WEBCON’s Mike Fitzmaurice gives his guide to ESPC20 Online.

Mike Fitzmaurice, WEBCON’s Chief Evangelist and VP-North America https://webcon.com/

ESPC20 Online is packed with a lot of sessions. I know I can watch any of them later, but even so I can’t practically watch them all. So I’ve been going through the programme and figuring out which sessions I want to see – especially in real time. I’m particularly interested in sessions that would be useful for people who build applications with WEBCON BPS  (or other business process management platforms), but I also care about sessions that should be seen simply because they help make the world make more sense.

Pre Conference Tutorials

Everything You Wanted to Know About Power BI (But Were Afraid To Ask): I’d watch a workshop of John’s even if all it covered was how to grow spicy capsicum peppers. Mercifully enough, he’s instead talking about how to get answers out of data to drive decisions, and how to use Power BI to do it. So that’ll be better.

Drive Microsoft 365 Adoption: How to Make It Easy To Do The Right Thing: Dux is great, and since you can’t be successful if your users don’t adopt your work, the only reason you should skip this is if you’re already an expert on user adoption. Otherwise, check this out.

My top picks for Monday 14th are as follows:

PnP PowerShell: A Must-Have in your Toolkit: I like Erwin. I like PowerShell. I like what’s been done to bring everything the Patterns & Practices gang has been doing to PowerShell. And PowerShell scripts can be executed as part of WEBCON processes. So you can be a low-code developer or an IT professional and there’ll be something in it for you. There is no way I will miss this.

Intranet with Teams: Dos and Don’ts from a Real Life Customer Case: I like real-world case studies, but only when they present the lessons learned in a way the rest of us can use. This one looks like it’s going to do just that. And I’ve seen enough organizations struggle with how to use Teams effectively to want to see what Karoliina has to say.

Azure Automation Ramp Up: For the same reason I want to see the PnP PowerShell session, I want to see this. It’s info that can be used to make WEBCON applications better.

Rethinking Citizen Development: I guess I’m cheating by recommending my own session, but I am, by definition, going to be there. Seriously, though, a few years back I did an ESPC keynote in Stockholm advocating citizen development. We’ve had a few years to see whether it’s worked. I’ll share some insight on the subject. If that’s interesting to you, check it out.

What is the Microsoft Graph?:  I like Jeremy. I like Graph. So I’ll probably like this session. More to the point, we’re all supposed to be pivoting to using it instead of all the one-off APIs out there – so get with the program if you’re not already using it and check out this session.

Tuesday 15th are as follows:

I Find your Lack of Azure Functions Disturbing: I like Tiago. I like Azure Functions. We can call them from WEBCON processes with ease, and they can come in quite handy. Everyone should know how to build these things.

Your Intranet Shopping List: Must Have Capabilities for Your Modern, Intelligent Intranet: I’m not sure Susan has delivered a bad presentation in her entire life. Moreover, she cares as much about using tools well to get things done as she cares about describing tools (we’re kindred spirits in that respect).

Top 5 Cognitive Services for Microsoft 365: Thomas and Stephan are good guys, and Cognitive Services are both useful and fun. And yes, you can call out to them from WEBCON processes (and other platforms, too). It’s AI made practical. Check it out!

Connect me to the Graph: Build your own Graph Connector for Microsoft Search: If your solution has any content, you’d be mad not to make it searchable – and the Graph Connector for Microsoft Search is the way to do it. It’s the way we did it at WEBCON.

How to Overcome the Chaos Teams Causes in SharePoint Document Libraries: There’s no real professional tie-in with this session, but I like Melanie and I very much like adding order to what is otherwise pure chaos. And I’ve definitely seen Teams turn SharePoint environments into chaos. So let’s see what she’s got to say.

Post Conference Tutorials

Introduction to Information Architecture: How to Organize an Awesome Intranet: Susan focuses on using technology, not describing it. It’s kind of like the difference between a workshop in how to write better vs. a workshop on how to use Microsoft Word better. I’d take the former every time. And this is a topic every organization needs.

Road to the Modernization of your SharePoint Solutions: I’ve been a part of the SharePoint community since before it was called SharePoint; in fact, I’m one of its founders. There are so many old-school solutions out there that desperately need updating, and I have absolute confidence in Paolo’s ability to show you how to do it.

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