Thank you #ESPC22 ???????

This is like writing an Oscar speech - when just attending a conference feels like winning ?? I really want to summarise how #ESPC22 was for me - what the community and conferences mean to me. Every thanks is worth giving and I want to thank so many people ?? So be prepared, the list is long.

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On the first conference day, right after the keynote, me and my best session buddy Amanda Sterner ???? had so much fun in our joint session about employee experience in Teams and Microsoft Viva. About 240 people had signed up for our session, and our room had only seats for 130 people. So we literally got standing ovations ?? Presenting together with someone is so different from presenting on your own. I can recommend - it makes the session more fun, flexible and interactive. Let's hope we'll see our girl power team in other conferences next year ??

On the same evening, we had a great ESPC22 live reporter interview with Amanda and a first-day summary discussion with Vesa Nopanen [MVP] , all hosted by amazing Tracy Van der Schyff and Christian Buckley and organised by Michael Greth . That was a new experience for me, super fun and would totally do it again!

I also had the honour to visit the ShareGate Rising Up interview series hosted by Laurent St-Pierre . 15 minutes (of fame ??) went by so fast! Time flies when it's all about the employee experience, I guess...

Our girl power gang, aka me, Amanda and Femke Cornelissen ? , also united in recording a christmassy vlog about community and women in tech. The session will be out on the 15th of December on the Festive Tech calendar site ?? Let's just hope the hotel muzak didn't interfere with our recording too much ??

My second presentation (by myself) was a horror story time about how you can fail in user adoption and what you could do to avoid making those same mistakes. I was a bit surprised and super happy to see that even though it was the last session spot on the last day of the conference, 230 people still signed up for the session. For me, that means that user adoption and modern work interest a huge amount of people - even at a tech conference!

Speaking at a conference is not just about you on stage. In fact, you on stage is the very tiny (although important!) detail of the whole experience. You will mingle in the expo area, speak to numerous attendees, and you'll have a hard time walking 20 metres without being stopped somewhere along the way. There are the top experts all around you - utilise all that knowledge!

During the conference, I love to attend other people's sessions. The topic doesn't even matter that much - there is so much to learn from every session. Chris O'Brien had a very informative presentation about Viva Topics, which was also excellent story-telling and presentation-wise. It was super fun to attend a Good Vibes bot session by Lee Ford and ??Luise Freese , even though the topic is totally unfamiliar to me (not Good Vibes but making bots ??). It also was wonderful to see my #ModernWork colleague Sari Soinoja on the stage!

My fellow #VivaExplorers had many sessions at the conference, including ??Lesley Crook and St?le Hansen rocking the big stage and the buzzer-crazy panel with Lesley, Sara Fennah , Chirag Patel MVP MCT , Kevin McDonnell and Zoe Wilson ??? Last (but not least!), seeing amazing keynotes from Scott Hanselman and the whole keynote crew not only make you a tiny bit smarter but also gives lots of tips for how to make a good presentation and how to be a better presenter in the future. It's learning all day long!

But the best part is the people. Amazing, fun, friendly, top experts, rockstars but still humble, always up for discussion and giving advice. Microsoft community makes the magic happen. Live conferences make it happen. Even for me - an introverted, Finnish, quiet person - other people are what make it happen. It's amazing to see people after months or even years, and just hug and continue from right where you were back then.

(In the pictures, excluding the ones I already mentioned: Marijn Somers , Ahmad Najjar , Robert Mulsow , Sara Lagerquist , Yannick Reekmans , Vivian Voss , Tomasz Poszytek and Elio Struyf )

It's not just any community - it's my community. It's not just any people - these are my people. The feeling of belonging and being accepted just as you are is a cliché but a priceless and ever-so-true cliché ??

Special thanks to organisers Colleen Baxter , Kevin Monahan , Sarah McNamara , Ella Murphy & the whole ESPC crew ???? Without you, none of this would happen. And one last applause to the person who came up with that lego speaker gift. That is the. Coolest. Thing. Ever. ??

See you next year! ??