Background
My first weekend in June was busier and more special that normal. I got the chance to visit Scotland and attend Scottish Summit 2022. The 2 day conference (with a hackathon on Thursday) brought together a lot of technology enthusiasts and people all over the world.
It was a weekend full of meeting friends that I haven’t seen in a while and also meeting so many new people 🙂
The summit was held at the Strathclyde University Technology and Innovation Centre in Glasgow. Rather close to the hotel I was staying, gave me about 10 min walk to see the surroundings 😀 As the days were packed with sessions and helping out at the venue, these walks were really all the sightseeing I managed to do.
But definitely need to go back for just sightseeing! I got told that it will probably be raining the whole weekend, but it was very nice surprise that it was not the case at all. Yes, there was rain, but not all the time. And walking in the rain back to the hotel can also be called an experience, right? 😀
The event had 7 tracks and around 400 sessions divided between 2 days, so there was also something for every attendee.
Like with other events recently, I will make a small summary of the sessions I attended. So here we go:
Day 1
The venue wasn’t hard to find on the first day. You could hear kthe bagpipes playing from quite far. All you needed to do was to follow the sound then 😀
Keynote session – Disability awareness & Inclusivity by Connell McGinley
The main policy for Scottish Summit is Inclusion by Design. Everything from interpreters, to venue, speakers slides, sessions, etc. Was executed and planned with accessibility in mind. Therefore, having Connell McGinley deliver the keynote session on his journey of working in IT, fit perfectly and was something I hadn’t seen before.
As for tradition, the keynote speaker was lead into the hall by 2 bagpipe players. Very fitting to the country and event 😀
But that wasn’t the most interesting part. Connell is deaf and delivered the session in sign language.
The whole room was mesmerized by his journey and jokes that each and every one of us could relate to 😀
Listening to his journey, seeing the struggles and also the wins, really opened up my eyes. All the small, sometimes annoying features we add to our technologies or the tests we do, really are important to a pretty big part of the population.
Thank you very much Connell for sharing and hey, we all learned how to clap in sign language 😉
The community – what it is and how to get involved
This was a panel session held at the top floor in the Microsoft Chiller area 😀 The panel consisted of community leaders Paddy Byrne, Alexio Chaniwana, Sara Lagerquist and Matt Beard.
They talked about the different communities they run themselves, the resources, ideas. Creating a community based on an interest / product / area, doesn’t have to be a huge thing. Alexio runs his from WhatsApp and Matt mentioned community events where people have got together in a caffee and shared knowledge. You shouldn’t be discouraged if you only are a few people. More people also get interested once you actually have something 😉
Attendees were also very eager to ask questions, which made the session nice and interactive. Sara Lagerquist runs community events in Sweden and to the question, how to find locations for these meetings, she said that for her there is actually a long line of companies that want to host community events. Primarily because, they wish to show off their offices and hosting a community event is a great way to introduce yourself, in a more casual manner, to potential future employees. So it is all about making it attractive for the companies.
The same goes with finding sponsors for events. This can be very tricky, but it is all about making your event attractive for them to be at. Pin point all the exposure and potential they can gain from your event and it shouldn’t be a hard sale 😉
Building Teams apps with Power Platform – April Dunnam
I have not worked with Teams apps that much, so I was a bit afraid of how much this session was for me, but I was very positively surprised. April started off with a quick introduction to Teams and Dataverse and then moved on to talking about different possibilities for Teams apps. I especially liked that she mentioned that you can use the apps that you have already built and add it to the Teams context.
She then continued on with demos of Approvals in Teams, Creating a new app, Exporting an existing app and finally also creating a bot.
Finally she gave a list of resources on how to get started with low code app development. And of course there is also Dataverse for Teams in a day courses 😉
How Cancer saved my life – Sara Lagerquist
A very honest and open presentation about Saras journey with breast cancer. She documented her treatments, how she was feeling and the medication she took with pictures and videos. And she shared those also in her presentation. The video was definitely not for the faint of hearted 😀 But no one ran out of the room, so we all managed to be strong.
The presentation started with Saras do and don’t list for everyone around her. She didn’t want the pity, the questions, but rather jokes and normality.
I really liked how Sara also brought out the activities or hobbies she started exploring, during her treatments. Knowing that she wasn’t able to work, she took up everything from baking, crocheting to pottery and soap making.
One area that she was struggling with was finding someone she could relate to. Being in start 30s, it was a struggle finding someone in the same age group, to connect to. Luckily she managed to find 1 person and they still keep close contact.
Saras openness and positive attitude is very inspirational and for sure a help to others in the same situation.
Model Driven Tribe: What you should know about PL-200 – Malin Martnes, Michael Roth
The last session of the day for me was preparation and tips for PL-200. PL-200 is Microsofts Power Platform Functional Consultant certification exam. So to cover all the areas of the exam, Malin and Michael held 2 sessions – Model Driven and then Canvas Tribe. I attended the Model Driven Tribe session, that focused on Power Automate, Power Virtual Agents, Canvas Apps and the AI Builder.
Bonus of the session: Best question got chocolate 😉
I liked the fact that they didn’t go in-depth into all the different products, but just focused on the areas, that there will be questions about. Also some tips and tricks of areas to keep an eye out for. Like wherever you see the little “i” icon, hover over it. The clarification could very well be a question that you will see in the exam.
