Speaking at ESPC 2022 (Copenhagen) on SharePoint Syntex and Viva Topics

Process automation and AI will be big growth engines for technology in the next few years, so I'm really happy to have been selected as the speaker to cover these hot topics (and how the Microsoft stack solves for them) at one of the big Microsoft conferences this year. The European SharePoint, Microsoft 365 and Azure Conference will be in Copenhagen, Denmark from 28th November - 1st December 2022, meaning I've got plenty of time to practice my speaker face and bad jokes. I'll be delivering two sessions:

SharePoint Syntex - art of the possible and lessons learnt (session code T29)

Tuesday 29th November, 15:15

Session abstract:

Organisations using Microsoft 365 are waking up to the potential of SharePoint Syntex to have a dramatic impact on their business. Syntex provides AI capabilities to 'read documents for you', allowing your Microsoft tenant to recognise your individual document types, extract meaning, and automate processes - with these ingredients the possibilities are endless. We've implemented Syntex to read safety reports, risk assessments, project plans and more, learning a lot about how things work in practice and the pitfalls that will cost you time or lead to poor results.

In this session we'll discuss potential use cases, what you can expect from Syntex, key decision points, and down to important tips such as how to work with documents containing tables. Over the course of several demos we'll walk through the end-to-end of creating and tuning Syntex AI models, building automations, and even advanced scenarios such as adding Power BI dashboards to drive process compliance.

We'll complete the session with a discussion on licensing and roadmap, so you leave armed with everything you need to get achieve more with SharePoint Syntex.

Viva Topics 18 months later - what did we get?  (session code W16)

Wednesday 30th November, 11:45

Session abstract:

Finding information and expertise is far too time-consuming in the vast majority of organisations. Poorly configured search, the sprawl of repositories and sites, unceasing content growth and difficulties recognising authoritative content all conspire against the information worker. No wonder McKinsey and IDC report that the average knowledge worker spends 20-30% of their time just looking for things.

Viva Topics is Microsoft's answer to this challenge. After being part of the Project Cortex private preview, we've had 18 months of Viva Topics being live in our business and have implemented the technology for several clients. This session covers the benefits we've seen (both the expected and unexpected), and shares best practice guidance on how to plan, implement, and build on Viva Topics. We'll demo the technology in our production environment so you can see the experience in action.

Implementing Viva Topics at scale can be a big investment and it's important to know what's coming in the future. We'll end with a discussion on Microsoft's future roadmap and capabilities, so you can plan ahead with confidence.

Conference details

The tagline for the event is "Europe’s premier Microsoft 365 & Azure Conference" and that's probably a fair statement - I always really enjoy speaking at this event and being immersed in the great conversations which happen there. As usual, there's extremely strong representation from Microsoft too - keynote speakers include: 

• Jeff Teper - CVP, Microsoft 365 Collaboration with Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive, Microsoft
• Scott Hanselman - CVP, Microsoft 365 Collaboration with Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive, Microsoft
• Karuana Gatimu – Principal Manager, Customer Advocacy Group, Microsoft Teams Engineering Microsoft
• Vesa Juvonen - Principal Program Manager Microsoft

The overall conference programme and list of speakers make for a compelling event in my eyes. Over 2500 attendees are expected, and the conference should be a great mix of sessions and networking with many experts, partners and vendors in the Microsoft cloud space. 

Here's the link to the conference pricing page

https://www.sharepointeurope.com/pricing/

Hopefully see you there!