The Road to ECS - S2 E3: Mark Kashman
A relaxed, insightful conversation with Mark Kashman about his transition from Microsoft to consulting, how product feedback really works behind the scenes, and the realities of building features at scale.
Welcome to the another episode of the road to ETSs with Aris Valdec and myself. And today we have a very special guest. Today we have Mark Hashman with us. So Mark, how are things? What have you been up lately? >> Uh let's see. What have I been up to lately? I've been wearing a little bit more of a rain jacket. It's a little bit turning into the fall, but uh for the most part, I kind of feel like I get to reinvent or restart things. I'm getting back into the community. I had been at
Microsoft for quite some time, 20 years, and uh with things that were a little bit out of my control, I'm now not at Microsoft. But that is okay because I've landed in a wonderful place called Simprais Consulting. And where it really lands me is back into the Microsoft tech community, which I'm I'm always been very proud and pleased to be a part of. uh and it's great to be a part of it again through a different lens which uh I'm really grateful to the practice team for giving
me the opportunity. >> I don't think that there's anybody in the world who is like in our space at least who doesn't know who you are and they probably know you from the Microsoft right so back at Microsoft you were a PM like you've always been in the marketing team or have you also been a fe feature PM at some point? >> Uh I've never been a feature PM. uh I have been in the consulting side. So Microsoft consulting services >> we built a a solution a long long time
ago in the 2007 to 2010 uh the team that I was on was building a product called the interactive media manager on top of SharePoint. SharePoint 2007. Props to Timson. >> Yeah. Uh but then you're right, I was primarily in marketing for a long time and I started as the original uh product manager for SharePoint online and then took over lots of different things, you know, as they needed. Uh there was a little time spent with One Drive, a little bit with Delve, a little bit with Office 365 video, Microsoft lists. Um,
but in the last part of my tenure there at Microsoft, I was actually in the engineering team, but to your question, not as a feature PM. Uh, we really focused on audience and community engagement across a lot of different things, supporting keynotes and events, doing a lot of the digital outreach, social and videos. Um, and anything that I could do to support the community and and vice versa to listen also. So listening to customers, listening to partners and just being another ear at Microsoft that was trying to figure out
what do people want and uh meeting with the engineering teams who then you know went and built built hopefully all the good things that you love. >> I think Mark you were the guy telling that's a good feedback. >> That's right. And uh that that has now happened to me from somebody at Microsoft because >> really that >> I suggest this was we all know you might know him Chris Bortlick >> I said oh you know what would be a really good feature of co-pilot I said
what I said and he said it's really great feedback >> how did that make you feel my mark on the receiving end of it >> yeah yeah it it it both made me chuckle and it made me think well I don't know if that'll get in 18 months, right? >> Possibly. Yeah, it was I I thought it was a good suggestion, but it was really a fun moment to then be in this new space. Yeah. Okay. Uh but even on the inside, I'll I'll to be to be very honest, even on the inside in the past,
just because you have a good idea doesn't mean uh it takes hold because it does take a lot of time and effort. Uh but at the same time, I I will not now be shy to share my feedback. Well, so that that is an interesting point and just like to the extent you can without you know breaking any NDAs or any agreements you you might have in place. Can you share a little bit of like what goes into a piece of feedback being received by folks at Microsoft to that thing being actually shipped and how many like what are the different
decision points that are being taken into account for a yay or a nay? Yeah, I think it's a lot of teams coming together first just making sure that the feedback was understood. So, they usually will meet with the individual uh and really understand what is the issue that you're having. If it's a problem, they want to fix it. If it's a new idea, they want to get it on the calendar if they agree or if they just see it coming in, you know, in lots of different channels. Um, so they first try to
understand it, they try to design around it, they get an early spec and then they iterate if it's something that they want to move forward. They still have to get buyin and that's buyin from their peers. That's buyin from upper management. It's buyin just from what is our budget this year because if they already have their plan set like we know next week is Microsoft Ignite as far as this recording. And they've already planned out a lot of things, six to eight months at least. Uh which means a lot of people
are booked. So they can't just take on, you know, random good ideas. They do have to plan them. Um and then they start like any other feature if it lands and moves past the initial gates goes into design it goes into iterative you know PM type control additional feedback you all have been or been close to Microsoft MVPs you know their touch points along the way so once a good idea lands and they agree that it's a good idea it just gets put into the machine of what you'll hear a lot of people
refer to as the backlog. It's on our backlog. It's on our backlog. Even though I'm not a big fan of the words >> that from that's great feedback. >> Yeah. But it's much much better. Much better. A real backlog means they're tracking and and managing it. And if it really resonates or solves a problem or the whole of the community is yelling the same thing. The backlog is something that that means it's really being taken into consideration if not being worked
on. But I guess so, so that only shows, right, that there is no such thing as >> why won't you just >> put the name of the thing you want to see fixed like it doesn't like even at our scale and and and I wonder what's your take on being in because like I think you've seen many different teams and you've you are in a or you were in a different side at Microsoft as I am but I guess what's your take on the because like >> to folks externally it comes like like
you Microsoft is this big company thousands of engineers why don't you just >> is that the reality or it isn't >> no it is a reality they are finite resources and you know I I can't speak confidently because I was never a decision maker from a developer perspective but I can point to the people that I worked with the designers were usually you know not a significant part of the organization but they really did great work the developers certainly or there's a lot of folks that I didn't
meet because they were scattered. So there are a lot of bodies but when it comes to the what does it take to manage SharePoint to run SharePoint uptime you know all that stuff and then create new features it it gets to be a very finite uh a limited set of people at Microsoft who could then say yes let's do that >> um because it's not the whole of Microsoft because there's the Xbox team and the SQL team and the Exchange team and there's your team and >> who would have thought we're we're doing
many Thanks. Right. >> Yeah. Yeah. So, it's not a surprise when something might take a little bit, but if they do say that they're going to get to it, the SharePoint team is usually pretty good at at putting it on the calendar and if they ever start to communicate, uh even under NDA that it's got a certain timeline. Uh things might slip and dates change. We know that. But uh you know you you at some point you build a lot of confidence because the team does have an amount of resources to
to get to things that they say yes and commit to. >> Yeah. Mark >> just from my >> from my side from many years ago a friend of all of ours uh whom you all know very well um Bill Bear I think this might happen 13 14 years ago at one of the MVP meetings I was that guy wanting just that one thing >> was back on the SharePoint server even on the on the server side and in front of all of the people Bill gave me this explanation If I have $1, what do I do with $1? I have $1, one
developer, one feature. This triangle and how it works. And to be completely honest, I did not buy that at that point of time through the work through the work with run events uh and having finished developers and resources. I think of Bill Bear next time he's in Germany because he always pretends to be a German, which he isn't. We all know but uh let's keep on pretending. >> I know he's listening. I know he I know he's listening this. So there's that. Uh I'm going to buy this man a proper
bottle of taken for a proper dinner next time I see him because I on on what you were just what you have just been standing this just do this one thing. We had this requirement this morning uh from from uh from one uh user to implement was just one small thing. Mustafa can tell you Mustafa can take over. What was my first question to that one? >> How much are they paying us? >> Yeah. So run run events is a paytoplay. >> Well, yeah. >> No. To be to be fair to Bill, >> the dollar that you were referencing is
probably not his to spend. That's always tough. >> Yeah. >> And and certainly I think we all wish, you know, there's this thing, it's not working, fix it. >> And if it's broken, >> you know, higher cap higher probability of it being fixed, but if it's something new, that that's a you got to take a deep breath and it means there's a lot to do. So in the moment, you know, it's probably hard to commit to. And >> you know, where does a dollar get you
anyway these days? >> Symbolic thing, right? Where like you have a finite amount of things to spend and you can spend it only once and once it spends is gone. So you can't have have it all. But I think the interesting point is is that many folks in my experience like don't get to work on product. And I think like that is kind of the message that we will we will trying to I think make in a very elaborate way that many folks don't get to work on products work on project which is a totally different beast and
you don't really get to appreciate the complexity of it until you actually do and then you're like now I understand. >> Yep. And once you understand it doesn't make it any more understandable to the people that don't understand. >> Correct. You don't get a free pass. >> Kids like they got to make their own their own mistakes. Like you can you can talk at them whatever you like and they will still go and only there once they fail it they're yep now I get it
could have saved you some pain but no >> mark uh enough about the things you've done in the past because you mentioned things have changed and you could have done probably a well I mean you could have just taken it like uh one more notch but you went from a company of 200,0 employees to a company of 10 employees. That's right. Not even 10. I'm I was the seventh employee. >> Yeah. I wanted to kind of to round it out because I didn't know exact number. So I wanted to kind of short a little
bit up. But yeah, so >> that's great. >> Huge contrast. Uh what's changed other than everything? >> Yeah. So at simprais an all hands meeting means literally that all hands at uh you know when I was under Jeff Teper all hands meant some of Microsoft but not all. Uh so it really is indicative of when we're having conversations, it's really with everyone and everyone is an equal. One big thing that has changed which I both like and and has taken me a little bit to get
used to is I don't technically report to anybody. >> So there is management from a from a there's a management from a peer perspective. No boss. uh even though I think of Julie and Mark who are the the main leads or or co-found you know the founders and and partner uh because I trust them and they've done what I haven't done for quite some time which is consult >> they've worked with customers from the reality of not just giving them a nice demo but putting things into production
so um I've really only done two full projects and the main focus which isn't new to anybody listening because this is just new to me because I've never been a consultant is I'm really in somebody's environment doing things that hopefully really help them but could also really mess them up or you know it's going to take a little bit and I'm doing it you know I can I can learn it within the practice environment just to kind of you know remind myself or figure out something but uh one project I I
requested SharePoint admin access because I needed to work in the content type hub and they gave it to me and then I Oh, I got I I got I got the keys. I've never had >> the extra edge like now it's real. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, it's definitely real. Uh again, when I, you know, think about the common Microsoft MVP or you all, you're like, "Yeah, yeah. Welcome to the club." Um so, that's new. You know, the the structure of the company is obviously new. Not just that it's
small, but it's a it's a flat structure. Um you know, the the touch with customers is big. The other thing is we're, you know, starting to lean in with different partners and and it really is a partnership not because I'm Mark the SharePoint person who might know the roadmap and hey, it's nice to talk to me, but it's actually the working together, you know, working to, you know, get to some common goal >> and we have a lot of partners, but two that we work with um from a from a a
technology perspective and it's just great to get to learn their products, which I'm really uh you know, maybe 100 200 level of being able to talk about but I've never used them. So and now I need to because I I will be using them with with partners and or sorry with customers in the future. So I need I need to kind of learn more than SharePoint. I need to learn more than teams and get into the reality of how these customers are either already established or are wanting to move in the right direction. And it's not just
Microsoft that's going to make the solution. What what is your scope like like what is your job daytoday? Imagine 8 a.m. or whatever time you choose to start. >> So at 8 a.m. I'm doing podcasting as you know we all do just like right now. No. Um >> like the rest of us. Yes. >> That's right. Uh you know it's I think it's still no different than a lot of you know there's emails, there's calls, there's meetings. But um the other thing that you know again not new to a lot of
people who are consultants but I've written my first piece of documentation here's what we did and I need to translate that and transfer it from a knowledge transfer perspective. >> So um there's a lot of telling people what you did which you know I I was more telling people what's coming not describing what was done. Uh so that's a little bit of a switch. Um, but a lot of it is just meeting with customers, understanding what they're trying to accomplish. If we're in the middle of a
project, having progress checkpoints and, you know, making sure that we're moving in the right direction and that they understand what we're doing. This morning, right before this call, we held an office hours with one of the customers that we're working with and it was their office hours. So, it was really great to see them were at that point in the project and, you know, to hear people with questions. Uh it it's kind of fun because I always think of any question as an AMA which I've always
loved. So in this in this case it was ask Mark and Mark. So Mark Anderson was also >> like ABA but then Ama. So the AMA but with real uh I guess the stakes are a little bit higher. I don't just have swag to give out. I actually have to give a good answer. Um, so sometimes, you know, being pulled in uh to be the person on the call that can answer the SharePoint question for people I've never met. And this might sound a little funny, but these are people who aren't just at an event and
looking to have fun. They're actually hitting some issue and, you know, wanting to, you know, find an answer and and so office hours are pretty common. Uh, and then there's just the doing the work. It takes time to build out a SharePoint site. It takes time to get information architecture organized and uh thought about and and then it takes time to just create content. So I I've created content in the past, but it has been iterative like a blog iterative, you know, where you where you write out
an outline and then you send it to the team and then you start to meet with the designers to get the good graphics. And >> it's I need to jump in. I need to jump in here. Mark, you created more than that. Uh, now we are lifting some of the u secrets of the uh old SharePoint times. You remember the co times when you and me created this virtual environment in outspace VR for the SharePoint 25th birthday. >> Oh, this this is Yeah, this year it was SharePoint 30th birthday. Yeah. >> Yeah. 20th. I I have shared that link
with all of those assets for the 20th anniversary. >> Incredible. Right. So many times. You you remember? Yeah, that that was really crazy. And uh one thing that not many people know it was Mark and me helping Jeff to set up Alspace VR on his computer because he was to have the keynote >> and I will not say there was a correlation. I am never going to claim that >> correlation. >> No no no correlation but six months later we've got SharePoint spaces. I I think there's a high probability
that SharePoint spaces and teams avatars were highly highly uh influenced by Addis >> by that day >> and old space. Certainly the technology came a little bit forward but uh I would agree with you. I I would say that's a safe bet. >> You you uh keynoted the ECS in 2018. What were your experiences and how how did that go uh for you? And uh it was fun. It was uh it was 2023 that was if I remember well that was uh >> no it's 20 2024 it was in uh >> 24 I think >> 34 BB this year you will be in uh Colon.
Can you tell us about your experience being with us in Bisben heroing? That was that was a pretty awesome full room that day. >> Yeah, it was a it was a full room. Uh a full event as far as you know end to end. It was a wonderful event from keynotes to breakouts to all the things. I love that in in every different corner you had a little something happening where you looked down. You're like, "Okay, I'm taking a picture of that cuz that's cool." And seeing people engage
in in what what could have been just a hallway but is now, you know, a new a new uh stage that you had set up. Um I I remember before coming to ECS a lot of people were were mentioning you know they do their keynotes a little bit differently or last year they did it in a really cool way and so it took me a second to learn okay I I think I'm being pulled into this um what is this new way and everybody described it as more of a of a conversational keynote and so I kind of was you know trying to digest
that you know we met and talked a little bit about what's the plan and who might we pull in uh to to not only have it be, you know, Mark Cashman keynote, but also have people who represent more than I know and can hold a conversation uh and, you know, to also highlight a few different things so that it's not it's an exciting keynote. And so it was really fun to kind of have that new uh format because I have done a lot of keynotes, not just me on stage, but supporting people like Jeff and Adam and
Carowana and, you know, helping them in whatever way I could be helpful. But it was always a a specific narrative. We had a message. We wanted to get across demos, talk about roadmap, you know, really get out in front of what's the most exciting thing that we can talk about right now. Whereas the conversational if if again if that's still a way that you're approaching it, um it in its intention was to have multiple voices to cover multiple topic areas and to have it be like it sounds
like a conversation. Let me tell you what I think. let me share you what I know, not just let me tell you what's coming and what's exciting. So, it was a real blend of uh you got to got to bring your personality a little bit to the forefront. Uh and I say that both myself and and my co-presenters, I really saw, you know, they weren't just talking about what do I need to talk about because it's the latest thing. It was let me share what I know and and I get to kind of pick the thing that I think
will be interesting. It still has to be interesting. still has to be relevant but it can also come from the person. So that's how I remember it and I I saw it in the other keynote that was a similar format with >> Vessent there was there was a really good good bunch of pe bunch of people with I think it was you Lori Jason Ves who I don't know who else was on stage it was a great group of people there >> is yeah and this year we will we still didn't make final decisions we still
don't know basically how those things work will join us again for the opening keynote Marco Kazalina I did it last year and it was a spectacular if I may say I mean for everybody who has seen that uh keynote it was it was absolutely spectacular. Marco was being Marco all the way and it was u yeah it's it's it's very special on a most positive way but we also last year had the keynotes uh for the each separate conference for the collaboration summit AI cloud summit and uh collaboration summit keynote was
again conversational keynote the same way you did it in 24. So, we still don't know actually how how that's going to play out in 26, but uh I I can easily see it happening again. >> I can see it and I I can tell both from your base product run.events how it grows and it it grows because of how people use it. Uh certainly I've always thought ECS uh takes a cue from the audience. What is the audience like? Uh even if you've got an idea to try something new, to do it again means they
liked it. it worked. So my sense is you're also reading some feedback and saying that's great feedback. That's great feedback >> and and what can we learn from that? How can we change? How can we adapt for 2026? So uh yeah, I'm looking forward to it. Uh just to be a part of it and to see what it is that you all have cooking up. >> There will be some things. I'm just thinking like from from from our side me joining run events was very similar but very different some ways from your your
journey what is very similar that I from a very large company not Microsoft large but still like 20,000 people >> uh across the world joined a very small company with 20 something people so that kind of downsided as well >> and working with me >> and unfortunately that part that includes working with artists every day but For me it was reverse what I did every day after 20 plus years of consultancy. This was first time working on a product. So it was kind of completely different experience for me.
And back to the story about backlog that's something I'm very scared of because I just see it growing and growing like it's always about prioritizing and what's what's the next like what what do we need to do immediately compared okay this is a really cool feature request but we cannot prioritize that right now. >> Yeah. Yeah. So you're hitting the realities. Are you are you managing your backlog in a >> vap regularly look at our backlog and say these are really nice things and we will
deal with them one day but not today. >> No Mustafa you didn't hear the question mark asked if you are managing our backlog in SharePoint. >> Oh no. Oh no. Sorry. Oh no no. I have no allegiance anymore. I was just going to ask if if your if your backlist gets more than 20,000 items. I was gonna make a silly joke backlog of 20,000 items. Seriously, >> we are not here. But I know where the show would go. >> That's a lot of A. We do have a lot of lot of items, but on 20,000 B, even if
you would still be in Microsoft, it would still be the same answer. Believe me. and you know me, >> it's great. I mean, h having a backlog, whether it's scary or not, means people are interested and you've got things you need to work on. And I think it would be remiss to say that technology, whatever it is, is is not going to have something that's next, whatever next is. So, you know, take your fear and and channel it and then know that whatever you do next is going to be great and you can't get
to everything. Yeah, that is kind of like the the thing you get in product where at some point like you look at the back like and you're like oh like it it almost feels like a to to-do list that you will never be able to do to finish but then on the other hand like that's good right because that means you have ideas and then the reality is that's the purpose of it that you will never be able to do it all but it's just to to to have it there so that you can revisit rep prioritize and if something comes
again and again and again upvote that right. So, so you have that ability to track. So that definitely takes adjustment I think is the right word like adjusting your perspective how you look at it. Um there was another thing Martin that I wanted to ask you because we managed to talk for almost half an hour without mentioning AI which seems to be omniresent these days computer intelligence which is the word that we use here in this group. Yeah. >> Uh what's intriguing to you these days? You
left, you know, the mother ship as we refer to Microsoft at times. You've seen the outside world. You got a chance to work on projects to kind of get immersed into like get your hands dirty shipping things to customers. Uh what's intriguing you? What's like, huh, like I want to get my teeth in in that thing. >> Yeah. So, the thing that's intriguing me is that Addis in real time changed his his lower third uh to be a computer intelligence MVP. I'm sure that that's a
category that is Microsoft approved. >> We'll make it we'll make it happen. >> Uh I you know, I have to I have to be honest that the areas of AI that I was focused on or or or working on or at least competent with was in the SharePoint space. So the ways that you can use uh co-pilot in SharePoint Sharepoint agents just before I I left uh there was this notion of the what is now titled the knowledge agent and I really love the idea of being able to make sense of things that are at a scale
that humans get a little bit lost. So to be able to pull together information, summarize um but the parts that I really do like I think uh I see it obviously beyond Microsoft but of the things that are relevant uh the knowledge agent and what Windows team is doing uh of just being able to help you know about things that you will maybe never come across. So the instance that I think of the knowledge agent is is helpful is you you can ask it to do certain things to review your site or to help you discover
how to do something on Windows. It's really the core focus is to be able to you know ask it in a more natural way. You know can I do this or how how would I do that? And so beyond the the kind of the consolidation or the summary of information um there is that you know help me do something. Um the part that I would love for it to be better at and I say that maybe because one of the things I I at least am a little better at on my skill set is writing. So I've written forever. Uh I like doing it and I like it to sound
like me. Uh, when I publish something, even an email, as dumb as that sounds, I want it to sound like that's Mark that sent it to me, not that's C-pilot that wrote it for Mark. So, I haven't leaned too heavily into the authoring. Um, although I really love the concept of, you know, something that can help me do the things that maybe I don't publish but send. So something like email or a chat where I want it to save me a little time in the authoring, writing, whatever. But I I certainly
don't like things that are that I feel like were written by co-pilot that were just published. Probably not just asis, but without any tone or personality. Um, and that's maybe just me. I I like on my I have a Substack, you know, blog and it is me who's publishing it. And whether you like it or not, if you do like it, then you like it probably 10% because it's got my personality or my humor or, you know, usually that's where I lose my readers is with my humor. But >> that aside,
that's the one side where I feel like to be fair, it's probably really hard to do >> uh to kind of write like everybody. But I I've tried a couple times just to, you know, test it out saying, "Look at my blog, you know, kind of learn how I've written and just, you know, give me a starter paragraph." And it never is something that I don't edit, if even just discard because I don't like it. >> Yeah. Yeah, >> I agree with that completely with you. I
I had a situation. >> Thank you. >> I completely agree. So >> they agree they want to write like you Mark. No, >> but about the personal part like because recently I for example I recently I had I got a task in run events to write an article about EU AI act >> uh which is a huge topic which I didn't know know much about at the beginning when I pick up the task but and I use AI for it but I use it as a research method like tell me about this but how how what about this rather than me reading
hundred,000 thousand of pages as much as that as I got all the information I wanted to in a couple of hours or so but I never used it to actually write I wanted it to sound like me to have something like so I wrote all the lines I just used it to get the information out of so it can be useful but still I agree that it should not be generated like it it still needs to have that human touch we need that human touch and everything >> I I agree one other quick scenario that I think is you probably easy, relatable,
and and something that if you haven't done it already, you know, at least worth considering. But I was asked at one of our last events, this is when I was at Microsoft, to basically write the discussion outline for 15 different conversations. And these were not going to be with me in them. So, first of all, it it couldn't just sound like Mark's questions because those are kind of silly sometimes. But I also didn't know probably of the 10 conversations there were technologies that I didn't know a
lot about. So what Mustafa was saying I did go and do from a research perspective and this was inside Microsoft with Microsoft people at the time and I could atmention them and say hey I'm going to have a conversation with soand so we're going to be at a public event and we want to talk about this technology. can you give me three or four starter questions or questions that I could ask this person not just about the technology but this specific person and it did a really good job I thought of being able to know who they
were what they had access to clearly and the technology that I referenced it could go then you know pull out what is the most you know hot topic or interesting thing to talk about and then of course I refined it because I knew who was going to be the interviewer so I put it in their voice >> but to be able to do that times 15 uh saved me a lot of time. It made them credible so we didn't have a lot of back and forth. They were pretty good because it was informed by you know some backend
that you know had had the right resource of information. Uh so I don't know what the cost savings or the time effort but easily it was a big big time savings for me to be able to accomplish the task but still the need you know the last mile to put a little polish on it. Yeah, I think it actually shines especially in cases like that where you need to do something with somebody else and the cool thing is especially in in an enterprise if these folks co communicate if they write articles if they share updates they send
emails to which you have access >> that means co-pilot has the access to it too. So that gives you the ability to ask it but hey like how do I make these folks shine what would be based on the things they work on and obviously these are the things of which you know because if they don't share things you don't know about them period right you like it you can ask co-pilot to come up with intriguing things to ask two three things doesn't need to be much but it's very much on par as opposed to imagine
company 200k folks you get a name and you have no idea who they are. You can look them up on or chart, but that's the extent of it. Well, there's no other way around it than either you throw the dart in the wild or you got to meet with them and interview them first so that they can be interviewed in real which is just takes a lot of time, right? >> Yep. Yep. >> I think that is really a great example and in a time of spirit I think that is a great high note for us to end. We learned a little bit about computer
intelligence. We heard a little bit from Mark about who what he used to do, what is he doing now, what is he excited about. And I think that the most exciting takeaway uh from this for me is Mark that we will get to see all all of you or we all of us will get to see you in person. >> I'm so looking forward to that. I I feel like I just want it to be next month, not next year. But >> you probably still have a little planning to do. >> Can we do it twice? Yeah. So, yeah, I'm looking forward to
being in Colonia. >> Yeah, this is this is pre-com. So, you you all still look very calm, which means it's still a little ways away. But >> I just freaked out when you said I wished it was next month. I kind of freaked out like we are not ready for next month. We are not ready. >> All right. Well, you keep your May date. That's fine. Uh, but anyway, I I've been to Cologne I've been to Cologne a long time ago, but it was it was kind of pre-working. So, it'll be fun to see it
in a in a my adult, you know, my through my adult eyes. >> And I don't think that there's anyone from your company not joining us. >> We're trying to get everybody there. >> I think it will be an off discussion. I had I had that very discussion with Derek in in Lisbon. Derek is like, "Yeah, I submitted." And Derek, it could easily happen that he get the whole thing in practice there. And he's like, "Yeah, that would be fun." So there's that.
THEY'RE THEY'RE USING OUR conference as a team building opportunity. >> Oh, yeah. No, >> I'm many companies do that. Many companies do that. So there's that's okay. Well, if I if I could advocate for my Simprais team members, you should accept whatever proposals they put forth, >> including mine, by the way. >> Even Julie's >> even Julie's I won't I won't be able to understand what she's presenting, but she's she's amazing developer, you know
that. So, you should have amazing developers presenting. >> She's not only amazing developer, she's an amazing and awesome person. So, there there's that. Um Mark, thanks a million for being with us. >> Absolutely. Thank you >> and talk to you mail to you in the next days, weeks and months and see you in Cologne in little bit more than six months. >> Sounds good. Is that better timing Mustafa? Six months, not one month. >> Yeah, that sounds better. >> Well, there's also a month away, so like
No. Okay. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Sounds that sounds fair. Well, thank thank you for having me on and and thanks for putting on another great show. I'm I am looking forward to being there. >> Thank you, Mark. >> See you.