UC Unleashed

Several years ago, the first Lync Conference was held in Coronado. Maxed out at just under 1000 attendees, this was a great event for those in the Lync space. Networking, technical content, vendors, and a great location. The following year, the event was held at the Aria in Las Vegas, mainly because it could hold a lot more people. And it did. A bigger conference meant more vendors and more room for technical sessions. Another fun event. But soon after that, Microsoft stopped having the dedicated event, and rolling everything into the Microsoft Ignite event. First held in Chicago, then Atlanta, then Orlando. Monster sized events for sure – the Orlando location was eight million square feet. But this was a combined event across all of the Microsoft solutions. It was easy to get lost in the shuffle, and it felt less ‘personable’. Those dedicated to Lync/Skype for Business, or at least heavily focused on them, really wanted to go back to the days of the dedicated events. Well, we’re going to try to do just that. Four MVPs including myself decided to take the bull by the horns and do it ourselves! Introducing the Comms vNext Conference. We’re starting off as a one day, FREE event in Denver, Colorado. If you’ve attended or at least heard of the SQL Saturday events, this is very similar, with our event being on Saturday, June 9th, 2018. We’ll have a keynote speaker (Jamie Stark of Microsoft), along with eight one-hour technical sessions by some of the top Skype for Business and Teams folks around, including MVPs, Masters, and more. Topics will include Skype for Business, Teams, and related technologies. We’ll have vendors there, too! The event is being held at the BRAND NEW Microsoft MTC, and we’re expecting at least 100 people. If this works out well, we’ll expand it further at future events located elsewhere in the country, with the hopes we can eventually get to a regular, multi-day conference. There will also be a social event the evening before, where you can socialize with everyone and enjoy some good food and adult beverages. We’re ecstatic to announce that sponsors include Microsoft, AudioCodes, Landis Technologies, Jabra, Anynode, Pexip, and Plantronics.

Fore more information, and to register, see the website at https://commsvnext.com, and follow the conference on Twitter @CommsvNext. If you’d like to submit a speaker session for consideration, go to the website, as all of the details are there. We hope to see you there!

Earlier this year, the podcast I had been involved in since its inception, The UC Architects, ended its five-year run. It was a lot of fun, but the format was difficult to maintain. So, I’ve started a new podcast dealing with the Microsoft Unified Communications (UC) stack, with just a single guest on each episode. Guests will be tech luminaries such as fellow MVPs, MCMs/MCSMs, and/or Microsoft staff. The podcast is designed to deliver regular insight into the Microsoft UC market as an easy-to-consume audio file. Each episode will be in a shorter format than the UCA was, making it easier to listen to while driving to work or doing other tasks. We’ll tackle fewer topics, but each in further depth.

Listeners can listen to the podcasts in any of the following ways:
– Subscribe to the UC Inside Track podcast series on iTunes or via your favorite RSS client.
– Listen on TuneIn.
– Listen to the podcast directly via the link below.

In the first podcast, I’m joined by Jonathan McKinney (@ucomsgeek), MVP and MCM, to discuss the recently released Skype for Business to Teams capabilities roadmap. Both Jonathan and I are on the Microsoft Elite Teams for both Skype for Business and Microsoft Teams, and have collaborated for many years. The exchange is lively and informative. The recording was made available to download from iTunes on Friday, November 17.

Episode 1: http://www.voss-solutions.com/media/podcast/podcast_001.mp3

Look for more episodes at least monthly. In episode 2, I’ll be joined by fellow MVP and MCM Tom Arbuthnot (@tomarbuthnot).