 Hey everyone, it's Krisha Buckley with another MVP Buzz Chat interview, and I'm talking to Zoe, hello. Hey, Christian, delighted to be here. It's great to have you, and for folks that don't know who you are, why don't you give us who you are, where you are, and what you do. Brilliant, thank you. So I'm Zoe Wilson, I work at Microsoft Partner in the UK called Agilisys, where I'm the Director of Innovation and Customer Success, and that is quite a mouthful, I know, but my job really is kind of getting customers excited about what the art of the possible is with technology, and that's the thing that I really love. Yeah, I love that the, I mean, there's a bit of the evangelism side to that kind of role, but it very much is the, I love the whole art of possible, and this kind of goes back like early in my career, like in fact, I wrote an article on this, like a decade ago, which was, you know, when you're introducing a new technology to a set of users, how much do you tell them about the new before you try to understand what they actually need? And then how much? Because the problem is that when you ask them, well, what do you need? People will tell you what they need through their lens of understanding of what's possible. So if you tell them though, if you start the conversation by telling them everything that's put possible, then it skews there what they need into this, you know, when we need to have dolphins that have lasers on the backs, we need to have teleportation, you know, they ask for too much there. And what's the balance there? So how do you balance that? Getting people excited versus keep them grounded and what do you really need to get to the next level? Yeah, and it is about finding that balance, but I think it's the customer base that we work with that helps with that because we work predominantly with the public sector. So they've got quite a specific set of needs. Regardless of which bit of the public sector they are, they've all got similar challenges around budget and increasing demands. So it's, I think, applying that lens to it really, so making sure that we're talking to their specific problems. And actually from a community perspective, I love it because you don't need to kind of rein it into the things that are specific to the sector. But yeah, from a customer perspective, it's finding the balance. But it really helps if you can kind of paint that picture around, you know, look, these are the possibilities. This is how you can be more productive. This is how you can do more with less and then work it back through the things that are most important to them. Yeah, and I agree. I think it's a refining process like any requirements. What do you actually need? What is the impact of that if we go and do it? Having worked in product management teams where you're actually building products and where you have to prioritize because you have a, even Microsoft as big as they are, people always say, why don't they just add this feature to SharePoint? Why don't they just do this with teams? They're like, well, there's a finite number of people working on that. And there's some big things and a lot of integration, a lot of things to think about and to work across there. And so they're also having to prioritize what they can do, what they should do, and test those things out. And then what are the stories around those? And so no matter what role that we have, like I work for an ISV, you work for an SI partner, going out and doing that to provide the solutions, we're constantly having those discussions where we're kind of tempering the, like here's what's possible in the future. Doesn't mean like, but yeah, but what's in the future, there are so many steps in between that future vision and where you are today and the necessary path to get there. Yeah, and do you know what? It sounds like such a downer. Sorry, bring me all the excited about stuff and they'd be like, no, no, no, no, maybe someday. I think it's important to be realistic about it though, because for me, Microsoft Fever was like a breath of fresh air because it gave me something that was new, it was people focused and an opportunity to go in and talk about really topical things with customers. But just from a maturity perspective and whether they're in SharePoint, whether they're using modern SharePoint, there are all of these things from a technical perspective that they have to have in place to even think about using Fever, but helping them understand what they need to do to get there and start actually making some intelligent decisions fairly early on, I think is really important because it at least helps them set the direction and understand where it is they're going and what that direction of travel is. Yeah, it's funny that you say that because I actually have done a session at two conferences now on preparing for Microsoft Fever, but so much of that is, again, I don't mean to like dampen people's excitement around things, but just fundamental things that need to be done on like an infrastructure standpoint. You know, things like going and cleaning up your information architecture, having mapped out like the permission structure and looking at that all have direct impacts and your ability to go and roll out Viva components. Having actually built your strategy mapped out your learning paths before you go roll out a tool, you don't just magically find, you know, the structure, your learning strategy by having a tool. Like don't make that mistake. There's a lot that you can do before you ever go and deploy a new technology to prepare for that. And then you'll get more out of that solution once you're there. Yeah, absolutely. It's like migrations are like that. There's so much that you can do before you actually use a tool or apply a script and start the process to clean up. Like, do I really need to move all of those things which I've queued up to be moved? And you know, and what's the priority? What's the, of each of those anyway? Yeah, well, what was your, so let's talk about, I like asking this question around your path to MVP. So what was your path to becoming MVP? What did it, what finally kind of pushed you over the edge into MVP them? Well, so if you take a step back right to the start of my community journey actually, you were one of the people that inspired me. So the very first community event I ever went to was SharePoint Saturday in London. I think it might have been 2017. And I remember, I remember. Matthew's organized that and a few others. And I just, that whole experience, I'm sorry, he's heavily, all I remember is Andy and what's the, what's the chicken place that was right in there he was doing consulting for. Anyway, there was a lot of talk about Nando's. Nando's, yeah. Yes, yeah. So at this point I was completely naive to the fact that this amazing community existed. And I went along because I wanted to learn about SharePoint. I didn't, yeah, I was so naive. I planned to come for the day and didn't even realize that SharePoint SharePoint in the evening was a thing. So I was very disappointed when I had to kind of toddle off in the evening because I planned something else. But yes, that just, it just inspired me. And I think the fact that, you know, you'd kind of traveled over to the UK to do this and we're sharing your experiences just really got me thinking about how great it would be to actually do that. And then it was SharePoint Saturday two years after that where I had the opportunity to actually speak for the first time. And I just fell in love with it. You know, I mean, I like, I like to talk anyway. I, you know, I liked the community aspect. And it's, if you go back to when I was in my 20s I was involved in kind of music communities and that kind of thing. So I've always liked community. And I'm passionate about technology and helping people. So once I started that, that was it really. And it's been an absolute pleasure getting more involved over the last couple of years. You know, I always, I always tell the story. Like my people say, well, like, are you nervous up on stage? Remember, it gets a little bit nervous. Like, but not really. But for me, and what I missed a lot of it kind of you speak to like in your 20s, mine was I was in a rock band. So in the early 90s for three years I was the lead singer of a band. So getting up on stage and singing and we did all originals, never covers. And, you know, you kind of kind of, you know, you get weaned very quickly of the way from the nervousness and going and doing things. But I loved that social aspect of that scene and the locations and talking with people and that aspect of it. And, you know, and so I just gravitated towards that type of community. So kind of a similar thing. So yeah, it's been, you know, the community is so much of what you make it to be. And so it's, you know, we need people who are and mostly like MVPs do this who step up and say, I'm not seeing enough that's happening in my local region. I'm gonna start something in the local region. I'll be the person who pulls this up. It's a lot of work to go and do that. But that enables other people then to go and kind of pick up the banner and help you or take it on and do it themselves and hand off. So it's this, you know, there's phrasing if I had been more prepared for that, that continual renewal process that I have in the community. Yeah, and so just before we went into lockdown, I mean, what is it? Almost two years ago now, isn't it? I was in Glasgow for the Scottish summit. Yep. And that, I mean, everybody kind of, you know, the after parties, everybody kind of partied like they knew it was gonna be the last thing for a long time. But the whole event was just brilliant. And then last year, when we did it as a virtual event, I actually volunteered and got involved. And then this year, I'm actually part of the organizing team for it. And it's so much more rewarding actually getting involved behind the scenes and making it happen as well. And I think I've noticed a little bit of a change maybe over the last year with tending more towards kind of that planning and organizing. And almost trying to dial back the speaking a little bit just because I have a tendency to say yes to too many things to overcommit myself. And I've got quite a demanding day job anyway as well. So. Same here. You know what the one benefit though, I keep trying to tell people is like, look, if you have never run an event, one of the things that I do for the community, and there's a lot of us that do this and said, hey, come talk to me. I'll tell you what's involved. In some ways, I mean, look, I'm not going to minimize the amount of effort that's involved with them. I mean, I've run like the largest event that I have personally organized as a lead organizer was about 1,500 people. So I've not done any massive conferences. And, you know, it's a special kind of person who will take that on. And I know like the stuff that like, Audis and Spence and others that they do, like the German event, which is massive. Like, I understand what it takes to pull something like that together. But on the community level doing something, even like a SharePoint Saturday, a SQL Saturday, we've now rebranded ours as Microsoft 365 Fridays. But, you know, it really can be simplified down into like core components. And you can be very, so there's kind of a process, a way that we found success, the patterns of success. And those of us that have gone and done it, I mean, are usually the first to be like, you want to do something like, awesome, let me tell you what I learned. Here's what you need to go and do. Like, don't vary from this pattern. This we've tried all those other things. This is why that didn't work and share those nuggets of wisdom so that we see more. I would love to see more. So now, I mean, it's harder now with online. Online there's, look, there's still a lot of planning involved. The ugliest part of that is selecting sessions and having to tell people, I'm sorry, no, you know, that process is not fun. But- I think it's difficult with the online as well to actually get that same sense of community. Yeah, it is. It's really, really challenging. And one of my colleagues, when you saw me getting more involved in the community stuff, I was talking to her about it and we've co-presented a lot of work anyway. So we know that we bounce off each other. So I was kind of dragging him along with me and getting him involved. And for the last, maybe, I don't know, 12, 18 months he's been presenting as well. And then in the autumn of last year, he had the opportunity to do two in-person events which were the first in-person ones that he'd done. And I think he was just blown away by how different they were compared to doing them online and having that opportunity to actually connect properly. Yeah. What do you think is gonna be, I mean, like rumors of major events starting to come back but in a hybrid way? So I think, well, we'll share any info now because I'm still trying to confirm some details. But a major event that is planning to come back with about a third of the numbers of the last time two and a half years ago that they did an in-person. So they're dramatically reducing the in-person and planning to do a hybrid. From your experience, I mean, what is necessary for a successful hybrid event? I think that a lot of thought has to go into how you engage the audience who are remote because if all you're doing is, you've got some people who are kind of there physically and you're just streaming and broadcasting it to the external audience and that's just marketing. It's not giving people a chance to kind of get involved and feedback and part- An extended webinar. Yeah, you know, and it's great from an inclusion perspective because you can reach so many more people who maybe wouldn't have ever been able to travel there anyway. But yeah, if you want to do it properly and actually make sure that you're giving people the opportunities to kind of participate and interact, it needs a lot of thought. Yeah, that's the hard part because so one, well, I know with like Microsoft loves the fact that with by moving build is a great example and they have like 10 times the number of people attending, participating in those. But at the same time, what's happened is that the content has become more marketing than it has technical, is become less interactive because it's more of a broadcast that here's the message we're trying to get out. Here's what we're sharing, here's what's new, push it out there. And so there hasn't been the failure there is that we don't have the serendipitous connections that are made, you and I running into each other in the expo hall, having a 20 minute conversation, exchanging business cards, going our separate ways and we may not see each other for the rest of the week, kind of, you know, those kinds of experiences, not just that, sponsors, have sponsors get any benefit out of that. My, going to any major event, it's never about the sessions because in this day and age, especially, and we were already moving this direction, most sessions are recorded, if not streamed live for the hybrid portion of that, but the content is available within, you know, a day or a week, whatever the content's made available. And I would spend my time in the expo hall talking with the vendors, talking with the partners at Microsoft events, going and talking with the product team at the different areas and doing a deep dive and standing for hours, getting a firsthand with the owners of the products and the features, like that, like you can't do that in a hybrid, do that in a virtual virtual. Yeah, it's just not possibility. So I think it will be interesting over the next year or two as we see big in person events start to come back. I think there'll be a little bit of trial and error while they find their feet and find what works. And from a user group perspective, I'm not sure what will happen as well because I do think there's a bit of fatigue with online events and virtual events. Are you doing user groups, any local stuff? So I'm actually working with a couple of other MDPs in the UK, where there's a couple that we're just setting up at the moment that we're planning to launch within the next couple of months. And I think the plan is for them to be online initially, but, you know, we have to factor in some in person events. Yeah, you know, that's like all of us, we're trying to kind of find our footing on that. Like we're locally here in Utah, like we've been, we just decided to make it the new normal, which is we will, whether we have local or we have guest speakers out of the area that we have a space that's at a partner journey team that has a great job opens up their space, throws some food at people that show up there. And we do it more as a viewing party of that. And then the rest of us, like I'm usually have meetings going right up until that session, but I like next week, fingers crossed, I'm planning to travel. It's only 40 minutes away from my house to go be there in person for the viewing party. But you have people dialing in. And so we usually have a mix where there's people from around the world that are dialing in for such, which is fine. But the real value is that that local community. So yeah, we're all just anxious to see, at least to some degree, that open back up. But the new thing is that we'll always have anyone that wants to participate can join in, which is good for us as well. Yeah, and I think there are absolutely pros and cons for both sides of the equation on this. But I think for bringing new people into the community and making it easy for people to access content that maybe they wouldn't have thought doing before. And for giving people an opportunity to actually get involved and speak at user groups and things like that, because suddenly if people don't have to be there in person, they can apply to user groups in different countries and all around the world. And that gives them an opportunity to test content and get their confidence up. So yeah, there's some pros and cons for both, I think. And I know it will be interesting to see where this lands. So I'm interested in your perspective on people that have never presented. Like how do you get those people to present? Like what's your pitch for somebody who's thought about it, would like to get involved that's consumed a lot of the content, but to try and pull them in to this world? What's your pitch? I usually wear them down, I think. I mean, there's a young woman who I work with who, I mean, I've got her in my sights for kind of long-term grooming to MVP and she works with AI, where I don't think we've got a lot of women anyway. And when I've seen her present at work, she's just so enthusiastic and passionate and it just bubbles out of her. So I spoke to her, I think after the first time I've seen her present, I spoke to her fairly quickly after that and just had a chat with her about, you know, whether she's considered kind of speaking on a community sense. And actually I worked with her and helped her submit for the Scottish Summit who have a really good track for new speakers. So she'll actually be speaking for the first time in I think June is the new date that that was pushed back to. Yeah, what I was gonna ask is, you're part of the organizing team, what that pushback is there been a reopening of a call for speakers or is it still just locked and just moved the people over? Yeah, I think the fairest thing to do because the call for speakers was massively over subscribed anyway. I think there was almost a thousand sessions submitted. Wow. Which was just incredible. So I think nearly everybody who submitted got one session. Everybody who submitted on the new speakers track was accepted and they had the opportunity to apply for mentoring as well. And I'm not sure what will happen actually if there are people who can't attend because we're still waiting for the venue to confirm what the new date will be. So if there are people who can't make that, there may be some rejigging that needs to happen. Well, I'm hoping to... So I didn't submit because February in Scotland wasn't appealing to me to... It wasn't like being there, it's fine I have nothing against the weather but I knew what travel would be like to get there from myself. But June, much easier. So I'm committed to being there in person. I know that my company will be there. We wanna do, we're looking for more events that are starting to open up. We're sponsoring more, we're starting to pick up again. So I may actually be in an event down in Arizona in a couple of weeks. And so things are slowly, but surely starting to move back into normalcy. And I think hopefully we'll see that speed up, but I hope to be over and see everybody in person there this summer. Yeah, that would be brilliant. And I have to say, so I went to Scottish Summit that was in February in Scotland a couple of years ago. It was freezing, it was wet, it was cold. I hear there's wind at that time. Yeah, it's always wind in Scotland, I know. Yeah, I mean, I was actually thinking maybe we'll get some nice weather in June but I think it might be a bit of a lottery. Yeah, so I've been up to, look, that's my family line is we're Scottish Irish. And so heavy lines in my wife's side as well up there. So I did try to, I'll actually be in Scotland for everybody in 2023. My in-laws have rented a house for a month. And so we're like, how could we not just go and stay for at least a couple of weeks in Scotland? Cause I can work from anywhere, but to see friends there. So I might be there and participating in user groups, but I'm hoping to make it in June this year as well. But well, Zoe, really appreciate your time today. So folks that want to find out more about you, get in touch with you, what are the best ways to reach you? You can find me on LinkedIn or you can reach me on Twitter at SharePoint underscore Zoe. Excellent, well thanks so much for your time and we'll talk to you soon. Brilliant, thanks for having me on, Christian.