Episode 336: In the Dynamics Corner Chair: The Science and Art of Conference Selection

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Welcome everyone to another episode of Dynamics Corner, the podcast where we dive deep into all things Microsoft Dynamics.

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Whether you're a seasoned expert or just starting your journey into the world of Dynamics 365, this is your place to gain insights, learn new tricks and hear from industry experts and, of course, what it takes to build a community.

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I'm your co-host.

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Chris, and this is Brad.

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This episode was recorded on August 22nd 2024.

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Chris, Chris, Chris, what it takes to build a community.

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Today we had the opportunity to have a behind-the-scenes conversation with John Seifert about DCI and all of their community initiatives and conferences.

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How you doing, fellas.

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Doing well, doing well.

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Doing well.

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Yeah, how's my long lost brother doing?

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You know, I am hanging in, I'm hanging in, I'm hanging in.

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I just.

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We spent the day in San Diego yesterday and checking out the location for the AI Co-Pilot Summit that we're doing in March.

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And golly, fellas, this place is pretty sweet, right, it's uh, uh, it's uh.

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Have you ever heard of the Torrey Pines golf course?

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I'm a I'm a shit golfer.

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Right, the Torrey Pines golf course.

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So, uh, so it's on that spot and you've got like the.

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The venue is here, it's called the Hilton Torrey Pines or whatever.

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Then you got the golf course here, then the ocean's right in front of that.

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So I go up to the room that's, that's like going to be the I don't know the suite that we'll do a bunch of meetings, it's like the hotshot ding dong suite, you know.

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And so you go up there and you just got this like sick view man, it's just, it's bananas.

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And so I told everybody, you know, and we were like recording stuff for our digital summit while we were there and all that.

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But I told everybody, why don't you guys just roll downstairs, leave me a six-pack up here and come up and get me in a couple hours.

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Sounds like fun.

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So has that been announced, yet that that's going to be where it is.

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Yeah, it's actually on the digital summit that's taking place today.

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So you know it's going on right now, but it's about a four, about three hour digital summit.

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It's just called AI Copilot Digital Summit.

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It's pretty awesome.

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It's like a thousand folks have read or, you know, tuned into it and that kind of thing today, which is pretty sweet.

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But we actually announced it about a week ago just on the website, with no fanfare, and and then today kind of announcing it officially on the summit that we're hosting by the same name, right?

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So yeah, it's pretty cool.

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Excellent, perfect.

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We won't have to bleep it then, no.

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We don't bleep much, thankfully.

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Thankfully, we have a lot of things that I'd like to talk with you about.

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I know I'll probably be able to talk to you for hours, so we'll have to keep an eye on everyone's schedule.

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But before we jump into the conversation, would you mind telling everyone a little bit about yourself?

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Absolutely so.

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My name is John.

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Let's see, I'm kind of a tech geek right.

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I've been in the tech category for about 30 years.

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Started my career in research, then went over and worked for a company called CMP, which then became a company called UBM, and working on something called Information Week, which was a magazine website and events and those sorts of things for the enterprise technology category.

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Did that for 15 years.

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Started as a sales guy.

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It was kind of funny, reluctantly, because I never thought I was a sales guy, and kind of got moved into this sales guy job and somebody told me you know, just get over yourself and be a sales guy.

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And I'm like, okay, you know, and I'll give it a shot.

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And ended up realizing, boy, you could be in sales and still be able to kind of really do neat stuff right, be able to come up with neat ideas, work with people.

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I kind of fell in love with the idea of co-creation at a young age, of working with people and trying to figure out what the problems were and finding ways to solve them and that kind of thing.

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So I did that for about 15 years.

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Bailed out of there in 2010.

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At that time I was running about $120 million business for those folks globally.

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So through the magazine and the events and all that, then took my first CEO job in 2010 for a company called Virgo Ran that for three and a half years.

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That company got acquired by an organization called Informa it's a pretty large event and media and that sort of thing company based out of the UK.

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So you know with them for a couple of years running a global business, and then I hung stuff up cause I thought I was just going to retire and, like you know whatever then remembered what a crappy golfer I am Right and said, well, that's not going to be a cool thing and uh, and then kind of drove my wife and my my kids a little bananas cause I was around the house too much, and so I did a couple of startups during that time and all of a sudden, covid came around there in 2020, or what have you and I learned about this company called Dynamic Communities, fell in love with the idea of it of being this kind of platform that could connect like-minded people together to decentralize intelligence and help each other out all around the Microsoft business applications category and I said that sounds like a great job, right, and a great premise and a great idea and then got here in 2020.

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We took the CEO job, which you know it's three letters, right.

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It just means maybe I get up a little bit earlier in the morning to wash the windows right it's not some fancy-dancy kind of thing in the morning to wash the windows, right it doesn't, it's not some fancy dancy kind of thing.

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And I've been here since and kind of went through a pretty big sort of what we call stabilization of the really big event that we do called Community Summit North America in the fall.

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And once we get that thing pretty well stabilized, then started to create what we call the DCI Double Down Plan, right, which is just essentially means, hey, we're going to keep Community Summit in the center of our universe and then everything we do is going to revolve around that.

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So some new face-to-face events and some digital programming and that kind of thing to help folks in the community out.

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So that's kind of-.

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Well, you came the 2020, man, you were given a tough card, you were dealt with a tough deck of cards there.

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Chris, one might call that a certain type of sandwich.

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You know that you're handed right and it's not a ham and cheese sandwich, right?

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So, yeah, thanks for bringing that up.

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I still got a bunch of I think I got some PTSD from it, quite frankly, from that first year of being here and no disrespect to people that were here before me, right, or any of that sort of thing, but it was just a very tough time because this company, while it had the local user group stuff and those sorts of things, couldn't do any local user group things because of COVID, right.

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And then the big thing that the company had done for golly, you know, 15, 16 years at that time was Community Summit, North America, and that event couldn't be floored in 2020.

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And for anybody who knows anything about, like, the way event stuff runs, you actually spend the majority of your money as the event producer before the event actually happens, right, because you're spending it on food and beverage, spending it on the location, you're spending it on the hotel blocks, you're spending it on all those sorts of things.

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So a ton of the money that sponsors and attendees and those sorts of things that invested in the 2020 event that had already been spent.

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In fact, by the time I got here it was already spent.

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And so when we couldn't floor the event, the environment was pretty tough because that meant that a whole bunch of the money that you know would have been used to run the event we couldn't get back because we had already spent it, right.

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So my first job here Chris to the point of the first bite out of that sandwich I had to take right was me actually going in and doing a pretty big round of financing for this organization so that I could pay the community back.

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And that's something I kept under wraps for a long time because I didn't want to make anybody feel guilty about that kind of stuff that worked here before me or what have you.

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But I had to go do a pretty big round of financing and about 85 percent of that financing raise that I did for the company literally paid the community back.

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So it was paying all of the attendees back who had bought their tickets and all the sponsors that had invested to be a part of the event.

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And that was that was meant by stabilization, Right, we had to kind of stabilize all of this stuff before we could start to try to do other neat things.

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So, yeah, it was doing this stuff a little while One of the toughest things I've ever actually done and I've kind of been a part of some things that were pretty tough.

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Right, that was a pretty tough one.

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Yeah, I mean what a turnaround though, because now everyone's back and we're super excited.

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So well done, it is last year.

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Last year was a great show or a great conference show conference.

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I'm horrible with names and words.

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Sometimes show or a great conference show conference.

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I I'm horrible with names and words.

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Sometimes it's uh.

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And this year, as it even looks like it's going to be uh, significantly larger uh, with more content, more tracks, more attendees, more presenters.

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So there's a lot of information there.

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Uh, you had mentioned dci and so you talked about dci works on.

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Uh, you know you have the summit north america conference.

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You're working on the ai uh conference and uh, what you know, you have the Summit North America Conference.

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You're working on the AI conference.

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And what other conferences do you have your hands?

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in.

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Thanks, brad, and thanks for the kind words there about Community Summit this year.

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I mean, we're in a team effort, right with the gang at Dynamo Communities, the community, the programming committees, the just.

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As they say, it takes a village right.

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In our case, it takes a community right to build a community event.

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So that's the kind of magic of where we are right now on that side.

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But so we came up with this premise a little while ago of saying, boy, once we get Community Summit, north America, it was never gonna be exactly what it was before COVID and most businesses aren't exactly what they were before COVID.

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So we said, hey, how do we adapt Community Summit to really make it super relevant for today, for today's users, for today's partners, for where Microsoft is and their evolution, all of those sorts of things?

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How do we make it as relevant as we can make it in today's partners for where Microsoft is, in their revolution right, all of those sorts of things?

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How do we make it as relevant as we can make it in today's world and to the point of 2023 going pretty well, there in Charlotte we said, okay, now I think we've finally got this thing to a nice, stable environment, to where we can start to build around it.

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So what I didn't want to do was build on top of Community Summit North America, necessarily, because what the community had told me was hey, we really want to keep a dynamics and power platform first event.

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Right, we really we don't want this to become, you know, an AI event or a fabric event or you know some other sort of popular thing that's going on out there Really wanted to make sure we kept it a dynamics first event and a power platform first event.

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And then you know, of course AI is going to be woven through it in content programming and sessions and all that sort of thing or academy classes.

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But what we want to do is say, okay, we're going to keep that fall event, our dynamics and power platform first event for the entire community.

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Then what we want to do is say what are the parts that are maybe, you know, adjunct or missing on top of that?

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So last year, for the first time, we started to do pre-conferences.

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They could have been done before I got here, but since I've been here, that was the first time we had done them.

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And we did an AI pre-conference and a partner pre-conference at Summit North America last year and that was kind of a way to say, hey, folks were sort of saying they wanted some of that type of thing.

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So we said, hey, let's give it a shot within the context of a pre-conference.

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That way it's not too risky for the attendees, not too risky for anybody who wanted to sponsor it, not too risky for us to try to build it.

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And both of them did pretty darn good.

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So what we decided to do was say, boy, let's take that partner pre-conference strategy, let's collaborate with the gang at Microsoft, some strategic advisors in the market and that sort of thing like at partners.

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Say, boy, could we take that and make it a standalone event.

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So this year over the summer we launched the Biz Apps Partner Summit in Bellevue, washington, collaborated with Microsoft to build it out and some great partners and the like to build the SAHN.

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It has a pretty good hit right.

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That did pretty well.

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I think it filled a nice void for folks.

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That maybe was something that was missing a little bit right.

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So that's another one of our events that we're doing.

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Golly, chris Woods, there are about 320 or so partners there, or something like that.

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I think yeah good turnout, yeah Great turnout.

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And so thank you.

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And so that went pretty darn good.

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And we did it as what we call the 24-hour immersion at the beginning of fiscal year 25 for Microsoft.

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So instead of saying, hey, you've got to come, invest you know what three days or four days and go to gajillion, bajillion sessions or anything like that, we said we're going to make this a 24-hour immersion and we're going to make it like complete opposite of what you'd have at like a summit North America right, where you've got, you know, a bunch of sessions and all kinds of different programming.

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We're going to have one track that's going to run the entire time, with a bunch of people that play with sharp tools inside Microsoft coming in and telling their stories from product, from field, from programs and that type of thing, and so that went pretty darn good.

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So we're going to do that one again next year.

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But that's our sort of partner first event right that we create, and then here in the spring of 2025, brad, as you mentioned, we're going to do the AI Copilot Summit North America, which will be at the Torrey Pines Hilton in San Diego.

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It's a pretty nice place, right.

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Sounds good.

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That's a pretty nice place right Sounds good.

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That's a great location.

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Anywhere in San Diego.

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I mean, I don't know why we all don't live in San Diego.

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Man Right, I'm over there.

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The weather's ridiculous.

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The views are beautiful.

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It might have to do with it being in California.

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Yeah, beautiful.

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Yeah, it might have to do with it being in California.

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I won't go down that road, but I think being in California has a is a good deterrent to a lot of people that that maybe should be in a different podcast, right.

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That will definitely be a different podcast.

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But but boy, one heck of a place to host an event around AI, though I think right.

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No, it's wonderful.

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The weather's perfect, it's beautiful, it's a great place to go.

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I don't golf, but I heard the golfing over there is wonderful too, because we were over there last year for another conference, which leads me into.

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I just want to come at it.

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I've been thinking about a lot since our last conversation and even this conversation.

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You're talking about a number of conferences.

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There are a lot of conferences.

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Everyone's putting together a lot of conferences.

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You, as someone who works on planning conferences and creating conferences, what do you think, or how do you think someone can choose which conference to go to?

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Because you talked about a number of conferences that are all wonderful, right, and I'm not trying to take away from any conference, but you have several conferences.

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There's other conferences from other agencies for similar or different products.

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What do you think, or is there any thought, when you're putting the conferences together, what someone should do to evaluate which conferences they can go to, because I know I'd love to go to them all, but I can't due to time, finance and other reasons.

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So what are your thoughts on that?

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I think there's.

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So I'm going to explain three criteria that I think there are, that somebody needs to use to evaluate whether they sponsor an event, attend an event and I don't just mean this for our category, I mean for any category.

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But before I go there, I think one of the most important things that I think folks need to think about is aligning the content of an event with the context of why they're going Right, right.

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So so you know what I, what I, what we try to do with DCI is say, hey, you know, if you want a dynamics and power platform first event, if that's your context Right, then we've got all of the content for that at Community Summit, north America.

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If you want a partner first event and you want to really kind of connect them with Microsoft, connect them with other partners, those sorts of things, ok, we've got that with Biz Apps Partner Summit, right for your content and context.

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And then if you're contextually trying to figure out, you know what's going on with AI, what's going on with Copilot, and start to put it to work for your business, then that's what we have with AI Copilot Summit, north America.

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So even for our three kind of primary events, brad, I guess I would say we try to make sure that those don't trip over each other, so that if you've got a dynamics first agenda and a power platform first agenda, go to community summit, right.

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If you've got an AI first agenda and a co-pilot first agenda, go to AI co-pilot summit, north America.

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Or if you're a partner and you're trying to figure out how to scale your practice by dazzling customers, come to the Biz Apps Partner Summit, right.

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So that's kind of our first thing is to say, hey, let's make sure we don't trip over ourselves, right, with how we do this.

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And then, when it comes to somebody sort of trying to prioritize what they want to do, because people invest their time and their money to this stuff right, and those are two of the most precious things we have in this world besides love, right.

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So when you're kind of stacking up on those three things, backing up on those three things, boy, you better make sure you're making the right decisions, right.

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And so what we say is okay, it's about speakers, it's about sessions and it's about networking, right.

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Those are the three big things that anybody should use to evaluate any event they go to.

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So you know, from my perspective, I like to make sure that everything that we do is truly created as a community event, not just using the word community to make it sound sweet and charming, right.

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So our community events are literally driven by programming committees and there's a call for speakers for the community to contribute to the content that we're building.

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So all of the speakers are actually chosen for community by community.

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And I'm a very big, I'm a big kind of a hard ass on that one.

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Right, like nobody's allowed to come in and say no, they get to be here because they're the most popular, they're the neatest person in the world or they've got a gajillion bajillion followers on YouTube.

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Right, that has to be chosen by the community for the community.

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So that's a big part of it is who are those speakers and what does that sort of stuff mean?

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The second part of it are the sessions.

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No-transcript.

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Wherever I am in my journey, I have to sort of make sure that I'm aligning my journey to the paths that are available through all of the sessions that are at the event.

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And if you don't find that connection for yourself, don't go Right and do me a favor.

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If you're looking at our stuff and you don't see it, say, john, that sucks, right.

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You need this sort of thing to help align with where my journey is, because that that is us using our two ears and our one mouth Right.

00:19:20.046 --> 00:19:36.036
That is us using our two ears and our one mouth right, so which, again, they're both kind of inextricably connected right Between the speakers and the sessions being driven by the programming committees, because that's what makes it for community by community in the life of it.

00:19:36.941 --> 00:19:44.740
The other thing sort of underlining that part before I get to the networking is being truthful to that term of community, right.

00:19:44.740 --> 00:20:04.025
So when you go to Community Summit North America, when you'll go to AI Co-Pilot Summit North America, or even what we did with BizApps Partner Summit, what we really try to do is make sure that that framework of content that's being created is not created by two people on a whiteboard in a boardroom that think they know all the answers.

00:20:04.025 --> 00:20:09.891
It's really being built with people that are saying, now, this is what the reality is, so let's change that, let's shift this, let's build that.

00:20:09.891 --> 00:20:20.015
With Community Summit North America, for example, you know, 85% of the 700-plus sessions that are running at that event are from community members, right.

00:20:20.015 --> 00:20:27.767
They're actually from partners and users, right that are leading those content sessions, only about 15% of the content is coming from Microsoft.

00:20:27.767 --> 00:20:30.189
That's a community event, right?

00:20:30.630 --> 00:20:38.717
Other organizations are actually calling their events community events, and I'm not throwing stones at them, I'm just saying it's whatever words you want to use, right?

00:20:38.717 --> 00:20:50.912
But I'm kind of a stickler to what the words mean and setting an expectation for the attendee to know hey, if I'm going to a community event, it's actually delivered by the community, it's not delivered just by a platform provider like Microsoft or any other one.

00:20:50.912 --> 00:20:55.250
The final bit I think somebody needs to use to judge it is networking.

00:20:55.250 --> 00:21:00.509
And when I say networking, I don't just mean what sort of kegger are you going to?

00:21:00.509 --> 00:21:12.579
That, as you know a live band, right, like.

00:21:12.579 --> 00:21:16.185
I don't mean that sort of a networking, you know, um, I mean what are the environments?

00:21:16.185 --> 00:21:18.528
That's such a late, like 80s, early 90s term I also use right.

00:21:18.528 --> 00:21:20.811
So uh, but uh, um, the, uh, the made me lose my train of thought.

00:21:20.811 --> 00:21:21.713
That's a funny one.

00:21:22.094 --> 00:21:26.128
Um, uh, but the, the the importance, I make you lose it even more.

00:21:26.128 --> 00:21:27.192
Do you ever do any keg stands?

00:21:29.161 --> 00:21:31.345
I've done beer bongs, I've done keg stands.

00:21:31.345 --> 00:21:35.109
I'm going to leave it there before I incriminate myself any further.

00:21:35.109 --> 00:21:44.548
But no, I graduated high school in 1989, you know, and, as Kid Rock said in that one song, my hair was long and my thoughts were short.

00:21:44.548 --> 00:21:53.339
Right, you know, I pretty much was that dude traveling around with the Grateful Dead actually at the time.

00:22:00.859 --> 00:22:04.787
But I think an important point on this is that that third sort of thing that anybody needs to use when they're going to any event is what does the networking mean?

00:22:04.826 --> 00:22:08.594
Is it networking that just gets the same people together every single year and then it's like a cool click kind of crowd and that kind of thing?

00:22:09.094 --> 00:22:14.623
Well, there's a spot for that, but that's probably not at a really big event, that's kind of at a small event, you know, sort of thing that that should happen.

00:22:14.623 --> 00:22:27.874
I think the networking that folks you know ought to look for right is hey, is there a real openness to connecting with other people that are maybe smarter than you about certain things that can help you understand stuff?

00:22:27.874 --> 00:22:34.885
And then are there things that you're smart about that you can share with other people to help them out on different things and then not have an agenda about it, right?

00:22:34.885 --> 00:22:37.701
Not have an agenda of what have you done for me lately, right?

00:22:37.701 --> 00:22:42.028
Instead it's hey, let's just kind of shoot the breeze and hang out and figure out if this stuff makes sense.

00:22:42.028 --> 00:22:50.848
The other element of networking is fostering an environment that doesn't feel like a seventh grade dance, right?

00:22:50.848 --> 00:22:54.921
Remember that seventh grade dance where all the boys were on one side and all the girls?

00:22:54.942 --> 00:22:59.327
were on the other side and then you sort of wondered golly, who's going to be the first one to go out on the dance floor?

00:22:59.327 --> 00:23:03.082
And then, all of a sudden, michael Jackson Thriller came on and everybody was on the dance floor.

00:23:03.082 --> 00:23:31.336
Right, it's not creating environments like that and instead just trying to foster an environment where people feel super comfortable to shoot the breeze without trying to make it hokey, you know, and I'm not a big fan of treating people like adults and letting them kind of create birds of a feather sort of a thing that are very open to letting others come in.

00:23:31.336 --> 00:23:43.071
I've always used an expression in business, right, and I've always called it the cool table, right, and I always say hey, you know, listen, there's plenty of seats at the cool table, right, we're all sitting at the cool table.

00:23:43.071 --> 00:23:44.405
There's plenty of seats here, right.

00:23:44.619 --> 00:23:47.133
The one rule is y'all got the cool table right, we're all sitting at the cool table, there's plenty of seats here, right.

00:23:47.133 --> 00:23:53.068
The one rule is y'all gotta be cool, right, and if you're not cool, your seat's gonna get taken away, right, and you're not gonna get a whole bunch of chances to not be cool.

00:23:53.068 --> 00:24:19.192
We might give you one chance to not be cool and then say hey, you know you gotta be cool, but then if you're not good, and that's because people don't want you to sit here anymore, right, so you know, I just think you foster an environment where y'all be cool, right, like Frosty the snowman and and and that sort of thing folks I think find helpful and and approachable, excellent.

00:24:19.652 --> 00:24:21.333
It's a great perspective to look at.

00:24:21.333 --> 00:24:26.096
It's one of the things that I often hear asked is what are some criteria?

00:24:26.096 --> 00:24:29.359
What should I look at when determining which conference to go to?

00:24:29.359 --> 00:24:41.348
And I think by you putting it with the context of the content, the sessions, the speakers and the networking, you can never undervalue the power of networking, value the power of networking.

00:24:41.348 --> 00:24:57.102
I had mentioned it before and I always say a lot of people think, oh, I'm going to have a drink or someone's having an event afterwards, but I have met some great contacts at those events and have had some great business discussions and even formed business arrangements, engagements, partnerships, customers.

00:24:57.269 --> 00:25:03.459
I mean anything that you could fashion in those environments where you have the opportunity to sit down and talk to someone and really talk to them.

00:25:03.459 --> 00:25:04.933
And I like the point that you put.

00:25:04.933 --> 00:25:09.250
Where it's not the stand up on stage, everything's going to be rosy and work perfectly.

00:25:09.250 --> 00:25:12.453
It's to be able to sit and talk to community members.

00:25:12.453 --> 00:25:47.852
And this is where I think, like I'm a fan of the content by community members, because you get not only the the session on how to use something potentially, you know, for the sake of the conversation, but you can hear real-world examples or someone that actually uses it and how they can implement it to give you more value for the session that you're attending, other than just something I could watch on YouTube or even showing how are they using it from their perspective, and it gives you another view from an end user of using an application that you may end up taking back.

00:25:47.971 --> 00:25:53.384
or maybe you network with that speaker and gain that information and take it back.

00:25:53.384 --> 00:26:07.499
So there's a value in that and you know, being someone that's on the other end, where in the early days of working at end user, I went through those sessions and I learned a lot and then brought it back and become successful.

00:26:07.499 --> 00:26:10.672
You know who I was working for at that time.

00:26:10.672 --> 00:26:14.980
But there's great points, great points.

00:26:16.061 --> 00:26:27.971
Another thing that's on my mind about this, you know, I just shoot from the hip or, as you say, I just dive into the pool and some of these things.

00:26:27.971 --> 00:26:30.637
I just wonder, and again out of curious and I'm sure others think of it too is when it comes to the locations.

00:26:30.637 --> 00:26:31.740
Right, these conferences.

00:26:31.740 --> 00:26:40.259
I understand venue size for a conference is important, but how do you determine the location?

00:26:40.259 --> 00:26:42.984
Is there any consideration for geographical location?

00:26:42.984 --> 00:26:47.740
How do you forecast a size to make sure that, again, it's a lot?

00:26:47.740 --> 00:26:48.883
Oftentimes I'm not certain.

00:26:48.883 --> 00:26:58.759
Maybe you can inform us how far in advance you may have to reserve some of these venues so that you could estimate properly that you won't have something too large or too small.

00:26:58.759 --> 00:27:02.244
But what goes into choosing a location?

00:27:03.612 --> 00:27:06.137
Yeah, it's both art and science, brad.

00:27:06.137 --> 00:27:12.417
If I'm being honest, you know, like some people pretend like it's all art, other people pretend like it's all science.

00:27:12.417 --> 00:27:15.853
It's not right what you need to do.

00:27:15.853 --> 00:27:31.863
Well, I'll say what I've done for you know, whatever 25 years or so of creating events out there and only four years in this community, right, but but I've done sort of events all over the world right in different categories and stuff, primarily in the tech space.

00:27:31.863 --> 00:27:37.422
But the thing you always got to start with is data, right.

00:27:37.422 --> 00:27:41.883
So you've got to take a look at your all of your.

00:27:41.883 --> 00:27:49.522
You know folks that are in your database Like for us, it's all of the users of Microsoft business applications that we have in our database.

00:27:49.522 --> 00:27:59.218
And then you create quadrants, right, and it's essentially northeast, southeast, southwest Right, it's that kind of thing, our four quadrants here in the Midwest right.

00:27:59.218 --> 00:28:13.684
So we do that and then we do essentially regression analysis based on over the last number of years where's the highest proportion of individuals that have attended something like Community Summit, north America?

00:28:13.684 --> 00:28:15.611
We then color them right.

00:28:15.611 --> 00:28:39.512
We say, okay, this many were like D365 F&O, this many were D365 CECRM, this many were from, you know, gp, bc, right, that kind of thing and we'll literally go through the analysis of who filled out what data when they registered for the year before and then plot them on a map and, quite frankly, right, we've got graphics that we'll do some of this stuff with.

00:28:39.512 --> 00:28:59.839
Then what we do is we take a look at where the biggest clusters are of people in each one of those and we say, okay, what are the largest venues that we could utilize within a certain geography for an event that we would be creating, like a community summit in North America, like we're doing with Co-Pilot Summit North America?

00:28:59.839 --> 00:29:07.442
That's the real science part, right, and it actually takes a lot of time and it's a heavy commitment to go through this process, right?

00:29:07.442 --> 00:29:18.182
So when we picked Charlotte, for example, to your point of what the timing looks like, that was about 60 days after I started here in 2020.

00:29:18.182 --> 00:29:25.152
So we picked Charlotte in December of 2020 for the event that we ran last year in 2023.

00:29:25.152 --> 00:29:37.194
We picked San Antonio that we're in this year, in July of 2021, or like June, july of 2021, we signed the contract for this one.

00:29:37.556 --> 00:29:44.420
So you have to do this a few years in advance, right, when you're actually doing this sort of thing, if you're following a data-driven strategy to do it.

00:29:44.420 --> 00:29:56.816
If you're just kind of flying off the hip and saying I want to do something in, you know, austin, texas, because it's a hip spot to live right now and it's cool people and it's tech heavy, right, you might be able to pull something off and just say, hey, I want to do that.

00:29:56.816 --> 00:30:07.146
But I've been burned too many times in my career from working for organizations that did that or making some of those mistakes myself in the past that I just really try to focus in on that data first.

00:30:07.146 --> 00:30:09.798
So kind of starting with the science and building it out from there.

00:30:09.798 --> 00:30:15.281
One of the tough things is and it's a very good problem to have.

00:30:15.281 --> 00:30:26.462
So please don't don't don't take it like I'm being whiny about it, right, but we've got a pretty big group of people that come to Community Summit North America and I really try, and so does the team, right?

00:30:26.462 --> 00:30:40.436
Danielle Dunlap on the team who runs our operations, and others on the team are wonderful about this, but we try to make sure that people don't feel like they are like this right, that they're right next to each other if they're on the show floor or if they're in an education room or that type of thing.

00:30:40.436 --> 00:30:57.756
So we actually buy more real estate, we investigate more real estate at each venue that we do it at so that we can have wider aisles in the trade show or in the show floor and those sorts of things, because I don't want to try to just set a perception of oh my gosh, look how crowded Summit North America is.

00:30:57.756 --> 00:31:00.259
Boy, this must be the biggest event ever.

00:31:00.259 --> 00:31:05.837
Those things will prove themselves out just based on the people that attend, right, and those sorts of things.

00:31:05.837 --> 00:31:07.632
I don't need to set a phony perception of that.

00:31:07.632 --> 00:31:25.934
So we actually overpurchase the real estate in the show floor environment so people have more room to walk right, People have more room to move around and that kind of thing, and so it becomes hard to find venues that enable us to do that, especially when you're having to book them out that far in advance.

00:31:26.355 --> 00:31:31.115
So we kind of fell in love with San Antonio, for example, like I was saying back then in 21,.

00:31:31.115 --> 00:31:41.094
We said, boy, we think San Antonio would be a really neat spot to do the event because, number one, it's got a really nice the Henry B Gonzalez Convention Center where it's going to be.

00:31:41.094 --> 00:31:43.340
That's a really nice venue.

00:31:43.340 --> 00:31:51.040
There were spots to do pre-conferences, tons of education, session rooms, and when you boil Summit down right, the show floor is fantastic.

00:31:51.040 --> 00:31:53.317
It's a great place to connect with all the partners and that kind of thing.

00:31:53.317 --> 00:31:57.521
But it's an innovation, education and training event first, right with what we do with the event.

00:31:57.521 --> 00:32:05.518
So we had kind of almost a record number of education rooms we could have at the event this year.

00:32:05.518 --> 00:32:10.196
So we said let's just get them right, let's make it to where the community can have whatever sessions they want to be able to have in that environment.

00:32:10.196 --> 00:32:15.839
So that was a big requirement for us right as we were going through that process to figure it out.

00:32:16.181 --> 00:32:20.936
And I think that the third one is you know, so it's using the data.

00:32:20.977 --> 00:32:25.924
Then it's using the data of the given environments or given venues that we can host the event at in each city.

00:32:26.911 --> 00:32:35.712
And then the third one is okay, now let's make sure the place doesn't suck right, you know, and part of that is hey, what's around the place?

00:32:35.712 --> 00:32:45.161
Are there places where you know, if I'm a partner and I want to take some users out for a drink somewhere or dinner somewhere, those sorts of things, are there available spots to be able to do that?

00:32:45.161 --> 00:32:58.858
If, if folks want to have, you know, like PowerGP online every year, does their their big PowerGP party, right, is there going to be a spot for those folks to do that here?

00:32:58.858 --> 00:33:08.181
Right, and we like to look out for people with that kind of thing, Right, say, hey, that you know, hey, we don't make any money on their party, right, but I want to try to help them out because that's a big important thing for them and for the community and that kind of stuff.

00:33:08.181 --> 00:33:12.373
So we look for things like that to try to help out and the like.

00:33:12.373 --> 00:33:20.403
So the other thing is like just this week I went to oh poor me, right, I had to go to San Diego, california.

00:33:20.703 --> 00:33:21.484
That's rough.

00:33:25.910 --> 00:33:28.942
Yeah, and when I live in Scottsdale where it's 100 million, a jillion degrees, right, I got to go to San Diego where it was like 70.

00:33:28.942 --> 00:33:33.073
And I'm like you know God's country kind of thing, right, you know, as I walk off the plane I feel that weather.

00:33:33.073 --> 00:33:35.976
But I kid about it.

00:33:35.976 --> 00:33:39.299
But it's a commitment, right, For me as the CEO of the company.

00:33:39.299 --> 00:33:43.605
I want to go look right and I want to make sure that this is going to be right for the community and that kind of stuff.

00:33:43.605 --> 00:33:44.445
Hey, is there enough here?

00:33:44.445 --> 00:33:50.231
Is it the right environment?

00:33:50.231 --> 00:33:50.732
Is it that sort of thing?

00:33:50.752 --> 00:33:57.814
So I always make a commitment to do that in any venue that we're going to go to, because I want to be able to look somebody in the eye and say, no, we actually picked this for these reasons, right?

00:33:57.814 --> 00:34:02.039
Hey, geographically it worked for where a lot of folks, where it could be easy for people to get into.

00:34:02.039 --> 00:34:06.046
Boy, it had a number of rooms for the right sessions, and you know what?

00:34:06.046 --> 00:34:07.633
I don't think it sucks, right.

00:34:07.633 --> 00:34:09.255
I think it's a good spot.

00:34:09.255 --> 00:34:15.092
I think it's up to speed for what you're looking for and what the community is looking for.

00:34:15.092 --> 00:34:17.715
So sorry to drone on on it, guys, but I think it's a.

00:34:17.735 --> 00:34:44.617
I think it's an important bit it is so awesome to see it in insight, uh, you sharing that because it it really puts things into perspective, because I've been going to dynamic communities events for a long, long time and, um, you know, I had a chance to put one together out of this country and then seeing it and hearing it from you and how these things get put together.

00:34:44.617 --> 00:34:54.039
It's incredible to hear it directly from you after all these years, to see how this is all put together.

00:34:54.039 --> 00:34:54.661
So, thank, you.

00:34:54.702 --> 00:34:56.414
No, it's impressive, it's important.

00:34:56.414 --> 00:35:06.302
It's impressive and it's nice to see the thought that goes into it because, as you had mentioned, three years out is quite a bit of time to start planning for an event.

00:35:06.302 --> 00:35:11.215
So that's extremely important and I'm looking forward to going to San Antonio.

00:35:11.215 --> 00:35:12.519
Yeah, me too.

00:35:14.590 --> 00:35:16.115
So I'll tell you just a little thing on.

00:35:16.115 --> 00:35:17.280
San Antonio is funny.

00:35:17.280 --> 00:35:42.438
I had been there like a couple of times for business stuff, like for work stuff, you know, like meeting with folks there, but it was years ago I was like a dozen years ago, something like that and, and there were two times that I got to go to San Antonio for something super fun and it's the NCAA Final Four, basketball, right and, and so I got to go to San Antonio twice for those.

00:35:42.438 --> 00:35:52.038
Back in an old job I used to have, um, uh, where, um, you know, the hotshot that I reported to would say, hey, that's going to be our big customer thing that we do every year.

00:35:52.038 --> 00:36:07.778
And then they invite me to go right so I could go to and, uh, and it was like awesome, like this river walk, environment, super neat, and you're right next to the Alamo, there's just a lot to do, and it's this almost little oasis in that area that I thought was just super neat.

00:36:07.778 --> 00:36:14.376
I'm excited for everybody in the community that hasn't gotten a chance to see San Antonio before to sort of check it out.

00:36:14.376 --> 00:36:17.510
We're doing this neat thing on Wednesday night.

00:36:17.510 --> 00:36:25.222
I didn't make this name up, but I think we're calling it, the Fiesta on the Riverwalk or something like that on Wednesday night.

00:36:25.269 --> 00:36:35.523
But it's kind of the big get together for the whole community, right, and I like to support local folks in each one of the cities that we bring Summit North America to.

00:36:35.523 --> 00:36:39.503
So we've got a local band that's going to be playing Right, that's going to be playing right.

00:36:39.503 --> 00:36:47.454
So we don't need to go out and spend a bajillion dollars to get some 1980s has-been, like you know, casey and the Sunshine Band or something like that, to come to our events.

00:36:47.454 --> 00:36:48.954
Right, we like to.

00:36:48.954 --> 00:36:52.117
I like to invest in, like, local talent.

00:36:52.117 --> 00:36:53.121
Hey, we're going to be in your city.

00:36:53.121 --> 00:36:54.795
You're a local band, you do stuff.

00:36:54.795 --> 00:36:56.056
Why don't you come play here?

00:36:56.056 --> 00:37:01.422
I did it in Charlotte last year as well, with a couple of guys playing guitar that were on the legend stage and stuff.

00:37:01.422 --> 00:37:05.077
So we're going to do that thing, but it's going to be right on that river walk area.

00:37:05.077 --> 00:37:11.210
So it's kind of an iconic scene and and everybody that's going to be there can kind of experience that if they've never experienced it before.

00:37:11.210 --> 00:37:12.755
So excited for that too.

00:37:13.418 --> 00:37:14.655
No, I'm looking forward to it.

00:37:14.655 --> 00:37:16.898
It's in the Alamo nearby, you said.

00:37:16.898 --> 00:37:24.981
So, literally, it's literally walking distance, brad, wow, we're going there, brad, we're going there, definitely, definitely.

00:37:24.981 --> 00:37:25.844
I I didn't have the opportunity to look.

00:37:25.844 --> 00:37:26.809
I I knew about the river walk.

00:37:26.809 --> 00:37:28.875
I heard about the river walk, heard about the great sessions.

00:37:28.875 --> 00:37:32.695
Uh, if the alamo is within walking distance, I'm definitely allocating some time.

00:37:32.695 --> 00:37:39.217
I'll have to cut out or even stay an extra day or so so I can get in some sightseeing and some touring checking out.

00:37:39.257 --> 00:37:40.239
For sure's a.

00:37:40.239 --> 00:37:46.989
It's a historic spot for this country and, uh, and, and for the role that this country plays, uh, um, in this part of the world.

00:37:46.989 --> 00:37:48.556
So it's uh, it's it.

00:37:48.556 --> 00:37:50.597
I think it's an important thing for everybody to check out.

00:37:51.353 --> 00:37:51.976
No, I think it.

00:37:51.976 --> 00:37:52.260
Well.

00:37:52.260 --> 00:38:02.682
The the history is important to learn from and to learn about and get a better understanding of the foundation of the country and where we started, where we came from and where we're going.

00:38:02.682 --> 00:38:05.177
Speaking back to Community Summit, not to go on too much.

00:38:05.177 --> 00:38:09.021
And so you said Dynamics and Power Platform.

00:38:09.021 --> 00:38:11.418
There's several tracks within Community Summit.

00:38:11.418 --> 00:38:15.480
What are the tracks that you have within it this year?

00:38:16.150 --> 00:38:32.190
Yeah, so we've done a little bit of an expansion this year on a few different tracks, but our primary tracks are aligned with each Dynamics and D365 ERP platform right, so D365, f&o or AX right Now.

00:38:32.190 --> 00:38:46.121
Today it's a little bit more finance and supply chain management, right, so F slash SCM but I think everybody kind of calls it different stuff Essentially the largest enterprise, you know, sort of resource planning stuff out there.

00:38:46.121 --> 00:39:01.795
So we've got about 150, 160 or so sessions for F&O and each one of the different tracks for the major ERPs and CECRM have between 100 and 125 sessions each right with each one.

00:39:01.795 --> 00:39:15.164
But D365, f&o or FSEM Business Central, so D365, business Central, dynamics GP and then CECRM all under sort of the Dynamics umbrella.

00:39:15.164 --> 00:39:27.385
There's also still some sessions for folks that are using SL right and some of the older platforms, even though those have gotten less and less and less every year just because there's less folks using them right.

00:39:27.385 --> 00:39:37.255
We've got some incredible sessions around Power Platform and what we've really seen is this massive integration between Power Platform and CECRM.

00:39:37.255 --> 00:40:05.610
So we've just got some incredible sessions about how to lever Power Platform within your dynamics environments with CECRM, but also with each one of the ERP platforms, and then, of course, some standalone stuff that's around Power Platform, which are always just a big hit track this year.

00:40:05.610 --> 00:40:16.862
But the co-pilot track a lot of times will also overlap with other Dynamics 365 and Dynamics sessions or CECRM sessions right, because it'll be co-pilot for sales, right, or co-pilot for bank reconciliation and business central, right, or those sorts of things.

00:40:16.862 --> 00:40:24.945
So we really try to make it kind of how-to tutorial around utilizing the emerging platforms like Copilot.

00:40:25.349 --> 00:40:33.882
We have some sessions this year around Copilot Studio, which is for anybody who hasn't started to play around with Copilot Studio.

00:40:33.882 --> 00:40:34.965
I highly recommend it.

00:40:34.965 --> 00:40:47.780
Right, because it's essentially a SaaS platform that enables you to roll your own Copilots right and start to play with them and put them to work for your business, and it's pretty fun, right, it's pretty cool.

00:40:47.780 --> 00:41:00.719
It's significantly less risky than using, like the OpenAI Azure Studio to do your stuff, because all of the co-pilot studio stuff is more built with guardrails around it, right as a SaaS platform.

00:41:00.719 --> 00:41:07.963
So we'll have some sessions there running through the program featuring some Microsoft folks and community folks.

00:41:07.963 --> 00:41:18.724
Obviously We've got a fabric track this year because we asked the question to the community saying, hey, are you trying to figure out this data stuff and what it means and all that sort of thing.

00:41:18.724 --> 00:41:21.318
And they said how should we have cloud databases?

00:41:21.318 --> 00:41:23.536
What the heck is a cloud data lake house?

00:41:23.536 --> 00:41:25.481
You are asking some of those questions.

00:41:25.481 --> 00:41:39.922
And so a great community person, pablo Moreno, leading a lot of that programming for us and helping out and organizing kind of a smaller scale programming community to help craft some of those sessions and stuff.

00:41:40.971 --> 00:41:42.978
Those are some of the primary ones, right?

00:41:42.978 --> 00:41:44.836
The primary ones that are really dynamics.

00:41:44.836 --> 00:41:58.340
Dynamics first, power platform first and then sprinkling of those, those other systems that are kind of pervading, right, the, the, the users that are out there because you're getting finance.

00:41:58.340 --> 00:42:03.657
You know folks in finance, for example, that are, you know, in F and O or BC or something like that.

00:42:03.657 --> 00:42:17.240
And all of a sudden now they're trying to do like I said before, bank reconciliation and now trying to utilize generative AI to create that sort of environment with the co-pilots that are built for the platforms People are trying to figure out.

00:42:17.240 --> 00:42:20.894
I love the idea, right, that would take a ton of time out of my day.

00:42:20.894 --> 00:42:22.851
Okay, how do I do that?

00:42:22.851 --> 00:42:23.211
Right?

00:42:23.211 --> 00:42:27.081
So we're trying to help folks have some of that stuff built in here.

00:42:27.722 --> 00:42:48.552
Some great academy classes this year, golly, we got 35 or so academy classes that are running this year maybe 37 now, but they sort of frame around those same topics or segments Brad and Chris, so you know D365, f&o, bc, dynamics, gp, right, and others.

00:42:48.793 --> 00:43:11.244
We've got two Fabric Academy classes this year that are going on too, so that we're excited for those, and then some just folks doing some sessions around the AI stuff that are very hands-on, like Prashant Boyer, who's a fantastic Microsoft AI MVP and just great, great person out there in the community.

00:43:11.244 --> 00:43:27.235
But he's doing a couple of academy classes on that that are really going to be about rolling your sleeves up and, you know, literally demoing within the context of Copilot Studio with live data DMZ data, right, but live data.

00:43:27.235 --> 00:43:43.617
That's going to be building some Copilots around and stuff to really just take it from the clouds and the hyperbole and the hype and the excitement around all that stuff to okay, if you're going to do it yourself, right, here's how you got to do it and here's some lessons learned and ideas on how to approach it.

00:43:43.617 --> 00:43:45.543
So that's kind of the big stuff.

00:43:47.413 --> 00:43:48.896
Now, there's a lot that sounds fantastic.

00:43:48.896 --> 00:43:54.478
There's a lot of information and I encourage everyone to go and to pay attention to the session so they can plan properly.

00:43:54.478 --> 00:44:07.672
I have another question that's extremely important, and those that know when I talk about conferences and these types of thing, and those that know when I talk about conferences and these types of things, it's important to me and Chris will know what I'm going to ask just because he knows me well enough.

00:44:07.672 --> 00:44:09.612
We had the opportunity to spend some time together recently.

00:44:09.612 --> 00:44:14.695
Food how do you come up and determine the food?

00:44:14.695 --> 00:44:16.436
Now, keep in mind, I understand.

00:44:16.436 --> 00:44:18.556
I'll be the first one to say I understand.

00:44:18.556 --> 00:44:26.500
If you have a conference where there's I think Summit last year had 4,000, 6,000 people or something like that you know a large number of people.

00:44:26.980 --> 00:44:38.264
It's very difficult to accommodate food at the same time for 4,000 people, in addition to those that may have special dietary requirements as well, to put all of that together.

00:44:38.264 --> 00:44:44.206
So, keeping all of that in mind, it's one of those things that come to me, and I know that a pot of coffee costs a hundred dollars, right?

00:44:44.226 --> 00:44:48.248
To walk down the street and it ain't your Starbucks man.

00:44:48.248 --> 00:44:58.394
No, I understand I laugh with that, but I just want to put some of that just in perspective for the when I asked the question and those that may listen to.

00:44:58.394 --> 00:45:07.371
Those that I talked to is those that when you start talking about the food, you have to keep in mind that at some of these venues they're not giving you a discounted rate on the coffee, for example.

00:45:07.371 --> 00:45:15.161
They're actually surcharging you significantly because they have those extra special classified plastic containers that they have to give you the coffee in.

00:45:15.730 --> 00:45:25.251
The double secret probation containers, yeah, so guess what the biggest expense is for an event the scale of Community Summit, north America.

00:45:26.153 --> 00:45:26.393
Food.

00:45:26.815 --> 00:45:29.219
Yep, so it's literally the biggest expense.

00:45:29.219 --> 00:45:38.271
Guess what the inflation has been against food since I took this job With the inflation rate has grown how much more food costs, right?

00:45:38.271 --> 00:45:43.362
So inflation rate on food costs since 2020 when I took this job.

00:45:44.269 --> 00:45:49.762
I know the grocery store the inflation's quite and so you're not playing grocery store rates.

00:45:49.762 --> 00:45:53.501
So I would say inflation on the conference food rate or just the regular grocery rate.

00:45:54.554 --> 00:45:56.230
I don't care which one you want to choose, Brad.

00:45:56.771 --> 00:46:00.121
I'd say 50%, I'd say 300%.

00:46:00.750 --> 00:46:01.831
I'd say 300%.

00:46:01.831 --> 00:46:20.286
Yeah, so if you look at the literal increase of a muffin at a conference right for a single muffin at a conference in 2020 to what it costs today, it'll vary a little bit, but it's between 45% and 50% more than it was at that point.

00:46:20.286 --> 00:46:20.547
Wow.

00:46:21.030 --> 00:46:25.259
You're right, chris, I don't know why Fizz pumped that, because that's not Fizz pumped.

00:46:27.670 --> 00:46:28.695
Chris just had to be right.

00:46:28.695 --> 00:46:30.858
He's all excited that Muffin's 50% more.

00:46:31.471 --> 00:46:32.797
So don't waste those muffins Chris.

00:46:34.271 --> 00:46:44.393
So when you consider that premise right and you extrapolate that out to like this year, we're expecting between five thousand fifty five hundred folks Right At Community Summit, North America.

00:46:44.393 --> 00:46:50.384
So when you extrapolate, when you look at that number in an individual basis, you're going to go well, I really want the muffin.

00:46:50.384 --> 00:46:58.438
So you know, if it, if it costs you know five bucks before and it costs you know whatever eight bucks now, I'm going to buy it because I want that.

00:46:58.438 --> 00:47:00.842
But that extra three dollars per muffin Right.

00:47:00.842 --> 00:47:19.797
When you extrapolate that out to five thousand fifty five hundred people and then you look at it for a slice of bacon, for a piece of sausage, for you know some scrambled eggs, for a sandwich in a box Right, For any of those types of things, those numbers become really really big, right they do.

00:47:20.057 --> 00:47:31.371
And what I have really tried to do and I get a lot of heat from this, from the private equity firm that owns our company, right, Because we're owned by a private equity firm.

00:47:31.371 --> 00:47:34.137
This is not an association or a 501c3.

00:47:34.137 --> 00:47:37.592
This is a for-profit business that's owned by a private equity firm, right?

00:47:37.592 --> 00:47:45.112
So I get a lot of heat from our owners right To say, John, you should increase that price.

00:47:45.112 --> 00:47:46.119
You should increase this price.

00:47:46.119 --> 00:47:46.882
That price should be this.

00:47:46.882 --> 00:47:48.331
How can you stomach those costs?

00:47:48.331 --> 00:47:54.934
So I can stomach them because I'm the CEO of the business, right, and I'm going to make the decisions on how we're going to do this sort of thing.

00:47:54.934 --> 00:48:05.215
You can have influence and that sort of stuff, but we are not going to raise the prices to attend Summit North America at the same rate that inflation is rising.

00:48:05.255 --> 00:48:13.485
For food, Now, if you look at many conferences out there in the world, they not only increase by way of what their cost structures are against food.

00:48:13.485 --> 00:48:20.277
They have percentages built on top of that right so that they're driving more and more profitability based on per attendee or per sponsor that they have at an event.

00:48:20.277 --> 00:48:33.706
I made a really hard decision in 2021 when we were in Houston, and I've stayed true to that decision that we will increase prices at no more than one-third of the inflation rate.

00:48:33.706 --> 00:48:54.130
So if the inflation rate is running at 45% to 55%, I will only increase my rates by a maximum of one third of that over the years for people to attend the event, because it's not fair for people that are, in some cases, a lot of people taking this money out of their own pocket right to come to Community Summit North America.

00:48:54.130 --> 00:49:01.576
If their company won't pay for it for them to come, it's not fair for them to have that same scale of increase to the pricing to go to the event.

00:49:01.576 --> 00:49:06.204
So that's a big part of it, Right, and I'm not looking for slaps on the back or any of that kind of stuff.

00:49:06.204 --> 00:49:07.793
This is just the way I run a business.

00:49:07.793 --> 00:49:16.130
Right For this stuff, because I think it's important for the community to be able to have a spot like this to gather and do those things Right.

00:49:16.130 --> 00:49:18.331
Meet the speakers, go to the sessions, do the networking.

00:49:18.331 --> 00:49:19.222
Write that kind of stuff.

00:49:19.222 --> 00:49:20.510
Go to the sessions, do the networking right that kind of stuff.

00:49:20.510 --> 00:49:29.538
So that's been a big thing for us is how do we manage the cost of the food in this environment but still make it affordable for people to come to the event?

00:49:29.538 --> 00:49:30.333
So that's one thing.

00:49:30.769 --> 00:49:33.177
Second thing is picking the food itself.

00:49:33.177 --> 00:49:41.056
I mentioned that I was just at the San Diego venue, right, that we're gonna be hosting AI Co-Pilot Summit North America at.

00:49:41.056 --> 00:49:43.530
I went and ate the food Right.

00:49:43.530 --> 00:49:44.451
I literally went.

00:49:44.451 --> 00:49:46.672
I met, I met the chef at the venue.

00:49:46.672 --> 00:49:48.173
I ate the food.

00:49:48.173 --> 00:49:51.076
I ate two meals there so that I could see how it was.

00:49:51.076 --> 00:49:56.500
I ate kind of a sandwich kind of meal, and then I had like a dinner kind of a meal.

00:49:56.500 --> 00:50:02.684
Right, it was a nicer lunch, Right, it wasn't dinner, but but I both of those things, so I could see how they tasted.

00:50:02.684 --> 00:50:17.170
Because if they taste like crap, right, I was going to fight back to those people and say, okay, you're charging me this money, I need something that's going to taste good for people that are coming to the event Now, and I don't know that everybody does this sort of thing, right.

00:50:17.170 --> 00:50:26.898
But I've done this stuff for a little while, so I like to go and try it, because then I can actually look somebody in the eye and say, oh, you know, I ate the turkey ham sandwich and I thought it tasted pretty good.

00:50:26.898 --> 00:50:32.695
Well, they can say mine had stale bread and I'll say I'm sorry if it did, but I actually tried it and it tasted.

00:50:32.695 --> 00:50:33.579
It tasted OK.

00:50:34.831 --> 00:50:55.255
It doesn't mean that everything is going to be perfect every time with the type of food that's there and you know, sometimes you run out of food and that's because somebody comes in they eat like three times the amount that you thought a single person would eat, Right and that kind of thing and those things happen in an event environment.

00:50:55.275 --> 00:51:03.096
So we normally try to have between 23 and 27% excess food when we run an event, so that if there is somebody that comes and eat three times the amount, somebody else isn't starving, right.

00:51:03.096 --> 00:51:05.362
So that's kind of how we do it.

00:51:05.362 --> 00:51:12.971
Brad, I try to eat this stuff to make sure it doesn't suck Right, Cause that kind of falls under that other thing we talked about is making sure the venue doesn't suck Right.

00:51:12.971 --> 00:51:14.856
Is is trying to do that.

00:51:14.856 --> 00:51:21.092
Doesn't always work out perfect, Right, but but we try really hard to at least make it, as you know.

00:51:21.092 --> 00:51:22.952
At least make it good, Right.

00:51:22.952 --> 00:51:27.635
As my dad always says you know, perfection is a myth, but the path to perfection is divinity.

00:51:27.635 --> 00:51:33.719
So, Johnny, stay on the freaking path, right is what he'd always tell me when I was a kid, and I continue to try to do that with work.

00:51:34.659 --> 00:51:35.480
No, that's a great approach.

00:51:35.480 --> 00:51:38.081
It's a great way to have it, as you said, just so that something doesn't suck.

00:51:38.081 --> 00:51:43.324
I call it the old lead from the front, and don't ask somebody to do something you wouldn't do yourself.

00:51:43.324 --> 00:51:51.148
At least I'm not having something different and you're having, you know, lesser quality or something that's not good To me.

00:51:51.148 --> 00:51:59.253
I take that everywhere in life, not just you know the topic of food.

00:51:59.253 --> 00:52:04.170
I'm a big believer of that whole lead from the front type strategy and don't ask somebody to do something you wouldn't or haven't done yourself as well.

00:52:04.170 --> 00:52:05.713
Sometimes you can't always come to that.

00:52:05.713 --> 00:52:06.114
So that's good.

00:52:06.114 --> 00:52:07.317
No, it's some great insights.

00:52:07.336 --> 00:52:13.777
See, all these inside conference uh, uh, questions that I have that I finally get to have answered.

00:52:13.777 --> 00:52:14.541
I appreciate it.

00:52:14.541 --> 00:52:20.914
Uh, and then also with community summits this October 13th to 17th in San Antonio, texas.

00:52:20.914 --> 00:52:29.969
Uh, there are pre-workshops or pre-conference workshops available that are outside of the conference and there's an additional charge for those, but those uh have.

00:52:29.969 --> 00:52:31.273
Uh, there's some great sessions.

00:52:31.273 --> 00:52:32.318
You mentioned this 35 of them.

00:52:32.318 --> 00:52:35.500
Great presenters or instructors I don't even know what you call them.

00:52:35.500 --> 00:52:36.856
See, I'm so bad with this stuff.

00:52:38.135 --> 00:52:40.565
I always I always call them instructors for Academy class.

00:52:40.565 --> 00:52:48.155
For Academy classes, because you're actually getting um continuing professional education credits from those sessions that are all certified right.

00:52:48.155 --> 00:53:18.358
So I always like to refer to those as instructors and people that are leading sessions, as session leaders, right, and just to make it kind of simple, but yeah, because you have certified CPEs that you get with the academy classes, kind of from a respect perspective to the individual, I like to call them instructors and then for the community that's, you know, paying money to get those CPEs and those sorts of things kind of want to be taught by an instructor, right.

00:53:18.358 --> 00:53:20.530
When I'm going to no, no, that's good.

00:53:20.590 --> 00:53:24.815
So you have the some great instructors with those academy classes.

00:53:24.815 --> 00:53:26.137
There's a wide range of them.

00:53:26.137 --> 00:53:28.641
I looked at the list which is before.

00:53:28.641 --> 00:53:32.726
Some are two days, some are one day, and then also you have the 13th and 17th.

00:53:32.726 --> 00:53:34.034
I also looked at all of those sessions.

00:53:34.034 --> 00:53:34.916
It's packed full.

00:53:34.916 --> 00:53:44.942
I've already started planning, as we talked about and had the conversation, the sessions that I would like to attend, because I do not want to show up and decide where am I going to go now.

00:53:44.942 --> 00:53:53.099
It's very difficult to plan on the fly on some of these because there's a lot going on and I say that with positivity.

00:53:53.099 --> 00:54:00.355
There's a lot of opportunity, a lot of people to speak, with a lot of great sessions to see and at least want to have an idea of where I would like to go.

00:54:00.355 --> 00:54:04.956
Another question on the conference are any of the sessions going to be recorded this year?

00:54:05.679 --> 00:54:06.784
Yeah, so're, um.

00:54:06.784 --> 00:54:15.414
So we are going to be recording about 25% of the sessions this year, so it's kind of the same amount we did last year, um, and then all of those will be made available.

00:54:15.414 --> 00:54:19.931
They'll go through post-production editing and then be available on dynamics communitiescom.

00:54:19.931 --> 00:54:23.114
Um, so, uh, so that is that's.

00:54:23.114 --> 00:54:39.097
Um, it's a pretty big expense, right To, to record those things and then do the post-production editing, because what we heard from folks the first year we tried to do this was, golly, that sounds like crap, right, you know when you recorded it and all that.

00:54:39.097 --> 00:54:48.112
Or you have people that do this when they're on stage, right, and they come out of the camera and they come back into view of the camera and they come over on this side, right.

00:54:48.112 --> 00:54:55.445
So we've tried to invest a little bit more in the sound quality and some of the video quality and those sorts of things that we can have there.

00:54:55.445 --> 00:55:01.889
And then what we did was had the programming committees, for the most part the programming committees kind of earmark sessions.

00:55:01.889 --> 00:55:03.994
Hey, that one had a lot of.

00:55:03.994 --> 00:55:08.704
You know, a similarly themed event or session last year had a very big crowd at it.

00:55:08.704 --> 00:55:13.052
So let's record that one this year so we can get it out to more people Right Year over year.

00:55:13.052 --> 00:55:22.846
And then a few on like the hey, these are kind of front seat of the roller coaster sessions that if you couldn't come to Summit North America, boy, be good to decentralize that to more people, and that kind of thing.

00:55:22.846 --> 00:55:26.516
So that's, that's kind of the flow of how we do those.

00:55:26.516 --> 00:55:27.777
So that's kind of the flow of how we do those.

00:55:27.797 --> 00:55:37.476
I'd love to record all of them, but then I wouldn't be able to pay people to do their jobs, right, because it costs so much darn money to record all that stuff.

00:55:37.476 --> 00:55:43.320
So we look at all of that as an investment in the community when we do it.

00:55:43.320 --> 00:55:49.536
So there's no like sponsorship stuff around those things or any of that type of stuff, right, it's really just an investment in the community.

00:55:49.536 --> 00:56:01.610
For that it's also an investment in the speakers that are a part of the program, because I, you know, we all work our butts off every single day, right?

00:56:01.610 --> 00:56:09.018
So so what I try to do with doing those recordings is, hey, not everybody has the dough to record themselves.

00:56:09.018 --> 00:56:16.646
You know, doing a session, leading a session, do some post-production editing on it and have something that looks professional, right, and that kind of thing.

00:56:16.646 --> 00:56:24.360
So it's a little bit of a way to thank the speakers for all of their effort and energy that they put into the community as well.

00:56:25.684 --> 00:56:26.123
That's great.

00:56:26.123 --> 00:56:26.744
It's good to know.

00:56:26.744 --> 00:56:28.655
It also is going to be helpful for me.

00:56:28.655 --> 00:56:33.827
If something's recorded, I know I may have the chance to watch it later if I have a conflicting session.

00:56:33.869 --> 00:56:46.298
That I would like to attend, not to take away from those that are recorded, because it's also important to see those in person sometimes because you can interact with the session leader as well as the other participants in the room.

00:56:46.298 --> 00:56:55.135
It goes back to that whole networking you can network with the session leaders as well as the individuals in the room, which is important.

00:56:55.135 --> 00:56:56.780
Well done, yes.

00:56:57.000 --> 00:56:58.463
I was just going to mention one other little thing there.

00:56:58.463 --> 00:57:04.371
You mentioned the planning that you were doing and that sort of stuff for the sessions Next week.

00:57:04.371 --> 00:57:10.681
So the end of August timeframe, beginning of September timeframe, we're doing something brand new this year for the community.

00:57:10.681 --> 00:57:12.483
That was feedback that we heard last year.

00:57:12.483 --> 00:57:16.813
That's cool.

00:57:16.913 --> 00:57:21.938
We've created a show guide this year, so it's a digital show guide that you can come and download.

00:57:21.938 --> 00:57:24.981
It's just like an interactive PDF, kind of a piece, right.

00:57:24.981 --> 00:57:35.074
But it starts off get my fat head on there, right, you know doing a little intro thing at the beginning.

00:57:35.074 --> 00:57:38.126
So you know, whatever, I just try to tell everybody what to expect and that sort of thing.

00:57:38.126 --> 00:57:45.302
But then from there it goes in and actually it outlines each one of the different sessions for each one of the different user groups.

00:57:45.302 --> 00:57:52.690
So every single session, all 700 sessions has a specific section in the show guide so you can actually go in and pick and choose.

00:57:52.690 --> 00:58:03.938
It's totally interactive so you can click on it and go directly to the section description and that kind of thing on the website and it shows the time that that session is running, the title of the session as well as the room.

00:58:03.938 --> 00:58:08.632
So a lot of folks will be using the app when they're on site and all that type of thing.

00:58:08.632 --> 00:58:14.233
But to have something like this as a planner before you're going to the event, it's really kind of powerful.

00:58:14.233 --> 00:58:16.599
It also shows every single one of the speakers.

00:58:16.599 --> 00:58:19.253
So, golly, you guys are both speaking, right.

00:58:19.253 --> 00:58:29.436
So 500 plus speakers 600 speakers that we have at the event and I did them this year because I'm a geek, right, I did them in almost a yearbook fashion, right, I did them in almost a yearbook fashion, right.

00:58:29.436 --> 00:58:40.065
So as you're going through the video show guide, it almost looks like you're looking at a yearbook with all the different speakers with their pictures and that kind of thing, and so you can actually tap on any one of the speakers, go directly to their profile on the Summit site and stuff.

00:58:40.065 --> 00:58:45.213
So kind of love that, right, because it celebrates everybody in the community and such.

00:58:45.233 --> 00:59:05.478
And then around the areas where we did each one of the different product group, like user group sessions, so D365FNO and BC, where it lists out all of the different sessions with the titles and the room numbers, and such a couple of folks in the community raised their hand and said, hey, john, I'll write a little what to expect article to go along with this.

00:59:05.478 --> 00:59:23.375
So, like Crystal Ahrens did a piece for D365, f&o, and Steve Chinsky did a piece for Business Central and Carrie Hadley did a piece for Dynamics GP and, you know, Kylie Kaiser did a piece for CECRM and stuff, so it's just it's really neat.

00:59:23.375 --> 00:59:28.139
Pablo Moreno did a piece for F&O and it's just it's a pretty neat kind of thing.

00:59:28.139 --> 00:59:31.677
Right to have everybody sort of sharing some of their ideas.

00:59:32.179 --> 00:59:36.577
Sean Dorward did one for kind of what to expect in the AI co-pilot side and that kind of thing.

00:59:36.577 --> 00:59:38.791
So you sort of see what to expect from folks.

00:59:38.791 --> 00:59:43.994
Then you get to see all of the sessions that are going to be there and we also include all of the academy classes as well.

00:59:43.994 --> 00:59:49.371
So so pretty neat way for everybody to spend that month or whatever it is before Summit.

00:59:49.371 --> 00:59:50.478
Hey, I want to plan this stuff.

00:59:50.478 --> 00:59:52.166
Golly, I don't want to be on my phone.

00:59:52.166 --> 00:59:58.322
Okay, now I got this cool kind of organized PDF document where I can go through and plan and do that kind of thing.

00:59:58.750 --> 01:00:00.257
So I did see the demo on there.

01:00:00.257 --> 01:00:01.503
That was actually really cool.

01:00:01.503 --> 01:00:03.050
So I'm actually really excited about that.

01:00:03.050 --> 01:00:04.032
I'm excited.

01:00:04.052 --> 01:00:05.474
I'm excited for that too.

01:00:05.474 --> 01:00:06.414
I think it is a good way.

01:00:06.414 --> 01:00:07.577
I mean the planning.

01:00:07.577 --> 01:00:10.081
Don't underestimate the importance of planning.

01:00:10.081 --> 01:00:13.505
It's another step for you to get the most out of it.

01:00:13.505 --> 01:00:16.695
I'm one that says I've been going to this for a long time.

01:00:16.695 --> 01:00:21.704
This is one of those conferences that if you didn't have a good time, you did something wrong.

01:00:21.704 --> 01:00:34.706
And what I mean by good time is you know, if you can't go up to these things, if you don't plan before you go up to it, you have no one else to blame but yourself.

01:00:34.706 --> 01:00:37.525
Not to be cruel or harsh on some of these words, but you get sometimes with these conferences, you get out what you put into them.

01:00:37.525 --> 01:00:46.637
There's plenty of opportunity to network, plenty of opportunity to learn, plenty of opportunity to share, there's plenty of opportunity to eat and plenty of opportunity to do other things.

01:00:46.637 --> 01:00:50.733
So I'm looking forward to seeing the digital guide.

01:00:50.733 --> 01:00:55.132
Will that digital guide be available for everybody or only those that are registered for the conference?

01:00:55.534 --> 01:01:03.681
So everybody that's registered for the conference will receive an email that'll come from our team and it'll have a direct link to click on it.

01:01:03.681 --> 01:01:04.483
You can go it'll.

01:01:04.483 --> 01:01:09.677
You'll go directly to the spot where you can download the the show guide.

01:01:09.677 --> 01:01:21.981
If somebody is not registered for the event, they will have the ability to like put in their registration information not by a pass to the event, but put their registration information in, like their name and their email address and stuff and be able to download it.

01:01:21.981 --> 01:01:30.557
But it's really meant for attendees, for the users that are attending the event, and then other folks that are maybe considering, hey, do I go to the event or do I not go to the event?

01:01:30.557 --> 01:01:34.677
Or maybe, like you said before, brad, they're trying to figure out hey, is this an event I wanna go to?

01:01:34.677 --> 01:01:40.730
They can download that and check it out and see if it makes sense and then what we try to do with those people.

01:01:40.769 --> 01:01:48.630
We have somebody that joined our team a little bit earlier this year called Joanne Talia, and she's leading our attendee success.

01:01:48.630 --> 01:01:53.612
So everybody who downloads one of those that isn't already registered, that name will go over to Joanne.

01:01:53.612 --> 01:02:00.793
Joanne will send them a personal email, not like a prefab, you know, kind of everybody gets the same email sort of thing.

01:02:00.793 --> 01:02:05.612
Joanne will send them an email say you downloaded the digital guide.

01:02:05.612 --> 01:02:10.903
If you're interested in going to Summit North America, let me work with you to get the best deal right to attend the event.

01:02:10.903 --> 01:02:17.063
So that's kind of the process that we go through for it, but really kind of meant for people that are coming to the event.

01:02:17.063 --> 01:02:21.474
So, hey, give you a little bit of a hand right to your point, brad, plan it out a little bit.

01:02:22.170 --> 01:02:23.275
I'm looking forward to seeing it.

01:02:23.275 --> 01:02:24.237
Looking forward to seeing it.

01:02:24.237 --> 01:02:34.072
I'm also looking forward to seeing you in October.

01:02:34.072 --> 01:02:37.179
I think we'll have to have a drink together, chris, we'll have to see.

01:02:37.199 --> 01:02:37.920
We'll have some whiskeys.

01:02:37.920 --> 01:02:39.342
We'll have some whiskeys.

01:02:39.342 --> 01:02:46.653
I'm not saying the number, but we'll definitely have to have one, maybe two, and have a drink of water while we're there.

01:02:46.653 --> 01:02:49.746
Well, john, we appreciate you taking the time to speak with us this afternoon, as you had mentioned and how I firmly believe.

01:02:49.746 --> 01:02:51.853
Time truly is the currency of life when you spend it, you can't get it back.

01:02:51.853 --> 01:03:04.614
So we both value and appreciate the amount of time that people speak, speaking with us to share their thoughts, insights and information because, like I said this last hour that you spoke with us, you don't get it back.

01:03:05.375 --> 01:03:07.179
Yeah, and just so.

01:03:07.179 --> 01:03:10.505
John, I do appreciate the insight you've given.

01:03:10.505 --> 01:03:22.835
I think it holds a lot of value hearing it directly from you and the amount of work that you and the team have put together keeping this community going, and I love seeing it.

01:03:22.835 --> 01:03:29.443
Like I said, I've been going to this community event for a long, long time and seeing it come back stronger than ever.

01:03:29.443 --> 01:03:31.376
I'm super excited.

01:03:31.376 --> 01:03:34.918
So I'm super excited to see everybody again here in San Antonio.

01:03:34.918 --> 01:03:35.942
Oh, I am too.

01:03:36.349 --> 01:03:40.382
And we do appreciate, we do understand as Chris had mentioned, there's a team of people to put this together.

01:03:40.382 --> 01:03:50.777
You do a great job as a CEO, but I get to interact with a lot of the members of your team as well and they all do a great job and they've all been very responsive to some of the inquiries I've had as well too.

01:03:50.777 --> 01:03:59.543
So we appreciate the entire team for putting this together, because I know I have a blast every time I go and I get so much out of it, so I do appreciate it.

01:04:00.965 --> 01:04:04.208
Those words mean a ton to me and they mean a ton to the team gang.

01:04:04.208 --> 01:04:30.916
So, thank you very much, chris and Brad, and I, um I also, uh, would love to just maybe throw a little wrinkle in here on on what you guys just said, because, um, the role that you both play in the community is, um, uh is extremely important in keeping everybody together and helping to decentralize the intelligence that, uh that everybody has here, so that we can all we can all do our jobs better, we can all get along a little bit more and we can all continue to do, continue to do great stuff.

01:04:30.916 --> 01:04:38.896
So, thank you both for the roles that you play and I am looking forward to doing a little cheers with both of you when we're at Community Summit, north America.

01:04:40.050 --> 01:04:40.472
Absolutely.

01:04:40.472 --> 01:04:42.699
Thank you very much I look forward to seeing you soon.

01:04:43.469 --> 01:04:43.891
All right.

01:04:44.311 --> 01:04:44.632
Thank you.

01:04:44.632 --> 01:04:53.262
Thank you, Chris, for your time for another episode of In the Dynamics Corner Chair and thank you to our guests for participating.

01:04:53.523 --> 01:04:55.025
Thank you, brad, for your time.

01:04:55.025 --> 01:05:00.277
It is a wonderful episode of Dynamics Corner Chair.

01:05:00.277 --> 01:05:02.005
I would also like to thank our guests for joining us.

01:05:02.005 --> 01:05:05.039
Thank you for all of our listeners tuning in as well.

01:05:05.039 --> 01:05:19.563
You can find Brad at developerlifecom, that is D-V-L-P-R-L-I-F-E dot com, and you can interact with them via Twitter D-V-L-P-R-L-I-F-E.

01:05:19.563 --> 01:05:32.922
You can also find me at matalinoio, m-a-t-a-l-i-n-oio, and my Twitter handle is Mattalino16.

01:05:32.922 --> 01:05:36.617
And you can see those links down below in the show notes.

01:05:36.617 --> 01:05:37.961
Again, thank you everyone.

01:05:37.961 --> 01:05:39.536
Thank you and take care.