The Practical Microsoft 365 Event

TEC 2024 (aka, “The Experts Conference”) takes place at the Loews Arlington Hotel on Tuesday and Wednesday next week (October 1-2, 2024) with full-day workshops on Monday, September 30. The last few tickets still remain if you find the sudden urge to mix technology with Tex-Mex cruisine.

TEC is my favorite technology conference. There are several reasons why:

A great team of people organize and run TEC. They’re all smiles.

There are always great keynote speakers (see below).

Speakers and attendees have the chance to mingle and exchange ideas in a way that just doesn’t happen at large conferences like Microsoft Ignite.

TEC includes fun sessions like the PowerShell script-off where competitors have the chance to strut their PowerShell skills in solving some real-world problems using my favorite scripting language. This year, the competitors are banned from using AI tools like ChatGPT and Microsoft 365 Copilot (both of which can generate pretty awful code) but can “phone a friend” to get advice.

Great conference parties where vendors aren’t demanding their pound of flesh before people can attend.

Unfortunately, TEC sessions are not recorded for later access. A substantial cost is involved in recording a conference and the TEC organizers decided to keep ticket prices low by eliminating “nice to have but unnecessary” costs. However, articles covering many TEC sessions appear on Practical365.com after the event, so you can keep an eye on that site to learn more.

TEC 2024 Keynote Speakers

TEC selects keynote speakers to provoke conference attendees to think about the current state of IT rather than to push the latest and greatest product. This year, TEC 2024 features:

Paul Thurrott, the well-known co-host of the Windows Weekly webcast and the brains behind Thurrott.com, will cover the future of Windows (or the lack thereof). Paul is never one to hold back on his opinions, so attendees can expect some fireworks in this session.

Andy Greenberg, a senior writer for Wired.com, covers “From Crypto Crime to Cyberwar: Stories From the Front Lines.” TEC attendees will receive a copy of Andy’s latest book, “Tracers in the Dark: The Global Hunt for the Crime Lords of Cryptocurrency” and can have their copy signed.

Shinesa Cambric from Microsoft will talk about “Identity. Where it’s been and where it’s going.” Shinesa will also hold a signing for her “Cloud Auditing Best Practices” book. Given the ongoing very real threat to on-premises and cloud deployments through badly-protected user accounts, this session should be thought-provoking.

TEC keynote speakers are an integral part of the event. The best example I can give about how keynote speakers participate in a really impactful way is how Alex Weinert, VP of Entra Security at Microsoft, took the time to sit down and help a user remove some malware from her PC at TEC 2022. Talk about going beyond the call of duty!

Workshops

TEC 2024 hosts two Microsoft 365 workshops: one on understanding and managing conditional access policies, the other on using PowerShell to automate common administrative scenarios for on-premises and cloud environments. Both are good topics, and the conditional access workshop has racked up a large attendance. I guess this reflects the challenges of building conditional access policies for an organization and the need for people to understand exactly how conditional access conditions work when Entra ID evaluates inbound connections, including controlling access by guest accounts. I hope that the session emphasizes how to impose practical security instead of using policies to make the user experience miserable.

I plan to spend some time in both workshops and look forward to learning something new from the presenters.

On to Dallas

Naturally, I’ll be looking for topics that I can cover in the Office 365 for IT Pros eBook and in articles for this site. I usually find several things to write about after attending TEC sessions, and I expect TEC 2024 to be no different. See you in Dallas!