The Road to ECS - S2 E5: Heather Cook & Karuana Gatimu

Hello everyone. Um, and welcome to the second episode of the road to ACS. Um, this I'll come to that later. You know the paces, but I will come to that a bit later. Unfortunately, this is the first and hopefully only season of this uh of this uh the only episode of this season without Valdec who is not feeling well and here everyone get better VC and see you in the next episode. >> Um for this I was today I was thinking when did I meet Heather for the first time in my life. >> Oh my goodness. I counted back and I

found photos. >> Oh, >> 2012. >> Okay, cool. >> Know each other for 14 years now. That was no 2011. Sorry. >> That was my first MVP summit >> and we happened to be we were in Seattle and >> we just were hanging around with the other with the other people there. So we know each other for the good 15 years now. somebody who I'm proud and happy to call friend and we have Carwana um legend very dear friend and yes you are what it is uh and um somebody who is

together with Heather running the awesome Microsoft global community initiative which we are also going to uh mention a few times today let's just put it uh that way but before we go to Heather and Caruana Mustafa how are you doing brother >> doing good doing A lot of things going with ETSs right now. So pretty. But it's satisfying when you see that things are progressing. It's it's good. >> Yes. Uh everyone uh before we started this short heads up on what's going on

with our favorite conference. Uh two weeks ago uh we had here with us uh in Germany Ahmed Majar and Mustafa Ahmed and me actually put together the agenda the plan. We are going to publish that the next week on the web. So you will not only know which sessions are coming uh going to happen in Cologne but when is happening. So we put the whole schedule and uh since as you know we have three conferences. It was funny. Um, I was cooking coffees. Most of were actually doing working and it was funny to see them having three parallel

screens with three conferences trying Heather in all in three parallel slots in the same time. Right. Right. He Heather >> with that Heather my friend. Welcome again. >> Thank you. Absolutely. Yeah. Hello everybody. Uh happy to be back on the road to ECS and yeah, we have known each other a really long time and I'm happy to be here. Uh those of you who don't know me, I'm a principal customer experience manager at Microsoft. I work on the M365 community, a lot of our events, uh with our event producers and

our community building, uh programs at scale, uh as it were. And yeah, I live in Los Angeles. Uh, so I'm here in California and yeah, I've been in around the ecosystem since 2001. >> Yes, we are still very very young. >> Moisturized prayer with that state of mind, not not the actual people who were with SharePoint uh from the beginning. Carana. >> Yeah. Oh, thank you for having me. It's so much fun to be here and we're very very excited about the upcoming show.

For again, for those of you who don't know me, I'm Carol. I'm the director of uh the customer advocacy group for AI and collaboration. We're a global team. Heather is I'm so happy to have Heather on my team. Uh we do everything from run the platforms for adoption.microsoft.com and the global Microsoft tech community to uh manage and deliver all these Microsoft presence at these amazing events. And of course we also run community days.org so people can find an event near them. I have the best job in

the universe um because I get to hang out with people that I enjoy like all of you, right? This is like a job where I get to hang out with my friends and so I I appreciate having it. I've been at Microsoft since uh 2011, but I've been in the ecosystem for like 30 years. So, um been around Yeah. a while. And yes, youth is a state of mind. Definitely. That's definitely state of mind. You now mentioned um uh global community global community initiative and everything. Yeah, I think that most

of our um listeners or viewers um know people who follow this uh webcast know about that because uh it really is a important and awesome initiative from my coming from Microsoft coming from your guys um what is going on but can you just give us few minutes uh overview like the bird eye view what is it and Why is it in important like for somebody who maybe knows about larger uh events in Europe let's say uh ECS or ESPC and like those other larger events but maybe who is somebody not so much involved in

local communities in smaller events which are going on regardless Europe uh North America anywhere in the world because I know that uh I know it really is a worldwide initiative um and I honestly think that the local events are as important as the big magnet events uh which bring a lot of people together. So if you could just give us or what was the motivation how you started and how did they come to where we are today? >> Oh that's fantastic Heather. Uh I'm just going to do kind of the history and then

I'll hang hand hang it over to you. >> Yeah. So, you know, we're very lucky to work with Jeff Teper, who's the president of collaborative apps and platforms, and he is a huge community um, you know, evangelist and supporter. Some people don't actually understand what community is, right? They don't understand its importance when you're running a big product like SharePoint or something else. Um, but Jeff always has. He's understood the value of bringing people together so that they can share

and learn in small and large environments. And so, you know, of course, some of you folks out there may remember SharePoint Saturdays. Um, one of the places where I got my start and began to learn all about SharePoint and meet amazing people. These were these free one-day events that were just all over the globe, literally everywhere um, prior to the pandemic. But then the pandemic came and of course that was, you know, the community was drastically impacted by that because we literally couldn't get together. And so then these

virtual events started to come up, but it was still needed some love. And that is really where the global community initiative was born. Jeff wanted to make sure that that Microsoft was helping to power the community, but the community is led by people not at Microsoft, right? The community is led by people out in the community. So we like to say that the global community initiative um is led by the community, but powered by us. We provide infrastructure and and uh Heather has of course come on to my team

and she is now its loving um you know steward that she does so much great work to keep the officers and the regional leaders and everything happening but we really wanted to make sure that the next generation of people coming into this ecosystem would have the benefit of the community like we all did. My career is, you know, 85% a result of being involved in the community and meeting people and learning things and putting in the work. And we want to make sure everybody gets that opportunity to meet each other and

make these lifelong connections and also just, you know, know who to reach out to. You can feel kind of alone in the world today as you're learning all this tech when it's going so fast. And the community is really the antidote to that with true human connections. So, I'm excited about it. I think it's a huge honor to be able to run this program um for Microsoft. I'm so grateful that Jeff has been such an evangelist about it inside and outside Microsoft across the other executives. So people like Charles

Lammana and other folks, you know, and and as co-pilot became an emerging service, they too now understand how important these things are. And we've expanded the types of, you know, free events that happen. Now they're across all of M365, Microsoft 365 instead of just SharePoint, for instance. It's really amazing. And Heather, you want to add to that a little bit? >> Sure. Yeah. That that was an excellent history. Yeah. I mean, it came out of necessity of us wanting to have a place

and you know, a lot of credit going to there was a literally a Facebook post that popped off about what are we going to do? SPSevents.org is closing and uh so many community folks were in it. we were in it and Jeff was in it, you know, and so that's um and it was a conversation, you know, and that's what's so cool about this and the the long-standing relationships we all have with each other and, you know, um the MGCI, so the Microsoft Global Community Initiative um is, you know, the the

entity that is, you know, doing support and, you know, providing infrastructure and we're I'm continuously working with we have 12 board members. We've got about 70 regional leaders. Um we meet once a month. We're putting on general session meetings like sharing best practices. We have an event training specific about tools and how-tos. Um and you know there's badges. Uh you know there's um you know just all these different programs. Um you can list your event uh in our community social media.

So like basically you put a put something in, it comes over to actually Jonathan uh on our team who triages it and it goes out on the Microsoft community LinkedIn channel. So our owned and operated channels you can dip into. Um also Tom Dailyaly who is a wonderful Microsoft MVP out of New York, New Jersey was uh saying, "Hey, this site's going down. That can't happen." And so he was like, "I'm going to build a site." And we were like, "What? What are you doing?" "Okay, yeah, that's awesome.

Okay, how can we help?" And he was like, "We're going to build it. community is going to build it. Community is going to work on it, volunteer and all of that, but we put it on Microsoft infrastructure. So, it's on our community tenant um site and it's been there for three years. We just celebrated the three-year anniversary of community days.org and that's a free place where you can list your event. Um you can do your call for content, you can do your call for speakers, you can

uh put all of this information up there and have a place for free where you can list and amplify your event. Um, so I'm really proud of the relationships that we've we've you know built between the the board and the regional leaders um and the programs that we have out in the world to support event producers and local these one day you know technical skilling events that have cropped up all over the world. Allah you know SharePoint Saturdays. So >> there's one other small that that's

fantastic Heather and there's one other small piece. What I like about it is, you know, sometimes with Microsoft initiatives, they can come and go with the passing of the guard and the day. Heather and I are very focused on building something that outlasts, you know, our tenure uh in this area. And that's why it's so important that it's led by actual community members and also be inclusive. Other people, yourselves included, have other places to list events or, you know, are doing other

things. We try to just pull those into that one place, but that doesn't mean somebody else can't do something else if they want to build something else. This isn't about like corporate control, right? That's not what community is. Community is people doing what's in front of them and making connections that are meaningful to them uh that help them with their career and to build skills and to have some meaning out of this place we spend so much of our time. So, I love being able to bring that um

you know to the world in that way and be open um and collaborative which is of course what this is all about right it's about collaboration >> really short famous plug that company that both Mustafa and me work at the run events is one of the global sponsors of the >> you are and have been since the beginning yes since the beginnings and run events is for free for all the community events and Um that trigger me because uh when you when you both mentioned Tom and pulling things together, I remember the

night actions from my side from Tom this morning actions actually trying to gather all the events which are running over run events and on the on the collab to actually automatically uh pulled pulled and it's actually it's actually a awesome >> awesome initiative awesome story going on. But Caruana, you said one thing which is insanely important and I'm circling now to also our few other community friends uh to leave something to the young people new generations uh which are coming at the last ECS. I was

approached by two people independently. One of them was from Microsoft and the other one was not at the Microsoft at that point of time. Now, now he is um Kim Force, the legend in our in our space that you both know very well and Paulo Peli, another uh legend in our space that you both know very well. Uh telling basically the same things. We need young people. We need >> new people because sometimes it can get the feeling as Kim had put nobody wants to watch Luke Kimmo for 30 years on the

stage. >> Right. I say the same thing. >> I watch you tired of listening to me and yet I I have conflict on on that side because numbers certain numbers say different things like from from >> No, you you are right. You are right. We will come we will come to that but with on initiative from Kimo and Paulo we we had an experiment and I might say this experiment works very well. Mustafa do you want to take this uh part to speak about and to officially announce our young speaker program?

Yes here. Yeah, that that came from from that idea that we are going to include people without any actual speaking experience to give them a space on on ECS. We to be to be like clear we do try to involve new people on ECS all the time and our numbers are that approximately 20 to 30% of people speaking at ECS are speaking there for the first time. So we are trying to bring new people not only watched chemo for the last 30 years but those 20 30% are >> but they are most yes but who are maybe known

or whatever but we here speak about people who were never on the stage. >> Yes. and who are might be intimidated with >> oh god this is Kana Gatimo I know her from LinkedIn and from all those podcasts and uh how can I be on the same stage as Carana you can >> yes you can >> that works yes you can yes you can >> so Mustafa back to you >> yeah so but yeah there's a big difference as much as we try these are usually more experienced speakers people who are speaking at the ECS for the

first time but have certain speaking speaking experience and did speak at different events in in before. Now the new this program was focusing on people without speaking experience like people who want to join this community and try try their just drive the big stage like being on on the same same stage as as some of very famous speakers worldwide. uh and we had a basically people sign up uh apply for uh for uh speaking to to be the young speaker to be selected uh overall we selected three of them

and or was it three >> on the other side it's three on the other side it's basically one from collab bisups and and a cloud >> right right >> and on the other side on our speaker form for regular for our community sessions we ask all the speakers are you willing to mentor someone who would be on the stage for the first time? Vast majority says absolutely. So that was not a problem. So it was very easy to find a mentor but we have three mentors >> guiding these young speakers uh giving

them advices preparing them to to take that stage and and and deliver a session. >> And I and I need to tell and I need to tell those names. is like the least thought is mentoring a young guy who is 17 who has all the Microsoft Azure certificates with 17. I mean this is insane >> and not only Microsoft it's IBM and cyber security DNA. >> That's cool. >> Fantastic. I mean I think it's really important because you're hitting on two things. Yes, we need to have new

speakers who are new and can be trained in how to give, you know, a really great presentation and new at event speakers. But you're hitting on something that's also one of my passions, which is storytelling, right? There's so many of us who are, you know, excel at our technical skills, but may not know how to translate that into a compelling story on stage or in this sort of a forum as well. And you know I teach that, I write about that. It's a really important skill because when you're in a

boardroom with a bunch of seauite folks, they don't want the deepest technical details all the time. What they need is to understand the value of what's happening. And just quickly, I will say that I used to have the worst impostor syndrome because often at these like SharePoint Saturdays, I wouldn't be showing my code even though I'd written some or my configuration even though I'd built it. I'd really be talking about how you bring these things together and and drive value and what have you. And

so I was usually that like maybe the only person doing that sort of a talk and I thought, "Oh, I need to be more like these other people." No. No, I didn't. I needed to be myself and so do all those new people you're bringing into their event. Everybody's perspective matters in this business and there's room for prodevelopers and makers and people like me, business solution architects and more. You know, we just have to make sure people feel comfortable and don't have to maybe go

through that imposttor syndrome the same way that the rest of us did. >> For sure. That's so cool. Yeah. I love it that you're doing that. >> And Kimo and Ahmed as mentors uh for those that's to be that's going to work. >> You know, you're touching on something too, couple things. One, I love bringing people along. you know, the rising tide lifts all boats, you know. So, like I I'm very purposeful. I bring a lot of people along a lot. Like Fama Krenelson,

her first keynote, I brought her along there. Nani, who was just with me, she did her first AI tour. Like there's there's and there's times when I want to speak by myself, right? Because I've worked very hard to, you know, be on certain the stages as well, but I like bringing people along. And what I love about the global initiative is that we talk to event producers about these issues, about new speakers, and and you all who put on shows, these bigger shows, you're always leading in that

way, you know, like you you all like I could name all of like ESPC, the David Wilhelms of the world, all of that. like you all lead on um making sure there's diversity and inclusion thinking behind who is in your keynote stages and at your breakout sessions, what the splits are, you know, for making sure women have opportunities, making sure there's diversity in speakers, uh making sure you have an event code of conduct that makes sense so that that everybody's on the same page for that. Bringing in new

speakers, creating opportunities for people that wouldn't that just, you know, you have to be deliberate about these things. you know there in community happens everywhere. Sometimes it's on Discord, it's in front of your face, it's over here, it's over there. However, when we are empathetic to everybody and we bring those opportunities to the table, it's just better. It just simply is. And so, just thank you for continuing to lead on those sorts of things. And it's important and it's important that you

all who are, you know, leading these bigger events do that because it trickles down to the smaller events as well so that people are all on the same page for those sorts of things. >> That that kind of comes natural. I I really need to circle back to chemo saying are we getting are people getting bored of seeing always all same? I remember how I how I was put without any preparation. This was actually by Croatian Microsoft, a dear friend of mine who worked in the regional sub in Croatia was 2003. He put me on stage in

front of 600 people said you were talking about SharePoint. I'm like, "God, no." He was like, "God, yes, you don't." >> That's how we all I mean, yeah, a lot of us came in that way, but it doesn't have to be that way for other people. That's a good piece of why I do a lot of what, you know, I built this group at Microsoft to do. I don't necessarily think anybody should have to come up the way I did in the circuitous route and being pushed off a bunch of cliffs and

thrown in a bunch of deep water. Um, you know, I managed to to make it, but that's not true of everyone. And and is it fair either, right? And so I think having a little more empathetic approach to bringing people along is good. And that doesn't mean that they aren't earning their chops along the way, right? Everybody has to work hard in this business. and whether you are, you know, part of one of the inclusivity events that we do or part of this new program that you're announcing here, you

know, everybody's working really hard. So, I don't want anybody to to mistake that. But, uh, that doesn't mean that we can't be more intentional with milk making this a welcoming place. And I think owning the fact that those of us who have been around a while do set the standard and people do listen to what we say and and emulate what we do, I think is an important part of the leadership that folks like you bring to the table, right? And so, you know, there's value in those of us who've been around a long

time. And we can share those standards and those kind of structures with folks and then they can do they can evolve it. They can do what works for them. For sure. >> Awesome. Let's now go to our second topic. It's a favorite topic. We can we can and just for our friendly thought, we are going to talk about computer intelligence. We're going to talk about artificial intelligence. Uh but Lee hates when we call it computer intelligence. And this is why we are doing it. >> And this is going now. So it's

this now for two years. This is going on for two years internal joke. But we always >> That's great. >> And I was a little bit also triggered by in preparation for this call. Caruana just told she came back from Davos and uh everything that was going on there. Um today I was in our office which I don't visit that often because most of our people including me are working from home and everything. But today I was office. We had a new uh colleague, new coworker in run events and I was setting

up things for her. It took me 10 minutes and I'm not joking. It took me 10 minutes to find the page the link from where I can download the office desktop apps. Now usually my my goal would be office.com and I will get this beautiful portal uh for those things. Now I'm coming to co-pilot wherever I go left there's a co-pilot. I go right there's a co-pilot. I go up or down there's a co-pilot. It's okay. In the meantime, I'm also Microsoft MVP for artificial intelligence or AI platform, how it's uh

officially called. And uh but we cannot um we cannot somehow ignore and we shouldn't and why would we ignore the fact that uh AI is not coming. AI is here and we need to say that the first phase of uh flirting with AI is gone. Now we are doing business with AI. Flirt is gone now marriage. Uh let's hope it's going to be a happy nice marriage and it's not going to u crash on different ways. But we are out of the flirt types. I think we all can uh agree on that one. >> I I think that depends on who you are

though. I mean yes we're doing business with AI and it's here. But that's because we're in the strata of businesses and professionals that live in this world. If if I go down to uh some of the local small businesses or even pretty large ones here in Arizona, they haven't deployed co-pilot yet. They don't understand what it is. And this also goes back to bringing new people into our community. Sometimes we forget that we have to define the terms like doing the 101 with people, helping them

understand the difference between co-pilot chat and M365 copilot. Like what is M365? I mean, I think that we take for granted the knowledge that we have and we're not super great at bringing new people along and this has extended itself into the AI world at this point um by assuming that people have this kind of basic understanding of what uh you know generative AI can do whatever vendor you're getting it from uh and that's actually not true. So I think I think what we have to be really

careful about is the split between the people who have already onboarded and are now you know to your point doing business with AI and the people who are still like I don't know about this stuff like what are you really talking about isn't it dangerous there's a lot of AI anxiety in the world I find >> how do we bridge that gap >> I think it's about education and language um one of the things that I write about and I talk about a lot now is that we have to stop using so much

jargon when we're talking to people about these things we have to really focus on human centric language um you know when I'm with academics and scientists at the MIT event obviously I can have a different conversation but when I'm in a business centric room I really need to be having conversations with language that is relevant to the people I'm talking to and that's a skill going back to your storytelling earlier that we haven't really built that muscle very well this was true when we moved to teams when we

moved to the cloud when you know, went to PowerBI. This has always been true. It's just worse now uh because of the anxiety associated uh with AI. So, we have to take some accountability as leaders at this particular time to change the conversation and ways that people can connect. You know, when I show a co-pilot to my mother-in-law and I tell her to just talk to it on, you know, the consumer version on her cell phone and ask it to plan her trip to Scottsdale, all of a sudden her eyes light up. But if you just talk to her

about AI, it's like this nebulous thing that she can't understand. In the business sense, we need to do similar things. >> I'm sure Heather, you have thoughts about this as well, but I that I can talk about a long time. >> Yeah. Yeah. No, totally. And you know, I mean, it it hearkens back to the same, you know, you're an you're an adoption specialist, Carowana. That's been your life, a lot of your work, right? And when I was out in the world as an MVP and consultant, that was my shtick, you

know, that end user adoption workshop and getting people to, you know, and and frankly, the 10 steps that are about end user adoption have not changed. that I mean we've they they they eb and flow a little bit, but it's the same basic stuff about how to figure out how to use things. But to me right now, one of the big things that I'm doing all the time is I'm a I I teach all the time as well because I'm teaching people how to produce events and how to do all the different aspects and stuff. But I

literally last week I opened up I was on a share on a meeting and I was like, "Okay, everybody, this I just want to make sure everybody understands how to do this." And so I literally opened up Copilot. I typed in create this kind of a document, create this thing doop and how to do it and everybody was like and because people also it's the same thing people don't want to feel stupid you know none of us want to feel stupid people and so people don't sometimes you need to see things because we all learn

differently too but I'm very visual and so I showed people how to create an agent the other day I created I created an agent for our Mondays at Microsoft show I have a script agent that I created to like pull news articles and bring it together and all of that stuff which is super cool. And how to do a newsletter, how to do an agent on a newsletter, pointing at a bunch of PowerPoints of a meeting that we do every month. So like those sorts of things, like if you get a a use case that is something that somebody does and

you show them how to do it and that it's not scary, they're more apt to do it. But we tend at Microsoft to just throw barf so much content at people and have so many places to find things and everything that people are like, I don't even know where to start. So like that's a lot of the work that we do on our team is trying to >> download trying where to download the office apps. Uh >> right and by the way just for your audience the best way to download an office app is to go to an office app and

go to manage account and then you can get all the apps that are attached to your subscription. Just so you know, >> you know and but that's kind of an oxymoron as well by the way. I I get that that's not as as smart as it could be. Um, and that's one of the reasons we created adoption.microsoft.com. You know, before I started that site seven years ago, um, there were 16 different places to get all this information for all the different apps and now you have one and that is helpful, but we're actually simplifying

it right now. We're excited to um, you know, have we released the essentials guide to co-pilot adoption and now more is going to happen on that site to simplify this journey for people. I think that's the user journey. I also think there's a broader industry and governmental conversation to have about the way that we're governing and managing AI and that's a different conversation. They both need to go together to bring folks so that they're getting >> that they're actually getting something

valuable and we don't make any silly mistakes with the way that we're doing this work. >> Yeah. And use everything. That's the other thing is that like co-pilot for in you know for your business for inside you know having that that corporate bail of place that that it's that's safe and private and all of the Microsoft goodness around that but you know in on my work computer my other you know personal computer I'm checking out everything how does it work what is this

about you know so I know all the different modems and mediums of how these things are working and so like play you know go out and play with these things. So many free apps out there to just plunk on and figure it out. You know, >> that's that's for us nerds and I have no issue >> again. >> Totally. Totally. Yeah. Regular people aren't going to do that. But I heard Will I am at the MIT events in Davos and what he said was don't just be a consumer of AI, use it to build

something. Let it ex you know take your ideas into reality. that could be um a vacation trip for your family or it could be a new business idea, but don't just consume it. And I thought that was a really key mindset shift that I thought that maybe people could lean into because people have a lot of great ideas and the world needs great ideas. AI can help you bring those ideas to reality if you use it as a tool like that. It's just like a hammer or a screwdriver or anything else. So >> yeah, how to build with it I think is

important for the people who are inclined to do that right. Interesting enough um because for for the product that we are building for run events we obviously use a lot of AI and under hood but at least I I know that our marketing I know is going to kill me after this and is our guy in the back exchange I stopped talking seriously when I talking to customers that much about AI for example the last uh what announcement we uh we are actually making this week but it's already part of the product is our uh

our website builder on top of our rank beds we're bas Basically you can describe your prompt your page we don't call it AI build builder we call it pages >> and people and each time you show that to somebody but is it AI yes but that's not important >> it really yeah it doesn't matter any more than it that was ASPX or you know C++ it doesn't there people who aren't in the business as we are don't need to know that really excuse me because they just need to understand the function

Yes. And this is like we are bringing you as event organizer the possibility to sit down and to have your very decent looking website within 15 minutes. >> Yep. Great. That's what people care about. It's great. >> Not to single HTML uh tag or not to a single CSS selector. You don't need any of that. >> No. People don't need to know how to code. They just need to get the results of coding. Right. >> Exactly. Exactly. Oh, but that's so I think sometimes if we tune down the

whole AI talk and show the value, maybe we take the bigger steps. >> Yes, you have to have a balance, you know, for sure. There's the, you know, like Mustafa was like us nerds are going to, you know, the geek out on the AI. Yeah, absolutely. And then other people are like, I just need to solve a problem. I just need to put a content calendar together for this thing that I'm doing and have somebody help me do all the content and the social media posts and everything. You can do that in

Copilot. It's pretty easy, you know, write me a plan for X. Put all of the different blurbs in for all these different social media. Doink. >> Yeah. But one thing that Heather always takes for granted is her deep knowledge. One, you know, she does this on a regular basis because she thinks everybody else should be as awesome as she's been doing events for 30 years. The woman is so one of the best, you know, event producers in the world. And and also from a messaging communications

perspective, >> I think there's a part of this where people are undervaluing their own knowledge when they come to that AI prompt. And so they feel as if when the minute they hear artificial intelligence, you know, they're confusing these uh generative tools with super intelligence and quantum and all the other things that we know are coming. These are not these are you you have to be smarter than the tool in many respects. tell it what to do. And Heather, you do that flawlessly, right?

And it unlocks something in people's minds where they're like, "Oh, yeah. I know how to do that. I can write out some instructions and then save them as an agent for the next time." Right? You know, it's it's um a conversational workflow in many respects. You don't have to know that it's AI or generative AI. That doesn't that's not a thing. It's just going to do something for you, right? And so I I love how, you know, people like Heather who are experts at

things, they take that knowledge for granted, but you know, you come to the screen with your knowledge intact. And I encourage everyone to do that. Come to the screen with your knowledge intact. It's not smarter than you. You have to tell it what to do. It needs your guidance. It needs your wisdom. It's never going to have those things, right? And so, you know, I that's one of the reasons I love going to Davos. I get reminded and and energized about the power of human creativity. um and

differentiating it from these tools >> to me like I'm five. This is exactly what you need to do uh to the current state of the AI. Explain to it like it's five, >> right? >> Kind of works. >> Yeah. Well, it doesn't make like the thing is is it when you actually give it a prompt and it does something it you're like wait a minute like that's Yes. Okay. That's what I would have said. It just makes you faster a lot of the times in spitting it out. you know that's what

I find anyway. So yeah, >> general idea like a lot of these there's a a lot of unknown especially for let's say regular people there's a lot of unknown around AI and a lot of fear of the unknown and and the narratives in circle especially if you open LinkedIn they're like it's replacing everyone no if it's not replacing everyone like for us we come from a tech tech company right so it's a little bit but a narrative for a while was on LinkedIn that AI will replace developers. Uh what

I say to developers, no it will not but the developers that use AI will replace you if you're not using >> most of but you need to be aware that most of the LinkedIn posts are nowadays written by AI. So it's actually a to replace everyone >> and I think that I think that it's really important to differentiate you know that kind of job. I think that if you are a working on a manufacturing line or you run a forklift for a living, if you're in the trades, the physical trades, you do have something to worry

about because robotics and AI together will transform manufacturing, supply chain management, shipping and delivery. The these things are a fact. I think we have a responsibility as leaders to ensure that people go through a workforce transformation that ensures their quality of life. And I think that I think that's a reasonable concern of some people. In our business, I'm less concerned because, you know, I I just feel like what what I provide can't be regenerated. Um, you know, but that's

maybe my own arrogance as well, right? That's true. But I do think that there are reasonable concerns about what AI is going to do to the economy depending on the kind of job that you have. which is why it's so important that we have some global governance around what we're doing. Uh and that we continue to to really provide these opportunities for people to scale up and to learn new things. Um you know, people don't have a lot of trust with the way business has handled workforce transformation in the

past. I'll just speak in the United States. You know, when manufacturing left our country, we left a lot of people behind. We didn't do a good job of helping them come along. And the results of that have been pretty poor. So, I think we have an opportunity to lead differently this time and it's very important that we take that seriously um while we're making these human connections. And that's why I think the free events we do are so important, right? That's why the connections we

make here and what you're doing with your event is so important. Anybody that we can inspire and bring along and bring into our community, we give them a chance at having a different life. And one person has a ripple effect. you know, you you help one person in a family uh improve their state of life, especially if it's a woman, and it and it raises that entire family up economically. So, there's tremendous economic impact on what we do. And, you know, I I think that's a privilege that

I intend to use for good. >> I will now step off my my soap box about it, but you hit a nerve because I just really think do something about this. >> I can just completely agree what with what you just said. I mean there I have nothing I have nothing to add to that that it's we are let's put it way we are living in the at least from the tech technology perspective a very interesting time so let's let's I this is sometimes even for us who are in this for a long time it's very difficult to

to say where are we going to to be in two or five or 10 years it's this is uh maybe for the first time in my life just feel like that I have difficulties to say where are we where are we going to technology wise in five years. >> Yeah, I I agree. I don't >> I don't think five years out anymore. The most I can think about is three. And I'm really worried about the next 24 months. You know, I I because we we have so many decisions to make right now that will determine what that third and fifth

and 10th year look like. What we do in the next 24 months, you know, individually, society, in our organizations, with technology, it it it really matters right now. So, you know, good people like yourselves and and everyone coming along, I think we're going to be okay. >> So, everyone at this conversation, if you want to have more of this, come to Cologne in uh in the to Cologne in May. We have been two weeks, two weeks ago, most of it was it feels like two months ago. Two weeks ago, we have been in

Cologne. >> Less than two weeks. It'll be two weeks on Wednesday. >> H we visiting this a brand new venue. It's It smells like new car. >> It smells like a new car inside. >> I'm so excited. That's gonna be great. >> You should see nerds in us. Most and me were just checking the screens, >> geeking out all the time. >> Ah, that's so cool. >> They don't get projectors. I've never seen such a clear code resolution on a big screen like ever.

That's >> it's just like a huge LEDs like we speak like I don't know 300 inch LEDs around no >> projectors >> and uh it was like we geeking out a bit venue is uh new >> and in the evening we were also visiting the party venue which is going to be awesome >> and our very special friend from our main sponsor um it's a Swiss company expert insight And she's our she's our marketing guru. Isidora Katherine. She was with us. We were we were just going

around >> doing the venues I think. >> Yeah. Right. That's what you were doing. Uhhuh. >> And we found a band which is going to also we by pure chance we found a band who which is going to be playing on the during the party. So this is going I'm just going to say this going whoever is not coming they're lost. Totally they're lost. >> Yeah. and you get to see Adam Haritz, our VP of product for SharePoint. Super excited to have Adam come to this show and keynote. So that's

going to be awesome. >> We did not we did not speak about content this time. I uh >> yeah, as we are sailing towards the end of this episode, we need to say uh the whole content but especially the keynotes and global sessions. Uh okay, third global session is not yet fully confirmed most of as much as I know, right? But uh little part of >> should be should be should be also soon from from the BAP side but we have two main keynoters which we couldn't be more proud of and this is Adam uh it's for

first time for for Adam to come to the >> this is this is also awesome and uh we have um yeah the the um returning person to to do his returning thing again. We've got again the awesome Marco Kazalina more on the and the Azure side. So this is >> this just going to be rock and roll. I'm sorry. This is just going to be total rock and roll. So both days >> two of them are keynoting uh opening with the general sessions with global sessions both days and if you if for nothing else you should be there for

Adam Har and Marco Kazal. I I just I just need to say that that's >> I agree. We agree. So, >> yep. >> Yeah, >> we're going to have a wonderful time. It's going to be fantastic. And, you know, the conversations you have in between the sessions. The sessions are so valuable. There's so much to learn and so many people to meet, but it's also the conversations you have in between those. I mean, you do such a beautiful show and you give so many opportunities for people to just have

those conversations before, during, and after the sessions. It's really fantastic. So, I'm tremendously excited. And as you both know, we have really uh and this is deliberate. We have expo as the main part of the show and that's not only for the sponsors. Uh they also have a value of that. Let's be sure. We had 90 awesome sponsors which are going to be there but it's we we don't call it an expo hall for purpose. We call it our expo village and we do give it a bit of a village charm with the street art and

banks and everything. Why all the cool people including those two ladies who are in our guest today are going to spend a lot of time there. So come approach talk to people. I think it's our speakers are very approachable. >> Mhm. I think that everybody is very very cool and this is one of the places where you can actually meet the people building the apps that you are using which is which is awesome >> and actually beer with them a glass of wine or coke or whatever water like um I

think it's just an awesome opportunity. >> Absolutely. Yeah. What you do at the village is lovely. It's great. There's so many presentations and connection points and you know it's just it's community basically. >> Truly. >> Yeah, >> it's fantast. >> It is community. Absolutely. >> Carana Heather, I'm so much looking forward to see you in May. >> Yeah, we are as well. Yeah, absolutely. What it's going to be beautiful, beautiful location and beautiful people.

Thank you very much and see you very very soon. It's only three months. >> Yeah, three months. And we'll chat soon too because you know very soon. >> See you very soon.