot. You know, I used a prompt of you know, go back and look at all of the event recaps that I did for the year and create a bigger recap for me, with each event having a small bullet and how many people were there, highlights and all of that stuff. And so I used it for that internally to be able to send that and post that through Viva Amplify and then out to Viva Engage so I could share that with our internal teams. So I'm going to use it with Brian Hart, who works on the infrastructure and architecture of the community tenant and the MGCI, and then also on our team, jesse Huang, who runs the adoptionmicrosoftcom. So I'm going to use it on content, content planning. I'm going to use it for scheduling. I'm thinking about how to use AI and then set up things with Power Automate and then do some of that stuff. So, yeah, I'm. So me running like a community initiative. I'm using it for that for sure.

Speaker 1: 16:53

Yeah, yeah, you can still use that like Copilot or an AI like Microsoft Copilot to help you plan agenda and stuff. So it's quite useful to plan your events as well yeah, for agendas also.

Speaker 2: 17:10

Yes, because I'm using it to try it out and see what you know, see how it works. I have you know. I was like, hey, can you generate LinkedIn posts for me for all the different events that we're doing? And I put them in and you so I've got like this now. Like my social media plan was built by Copilot and it was and I pointed it at different documents that we were already using as grounding documents to pull in the information. So, yeah, super cool.

Speaker 1: 17:39

Okay, so what do you think? Sorry, do you have any? Is there any specific use case that you use AI for? Or you just use it for everyday work, like planning events, working like through emails and stuff?

Speaker 2: 17:54

Yeah, I mean, I think, the social media for sure, writing blurbs for things and posts, that's been super helpful. So prepping all of that I like to prep things in advance too, and so when I'm looking at you know, the next six months, I'm looking at you know, do we already have guest speakers lined up, and who are they? And so I'm planning sort of the content amplification of those things using M365, copilot, and I have different documents where I keep you know, here's the plan. I'll create the plan with Copilot and then I'll say, hey, you know, create the social media plan underneath it. So I'm definitely using it for that.

Speaker 2: 18:38

I'm also, I think, the researcher tool I was using to look at also just event production in general. I was thinking about what's new in event production. What's the feel of the industry? Are people interested in longer sessions, like 60-minute sessions, or do they really like the 20-minute kind of tug-of-war kind of sessions? And so I'm using Researcher to help me formulate my strategy for this next year, thinking about how we Microsoft 365, our team is going to participate in events coming up, and I can use those insights to share with our event producers and say, hey, here's the trends in the industry that we're seeing and what people are thinking about and what they want, so I'm using it for a few different things, for sure.

Speaker 1: 19:30

Yeah, you can use it for like a polling as well, to get people feedback on this big stuff they like.

Speaker 2: 19:35

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 19:37

Have you been using like agents on 365 before? Like creating agents to do an email or anything.

Speaker 2: 19:44

Yeah, you know I use. The big change for me is that I used to start my day in Teams, yeah, and now I start my day in M365, copilot, and so you know I go, you know you have those set prompts that you can use. You know, tell me what my day is like or give me the hot stuff you yeah, yeah, so that's one of the big changes, um, and I really I'm.

Speaker 2: 20:12

the other thing is is that I think for me one of the changes too is that, um, because I was building so much and I helped so much with the switch from physical to digital with Teams. Teams is so powerful, right, and I still use it just about as much as the co-pilot for right now, but the thing is is that I also SharePoint is such a powerful tool and so the center of the universe for me for a while was Teams. And now, with a lot of the new capabilities in SharePoint and that are building on the pages and the gorgeous design and all the templates so much Melissa Torres she was with us at TechCon Seattle here this last week and just all the things that she was showing us the adaptive page, the different pages, and just it's. It's so exciting. So I'm thinking a lot about how I want to potentially, this summer, rebuild some things internally for myself of how we manage events with SharePoint really as the focal point not necessarily Teams, of course, sharepoint really as the focal point not necessarily teams, of course, but SharePoint as that showpiece for showing people information, and because I want to build a bunch of SharePoint agents too, and that's really exciting to me.

Speaker 2: 21:34

So we built one SharePoint agent, adam Harmitz, who's my skip level manager. He was our executive sponsor for the M365 community conference and he challenged me. He was like hey, do you want5 community conference? And he challenged me. He was like hey, do you want to, you know, create one of these for, uh, the show? And I was like awesome, yeah. So, um, my brian hart and I worked on it together with their team, and it was a little pre before things came out too, so we were kind of dogfooding it as well, and so it was really cool to to build behind, you know, an agent and it was all for our speakers basically. So we were anybody who was internally speaking at the show. We grounded, um, that agent against the what we call. We call it a walking deck and it's a deck that's got every PowerPoint deck, that's got everything about the show.

Speaker 2: 22:17

You can imagine in it, right? Uh, we did a speaker training, so we had a recording. We had another deck that was all about accessibility and making sure that your decks were accessible and inclusive, and so we had about five. It was about four or five grounding documents that we pointed the agent at. Instead of us answering 15 million questions over and over again, we could take and tell everybody, hey, go check out the agent first and ask your questions there, and it worked really well. We got a lot of great feedback and what was cool is because it was a little bit pre-before it launched, we got to give a bunch of feedback on it back to the team, which was really cool. So, yeah, I love that. I am doing that. I'm going to build those for every show that we're doing. I also there's the new FAQ web part. That is amazing. That is. If you haven't seen that or checked that out yet, Melissa was just talking about it in the keynote. She showed a demo of it, but you know how to write.

Speaker 1: 23:19

It. Is that on SharePoint? Sharepoint.

Speaker 2: 23:23

Yeah, I mean, think about how tedious it is to write an FAQ Because you have to think of all the questions right and then all the answers, and you have to every time this thing is. It's so WYSIWYG, it's crazy. Like I just I was like I need to do this thing and it was like, and I was like I was so excited. So, like, those two things I think are going to change the way I work on event production, internally to our internal Microsoft speakers, but also with how I speak with our you know, the initiative members and also hopefully like up how-tos for our event producers to use when they're managing events with community speakers as well. So that'll be cool?

Speaker 1: 24:11

Yeah, because you can put that into a document, like in a PDF, and so send it off. And the agent just emails it to people. Yep 100%.

Speaker 2: 24:19

So, yeah, super cool. So I'm excited to. This is going to be my summer. My summer is going to be building agents and working on taking some playbooks and turning them into agents as well. So, yeah, I'm going to. I just sometimes you just need to re-architect things, and so I'm going to spend the summer doing some of that, which is really cool, okay.

Speaker 1: 24:41

What's your best advice to anyone who wants to start building agents using like microsoft, like 365 or copilot?

Speaker 2: 24:49

oh yeah, I mean. Well, first of all it's it's on the left hand rail. So if you're in microsoft 365, copilot, um, the left rail is literally there's. Like you know, you can build an agent right then and there, and there's also some prefab stuff that you can look at for templates. I would say that the place I always start and send everybody honestly is adoptionmicrosoftcom, and there is a new AI agents page there with step-by-step instructions and information about adopting the software which we're all trying to adopt, the software, right. So, but it's, it's awesome. We just launched that. Jesse was working on that with the, with the product team, and we launched that at Microsoft build and so she talked about it there. But there's yeah, I'm pretty sure it's there's an AKA link for it. It's. I can I can make sure you have the AKA link to put in your show notes, but it's going to be, it's already up. It's awesome. That's totally where I would start.

Speaker 2: 25:51

But also, you know, if you've got Copilot and you can check out the left rail and just sort of look around for the beginnings of you know what it's like and just try something. You know, I think that's that's the thing is that you just try and build an agent and you know you can have one grounding, two grounding documents that you can even make up. You know I I'll tell you I was using. I have a, I have another copy of, I have M365 Copilot and I have a personal. I have a copy of it that I pay for myself at home and through one of my businesses, and I was using it the other day to look up a bunch of stuff, even about my own health. I was wanting to think about a better workout and what vitamins I take and kind of all that stuff, and so I basically put it all into Researcher and was like boop and it's something that now I can take and I can go talk to my doctor about.

Speaker 1: 26:45

So yeah all kinds of uses, so yeah, I guess the only people to to help like use copilot, like copilot, would be the elderly people like your parents, your family, because it will help them more like, yeah, with accessibility, like if someone's not in no english and from a different language, that would help a lot as well.

Speaker 2: 27:06

So yeah, I can mention accessibility for sure. Yeah, I mean, I think you know, I think it's you know and people like oh, you know, is ai I think can be a community amplifier? You know, I think it can help us build content faster. Um, I think it's really about you know, telling stories about what people are doing, solving real, real problems with ai. That's really exciting to me and I think you know it's, it's, um, it's one of those things where just give it a try you know so many, so many people are like what's the ai thing?

Speaker 2: 27:43

and it's.

Speaker 1: 27:44

My best advice is to do something based on your interest. It's like what you did had a based on events help you schedule events. But if you find someone that's interested in like, for example, playing guitar, do it. Yeah, do something co-pilot regarding that, because they help you pursue it and learn more yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2: 28:04

Yeah, no, I I agree 100 um. I had. I showed my um. I actually was with my parents this last weekend because I stayed in seattle for a couple of days and I showed them, uh, that health piece that I was talking about. They were blown away and you know. And so they were like, okay, well, make it, do this. You know, it's where we were just sitting there playing with it. Well, let's do this, and how do you do that? So that was really fun to show them how it all works too. So they got really excited. My mom was like where can I get this? I was like it's right here. You can go on Copilot right here. It's on your phone. She was like I have it. I was like, yes, you have it. So it was kind of fun.

Speaker 1: 28:44

Okay, so I'm curious, since you're quite popular in communities what's your best community event or conference you've been to?

Speaker 2: 28:56

Oh gosh, what's the best community conference or event? Well, first of all, I love all of the events equally, of course.

Speaker 1: 29:04

Which is your favorite?

Speaker 2: 29:07

I don't know, uh, I won't say favorite, but I will say that, um, you know, I I've gone to so many things over the years and I I love experiential moments, uh, and things and so like, and I tend to go to see a lot of things that are outside tech as well, and so you know where. I will tell you where I go for inspiration, how about that I go, for, like, I went to Meow Wolf in Las Vegas and those museums and installations are really really interesting and they definitely stretch my mind. So I'm always looking for kind of the new interesting thing that you can bring in to what we do with technology events. I love events that that have obviously focus on community, as well as the beautiful content and skilling that comes through the sessions. I also just think it's super important to like think about how what the experience is going to be like for someone coming.

Speaker 2: 30:16

You know and I think sometimes we can get caught up in just simple things actually matter. You know, can people find a place to get water? Are you serving coffee? You know, like, are you doing extra special things to make sure that registration goes well and that doesn't take forever? People's comfort is actually really, really important because if they aren't comfortable and don't feel like they have, you know, a moment to even or a place to sit down, you know like those things make a difference and you know, and scheduling too, you can't schedule. You have to have breaks, you have to have a decent lunch. You know you have to like it's nice when you have something like a nice, you know gift or thank you for them, or a good bag or a t-shirt or opportunities to like win prizes and to interact with other people and like networking and all of that Like those things are really important.

Speaker 2: 31:19

And space also for different groups of people to get together. I love it that so many conferences we have a women and allies lunch or a track and we think about inclusion and we get their space. You know, on certain event apps to create meetups, you know it's like SharePoint runners or you know the LGBTQ community or whoever is at a show that they can like put together a group and get together with people. Um, I think I, I love that, you know and I I think that's super important and and when you don't think about those details, people won't come back to your event. You know they, they're like they don't really understand the human experience of it, um, so yeah, so I can't. I can't talk about favorites, but I can talk about elements that I really appreciate, so yeah, Because I think it's just like meeting people.

Speaker 1: 32:11

So it's just like meeting people and then get to know each other and then learn from each other. Really, I would say grow each other. Yeah, so if you were to define community in one word, what would you define it as?

Speaker 2: 32:26

Belonging belonging yeah I mean yeah, we all want to belong. Every person on the planet want to belong. They want to feel like they belong. They want to be connected. They, you know we all want that. I think it's belonging. You know that you belong to something and people care about you, and that you belong to something that's greater than who you are, and no matter what it is technology, soccer, you know, whatever all of those things make, I think, what community is truly at the heart of it. So, yeah, belonging.

Speaker 1: 33:02

Yeah, that's right, brilliant, yeah, so thanks for joining this episode, heather. It's a pleasure to have you, so learn about lots of interesting things about SharePoint and the community. Yeah so if anyone wants to join the 365 community, you can speak to Heather and she will help you onboard yourself, like train you up as well. So quite a bit. If you're new to like, for example, probably speaking, or you're not speaking but you like to just like take part, you can still just take part without speaking.

Speaker 2: 33:37

So yeah, come join in the fun. Happy to have everybody. Everybody is welcome. Please connect with me on LinkedIn. Happy to say hello to you. Feel free to ping me with a message. My job is connecting people and getting you what you need as far as the microsoft ecosystem goes. So, yeah then, nicholas, this is great and congratulations. I see you like you're over what? 50 episodes?

Speaker 1: 33:59

it's very cool, yeah that's why, when I can't just speak to people, when I tend to help people learn microsoft, really yeah yeah, that's really great, and thank you for having me on.

Speaker 2: 34:09

It's been nice seeing you at so many events too, as of late. So thank you for having me on.

Speaker 1: 34:12

It's been nice seeing you at so many events too, as of late, so thank you for the community.

Speaker 2: 34:14

Really Thank you. It's awesome.

Speaker 1: 34:17

What's your next events? You're going to.

Speaker 2: 34:21

My next event I'm going to. I've got two coming up.

Speaker 1: 34:25

I'm going to.

Speaker 2: 34:25

San Diego Comic-Con. I'm I'm hosting, I'm a I'm a moderator for a panel at San diego comic-con at the end of july is that like platform con or something, or is it just? No, it's, it's san diego comic-con. It's sort of the big um event. That's all about comics and uh and all that stuff yeah, so I'm doing that yep. So about careers in technology, design costumes? And then the next Microsoft event is I will be at TechCon Atlanta, august 11th through the 15th in Atlanta, georgia. So yep.

Speaker 1: 35:05

Yeah, because I remember before last week you told me you went to TechCon already, but is there another TechCon event?

Speaker 2: 35:11

Yes, this was TechCon Seattle. Yeah, there's three of them in the year.

Speaker 1: 35:14

Is it based on your city in america? Because if it's a tech con based on different cities like yes, you actually said last week, no yeah, yeah somewhere else yeah, so they do so, dave and and sharon, who run, uh, the tech con event production.

Speaker 2: 35:33

They do three events a year. They always do a Seattle one which is a combo which is TechCon 365, powercon and Datacon, and that just happened, and so it was the data fabric power platform and M365 speakers and stuff. So it was a combo of all three. And then TechConanta is focusing on collaboration, so more than m365, and then they'll do uh, they have another one, techcon, dallas uh, which is in december. So yeah, it's, it's cool because it's they're regional, but but in the united states and then they're also depending on what city there's a focus maybe on the industries of that city potentially. I mean, chicago tends to have a bit more manufacturing, and then sometimes it's in dallas, uh, it's like in december and that's like more maybe you know, uh, utilities and oil and gas. So with atlanta you've got different industries there too, with health care and other things they specialize in max off or just different like overall yeah, mostly.

Speaker 1: 36:32

Microsoft, oh nice.

Speaker 2: 36:37

That's why They've been doing them for over a decade. They were called. They started out as SharePoint Fest, it was called SP Fest and then it was oh gosh 365, educon, which I told Dave I didn't really like the name because it just made me think it was like education, like K-12 or college or university. So TechCon to me. I love their new name. So yeah, but we were just there for that.

Speaker 1: 37:05

And you got a new name. Yep, Yep yeah absolutely Okay, no worries. Yep, yeah, absolutely okay, no worries. So, aside from, uh, the community work amazing community work you do and the microsoft stuff, what do you have any hobbies that you know to do in the spare time?

Speaker 2: 37:24

yeah, right, right, yeah, yeah, um, yeah, you know, uh, I I've been, I've been taking, I I always love working on, you know, some acting. You know. So I've been actually in voiceover class for animation and video games, so you know, it's like I'm like playing, you know, like a ghost or something, or I'm like, you know, like in january, um started playing with that. So I've done a few gigs, which has been kind of fun, uh. So I love music, I love theater, I love museums. So I do, since I live in los angeles, and so there's a lot of like music here, a lot of theater and a lot of comedy too in la.

Speaker 1: 38:10

So, um, I train, just get out a lot and do those things, and I love to read as well, okay, so you do quite a lot of comedy club and stuff, comedy gig and like music festival where you are and things.

Speaker 2: 38:25

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, super fun, yeah, and I love being outside too. So, you know, anytime I get to go to one of our parks, or you know, I live really close to the beach too, so we go to see the sunset a lot. So, yeah, which is the closest beach? Venice Beach. Venice Beach, oh, okay, nice yeah.

Speaker 1: 38:46

It's sunny here in England, London, so it's quite sunny like 30, 34. Oh yeahon, so it's quite sunny like 30, 34, yeah, so it's quite really loving it. Yeah, it's always on the news, which I'm not sure why people are complaining but, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, I love traveling too.

Speaker 2: 39:04

I mean the. That's one of the benefits of this job that I've had for, you know, over 20 years is I've really gotten to see the entire world. In 2019, before the pandemic I did 28 events and I was in six or seven different countries and it was like big ones. It was like New Zealand and South Africa and France, and I was in India. Like that year was this epic year of travel for me? Um so, but anytime I get a chance to go somewhere, I'm very much like what? Yes, please sign me up. So, yeah, I love.

Speaker 1: 39:40

It is there not. First thing is too much travel at once, or you just want to just travel when you can because you want to explore different culture and different countries yeah thanks you know, I think you know that year I don't know if I'd want to do that again.

Speaker 2: 39:54

You know I. You know it was interesting for 2020. I was set up to travel a lot that year too and I am good with it. Having, you know, slowed a little bit from for me, but I do. I still really love traveling.

Speaker 2: 40:12

I also, you know, whenever I go somewhere, a lot of times just also the community also. The other word to me is family. Really, you know, like I feel so lucky that I know people all over this gorgeous world of ours. You know I mean any given city. There's there's your point, there's mic, there's there's SharePoint, there's Microsoft, there's data, there's Microsoft community people in every city in the world.

Speaker 2: 40:39

You know, for the most part, and it's just, any time I go, I usually try and put something out and or you know, I'm there because I'm there for an event, or I'll stay a couple of days and I just I always it's amazing I've had so many people show me around their cities and you know, and when people come to LA, a lot they'll tell me I live really close to the LAX, to the airport. So you know some people are like, oh, I'm gonna be heading to the airport and you know I've got like five hours or whatever and I'm like, well, come by, you know, or I'll meet you somewhere and we'll have, you know, lunch or something, and so it's just, I feel just family as well, belonging, but also, you know, I feel like so connected to people um all over the world, which is just amazing, you know yeah, because, plus I want to mention community is not all about tech.

Speaker 1: 41:24

You don't need to be a tech to be in community. You can be like in, like a tour guide, you can have your own like community that play your interest, For example, beach or like volleyball club and stuff and that would just. It's a special group bringing people together of the same interest.

Speaker 2: 41:43

Oh yeah, my partner Wade. He has a board game group.

Speaker 1: 41:49

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 41:49

So like they love tabletop board games and they get together and love it and I've so, and I love board games too I don't love them. Like they love them but like because they're very serious about it, like they'd hardly even talk to each other. Like like they play board games. Right, I'm more social than that, but uh, because I just I like talking a little too much. They have a wonderful community of people that they play board games with, you know, and then, when you, a lot of times too, when you like, find a different community, like with board games, there's board game community shops and places where you can go in and play games for the day, you know, with your family or with other friends and stuff.

Speaker 2: 42:26

So there's, there's so many communities, like you were saying, you know, it's not obviously just about tech, but there's people who love to read or people who love to quilt, or you know. And meetupcom and eventbrite both of those places are still, to me, great places to find your people, you know, or your community of people who like, whatever it is, you know, like, I recommend anybody like when you're, you know, moving to some place or whatever, check out what's going on on meetupcom. It's one of the largest collections of communities out there and they do a great job. They've been around close to 20 years as well, so highly recommend.

Speaker 1: 43:06

So if someone is new to community, what are the best first advice you give? Because I remember when I started first time going to meetup and stuff I new to community what are the best first advice you give? Because I remember like when I guess when I started first time going to meet up and stuff, I was shy.

Speaker 1: 43:18

I'm kind of like when I approach someone saying, hi, those things, yeah kind of like trying to hit my nerves and try to just go for it, because that's how you make friends of the same interest. But you want, and so whether talking about uh, you need to just stay here, so about like what you're gonna do, things as well yeah, I mean for meetup.

Speaker 2: 43:42

I mean it sort of depends on the group and how they do things. But you know like usually the first step is joining. You know um, and a lot of them, you know you join and sometimes they have questions that you need to answer. You know to to be a part of it and you can see what they're doing. You know sometimes they'll have you'll be like, oh well, I guess there's a group that gets together, you know, and there's one happening this week, and so you know ask and see if you can join or if it's a more public one. You know you can go, you know check it out and see if you like it, that kind of thing.

Speaker 2: 44:11

I think you know if you're looking for community, I think there's lots of ways depending on if you're an introvert or an extrovert. Or you know there's, there's something for you out there, you know, from looking at different things and you'll get a feel from from it. Joined something online doesn't mean you can be like, eh, this wasn't for me, you can take yourself out of it too. So I think the options are open for sure.

Speaker 1: 44:41

Yeah, I would say joining as well as trying to interact with the members, because if you interact with members and then they have like a book club, you can still you know someone there because you know the members. It's easier to approach people by interacting with people online. So that's I would say, as I first said, someone would become like shy at first, like in person.

Speaker 2: 45:05

Yeah, I agree with you 100 yep. You know people who are putting on these things. They they want new people, yeah.

Speaker 1: 45:12

They're looking for people. They want people of the same interest, people to hang out with. People to spend a Saturday night joining something. Talk about tech, talk about anything really. The same, yeah, to have a new friend or have a family as well. Yep, okay, yeah, to have a like a new friend or have a family as well. So, yep, okay, uh, thanks for joining this episode, head cook. It'd be amazing to learn a bit a lot of things about sharepoint communities, wise for as well. So, thank you, you're welcome, thank you.