Microsoft MVP Summit — C&CA Land at The “Mothership”!
“Power comes not from knowledge kept, but from knowledge shared” — Bill Gates
And that is exactly what the Microsoft MVP (Microsoft Valuable Professional) Summit in Richmond Seattle last month was all about. Well, “exactly” might be a stretch as everything the MVP’s learned during the event is under strict NDA, for a short time at least. The NDAs ensure this elite group (3392 MVPs listed on the Microsoft website to be precise) have the time to research, learn and understand the new information before it is released to the public over the coming months, guaranteeing this select group of MVPs stay well ahead of technical curve. Within C&CA, we have four MVP’s, all overflowing with ideas, inspiration and knowledge having attended the summit on 18th April.
Amy Townsend caught up with Senior Solutions Architect from the MACE team, Mike Hartley, to hear all about it.
“We arrived at the conference to discover a vast campus that had to be navigated via shuttle bus, we discovered it is actually larger than Disneyland California! The event itself is an opportunity for Microsoft to speak directly to MVPs about their future plans, ideas in the pipeline, demos of new features and the opportunity for us to ask questions, feedback and talk directly to the team. The information is so abundant, it is like trying to drink from a fire hose! The sessions themselves are massively valuable because you really do get an insight into a road map of the plans and direction towards which Microsoft are thinking” explains Mike.
The conference runs over four days, with the final day giving the group the chance to network amongst the Business Applications community within Microsoft. The preceding three days consisted of heavily scheduled workshops, lectures and conferences timetabled across a range of topics, in addition to the opportunity to schedule 1–2–1’s with experts in your space or areas of interest. “My big passion is accessibility” explains Mike, while talking about the 1–2–1’s he most benefitted from. Mike believes the work we do within C&CA for local and national government, will benefit greatly from the knowledge he and the team gained with respect to accessibility as it is such a huge priority within the public sector.
The value of community and connecting
Mike continues: -
“Being able to create connections and talk to people who share your passion is a key aspect of the conference. For example, I met the person responsible for accessibility across power apps, we had a great extended meeting sharing ideas and discussing some of the challenges we face within accessibility. He is going to connect me with his counterparts across the rest of the Microsoft product stack, so I will have a really good direct route into Microsoft. I can talk directly to somebody with responsibility who knows what’s going on and can raise things on my behalf”
Building their professional network was the key benefit of the entire trip as Mike continues to explain: -
“Where the real value comes in terms of actually being there in Redmond, is the corridor conversations. It’s being able to talk to the people after the sessions are finished and the recording has ended, the ability to really get those connections within the actual product groups themselves. Meeting the people who do the development work, who do the design, who do the build. It’s all about making connections with other MVPs from all over the world, bringing together the MVP community, spanning in expertise from Azure, Microsoft 365 developer technologies, Windows business applications data, the whole spectrum of Microsoft products. You can’t understate the value of having a network of people who know the technologies and who can help when there are issues”
Reflecting on what the MACE team will benefit from their attendance, Mike explains that between them, they now have a wealth of information about the future direction of Microsoft, a clear understanding of “what’s coming up next” and the time to weigh it all up and absorb the information and consider the implications of it all. Mike jokes that they were “Geeks landing at the mother ship” and my money is on them taking a return journey to the next frontier.
If you’re looking for your next career step, consider Capgemini and our best in class Microsoft practice. Open roles here.
