 I was just about to say that Stinger is a little bit long. Yeah, but it's so pretty. It's so pretty. It's very, very nice. But hey, thanks for joining me, my friend. I was about to do the introduction for Microsoft Ignite Unplugged, and then I realized this isn't Microsoft Ignite Unplugged. This is Coffee with Rick. How's that? Well, let's have some tea with Richard, then. That works. Well, thank you very much. I'm Rick Claus, a cloud advocate lead here at Microsoft. I'm one of the folks involved with putting on the event known as Microsoft Ignite. And this is something new that we thought we'd try, just basically reaching out to folks in the community across different platforms. I believe we're streaming on X, or the Twitters, the formerly known as, LinkedIn, as well as also on YouTube and a couple of others. So we're kind of all over the place. I'm joined by my friend Rich Campbell. And now I vote to say, it's not early in the morning for you. It's almost really early in the morning for you. Where are you joining us from today? I'm actually in the future. It's the late evening in Perth, Australia. So I'm down here for some community events, and I'm going to give a keynote on Saturday. So I got in a couple of days early, chance to take a look around and sort of enjoy the other side of the world. And then just kind of an awe that doesn't matter where we are in the world. We get to communicate with each other. No, I know. It's kind of crazy, eh? Absolutely kind of crazy. So first of all, thank you for joining me on the extremes of the time zones. I much appreciate it. And can you, at the end of the chat, send me a text message with tomorrow's or today's Lotto numbers so I can just go out and buy a lot of things. Where we go. I'd appreciate that. But so one thing I wanted to ask is basically you are connected to a whole bunch of folks through the multitude of different podcasts that you create and produce online. Rana's Radio is the one that comes to mind, but also .NET Rocks and also Windows Weekly and multitude of other ones. Have you heard anything? Like what are people asking about Microsoft Ignite or what are they excited about for Microsoft Ignite that's coming up in November, November the 15th and 16th in Seattle, Washington and online. There's a set of staples that you expect from Ignite. This is a show for folks who are working with the latest stacks. They want to take their cloud further. They want to build out their systems and they're concerned about using the best bits. Maybe they've got some security things that they're looking at. We're going to get great stories for those. Like there's the staples and 365 dynamics, but that's not the crazy train this year. Like what is people really stoked about? It's co-pilot, co-pilot all the things. Very much so, very much so. The part that I keep on getting asked about is besides about co-pilot, they're like, is this really going to impact me as an IT pro, as a practitioner, as someone who's looking after the speeds and feeds and making sure the servers are up and stuff like that. And I say, absolutely yes. As both the productivity tool, like we've seen with the announcements from, when we came out with co-pilot and made a big splash and a big thing about it in Windows earlier this year during build. So not just as a productivity tool, but you're also going to see it from a compliance and from a governance and from a, are you ready perspective with the advent of M365 co-pilot affecting all of your users and all of your data? So some of that will be covered during Microsoft Ignite for how to prepare my friend Karawana Gattimu from the M365 world. She keeps on saying, it's the fundamentals. Get the fundamental rights and then you'll be good to be able to go off and implement and take advantage of co-pilot stuff. Absolutely. I've been doing run as episodes on prepping for co-pilot and M365. And it's been about things like data tagging. Yeah. You know, this is a tool, this large language models ability to navigate across your organization's data. You're about to find out if you've secured things properly. You got it. Now I want to acknowledge, again, we're on a whole bunch of different platforms. The tool that we're using here is bubbling up some of the questions to that. So I want to take some live questions. The first question that we got and I can answer this one is simply a very simple one from LinkedIn user. Is the session catalog complete? So first of all, bonus points for you because you paid attention to the fact that the session catalog opened yesterday. And- Yeah, it's only been up a day. It's only been up a day. So, well, it's open for two days for you because you're in the future. But basically the session catalog is, I'm going to say the majority of the different types of experiences that you're going to be able to take into account both online and in person for breakout sessions, discussion sessions, demo sessions, labs, they're all there as you can see and look for the topics, look for the speakers, and you're also be able to go through and kind of tentatively plan out your top 10 things that you might want to go off and take in while you're watching Microsoft Ignite in the timeframe when it goes up. So that is open. And I would also say, also focus on some of those speakers too because even if you don't see the exact session you want, if you know you've got the expert you're going to need, that's a person you're going to be to ask those questions up. Right. Another question that came in from our LinkedIn audience, looks like our LinkedIn audience is the most chatty so far. That's cool. And not that we're like pointing at you, YouTube's and the rest and Twitter. But are there any humans of IT or similar content that's going to be there? I haven't personally looked to see inside of the catalog if it's in there, but I do know that during the content evaluation process that we do internally, there was definitely some content in there that would fall in the category of humans of IT that's going to be taken out. Yeah, I've seen it. I've been going through the catalog, picking out things I want to get and there's definitely some humans of IT in there. Yeah, awesome stuff. Well, hey, well, since you just mentioned that you've had access to that catalog in advance and looking at it now, is there anything in there that you would suggest people could take a look at maybe for, you know, besides just out of interest what they're excited about, but something that they should do to maybe invest in some skills for their careers as IT pros that happen to strike a chord with you? You know, I try to not be the guy wearing the tin foil hat, but if you haven't spent some time in Sentinel and some of the new scene tooling that we're getting today and how well it integrates together, the biggest problem we see here, and I do these shows all the time, people who scare this not on me, like Sammy Layho, the fact that the bad guys are in your system four months before the payload goes off and the problem is a lack of visibility. Yeah, a couple of weird log things over here and a misbehavior over there, but this is where a tool like Sentinel comes into play and pulls all those bits together and helps you see a pattern of behavior. You know, these are preventative measures and it's hard for us as admins to get enough time into prevention, but boy, the pain it's gonna save if you can put a few cycles into it. Very cool. And as I know that I saw some stuff on Sentinel that are in there, I know that they're gonna be touching on it on the pre-days, if you were fortunate enough to get into the pre-day activities, those are currently sold out, they're available for a limited time, they're very, very popular, and then also obviously during the main stage events that are going on, not just on keynotes, but it'll also be popping up throughout your regular breakouts and discussion sessions. And a lot of these talks are streamed too, so you're gonna be able to see them from your place if you can't make it to Seattle. Correct, so I should probably mention that for sure. So we're at capacity for the Seattle event, but that doesn't mean you can't participate. The best thing you can do is go to ignite.microsoft.com, go and register for the online capabilities. I actually have a show coming up, talking about that with Microsoft Night on Plug for how to get the most out of the show if you're experiencing it in the online format or if you're gonna be in person for being able to set some time aside, have the session catalog open, have bills still bill at your schedule. Those kind of things work best when you are registered because then you have your profile, you can build your schedule when the tool's open in a couple of weeks time, and you can get ready to go off and plan your day for what you're gonna be watching. I'll do a shout out again. I happen to notice that Robson looks like they are coming in from Brazil. So this is international, not just talking from Seattle, Washington, and also from Perth, Australia. We also have some people still in the house too. That's awesome. That's cool stuff. A Southern Hemisphere represent. You got it, my friend. Now, I asked if you could come on the show and again, I appreciate you coming in at these weird hours because I know that you're actually gonna be helping us out during Microsoft Ignite for a special activity that you're planning that involves a little bit of your craft. Can you share about what that is? Yeah, well, you know, I've been making podcasts for a long time and I'm always happy to record a few shows while I'm at the event, but I'm also bringing some other podcasters along. You know, I'm a big believer in this idea that we have a really large ecosystem and not everybody knows all the possibilities here. So part of my challenge and things that I get to do for the show is to bring in podcasters that typically wouldn't be at a Microsoft event, maybe a show like Talk Python to Me with Michael Kennedy, one of the largest Python podcasts in the world and just to show where Python fits into the ecosystem in the Microsoft space too. So kind of mixing some audiences together, Kapolich from DataSkeptic, a longtime data specialist person and really a bright, bright mind in that space. And for the first time ever, never met him before in person, I've got Ethan from Packet Pushers Company as well and he's one of the folks from Cloud on Day Two, which has a show I just love. Once you get it past the shiny and now it's into, all right, roll up your sleeves, let's get to work. That's what their show is all about. Wow. I love the title of that show, Cloud on Day Two. Cloud on Day Two. Yeah, really great. Oh, and I would be remiss if I didn't mention Ashley Steiner, Dynamics Hot Dish, one of my favorite show names of all time. But a group of ladies who work in the Dynamics and Power Platform space, they love talking about their technology and I'm lucky that we have Ashley coming out as well to sort of dig into what's happening in Dynamics and Power Platform. Nice. And so the experience is basically there's gonna be like a podcasting booth or area that you're gonna be set up. Yeah, we got a couple of booths up. Yeah, and you know, there's something incredible about an iconic keynote, like you gotta experience that. So it's really fun to bring folks that have never been to Microsoft event before, put them down in that keynote and then outside of the keynote times where recording shows as quickly as we can, we've got them coming from all over, some great guests lined up. I know I've got Mr. Recidovich lining up for a show with one of the folks and lots of other luminaries and just a chance to explore some stories and really dig into what's being made right now. Nice. Well, we have a question that came in from the YouTube side of things, which is interesting. How do I get FaceTime with experts and partners? Interesting. Well, you know, start at the beginning, which is there's a great sponsors area and so a lot of those partners are gonna be there, they're involved in the show and so you're gonna be able to get out on the floor and spend some time with them. Most of the speakers obviously are available after their talks, they're often on the floor as well and they go to many of the special session areas so you'll be able to check them out, track them down that way. Just remember it's a busy show and there's a lot of people. It's a challenge to get to meet everyone but if you're patient, you'll get some time. Right. So the official area is called the hub. We haven't revealed this yet so we're gonna break the ice and say it's called the hub. It's gonna be up on the fifth floor if you're there in person and I'm gonna say there's over a hundred different, I don't know what we're technically calling them. I'm gonna get in trouble. I'm gonna call them a booth but it's not a booth but it's basically, it's an expert meetup area that you'll be able to go a hundred different pods if you will that you can go to where you'll have different experts from Microsoft, from our partners and also from the MVP and RD community. They're specifically to answer questions on a particular topic that is printed on top of the individual booth. They have the ability to show you some demos and show you some other information that's gonna be there. Plus, if you already want to when you're asking them a question you can just go a little bit further away from that particular booth area and every place within 15 paces is gonna have a whiteboard to be able to go off and do some whiteboarding and some discussion that goes on in there. So that's called the hub and it's called the expert meetups area is side of that particular hub that's taking place on the fifth floor. And I gotta say, if somebody spent a lot of time in those kinds of shows I know the session's recorded. So if I'm in a great conversation on a whiteboard I'm gonna stay there. I'll pick up the session later. Right. Now we're just about at time for this particular activity that we're doing today but I will also just mention again, online is the big focus for what you can do for Microsoft Ignite. And so if you register at ignite.microsoft.com you can make yourself a profile and then start to look at the catalog when tools open you can go off and build your schedule but all the keynotes are gonna be online available and able to connect up and watch same with all the breakout sessions that are there same with the discussion sessions. And so that's the new thing this year only select ones were available last year. This time all the discussion sessions are also available so I wanna say over 150 different sessions across three days are gonna be available online to watch and it's not just watching statically you can post questions the same way you can ask questions in the room during those sessions online with the web interface that we have and you'll also be able to do reactions and comments and chats and stuff like that during the keynotes as well. So the online experience is awesome it's great equalizer to be able to go off and give it available to anybody that wants to go off and watch and is only available if you're registered so go off and register. Mr. Richard we are at time I wanna be respectful of the fact you've been up for probably 27 and a half hours straight with your current work schedule. You know Rick I'll do anything for you I got my tea I'm good. Most excellent and we are gonna be doing other ones of these and so please stay tuned always if you have questions you wanna ask ahead of when we do the next one of these please use the hashtag MSignites we've got a fantastic team of folks including myself who monitor that daily to find out what's going on. So ask your questions there and we'd more than happy to answer them either on the spot on the socials across the different ones or we'll answer them on the next episode of Coffee with Rick. Thanks a lot for joining me on the inaugural edition I had a lot of fun. Thanks Rick great time. You got it. Cheers folks see you next time.