EVENT RECAP | Microsoft 365 Community Conference

Orlando was a'buzz April 30 - May 2, 2024. We were so pleased to attend and participate. It was a packed week filled with insights, feedback, and fun. Below is a recap of various aspects of the event - across keynotes, general sessions, breakout sessions, our booth in the Expo Hall, the Community Lounge and Lightning Talks, roundtable discussions, and user research sessions. Our community cup runneth over!

Keynote & general sessions

The conference started with a massive 75-minute keynote, “The Age of Copilots ” with Jeff Teper and co-presenters: Miceile Barrett , Derek Snyder , and Naomi Moneypenny - energizing nearly 3,000 attendees. Jeff started with an inspiring story about our community member and MVP, Merethe Stave , and her personal journey with SharePoint. The audience then got an action-packed overview of Copilot, Teams, OneDrive, SharePoint, and Stream – with fantastic LIVE demos and big claps throughout. Jeff highlighted that 300+ Microsoft full-time employees were at the show – to share, listen, and engage with the best community in tech – including pulling in Teams VP, Ilya Bukshteyn , for a live ‘voice isolation’ demo AND giving away a Jeff-Teper-signed Fender guitar ???????! The keynote brought clarity on where and how Microsoft is ushering in the future of work in the era of AI.

Day one continued right into our five general sessions – adding more clarity and depth across important investment areas:

• “Reshaping productivity with Copilot for Microsoft 365 ” with Bobby Kishore and Dan Parish | Sharing the next level of AI investments across Copilot Studio, Copilot Lab, and Copilot Dashboard – kicking it off with a fun video about how Copilot will help generate videos from text prompts.??

• “The future of work with Microsoft Teams ” with Sumi Singh and Derek Snyder |?Highlighting the details of making Teams faster, simpler, and smarter. Great framing and demos to highlight how we are investing in the cutting-edge of AI to enhance teamwork.?

• “Transform workplace experience: Strategies and best practices ” with Steve Clayton [part of the Transformation track designed by Dan Holme ] |?This was a peek into how we use Copilot and AI within Microsoft’s own communications team – including the best practices to pay it forward and inspire our customers and partners to approach generative AI capabilities.??

• “Content Management and Collaboration for the AI Era ” with Zach Rosenfield , Lincoln DeMaris , Melissa Torres , Sesha Mani , and Ashu Rawat |?Talk about a demo-packed session balanced with helpful framing and guidance – again to show and inspire! This explored everything new across SharePoint, OneDrive, Lists, with depth for IT and developers, with a balance of core tech and new Copilot innovation.??

• “What’s new and next for Microsoft Viva and the employee experience ” with Kirk Gregersen , Kristi Kelly , and Nick DeFalco |?This one was packed with product strategy, recent innovations and integrations, plus roadmap details about what’s to come. There was plenty of AI and analytics to make any business leader consider the value of how Microsoft supports and promotes a better employee experience for all.??

The event also hosted an Ask Microsoft Anything (AMA) session - 30+ questions and never a dull moment, plus much SWAG. Each question spurred lively discussions. Plus, a special thanks to the 3 attendee participants who audibly earned their prizes impersonating Mickey Mouse, the Stormtrooper “Wilhelm scream” & Chewbacca’s gurgle yell. ??

At the end of the event, it was closing keynote time, and a full room showed up to learn about how to approach user enablement. Our very own, Karuana Gatimu , took the #M365Con stage to share her insights on “Delivering Business Value and User Satisfaction in the Era of Al .” Karuana focused on the journey and fundamental skills to best adopt and enable employees when having trust intact. She highlighted valuable customer kits, strategy, and guidance on sites like adoption.microsoft.com , how to become a champion, learn from others, and she made the big announcement of next year’s M365Con: May 6-8, 2025, in Las Vegas, NV . Woot, woot! #CommunityLuv ??

Breakout sessions

The bulk of the event came from in-depth training sessions from Microsoft and community experts. Content spanned Copilot and AI, SharePoint, Teams, OneDrive, Viva, Power Platform, and related Microsoft 365 apps and services. Plus, a full Transformation track for communicators, HR, and business stakeholders in workplace experience. Some sessions provided an overview of specific product areas, many filled with real-world solutions, and always honest perspectives from trusted experts.

UPDATED | View all recorded sessions on demand now within the Microsoft 365 Community Conference playlist on the Microsoft Community Learning channel. Below is a sample of what type of breakout content was presented at the event:

• “Unifying Task Management in Microsoft Teams ” with Scott Van Vliet , Howard Crow , and Roberto Bojorquez | This session focused on bringing together To Do, Planner, Project into a single unified experience enhanced by Copilot capabilities.?
• “How Copilot for Microsoft 365 Works” with A.J. Brush and Mary Pasch | Attendees were given a behind-the-scenes view to better understand the architecture and dataflows of Copilot for Microsoft 365, including retrieval augmented generation techniques, app commanding, and options to securely connect to external data.?
• “Building and Extending Copilots with Microsoft Copilot Studio ” with Dewain Robinson and Gary Pretty | Attendees discovered how to build custom copilots and see how cutting-edge generative AI capabilities let your Copilot answer questions over your own data in minutes and rapidly build out by enabling fully generated conversation over your APIs.??
• “The Ins and Outs of Microsoft 365 Backup, Archive ” with Jaclynn Hiranaka and Trent Green | The audience learned the latest on Microsoft 365 Backup and Microsoft 365 Archive – file level archiving, Teams support for backup, and much more -- now available in public preview.
• “How Microsoft Does IT: Tenant Governance Best Practices ” with David Johnson | David shared what he considers to be must-do tips and best practices to govern a Microsoft 365 tenant overall. And shared how an enterprise deals with sprawl, oversharing and compliance while you empower your employees.
• “The Future of Windows, Windows 365 and AI ” with Christiaan Brinkhoff | Cloud Computing is more popular than ever before due to the shifting in hybrid remote working requirements from businesses. Christiaan shared how the future of Windows is shaping with the latest features and vision around Windows 365, Windows 11, and Copilot.

You can review our M365Con event guide to get a sense of all the content we presented, with equal amount of focus on depth from Microsoft MVPs and community leaders.

Roundtable Discussions?

Microsoft hosted numerous group roundtable discussions kicking off with a full room for the "How SMBs are accelerating productivity” conversation. Another session covered Teams virtual events - talking and sharing futures. Attendees were thankful for the opportunity to connect in person and the discussions were lively, productive, and insightful! ?

During the Copilot Early Adopter Program (EAP) debrief roundtable, Microsoft heard about the journeys customers have taken with their Copilot enablement while sharing lessons learned and creative ideas to build excitement and best practices to scale deployment.?

Last example discussions... We had overflowing rooms for the Enhancing productivity with Microsoft Copilot using Microsoft Copilot Studio AND Copilot Extensibility with Microsoft 365 Graph Connectors and Plugins -- thanks to all developers for their willingness to listen and share. #CodeTheFuture

Expo Hall | Microsoft Booth?

The Microsoft Booth was active within the bustling Expo Hall. Our experts gave countless demos and took part in productive customer conversations throughout. We scanned a lot of badges and had hundreds of attendees claim their unique virtual badge for their profile on the Microsoft Tech Community .

Community Lounge – Meet and Greets + Lightning Talk Theater?

Throughout the event, we welcomed a steady stream of attendees who dove into lively discussions with our team and partners on OneDrive & SharePoint, Microsoft Learn, Microsoft Certifications, Microsoft SMB, Patterns & Practices, Microsoft Global Community Initiative & Adoption.Microsoft.com . We had the pleasure of hosting several Meet & Greets, featuring the likes of Jeff Teper , Scott Van Vliet , Heather Cook , Naomi Moneypenny , Jason Moore , Allison Michels , and our Teams product team.?

Plus, our Ask the Experts tables on the main floor, covering Copilot, Microsoft 365, Microsoft Teams, OneDrive & SharePoint, Microsoft Mesh, Developer/Extensibility, Microsoft Viva, and Data Security, sparked engaging conversations. It was a fantastic opportunity to connect with community members in smaller, more intimate settings. And finally, we hosted our first live Mondays at Microsoft episode with Karuana Gatimu and Heather Cook and two live community calls with Vesa Juvonen and friend to an engaged and enthusiastic crowd - online and off!?

As part of our Community Events Giveback program, we hosted a meet and greet with attendees from the Boys and Girls Club of Central Orlando, Orlando Technical College, and Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Miami in the Community Lounge. A big thank you to our local Orlando technical specialists for being our giveback ambassadors this week and workstream organizer Jasmine Hoegh, PMP, CSSGB - thanks, Jasmine.

The team also had the pleasure of participating in a panel at the Diversity & Inclusion in Tech Luncheon where Cathy Dew , Miranda Jones, PMP, CSPO , Ben Truelove , Maeneka Rai Grewal , Rie Merritt , and Harry Ferguson shared their experiences in tech and where they see the industry moving in the future as it relates to diversity and inclusion. The conversation was engaging and thought-provoking and clearly provided great value for the audience.??

User Research sessions?

The team held over 35 in-person research roundtable sessions facilitated by the Microsoft User Experience Research team. They reported back saying they had lively and insightful conversations with our customers about their needs, ideas, and feedback on Microsoft products. They explored a variety of topics, such as Microsoft Mesh, SharePoint branding, themes and authoring, Teams and Loop collaboration, OneDrive Copilot, Teams Admin Copilot, SharePoint analytics, and M365 file sharing and permissions. Attendees provided valuable perspectives which will help us to shape the future of Microsoft products. The sessions were interactive and fun, with activities like coloring SharePoint pages, designing analytics dashboards, “paying” for features with play money, and more.?Kudos to Nicole M Hill, PhD and team for organizing and delivering this unique value to the show.

In the end...

We are grateful for the year's active and engaging #M365Con — so much goodness, caring, learning, and fun! Great questions, stories, understanding of your concerns, and the sharing in fun. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you!

We look forward to seeing in Vegas - May 2025.