Microsoft Ignite 2018

Even though this was not my first Microsoft Ignite or Microsoft TechEd, this was my first time attending as a speaker and Microsoft Expert working in a Product Group booth. I want to thank the Azure Customer Success team and the Cloud Ops Advocates for the opportunity to speak with the attendees and TheCUBE for the opportunity to chat with them about Site Reliability Engineering.

As usual with Microsoft Ignite (or Microsoft TechEd before that), the week is spent walking, talking, eating and networking. While I did not have a step counting device, I spent a good amount of time during the week with others using them. If I had to estimate my mileage, my mileage would have ranged from 4.5 miles on the shortest day to the 9-10 miles on the longest day. My legs are definitely not up for this on a consistent basis. Thanks to the hot tub at my hotel, I was able to recover a couple of times during the week.

During the week, I spent two of the days in the Azure Customer Success booth talking about the five habits of highly effective Azure users. You can head over to https://aka.ms/fivehabits to find out more about them. They include using Azure Advisor, Azure Mobile App, Azure Service Health, and Azure Roadmap. Now, you might say that is just four things. The fifth thing is engaging with your peers and the community. I am a member of #TheKrewe and the SharePoint communities. When I see very successful IT Pros, they are engaged with their communities both asking and answering questions.

This leads me to the networking part of my week. It was great to get back in touch with friends and colleagues from around the world. It was also great getting to know new friends. The one thing that Microsoft Ignite does is bring IT Pros from around the world together in one place to talk and share ideas. Michael Bender, a Cloud Ops Advocate for Microsoft and leader of #TheKrewe, talked about on his blog about a successful conference that sessions are important but hallway conversations are almost more important. I took advantage of this as much as I could throughout the week, both on-site at Microsoft Ignite and in the evenings.

The biggest part of my week was my presentation on Thursday. I have been lucky to speak at some great events on my own and on behalf of Microsoft. This is one of the highlights of my speaking career. The 75 minutes I got to talk with the attendees about my journey towards the Site Reliability Engineering role was very close to my heart. I can't thank the attendees both in-person and online. The best part is the session was recorded and available online for those that could not attend live. You can watch the video streaming below or click on the button below, sign up for a Tech Community account, and download the video and PowerPoint deck.

If that wasn't enough, I got another opportunity thanks to Phoummala Schmitt, another Cloud Ops Advocate from Microsoft. She introduced me to Stuart Miniman from TheCUBE and we got to chatting about Site Reliability Engineering. One thing led to another and I got the opportunity to that with Stu and his co-host, Rebecca Knight, about SRE on TheCUBE. Thanks to Stu, Rebecca and the team from TheCUBE for the opportunity to talk about SRE in the Enterprise environment.

Jared Shockley, Sr. Site Reliability Engineer, Microsoft sits with Stu Miniman & Rebecca Knight for Microsoft Ignite 2018 for Microsoft Ignite 2018 in Orlando, FL. #MSIgnite #Microsoft #theCUBE #SRE #AzOps

Microsoft Ignite 2018 was a great week for me professionally and personally. With the move of the event to early November next year, I am hoping to get myself back as a speaker.

Microsoft Ignite 2018

I have some amazing news. I will be attending Ignite 2018 this year in Orlando, FL. But I just won’t be attending … I am presenting my first time ever at Ignite!

Many of you might have seen me present at SharePoint Saturdays, online via Microsoft IT Showcase or Channel 9, or other events and conferences. This will be my first time at Ignite and I could not be happier.

So you might be thinking that I will be speaking about Office 365, SharePoint or Azure but you would be wrong. I am going to be speaking about the transition of my career from IT Operations through Service Management into Service Engineering and finally to Site Reliability Engineering.

Many IT Pros feel like they might not understand how to make the next steps in their careers and when they hear about things like the Cloud, they get scared of it. My goal is helping you advancing your career to the next step, walking a similar journey that I have, and showing you how my career has progressed with advancing my skills and knowledge.

Come hang out with me on Thursday, September 27th from 10:45 am to 12:00 pm in W304 E-H in the Orange County Convention Center.

Microsoft Tech Talks - Managing Success in Microsoft Teams

I have the great opportunity for another stop on my Road Trip this year in Denver. Working with Art Hogarth and teaming up with Theresa Eller as a co-presenter, we will be presenting how businesses can take advantage of Microsoft Teams and its integration capabilities.

During this session, Theresa and I will demonstrate how to use Microsoft Teams and how it can be leveraged with other Microsoft applications. We will show you how to use Teams to display and analyze data with Power BI, make phone calls, setup automation and other efficiencies with Flow, as well as discuss how to use API’s to connect to other data sources like Salesforce and other developer tasks. We will also discuss the various roles and platforms that are currently available.

If this sounds like something you want to learn about and happen to be in the Denver area on Friday, October 5th, register to join us.

About Theresa Eller

Theresa Eller is a Microsoft Premier Field Engineer with a passion for technology and customer success. Accordingly, she is a frequent speaker in the international SharePoint and Office 365 community. Theresa holds a Master of Arts degree in Teaching and Learning with Technology, has two dogs, and loves to travel.

Meeting Schedule

Time		Schedule
2:00 pm		Food/Networking/Sign-in
2:15 pm		Opening/Welcome/Featured Topic
3:50 pm		Q&A

Additional Details

• Food and drinks will be provided.
• Photographs of attendees will be taken at the event and may be used for Microsoft-internal marketing communications.

Parking

FREE Parking on site!

Location

Microsoft Office
7595 E. Technology Way, Suite 400
Denver, CO 80237

UPDATED!! - SharePoint Saturday Denver

SharePoint Saturday is back in Denver again and I can't wait to come and speak. There has been a few years since the last event in Denver but we are back and there is a great lineup of speakers for this event.

Now, many of you might know I speak a lot about SharePoint, Office 365, services like PowerApps and Flow, and the Cloud, but this time I thought a new topic would be best for the restart of the Denver events.

I am bringing Rick Claus, lead of the Cloud Advocacy team at Microsoft focusing on Operations, to co-present with me in Denver. What could we be talking about? We are going to be presenting on the Journey to the Cloud. Not only are we presenting information, but we are going to spend over half the time taking Q&A from attendees about what the Cloud means for them and their careers.

At the end of this session, we want to have answered all of your questions and pointed the attendees to resources to help them further their education about the Cloud and their role in using, administering, and getting the most of Cloud Services.

Due to unfortunate cancelations by a couple of speakers, I am also going to present Migrating SharePoint to the Cloud: Lessons Learned by Microsoft IT. This session will help anyone looking to start a migration to the cloud or improve a current migration to the cloud. On top of talking about best practices, I will go over the dos and don'ts that I learned being part of the Microsoft IT team performing these migrations for Microsoft IT.

Location

Microsoft Office
7595 E. Technology Way, Suite 400
Denver, CO 80237

SharePoint Saturday Kansas City

I am on the road again for another SharePoint Saturday in October. This time, my destination is Kansas City, MO on October 13th. This will be the first time I have presented in or visited Kansas City so I will be looking forward to the trip.

I am planning to present two of my favorite presentations around SharePoint and Office 365. These topics are highly requested at both events and private meetings with customers.

Migrating SharePoint to the Cloud: Lessons Learned by Microsoft IT covers how Microsoft moved many of its internal SharePoint sites from our on-prem farms onto Office 365. In the beginning, we will cover migration options and how they impact sites and users. Along the way, you can learn the possible migration paths and the capabilities of the Office 365 compared to your current environment. We will focus to the technical how-to of performing migrations to Office 365. Lastly, I will highlight the "gotchas" and guide you through some of the best practices used by Microsoft IT.

Quick and Easy Business Apps With PowerApps and Flow covers how to use the new "no-code" tools to create business applications without a full development team. We will learn the basics of PowerApps, PowerBI and Flow along with how they can be used to improve business processes. During the session, we will actually build a quick business app using the tools.

Location

KU Edwards Campus BEST Conference Center
12600 S Quivira Rd
Overland Park, KS 66213