CanITCon 2024 - Kelowna

What an amazing week in Kelowna for CanITCon , I forgot how beautiful Kelowna is this time of year and the Delta Grand Okanagan was the perfect setting for a Canadian MSP conference.

Day 1 - Registration & Welcome Reception

Registration was seamless and the welcome pack was generous. This pack was filled with various goodies including some nighttime reading from Mark Copeman .

In the evening, there was an amazing welcome reception on the outdoor terrace overlooking Okanagan Lake. I had to suit up in some Lyra swag to generate conversations around “what’s Lyra”. Talking to people about how Evergreen + Lyra Technology Group = peanut butter and jelly for your MSP was a lot of fun.

Day 2 - Kickoff, sessions, and VIP Event

It was a full house (apparently twice the amount of attendees compared to last year) to kick things off.?

It was awesome to see Jennifer Roy from Nucleus Networks on a "Women in Tech" panel - my favourite quote from this talk was from Brook Lee at ScalePad talking about her consulting days and how she “loves a good dumpster fire” (same!).

Next up it was Wes Spencer from Empath talking about taming the attack surface. It was the first time I’ve heard the term “Meatware”, I’m going to have to use this term moving forward.

Next up was Kaseya featuring my old friend and former Capilano University classmate, Miles Walker . This guy has the same amount of energy as he did 20+ years ago when we used to crush workouts at Steve Nash Fitness world in North Vancouver. It was awesome to catchup on life, talk about our sneaker collections, and chat all things MSPs.

Day 2 was capped off with a venue called Crown and Thieves. This was one of the most unique and arguably one of the best conference venues I’ve attended. The pictures don’t do it justice but it’s a multi floor experience with two outdoor patios (including a rooftop) and a speakeasy downstairs with a stage and great acoustics.

Day 3: Breakouts, Awards, Wrap Party

It was nice to see Todd Kane and former colleague speak on MSP Project Management, loved the “no story zone” approach to important meetings. Todd also won best breakout session of the week so a huge congrats to Todd.

I stepped away for a bit to have a great lunch with Lara Olivier , Lyra Technology Group 's ScalePad Partner Account Manager, the view from our table was “ok”:

It was awesome to catchup with Tracie Orisko from Huntress and to hear her talk about building MSP communities.

After a day of indoor sessions, it was nice to get some fresh air at the lake which was right outside the resort, the boardwalk spanned for miles and was a great way to decompress.

Always a pleasure to hangout with the Lyra/Evergreen team with Jennifer Roy and Sarah Ahmed and meet a long list of new friends in the industry.

The list of the new and familiar faces this week is too long but I’m going to try and tag a few: Reid McConkey , Wim Kerkhoff , Greg Celmainis , Kyle Christensen , Adam Crandall , Barinder Hans , Mike Gustavson , Rhiannon B. , Jason Bristow - the list goes on.

A huge thank you to Daniel Mitchell , Carrie Green and the team organizing the event. It was my first time at CanITCon and it surpassed expectations. I’m looking forward to seeing you all next year. You can register for the 2025 event HERE . See you next year in Kelowna!