Having moved back to Australia 2 months ago, I’m stoked to announce that I’ll be presenting at TechEd Australia next month in Melbourne on October 7th/8th and Sydney on October 27th/28th!

I’ll be presenting 10 keys to ensuring the success of your Lync deployment in the Office Servers and Services track where I’ll cover the important technical and business considerations you need to watch out for to ensure users love their new communications solution. Make sure you also check out Microsoft’s Vakhtang Assatrian’s session on Addressing Lync 2013 Security Aspects.

I’m looking forward to seeing folks interested in Lync from all over Australia, look forward to seeing you in Melbourne and Sydney next month!

Last week a bunch of us MVPs had the pleasure of flying the Lync flag at TechEd North America 2014 in Houston, Texas. I’d successfully landed a session in the Office Servers and Services track and was accompanied by a slew of fellow Lync MVPs from Norway, Sweden, Belgium, Netherlands, UK, USA and Canada in delivering content in the track. This was my second TechEd North America after last year in New Orleans and I was pumped to visit Texas, eat some great food and see both new and familiar faces again. Continue reading →

We’re pleased to announce that we have a series of upcoming UC webinars for both the US and UK audiences. The series covers a range of topics and will offer attendees practical advice, best practices and a balanced insight into UC and Lync, calling upon a combination of expert knowledge, customer experiences and industry insight.

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I’m thrilled to announce that I’ll be speaking about Lync at TechEd North America again this year!

I’ll be presenting my Understanding How Microsoft Lync Server 2013 Leverages the Complete Microsoft Infrastructure Ecosystem session from Lync Conference 2014 in Houston as part of the 20 other Lync sessions in the Office Servers and Services track.

I’m looking forward to seeing folks interested in Lync from all over Canada and the USA again, and in addition to my breakout session I’ll be working the Microsoft Lync booth and at the Ask the Experts event.

I’ll also be joined by other MVPs like Stale Hansen, Brian Ricks, Johan Delimon, Tommy Clarke, Bhargav Shukla, Paul Robichaux, Ken Lasko and Adam Gent along with Microsoft folks, so there will also be someone on hand to answer your questions or help you whiteboard a solution. I’ll be on the hunt for some good Texas BBQ also. 🙂

See you there!

In addition to speaking at NIC Cloud Edition in January, I’m also stoked to announce that I’ll be speaking at Microsoft Lync Conference 2014 in Las Vegas in February!

I’ll be presenting two sessions along with a host of other fellow MVPs and Microsoft folks over the 3 days from 18th to 21st February at the Aria Resort and Hotel. My two sessions are in the Business Value and Voice tracks and are as follows:

Enhancing your Voice Rollout to Make it a Killer Success for the Business

• Session Type: Breakout
• Level: 200 – Feature oriented

Understanding how Lync Server 2013 leverages the complete Microsoft infrastructure ecosystem

• Session Type: Breakout
• Level: 300 – Technical

The guys at NIC have invited me back for a second time in January next year to present on Lync in Oslo. This year’s event was really well done with an impressive keynote (Jeffrey Snover nonetheless!) and 2 days packed with valuable infrastructure sessions. In 2014, the focus is on cloud and I’ll be presenting some Lync 2013 sessions relating to best practice and infrastructure awareness.

Fellow Lync MVP Ståle Hansen will also be presenting Lync sessions on video interoperability and how Lync integrates with Exchange Server.

Here’s the two sessions I’ll be delivering:

Enhancing your Lync 2013 rollout to make it a killer success for the business
Learn about functionality you need to think of to meet all the business requirements during a UC rollout that Lync out of the box doesn’t provide. In this session, I’ll cover options regarding operator console, call center software, voicemail compliance, call recording, SBCs and other products that can enhance your deployment.

Understanding how Lync Server 2013 leverages the complete Microsoft infrastructure ecosystem
Sometimes we forget how many other products Lync connects to and leverages. In this session, I’ll cover how Lync uses SQL, Active Directory, Exchange Server, the network, DHCP, DNS, Windows Fabric, Office, Windows client and much more!

NIC Cloud Edition is on January 16th-17th at Oslo Spektrum and offers not just UC topics but sessions on System Management, Virtualisation, Cloud Services, client management and loads more. For more info check out the agenda here.

Autumn has arrived, so we’re back for another instalment of London’s Lync User Group, MUCUGL. In this event, we’ll be covering Lync Room System and Lync Server 2013 architecture. We’ll also have Will Rowe from MSemploy during the networking session to give us a run down of the Lync job market. As usual, we’ll be heading to the pub after.

Registration at Eventbrite.

Where: Polycom Executive Experience Centre, 16th Floor Dashwood House, 69 Old Broad St London

Nearest Tube: Liverpool Street

When: 6pm, 16th October 2013

Look forward to seeing you there!

During the first and last weeks of June I had the pleasure of presenting Lync breakout sessions at TechEd 2013 North America and Europe in New Orleans and Madrid respectively. Being Microsoft’s premiere event for IT professionals and developers, TechEd is kind of a big deal when it comes to tech conferences. They’re a great event for in-house IT staff and consultants alike to attend to brush up on the latest and greatest products and also meet a few of their peers. The last TechEd I attended was TechEd Australia back in 2008 in Sydney when I was still living in Australia, so I was excited to get involved as a speaker for the first time and meet people from the community.

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Summer is (apparently) here! Which means it’s time for our July 2013 event at MUCUGL. In this instalment, fellow  Modality consultant Tom Arbuthnot will be presenting on call recording solutions for Lync first up. Then Polycom’s Adam Jacobs will be covering hybrid solutions and how you can deploy a split domain between Office 365 and your on-premises deployment. Then I’ll round off the night by talking about Lync-Skype federation and what does and doesn’t work, how the architecture fits together and some commonly asked questions.

As usual, we’ll be heading to the pub after. We look forward to seeing you there.

Registration at Eventbrite.

Where: Polycom Executive Experience Centre, 16th Floor Dashwood House, 69 Old Broad St London

Nearest Tube: Liverpool Street

When: 6pm, 15th July 2013

Look forward to seeing you there!

I’m thrilled to announce that I’ll be speaking about Microsoft Lync at both TechEd North America (June 3rd-6th) and Europe (25th-28th June) this year! TechEd is really Microsoft’s premier conference for IT Professionals and Developers worldwide, and with over 5,000 attendees registered already, I’m really excited to visit New Orleans and Madrid to spread the Lync love.

Here’s a rundown of the sessions I’ll be presenting at each conference:

TechEd North America 2013

• Migration and Coexistence with Microsoft Lync Server 2013

TechEd Europe 2013

• Migration and Coexistence with Microsoft Lync Server 2013
• Designing for High Availability and Disaster Recovery in Microsoft Lync Server 2013

In addition to my breakout sessions, I’ll also be manning the Lync booths in the Microsoft Solutions Experience along with participating in the Ask the Experts evenings at both conferences.

You can check out all my sessions in the one place along with my bio on my Speaker page on Channel 9. Take a look at the list of 18 sessions and hands-on labs in the Office 365 and Unified Communications track for TechEd North America and TechEd Europe too.

So if you’re coming to either conference, come along to my sessions or the Lync booths and say hello. I’d be happy to talk tech with you over a coffee/beer.