January was a month where I did a lot of travelling and attending different user groups.
I attended the following events
- 12th - PASS SQL London Chapter
- 14th - Microsoft UKITCAMP event - What’s New in Windows 10 Enterprise
- 14th - WinOps Meetup - London
- 19th - SharePoint User Groups - Leeds
- 20th - Microsoft UKITCAMP event - What’s New in Server 2016 - Manchester
- 20th - LeanAgile Meetup - Manchester
- 26th - .Net / Windows Platform User Group - Manchester
- 28th - SQL User Group - Ipswich
Now those that know me will know that I attend the events because I’m genuinely interested in the topics at the events or catching up with the people that are there after all the events are all about the community and the networking opportunities that they bring to us.
I intend to in future post ahead of where you can catch me in the following month and then at the end of the month detail more about what I learned at the events.
So what did I get upto at these events?
SQLPass London - we were treated to 2 great presentations - one on Azure Machine Learning by Peter Myers who was over from Australia for the NDC conference and one on the power of Pyramid Analytics for use in SQL Server. Both left me wanting to learn more when I get chance to.
What’s New in Windows 10 - this event was great for the insights as to how the future of device deployment can be done in the mobile workforce. This is an ever changing and evolving story and one that I’m hopeful the organisations will start to work with and combine with the power of the cloud. Stay in tune for more on this in a later post.
WinOps - Well this was definitely one of the highlights of the month for me - mainly because it was a great event and from it I’ve made some great contacts and will be looking forward to seeing where the WinOps group expands to in the coming months as well as the upcoming WinOps conference.
SharePoint User Group - I always enjoy attending this User Group as the organisers always make sure to make the event great. I also learned about Node.js from Garry Tinder and this event was the only one where I gave a presentation this month and it was on PowerShell DSC for SharePoint. It spawned off some good conversations and I know I’m not the only one that is interested in seeing where this will lead. We were also treated to some lightning sessions from Simon Hudson & Simon Doy.
What’s New in Server 2016 - Server 2016 is again an evolving story and its important now more than ever to under how this is the case and how this can affect business decisions going forward. Nano Server will be a big change to how IT teams manage their infrastructure and guess what technology will be a bigger part of the IT admin’s lives? Yes that’s PowerShell which is now pretty much 10 years old.
LeanAgile - We had a great talk from Amy Lynch about the diversification challenges in IT and although it was more geared to the challenges of recruiting more women in IT the conversations that came out of it were certainly what made the night worthwhile.
Windows Platform / .NET - this was actually just a really good causal social event as there wasn’t a topic for the evening and one that lasted until 5am (yes on a Tuesday)
SQL East Anglia - Well I must have been a tad bit mad to attend this. 8 hours of driving to get there and back but it was certainly worth it. Being from a SharePoint background I’ve always had the mindset that it’s a sensible idea to learn more about the underlying Data Platform and I’m certainly not wrong in that thinking. Perhaps it’s the statistician in me coming through but data analysis and manipulation is definitely one of those dark arts that keeps me entertained. Perhaps that’s why I see a fantastic future in Azure Machine Learning and PowerBI. The session was one that took my interest as understanding what’s new in SQL 2016 for the BI professional is something that certainly ticks the boxes for me in the future of IT technology. Also being able to have a good chinwag with Mark Broadbent and congratulate him in person on his MVP Award also made the trip worthwhile for me. I’m a big advocate of the community and rewarding those that make the community a better place and I’m glad that Mark has got this Award under his belt.
Well that was what I got upto in January - February has been busy so far and I’ll post about it in due course.