 Hey, this is Christian Buckley doing another MVP buzz chat with another fellow office apps and services MVP Eric. Great to know, great or great to have you. Thank you so much for having me. Well, why don't you introduce yourself who you are where you are what you do. So my name is Eric Marcy I am from Barber in Ohio I'm a recent Microsoft MVP as a June 1 2021. And I am also a unified communications engineer at T2M works so the company is actually based on Denver, but we have zero offices. So we're an entirely remote workforce and I work alongside Jonathan McKinney, Richard Brenneson, Mitch Steiner some names that you guys may know from John really well yes and add a ball out in the region as well and some folks that are from that that part of the world, but you know for those that aren't familiar to it used to be that so you see folks like even coming from the collaboration side and SharePoint initially a SharePoint MVP. You know, most SIs most consultants that did collaboration when a call came in and hey we need help with the unified communication side like run to the experts we didn't did a little bit there but it was really kind of a subset of that space. Where you had the depth of experience around network around telephony kind of all those different pieces. It was just much more specialized. Yep. And nowadays you're kind of seeing a more simplify you're having all these dashboards a kind of tile that stuff together. So, you know people that may or may not know the product you know in depth can easily log in and find out exactly what's going on with the product. Well I know that it's a while we're waiting here at the beginning of Microsoft fiscal year, and so I'm an Alliance manager so I own a lot of the Microsoft relationship with my company at point but. So, like, starting to see some of the metrics come through what Microsoft is it feels is important to what they're going to be kind of measured on. And it's going towards that direction of course teams which is still you know application or operating system when you want to want to call it now. It's still number one there, but so much more focused around meetings itself which includes hardware and all the capabilities that unified communication side of that so it's, it's all rising back up, you can be out front. Once again Eric. Yeah, indeed. It's a good space to be in I mean how's it been through the pandemic for for you and your team. Pretty much as soon as March last year hit. It was pretty much everybody overnight okay we need our phones to send the cloud now we are moving to the cloud now it's not a. Okay maybe we need to do this know that every single person that was maybe looking at your teams or even Skype for business at the time. And overnight was like okay we are moving forward these projects immediately as fast as we could. So pretty much overnight we had a tremendous amount of work on all the employees at T2M and I'm sure any consulting company or any other company out there in the space was under the same amount of load. In the final one of the questions was you know that the traditional last question of the of the event was like what do you foresee the future next three to five years and my first answer was I think one thing the pandemic did especially talk about the unified communication side of the house is they recognize where the gaps were things like outdated cameras crappy mics are in headsets and you know and the rest of that so it's one thing to be ready like our data secure. We're able we've got the right tools we had collaborate and communicate with each other. But the quality of that service and and increasing the game, people buying backdrops green screens lights microphones all that kind of stuff. And we kind of like the joke about it but I think that there's so much room for improvement from the vendors and certainly optimized from on the software side as well I think that that's going to be a major topic the next four or five years. In like as an example that we know we had one of our customers they had a deployment of 800 to 900 CX 600 link phone edition devices out there. Like, can we take in these term plays and let them move the teams. No. So pretty much overnight a lot of these companies, you know they were running that antiquated hardware that wasn't compatible with you know newer platforms. And overnight they had to start, you know, writing PO's to get new hardware new headsets kind of the big push was to get everybody headsets because you know I don't not everybody wants to have a phone carrying around with them just to have a meeting. But you know just kind of touches based on that point of you know overnight everything pretty much changed the environment the world today. You know, so back in so I was at Microsoft for three and a half years and having that, you know the digital phone tied into, you know, everything of course it was completely different solution that we were integrated with but being able to go in and from Skype or and you know and dial to your phone and you know that that capability. It's fantastic, but one of the limitations a lot of the hardware it's like it's version specific like it's you upgrade the software you need to replace the hardware as well. So, I don't have an answer for that it's just an observation but. Yeah, the companies that had like DVX is for example or you know like a see for like a 450 HD or something in those that support like that three fit, you know, those companies were still fine because they were able to continue using those devices. But you know a lot of those ones that we kind of never wanted to spend the money on it those are the ones that were really hurting the most start of and even into the pandemic. I've thought about, you know, for my for my kids is they're out there of course they all have their their own device and I was thinking about buying some new hardware buying something specifically for like teams meetings. Every all of my family has teams and we communicate in different tools different ways, but then I thought my kids are adults they're all working by your own hardware. What am I buying stuff for I'll buy them a card for their birthday or just use their cell phones. There you go. That's the already included option right. Every flavor of phone that's within our within our family as well so there's a common as a discussion point where somebody all talk about I'm on iPhone and and I've got you know, Apple iPhone haters in the family and and then I hear the the the whole iOS versus and Android battles and and then the time it was worse for me I was on Windows phone until 2018 and I would have those battles all the time get a Windows phone and I miss I miss mine. Yep. That that phone, you couldn't get any apps. I really liked my Windows phone. I was sad that they gave that up. Well what what else are you like actively talking about presenting on kind of what are your topics to juror. I'm so coming up. I'll actually be speaking at comms versus UK. I'm not sure yet if it's going to be in person or not yet for traveling from us UK. That's right hybrid event but yeah it's their first in person that they're back doing yeah I did the last one. Yep. So, not sure we're going to be in person yet but I'm at that conference I'm going to be speaking about deploying a highly available teams voice deployment. So kind of get a touch base and multiple SBCs kind of the routing behind that SBAs local media optimization a lot of those things that you know you have available to you but not every voice deployment today is working in that you know kind of bringing that to people's attention so they can learn you know what is there to keep that from our environment highly available. Kind of coming up after that hoping fingers crossed comms vnext is going to be happening October. Nothing official yet, but you know hopefully that does happen in October. And with that conference I'm going to be speaking on the media flows between different devices and different I different areas with the Microsoft teams. So kind of what happens if you're using to you have two clients in the same network if you've got three devices. Where is that media traffic going you know what does that look like in an actual environment and kind of explain that so that people can you know better optimized a network for future planning. So any other events this year. I don't believe there's any other. I think there's teams fast in October but that's more like a virtual. Well you know there's the Microsoft 365 collaboration conference in Las Vegas the second week in December, which is a good time to be in Vegas and very good in terms of weather but that's also bad if you're somebody likes blackjack. But it's, you know, I'm just saying that that you know this this this space this area is of interest to that crowd. More focused on the applications that the front end of that but you know to have people that know that the unified communication side of that. There's too few people that go speak through that I would just recommend and any other UC experts that are out there that are looking to participate in a big event. That should be a good event in December I think it'll be. I'm doing a couple other in persons prior to that leading up to that, but I think that's going to be the biggest of the year. For sure. So this guy so this is what kind of happens you know folks behind the scenes with with MVPs like you see you know people that kind of joined the fold and they're doing things more locally and then they start getting invites to other things and and a lot of times it's just about awareness that we just happen to have this conversation I've been doing a little operational activity helping share some information about another event. I am not a shill for the event. I'm just a fan of it and you know and plan on speaking there myself so. And that's one of those things like it's hard to keep track of everything that's going on because there's just so much stuff in this space. I keep track of and you know that's a great example of not being aware of something so. This is the one nice thing I say one nice thing that you can say about you know what happened with the pandemic no one talks about the pros of the pandemic, which is the the increase of obviously in online events and activities and but it's pushed a user groups and while there are so many and you need to be selective. It's easy just to fill up all of your spare time and participating in all the various user groups things around the world. But if you're looking for an opportunity to speak and get that experience and kind of show those. The depth of your experience and go and get started in the the conference scene. Then you know you just need to reach out to the user groups find out about these these other larger events that are going on submit abstracts. Get turned down the first few I got turned down and then it kind of clicked I did the first one and caught the bug and thankfully worked for a couple companies that really supported the community aspect of what it was doing and recognize that there's great marketing value and having somebody in the company that goes and does these things. There's a lot of you know most MPPs and I'm sure Eric you're the same way like I love sharing my knowledge and helping people and hearing their unique stories and perspectives which helps me retell those stories those scenarios and provide better guidance. We all get we all get better at what we do the more we collaborate and work together. But it starts with sharing those experiences. Indeed and like you know when I work on projects and you know different things in my lab is you know a lot of people know me by. You know I'm always like OK this is cool information that I know let's write a blog post and I really enjoy doing that and put that information out there because you know even if I come across some minor little bug or some little error you know you're configuring. You know let's go old school back Skype for business for example you're configuring pull pairing or something you run the little air. Let's post it out there because somebody somewhere may or may not run into that exact same problem one day and they'll be like OK what do I do and they may not know that much about the product to actually fix that issue. So kind of I enjoy putting that information out there because I know that I'm helping other people make right decisions in their environment and not hopefully not break anything. And can I help expand that so. Remember the old days of going and looking for information in the early days of the Internet trying to find information and essentially you're finding like the online versions of the manuals of whatever it is that's broken in your life that you're trying to fix there. Whether it's you know your marriage your car your software whatever it is and there's you find the manual around that and then I mean that's the benefit of communities that now. But so I'm not a car guy my help my son buy a beat up used Land Rover loved that thing except if you know that world that Land Rover had the three amigos I think is the name of the problem. So the yeah anyway but to go and find videos that walked you through step by step. How to do something and again I was finding similar information that I couldn't seem to decipher from the official documentation. But when I had people that had actually walked through the experience and and did these step by step videos walking through would explain well the manual tells you this but you actually need to disconnect this other part even to get to that piece you know little things like that. Little things like that is fantastic well the same happens around your collaboration technology by communication technologies that there's the one through 10 of what you need to do but then there's the rest of the filler story the life experience of those that have been through that. That's the value of community. That's what that's what we do that's we go in and we put the narrative around the steps. Not not talking bad about Microsoft docs or anything you know nothing of that matter. There's a lot of times where you can read that you're like what in the world are they talking about and there's just all this stuff that you don't know. And that's one of the things that like incorporating in my blog post is you know pulling all that information and not just showing a step by step how to do something pulling all the information so you know what you're doing. And kind of you know put together so that you have all this kind of prerequisites there and it's easy to understand. And that's one of the things that I enjoy and that's one of the things I love about the community, you know, if I go back to 2016 you know there's me, you know not even a year working in the it industry since I graduated high school. I came across Skype for business, found the product overnight it was a match made in heaven, you know, next day I'm building a Skype server I'm like okay how do I build this come across this guy called Jeff shirts and found his blog and he's just in depth. So you understand, you know why you need these DNS records why you need a certificate with these C names on it and like all these things that I was foreign to me at the time. You know, I fully started beginning to understand a lot of that stuff and you know without that blog post it wouldn't have been easy for me. So you know that just kind of goes to show you know the community is big help to anybody no matter where you know where you're at whether you're you know level one, you know whether you're level 10 whatever you're at. And then the ability to go and I don't know how did you then do like it's great you find that content, but kind of what was that that point at which you reached out and connected with some of these people to do that right away to take you a while to get there. It took me a while it took me a little bit to actually get there. It was kind of 2018 I started engaging a little bit with the community and kind of you know what was going on you know I went to our local user group, starting back in 2016 the backman was just the Skype Skype for business user group and now it's teams user group. I was part of the national level. But I started kind of meeting some people through that user group, and then from there I started expanding out via Twitter, came across this person with the cowboy hat called Josh play like you know was messaging him and pretty much as soon as the beginning of 2019 hit. It was just all out meeting every single person. You know, Pat Richard Adam ball john McKinney, in just one thing after another, you know, started reaching out so kind of it was a gradual process it was not overnight that hey I know everybody or you know hey I know this person. But that's kind of one of the cool things about the community is a lot of people know each other and you know it's easy to keep in touch. Well that's one of the I think that's a lesson learned for anybody that's out there is like. Don't take so long to reach out and connect with other players it's, I mean it's one thing that it were some people just aren't very good not comfortable reaching out kind of cold calling and hey I'm a fan or read your blog post or where I've got this question. As I go the worst thing that's going to happen is there's going to say look I'm busy I can't connect and help walk you through this but. But usually what will happen and especially with MVPs is that if if I can't answer that I'll say you know who can answer that for you. And I said I'm happy to provide an introduction I do that all the time via LinkedIn. But that's it if somebody has an MVP as part of their their title. If we're in there in this world then we are people that are open to connecting so don't be shy reach out. For sure. Yeah LinkedIn my Twitter is always open everything just shoot me a message anywhere you're at and you know I'm glad to respond well that's the on social media via my blog any of those things. Excellent yeah what is your Twitter handle. I my Twitter handle is my name Eric Marcy and then my blog is you see it that blog. Very cool so we'll have that in the blog post as well and I'll have your Twitter handle what I asked you that question it will have already appeared on screen but yeah. Yeah it's always good so so what else is what else is going on any other major activity so you've got you know those those events that are coming up anything else that you're focused on. So right now I'm actually working on a direct routing configuration tool. So focusing more on like the advanced side of things. So you know there's a lot of blog posts out there direct routing in general if you're just setting up a really basic environment is very quick and easy to set up you know your separate gateway set your voice routes your policies everything you're good to go. But one of the things that you know there's not a lot of information out there on is what happens when you have those advanced voice appointments. You know those ones with you know 350 normalization rules per dial plan the ones that need trunk translation rules. You know what happens with those and you know you'll find some information out there about it. But the big thing that you run into is that a lot of it is you know trying to understand Microsoft's way of you know building these powers command. So this tool in this utility that I'm working on is designed to help people in those advanced scenarios. I'm also people in standard scenarios too so it's kind of got like kind of more advanced functions and more basic functions built into it. But it's designed to help anybody so that you can quickly get that into your deployment without needing no PowerShell code because you know some not everybody knows PowerShell I'm still I could consider myself a novice so not anything crazy. I'm sure you know Pat Richard or somebody could be like oh yeah I could get this in two lines of code or something. But you know it's kind of one of those cool things I'm working on to help the community and you know kind of that is one example of you know upcoming releases on some other things that I am working on as well so. Very cool is that stuff that is like can people find out more about what you're working on there like through your site or. Yes so my site is up to date right now with kind of everything that I have released and a lot of the stuff that I do have released. I do continuously update one of my most recent ones was bringing the Skype for business meeting join content delivery network on premises. That was kind of a big one preserving a product just in case they shut down the CDN when they shut down Skype online. But kind of coming forward I think I'm going to start doing like a quarterly update of hey here's what's going to come next and you know in the future from the blog. People would absolutely love that I know that's one of the big questions that I'm asked like a lot of MVPs I'm sure asked is like how do you keep up on everything and my my responses like well I don't. So I have kind of go to people around certain topics. It's funny so Adam and Jonathan are my to go to UC people. And I pulled them in and interviewed them on a couple things and as topics come up. But I have your regular post that I go out to so I've been turning to somebody like you like if you have a. A podcast or if you're doing regular videos that provide where you're going watching the Microsoft roadmap and then summarizing that on a monthly or quarterly basis is incredibly powerful. So it's just another reason to reach out and and get to know him. So well Eric hey really appreciate your times great getting to know you and learning about what you're working on and you've already shared kind of your social contacts there why don't you give the blog one more plug. So the blog is you see it that blog and then Twitter handle is Eric Marcy. Very cool well Eric well it was great talking to you and will. I'm sure we'll see each other soon. I don't know when the next time is there is another event that's happening in person in Denver or the guys doing another of their events. So it's not nothing official yet but they're we're we're shooting they're they're trying to do something come October in person so. The details of that I will drive over the hill for that so other other side of the Rockies from them so awesome. All right well Eric well thanks a lot for your time and we'll talk to you soon. Thank you so much for the time today and.