Welcome to episode 425
of the Microsoft Cloud IT Pro podcast recorded
live 03/27/2026
from the Microsoft Studios at the Microsoft MVP
Summit. This is a show about Microsoft three
sixty five and Azure from the perspective of
IT pros and end users, where we discuss
a topic or recent news and how it
relates to you. In this episode,
Scott quadruple books himself with meetings, and Joy
Apple joins Ben once again on the show.
It's the end of MVP summit, and Joy
and Ben are a little short on sleep,
but have a great time
learning a bit more about Joy Apple and
her road to becoming a Microsoft MVP.
We also spent some time chatting about SharePoint,
OneDrive, Teams, and the importance of governance in
Microsoft March,
especially in this age of AI. And finally,
we wrap up just talking a bit about
the community around around Microsoft three '65 at
the MVP summit, at conferences,
and that family atmosphere that we enjoy so
much at these events. Let's dive into the
show.
We are here for another episode of the
Microsoft Cloud IT Pro podcast with Joy, and
we are we're in a fancy
studio.
It is so fancy.
It is. We're at the Microsoft I was
gonna say, I was gonna name the podcast.
We're at the MVP summit in Redmond
at Microsoft headquarters
at the mothership as people like to say.
Right? Yes. Right. We are at the Microsoft
mothership. And
they offered up the opportunity
for podcasters
to, like, sit down Mhmm. And record podcasts
in fancy studios. So this one's audio and
video, and I know most people listen to
the podcast on audio.
We will put up the video probably
on
at least the podcast YouTube channel, and we'll
put links in the show notes if people
wanna actually go see Joy and I. And
Who wouldn't wanna do that? You'll have the
video. I don't know. You may put stuff
up some places too. But I've been known
to do it. You have. I will let
you most people know me. I mean, you've
been on the podcast
once or twice? Is it just been once?
This is twice.
So do you wanna tell us a little
bit about Joy Apple? Who Joy Apple is?
What Joy Apple does? Where Joy works? I
can do that. All of that? All the
things. But first, I have to be paranoid
because we had to put a push a
button to turn on the video, but the
audio is just going. Right? The audio is
going. I can see we can see it
over here. See the little green lights? They're,
like, flickering on the bottom there. Okay. Do
you feel better? Perfect. I'm good. So hi.
I'm Joy Apple. I'm paranoid.
But let me see. Who am I? What
do I do? Where do I do it?
So Joy Apple, I've been in the Microsoft
space. This year turns over to twenty official
years. Does it really? Where did you get
your start? In a bank. In the Microsoft
role in a bank? Nope. Oh. So I
was in the financial industry. Did you know
that human beings in general are really uptight
about their money in their houses? Yes.
Imagine that. Imagine. Just those things.
I didn't love it, but it was fine.
Okay. When I was the self taught geek
nerd, if something didn't work, I was not,
but I was the on-site IT person because
our IT was two hours away. And you
weren't scared to push a button? I'm not
scared to push a button. Even at a
bank. There are destroyed household appliances from when
I was a child.
Because before Joy could walk, she would crawl
and push buttons. And a microwave with metal
in it?
Yeah. So I had an opportunity. I was
approached by someone who was helping to write
a book with Microsoft Press, and they asked
them to do some copy editing. It was
for the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server Administrator's pocket
consultant.
That is a mouthful. I know. And if
you had a pocket that was, like, 10
by five by three, the pocket consultant would
fit into that.
That's a really big pocket. Really big pocket.
Was it because the title had to fit
on the front of the book so that
I had to make the book that big?
And I think it was like a some
kind of a that was when they would
put, like, tool images on the front of
the book. So it was like a pneumatic
handle or I don't know. I don't know.
But I was like, this is really cool
because the bank at that time used Lotus
and that which was like, that's some of
the OG collaborate software. Right? And I was
trying to convince them, like, we could see
each other's calendars. We could manage
mortgage appointments and things like that. We could
do that. And they're like, that's so complicated.
Just print the calendar out. So all those
kinds of things. But going through this book,
I was like, this is it's really interesting.
I I wanna know more. Well, if you've
ever written a book, probably does it, like,
make you rich instantly, if ever? You know
what? I have heard this. I have never
written a book, but I have talked to
enough people writing books. It's always so it's
always in my the back of my mind,
it would be really cool to, like, have
a book with my name on it. And
then I talk to anybody that's ever written
a book and they're like Don't do it.
Don't do it. Like, okay? Don't do it.
No. It was fun, but I wasn't paid
in money. I was paid in training. Oh,
interesting. Because I was like, this is and
I look. Because I wasn't a cover author.
I wasn't contributing content. I was taking engineering
words and putting them into sentences. Engineers don't
talk Shocking. Sentences. We love you. You engineers.
Understandable words. We love you. I was raised
by an engineer. We love you. I'm an
engineer. You can make fun of me. I
would have to completely rewrite everything.
So I learned SharePoint. I went to
web content management training. I went to end
user training. I went to admin training.
And within two years of that, I moved
to
an official IT role
at
a government contracting
facility in Huntsville, Alabama. Then I became a
trainer. Does it have a name? We are
just gonna leave that alone.
Then became a trainer and then a consultant.
So, like, literally, it was
right time, right place, grace of God, the
right opportunity,
because I don't think any of us grew
up wanting to be SharePoint professionals
when I did not. Well, SharePoint didn't exist
when I was a kid. Fair. But I
also did not grow up with these aspirations
of Oh, but it was as amazing
journey. And thinking back, like, holy moly, twenty
years.
Like, we got to see some
really cool stuff today Yes. That I couldn't
have imagined twenty years ago. When you were
right? When you were doing SharePoint 2007 because
yeah. Yeah. It's wild to think about all
the changes in SharePoint It's amazing. Over the
last twenty years. And it what, like, is
it was this year earlier in March. Well,
it's March now. A week or two ago
was, like, SharePoint's 20
birthday.
Yep. Growing up. So we have almost been
with it the entire time. I got my
start about the same time you did. It
was, like, 02/1956.
It was sometime I did stuff with SharePoint
2003.
Mhmm. Old. That'd be a success. But it
was about the time 2,007
was coming out. Yeah. Okay. So I think
it was somewhere between it was, like, 02/1956
time frame that I got my introduction to
it. Yeah. It's an amazing journey. I mean,
you always take turns as you're going down
your career path and sometimes, like, why did
I do that or I wish I'd done
this different. But in like, for me personally,
at my third or fourth in person MVP
summit. Okay. So did you go to any
of the in person ones?
Like, the what? The first one or two
right after COVID Mhmm. People I I heard
feedback that it wasn't
great those first year. I didn't have anything
to compare it to because I was a
woman
during COVID. Did you go then as soon
as it was back in person after? Maybe
I did you know what? Maybe it was
Ignite that I didn't go to. I think
I did go to the first person in
Ignite. First in person in Ignite too. Also,
I mean, we were figuring things out and
doing the best we could. Yes. Very true.
Right. But no. It's been fantastic. Oh, so,
yeah, twenty years, Microsoft,
firmly on the collaboration side of the house.
Right now, I am with Orchestra
Tree Software now. So that is where I
have expanded, and I've been there for about
three and a half years. It's been three
and a half years already? It's man, the
stuff we're doing, also exciting and fabulous. So
I love governance.
We can say that now with our head
held high. We can say govern yes. We
used to be like, okay. I wanna say
this word. It's the g word. It don't
hit me now. It's like, y'all gotta do
your governance. You need to do governance. And
I feel like you need to do governance.
I mean, we both been in SharePoint line.
If we've seen SharePoint site sprawl, I feel
like governance is even more important now. People
create it's kinda like AI. Right? AI helps
you find things faster,
easier, all of that, but I also feel
like it helps you create things It does.
Faster and it
expedites the ability to
have sprawl or for content to get where
it shouldn't be or all of that. So
Yeah. Yeah, I feel like governance is way
more important now. It's very important. My colleague,
Reyna O'Neil,
wrote a little article on LinkedIn the other
day. I've got my phone on airplane mode,
so it doesn't make noise. So now I
can't remember the type. Something like your AI
isn't broken your processes or something like that.
Right? And she saw about the fact that
AI
amplifies
whatever practices you have in place. Oh, yeah.
That's right.
Yep. So
if it's just the gates wide open, anyone
could do anything, anytime, any place, anywhere,
just go nuts. Or we talked about a
lot this week, YOLO mode. Right? If you're
if everything in your tenant is YOLO,
AI is gonna it's gonna be so bad
because, right, everything's there. Nothing gets cleaned up.
You just put things wherever you want. You
don't really approach things with a process.
AI can't magically fix that for you because
it's feeding off of what we give it.
So if we're giving it chaos, it's gonna
amplify that chaos. Yeah.
You're out of time. Copilot needs to be
deployed ASAP, but is your tenant really ready
for it? Years of data, permissions, and users
lurk in its shadows, ready to be exposed
by AI.
Sharegate Protect sees it all, so you can
find the exposure risks, fix them fast, and
deploy AI with confidence.
Microsoft three sixty five governance. We got this.
Learn more at sharegate.com/governance.
It's similar. We talked about this a lot
even in the years with like, when Power
BI and business intelligence and data warehouses and
all those are coming out. Right. You give
it bad data, you're gonna get bad reports.
Input output. Yeah. You give Copilot bad data,
incorrect data, old data, whatever data. It's yeah.
It's just gonna amplify the bad the badness.
So Buckley Christian Buckley and I were talking
about this recently. So we're dusting off our
old presentations
because they're relevant again. Right? Because we're we
have to talk the fundamentals
this is a bold statement. But it's like
the fundamentals are so much more important now,
it feels like, than they ever were.
Now I've got a talking heads song in
my head.
Do you guys sing for us? Maybe not
right now. This is only coffee. It's only
coffee.
They're not recording this late in the day
when their beverage requires a switch. Just the
ammo bets are off. But, yeah, it's like
information architecture. How many times have we said
that phrase this week going, hey, Microsofts, don't
forget about information architecture. Hey, folks using m
three six five, don't forget. And if you're
not really familiar with that, we have so
many good resources in the community.
Information architecture is so important.
Data hygiene is so important. The concept of
archiving things, setting permissions right. Oh, so important.
And this is a lot of stuff. I'll
let you do a little bit of a
orchestrate pitch here. Okay. Alright. Because a lot
of this stuff is stuff you're building into
orchestrate Yep. Now. Right? There's a lot of
that governance
Totally. Controls, reporting.
My my little elevator pitch is that Orchestrein
is a governance automation layer for Microsoft three
sixty five. Okay. Right? Yeah. Load it in.
It's great from a user perspective because the
apps right there, pen it to the left
rail in Teams because that's where we all
are all the time. So templated provisioning,
it it it's one of the one of
the things I never
appreciated when we switched to modern
experience inside of SharePoint is it was so
difficult, if not impossible, to have a cookie
cutter homepage template. Right? It's very difficult. Yep.
My favorite thing about orchestra, I think, still
to this day is the fact that you
can point orchestra at what we call a
live template and say, I wanna use this
every time something new is created. Mhmm. Pages,
web part layouts,
links, icons, images,
lists, libraries, columns, JSON formatting.
Boom. Go. Yeah. And it's not even just
SharePoint sites, but, like, teams. Because I Teams.
I use orchestrate. Communication sites to even engage
communities. Right. Like, I create a team for
every client I have in consulting, and that's
how I do it with orchestra. I'm like,
I want this team, these channels. I want
it set up this way for every client
team and SharePoint site and structured this way
and Yeah. Yeah. So that we've had archiving
in the product for years.
When Microsoft released m three six five archive,
we have added that to our archive suite.
So you can make that policy driven now.
So you can go in and say every
time this template is used, this is the
archive policy. If it goes, let's make it
up. If it goes inactive for ninety consecutive
days, reach out to the owner. And maybe
for some sites, we don't wanna delete anything
yet, but let's keep it in place, make
it read only, set the group to archive,
prune the drafts, and reclaim some storage. Alright.
There's things you can do. Yeah. There's a
variety of options there to get that rot
out of the way. A redundant outdated and
trivial content, if that's a new acronym for
you. Secure guest management. I don't know that
I've heard that acronym before. ROT yesterday. I
had to do it. I don't know that
I don't know that I have. Vlad said
it today. Did he? Yeah. You don't listen
to Vlad though. No. I think he just
let it just wash our feet up. Because
Vlad did not come say hi to me
the other night. You did. You came down
when you got back and said hi. Vlad
blew me a kiss and got on the
elevator. I don't That was a brush off
of it. It was. I don't yeah. Anyways
So much love in this community. Yes. This
is the best. This is Which we'll have
to come back to that here in a
minute. Well, yes. It will. But no. Not
to get salesy or pushy or anything about
that, but this is a topic and a
passion that I've always had around the technology
stack. So I get to work at a
company where that's what we do. And I
think my favorite thing about Orchestra is the
creators of the product are founders, our director
of product, David Ferencore. Shout out David. You
do amazing work. They've lived it since the
early days. They've been the developers.
They've been the consultants.
So it's not just making a product to
do a thing. It's like, this is the
pain. Let's go fix it. Right. I've lived
this pain. I've been in this world long
enough. I know what
hurts.
Let's make it. Like, we just really solution.
We just released our phase one of OneDrive
governance. Because if you have your point's bad,
OneDrive is horrible.
Have I told you the story about
my OneDrive? Well, this was OneDrive and SharePoint.
I think I've I think I've told it
on the podcast before. But I'm I'll tell
it to you just, again, from your perspective.
I have some client I've had a lot
of work lately around people running to roll
out Copilot and do governance. Mhmm. On their
data, they're like, what do I need to
do to roll out Copilot? I'm like,
you should really make sure how your stuff
is in SharePoint. Put your bare fist on
speed dial. Yes. And then And I did
it. Like, I'm sure I could do this
with our history. I have my own PowerShell
script that
I point at SharePoint and just say, go
find me all the sharing links and how
they're shared and who they're shared with and
all of that. Yeah. It's already built in.
I built a PowerShell script. You don't need
it? We can do it for you. Well,
I did not build a PowerShell script. Claude
built a PowerShell script.
Thank you, Claude. But, anyways, I ran it
against one client. They had 25,000
links in their SharePoint environment that were shared
with the entire organization. I believe it. That's
probably their default. Yeah. It was their default,
and then we went in and switched their
default and all of that. This was a
new one for me. One of their users,
OneDrives,
it gave you this was one of the
built in SharePoint reports in SharePoint advanced management,
the same reports For data access governance, do
you need to tighten your Yeah. I feel
like it's you know, we're having to Go
higher. Technical difficulties will drive. Okay. I'll keep
going, though. Yes, sir. But I looked at
this report, and one of the items in
there is how many users
is your content shared with. This one user,
one user's OneDrive, 2,500
different people had content to or access to
some content
in his OneDrive. That's cool. Going back right?
Going back to your OneDrive governance, it's like,
how because of sharing is great. I love
the ability to share, but there is absolutely
that governance need. Like, you cannot have that
many people having access to somebody's OneDrive without
realizing
what and how, especially folders. That's the other
aspect. Someone shares a folder and all of
a sudden they, like, start dropping content in
it without realizing that the folder is shared.
For long. Yeah. Yep. Because that content grows
because it's what we do. We create content.
And, yeah, it part of that comes back
to us. And I'm saying us as, like,
the broader
admins, subject matter experts, whatever your role may
be. We've got to convince our organizations to
do proper training. Yes. Got to. Because just
because you can share everything out of your
OneDrive,
it does not mean you should
Right. That should be in a team with
the proper audience, guardrails,
what have you. I can let anybody into
my house, but should I let anybody into
my house? I don't know. Sharing is caring.
I'm not that sharing with my house. No.
Going back to your early statement about the
bank. I care about my house. Right. We
can't tie it about the house. I am
not sharing my house with everybody and anybody.
I have proper governance around who's allowed in
my house. External users.
Yeah.
What's an internal my family is are those
my internal users in my house? We. My
coffee cup is a leak. This is a
problem. Oh, I'm sorry. I don't have I'm
gonna look like the messiest guest ever by
the time. It's fine. Okay. Anyway, so yeah.
It's proper go over there. Stuff. Yeah. I
get to have great conversations. And part of
my role, it's like one of those other
duties is assigned just because I decided I
wanted it to be. I get to be
that kind of strategist for a lot of
our customers too. It's like, look, I know
you know what you're doing, but if you
need to brainstorm, if you need I call
it corporate therapy. If you just need someone
that's been there, done that, has the shared
trauma, set up a call. Let's hop on
Teams. Talk it through.
So again, I get to help be an
unofficial adviser
in some ways. Therapy.
I think there is someone out there on
the socials that is a SharePoint therapist. I
should know who that is. I can't think
of it right now. I don't know who
that is. Yeah. I'm no. I'm not gonna
look. I'm gonna stay focused. Resist resist the
ADD. Yes.
I will do it. Squirrel.
Yeah. So, anyways Tell me. This week, tell
you, we're at the MVP summit. Yeah. We
mentioned that earlier. We did. And this is
we've both been have you been an MVP
have we been MVPs for about the same
amount of time? I think I'm on year
three or four. Four? I am on year
five. I just got a five puck. Oh,
yeah. Last week. So you're ahead of me.
I think I can't remember how many clicks
I have.
That is cool. That was very exciting. But
this is one of you said it earlier,
your favorite week. This is a lot of
people's
favorite weeks. It is. And it's not we
can't really talk about The details. The details.
There are a lot of details. We wouldn't
get to be invited back. Yeah. We would
lose that MVP.
But I think we can talk about just
the
experiences and even why
it's our favorite week. Mhmm.
And a lot of it has to do
with, like, what I for me, it's like
what I said about Vlad. Just Yes. The
feel of it almost being like a family
out here. It's, yeah, it's like a family
reunion every year. It really is. And people
are like, oh, it's lame or roll their
eyes, but no, really.
When I was in my Uber pulling up
to Building 30 3 on Tuesday, my driver
saw the lines because it was before the
keynote, right? That was the official day, right?
Yeah. So people everywhere, shuttles were dropping, all
this stuff. And he was like, oh my
gosh, what is happening? I was like, today
is the first day of MVP summit. I
said there are people we're here coming in
from all over the world, and I said
this is the one time of year if
you get to come, you might only see
your friends this one time a year. Yeah.
And I think that's the first bit of
excitement is that. But then, I mean, we're
MVPs because
somehow, someway, we got on the right radar
or whatever, but it's because we love to
share and to talk and to explore and
to experiment with this technology. So now we
get to come to the mothership once a
year. Yeah. Talk to the builders, talk to
the program managers.
They do a little bit of show and
tell. We get to give them feedback.
We may or may not have bingo cards
for those conversations
about
things.
Fuzzwords.
Yeah. No. I think you're right as you
were talking about it, it's we love to
share, go talk to people, go
show people all the cool stuff. Yeah. But
a lot of times, we go to
conferences, different events, all of that. We see
each other there, but we're also there
presenting
Yes. Talking to people, showing people how to
do it. This week, it, like, it's a
week where it gets to flip. We're the
attendees. We're the attendees. We're just here
seeing our friends that we only see. It's
funny. There's someone
that lives in Jacksonville, same city as me.
Okay. He and I played ultimate Frisbee together
for years and years. Like, five or six
years in Jacksonville.
I had not seen him in, like, five
years. He became an MVP, and I saw
him last year. Didn't see him for a
whole year. Saw him again this year. It's
like we live in the same city.
We're different No. It's categories. Right. We're different
categories of MVPs. Like, he does a lot
with he works at a company
doing path building a password manager. Okay.
You would think me being in security, we'd
see each other more, but he's a lot
more on, like, the development side of it,
the product side of it. I'm doing consulting.
But we see each other, like, once a
year at MVP Summit. But it is it's
that it's flipped. We're the attendees. We just
get to hang out, spend time with people,
spend time be sassy.
Spend time with other people we maybe see
at conferences. But at conferences, we are busy
writing our presentations that we have to give
the next day because we plan ahead. Yeah.
Like, conferences those conferences feel busier. They're very
busy. Is it's still busy, but it's different.
It's relaxed for the attendees. We get
to be the people
being talked to, shown Yep. The new buttons,
the new
things
Yep. All of the stuff we have to
talk about really vaguely like that. Yeah. And
it's great. Though I was just thinking as
we were talking through that, I was like,
what would it be like to turn our
conference presentations into feedback sessions? And now I
would like to gather your feedback on that.
Yeah. Because I would say this, if if
anyone at Microsoft can hear me now, it's
still dropping. It is still dropping. Crazy.
When you stand up in front of us
as engineers,
as program managers, project managers,
and you open yourself up to that feedback,
thank you for doing that. Yes.
We really appreciate it. And we apologize
for
the brutal honesty that we can give sometimes.
Yeah. Like, this was funny. I will talk
about this. This is one session. It is
not crank that thing down, Joy. There you
go.
One of the sessions I was in, it
was
all the questions
that you
how did they phrase it? Now I'm gonna
blank out. It was something about oh, it
was all the questions about a certain product
that you're afraid to ask.
Oh, that's bold.
They crossed off the you're afraid to ask
and just x it out and said, we
have very quickly realized that MVPs are not
afraid to ask anything.
That's weird. But it is. To that point
of we appreciate it is I appreciate those
sessions when it really is. Like, just come
in and ask us if you are from
Microsoft and you're listening. Really, don't take it
personally. We just No. We're very opinionated about
the products we love. Well, I so few
years ago, there was a sneak peek of
some things
that they were working on, and
99%
of us in the room lost our minds
over it.
In fact, Jonathan Weaver said, I wish I
had a video of how fast your hand
went up. I'm like, oh. So we stayed
after because you gotta get out of the
room because other things are going on. People
gotta get playing. Another session. Just like a
typical conference, there's another session coming in. People
are coming in. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But But
we kinda hung out in the room for
a few minutes. I was talking with a
gentleman who, again, he gave some great presentations
and took some good feedback yesterday too. Very
much appreciated. I was like, well, I don't
understand why you would do it this way.
He said, well, this is what our customers
want. But I think from our perspective
as consultant because we've been the consultants. Like,
you don't have to have MVP after your
name to live to be this valuable resource
for your customers because
sometimes our customers think they want something, so
they go do it or they hire someone
to do it for them.
And then as consultants,
we get brought in to fix it later
because they didn't really understand what they were
asking for or the ramifications
of going down a certain path. Yep. So
this is that chance to have that conversation
with the product makers.
Yeah. And that is amazing.
And
it's so it's kind of fun too. It's
like I was joking the other day. It's
like, well, I asked a question, I couldn't
really get them to answer it. But sometimes
it's like, well, I wasn't asking it the
right way. Yeah. Or the terminology is a
little different from one side of the table
to the other. Or you ask a question,
you see them go, oh, when you think
about that. Yes. Right? Because they're not out
in the field working with the customers as
much as we are. So you just see
this massive collaboration
happening real time.
100%.
So good. And then sometimes they truly just
have no idea. I've been in a few
of those where it's like, what about this
or this?
And I don't know. We don't know yet.
And that's fair, especially as fast as things
change now. It is. And I think from
a consultant perspective, that honesty feels good because
that's what I hope we bring to our
clients too is
I should not be making up answers to
my clients, and I appreciate not having answers
made up to me. Like, just I don't
know is a perfectly valid answer.
And it's the right answer because and this
was a piece of advice given to me
in my early consulting days.
Some of us tend to have some overachieving
tendencies and we just feel like if we
don't immediately know what to do, when to
do it and do it right all the
time, we're failing. Right? But my mentor pulled
me aside and said, your job is not
to know everything.
Your job is to figure it out. So
or find someone who knows to help you
figure it out. Yeah. He said, so stop
putting so much pressure on yourself. If you
don't know the answer, you are allowed to
gracefully say, I don't know, but I will
find out. He said, then go figure it
out. Yeah. That's the job. Right.
This episode is brought to you by Trusted
Tech. If you're managing Microsoft three sixty five,
you already know licensing isn't simple. E three
versus e five, the brand new e seven
licenses,
Copilot security bundles, and with price changes coming
in July
2026,
the stakes are getting higher. Trusted tech helps
IT leaders make sense of their Microsoft three
sixty five environment with a free licensing consultation.
Their engineers analyze what you're licensed for and
what you're actually using and where you can
optimize, whether that means consolidating
security tools, preparing for copilot, or eliminating wasted
spend.
Plus, they offer proactive and reactive support, which
has been awarded yet another solution partner designation
from Microsoft
for support services.
If you want a clear, data backed plan
that has helped over 7,500
subscribing
customers save up to 20% on Microsoft three
sixty five before your next renewal, visit trustedtech.team/mscloudprom365
and schedule your free consultation
today.
They want the correct answer. Even if that's
exactly what you have to do is go
take a little time, figure it out for
them so you can get them the right
answer and Yeah. Go from there. So we
said this is fun. We get to see
all of our family. I've gone out for
dinner a couple nights. We come home. You
said this to me the other day. I
said it when I got home back from
dinner last night is
because
we do really just feel like it's a
big family. You get back from dinner, and
you're like, I'm gonna walk into the hotel.
There are a lot of us staying at
the same hotel.
And last night, I walked in and I'm
like, I don't wanna really make eye contact
with anybody because I'm tired and I wanna
go back to my room. But at the
same time, I'm like, I kinda wanna see
who's down there because it's the last night
to hang out. And you did it the
other night. I had gone out to dinner.
I came back. You were out at another
event, and I was down at the bar
there. And Uh-huh. You looked over and you're
like That was what you did. Because if
you've never seen him stand up, he's
tall. He's so tall. Yes. I was standing
up and you saw me, and I was
about to go back to my it was
11:30 at night. I was about to go
back to my room. I had literally just
said, okay. I'm going back to the room.
I'm going to sleep. I turned around to
walk out, and you walked down the steps,
and I'm like, I'm not going back to
my room.
Well, yeah. Because it yeah. I'd left one
of the one of the various kind of
party meetup things.
And I thought, well, I'll just at least
see who's here. I don't really wanna hang
out because it was late. I'm gonna be
good. I'm gonna be disciplined, and I'm not
gonna be so it's like, well, I see.
But there was Ben
standing up in a very bright blue hoodie,
so it was hard to mix. I was
like, well, crap. I guess I have to
go talk to Ben. So I go down
the stairs and then, like, it was probably
an hour. Yeah. I think it was, like,
12:30 or something. Talking and you're like, I
was gonna go.
You walk down the stairs. I was like,
well, I was gonna go, but you were
standing here. But at the same time, I
don't know that either of us we say
we were gonna go to bed, but it's
so much fun. It's so much fun. And
I was thinking that, like, the other night
when I was getting ready for bed and
everything, I was like, it's it's a interesting
combination of exhausted,
depleted, but so full. Yes. It's like your
your social,
your community, your family cup, oops, gets filled
up, but you're so tired. Like, my husband,
he's like, I'm gonna pick you up at
what time? I was like, 04:30, five. He
said, maybe you wanna go to dinner? I
said, yes. And then I'm gonna go to
bed. And then to bed.
Yeah. And then Vlad I mean, Vlad did
a good job the other night. Like I
said, he came in and he made eye
contact with me, and I yelled something to
him across the hotel lobby. And he blew
me a kiss and turned around and Yeah.
Because it was Vlad. Yes.
Vlad, I have That's disappointing. Things I can
learn from you beyond just SharePoint
is how to get to my room on
time. How does this go? Nope. Yes.
But it is fun. So other people, like,
this is always an interesting conversations. I've done
other interviews at MVP Summit as well is,
like, if people are listening, they're like, oh,
this really sounds like fun.
I wanna be there. Obviously, the first requirement
to doing this is being an MVP, but
what was
your journey to being an MVP? Like, how
did you go from
I'm doing consulting, I'm Mhmm. Helping out at
Bucks, now I'm
doing SharePoint consulting to
the MVP. Because I feel everybody's
journey seems to be different. It's a little
different. It it's interesting. Because so that's one
thing to call out. It is different for
everybody because there's no checklist that says do
these 10 things, and you two will be
an MVP. It's not a certification. It's an
award. Yep. I am a communicator,
trainer, teacher, sharer at heart. Right? Like, if
I know something, I want everyone to know
it because it's amazing.
Consulting and I was really interested
way earlier
in trying to figure out what this MVP
thing was and what these what conferences and
speaking and all that is. I have a
drama and theater background. Obviously, I mean, you
don't come into IT with anything normal. Right?
So I did. But, apparently, I'm abnormal.
I mean I've been told that multiple times.
My family tells me I'm not normal. I'm
the not normal one in my home, and
I embrace it. But So was that your
educate was you went to school for drama
and theater? I went to school on a
drama and theater scholarship. Okay. Yeah. But then
I became a star for admin, and it
was like Natural career progression.
As one does.
Because I got married very young the first
time around. So that straight, I'm gonna go
to college for four years, I wanna go
get this degree, I knew that didn't happen.
So there was a lot of, like, turn
left, turn right, zigzag, zigzag.
When it was my turn to go through
school, right, because I had to go work
jobs to live,
landed the IT job, and I was like,
do I wanna keep paying for my college
a semester at a time now because I
dropped out of college, did this thing,
or do I wanna invest in learning this
technology?
Okay. I chose the technology. I'm so glad
I did.
But the community stuff wasn't encouraged at that
point in my life. So I'm basically living
joy two point o. Okay. So I took
some pivots. Part of that included
relocating from Alabama to Oklahoma.
Okay. So various things happened. My first SharePoint
Saturday was in 2010
Alright. In Dallas at the Microsoft campus.
And it was my first taste of it,
but then I had to, like, reboot. So
things happen and then, oh gosh, eight years.
I can't do math. We're just gonna say
at some point later, years later,
someone approached me and said, hey, there's a
SharePoint Saturday
happening in Atlanta. They need speakers. I think
you should do this. And it had been
a couple of years, a few years in
between 2010 and that. It's like, okay. So
I just started speaking because I I love
to be on the stage. I love to
share. I love to teach. Social media,
speaking, the occasional blogs here and there, writing
articles if somebody asks, consulting and things like
that. Okay. But then in 2019, there was
an MVP dinner, and Joel Olsen asked me
where I was gonna go. Oh. Was like,
no. Was this like after a conference where
it was a bunch of MVPs going out
for dinner? Or six five
Friday or Saturday, San Diego.
Okay. Right? Yep. Joel's like, are you gonna
come to the dinner? I was like, no.
He's like, why not? He's like, well, I'm
not an MVP. He's like, you're not? I
was like, no. He's like, you need to
fix that. I'm like, okay.
So
I talked with him, Rob Windsor, wonderful,
good mentor. Thank you, Rob. I love Rob.
He's the best laugh in the industry too.
Yes. Rob, we love you so much, man.
But I had some mentorship.
Time was right. I was told, yep, you're
good to go. And
my application was approved. Did you get it
the first time? Yeah. Congratulations.
Oh, thank you.
But I I had some very wise counsel,
right, of, like, wait. Because there was a
few moments, like, am I ready now? No.
Wait. Yeah. Wait. But yeah. And it's been
amazing. Some people are like, what did you
do to get it? It's like, I talk
too much.
That's what I do. I don't. Well, it's
interesting
comparing your
story how you got there to mine because
I had several similar experiences
where I would go
speak at a conference or I'd go do
something.
And there was one in particular I remember.
I think it was I was talking to
Stephen Rose.
Another guy, everyone. He's in? Stephen. Yeah. Again,
we're all just one big happy, lovable family.
The best. And it was at a conference,
and he's like we were saying, bye. See
you later. He's like, I'll see you in
March. I'm like, what's in March? What's in
March? In March? MVP Summit. And, like,
I'm not an MVP.
And he
same response. You're not an MVP?
And I had that response from multiple people
at different events, but I think what that
illustrates is that it's not something you
get that checklist to. Most MVPs are MVPs
because we love what we're doing to the
point that
people are surprised we're not MVPs
because you're already doing the MVP stuff. You
love doing the MVP stuff. Yes. So you're
doing it to the extent
that people are surprised you're not MVPs.
Right. And then it just happens.
I would say my number one thing about
the whole program is if you approach it
from what do I have to do to
be an MVP, don't proceed. If that's the
mindset, don't proceed because it's not what you
do for your job. It's not your nine
to five. In fact, it's your everything
that happens Outside of your nine to five.
Nine to five.
It's a lot of meetings, it's a lot
of calls, it's a lot of work, but
it's the kind of thing like if I
found out tomorrow we decided, Joy, you're not
part of the MVP program anymore, it would
not change what I do. Right. Because I
didn't do these things to get it. I
love the technology. I love the product. I
love helping people
have a better experience at work, and we're
at work so much. Right? The technology needs
to work. That's what we do. Right? We
make it work. Right. And we love going
to conferences
and hanging out and With friends.
The podcast, doing this. Like, this was one
of the things that I think helped with
my MVP. Sure. But I had done the
podcast, what, I think I said four years.
This is year
nine of the podcast.
Congratulations.
Thanks. But it illustrates that point. I did
this for five years. Before there was an
acronym. Before there was an acronym Yeah. Yeah.
By my name for doing that, for speaking
at conferences. My first conference was
2009,
2010,
something like that. Yep. Yeah. So it is.
It's not something and there were times
it was a mix for me. There were
times where I actually I legitimately got frustrated
because I've done all these conferences and everybody's
like, you're not an MVP? I'm like, no.
What am I doing wrong?
Yeah. Yeah. And I did not have the
experience of my first nomination getting it. It
took me, like, two or
three.
Okay. Okay.
No. You haven't done enough. And I'm like,
I What more can I do? Right? Like,
what more can I do? And it's not
that it was again, it wasn't like there
was a checklist, but it was like It's
not. I don't know.
I'm doing enough that everybody thinks I'm an
MVP
except for the people that are approving the
MVP. I think that's where my
frustration was coming from was
all these people are like right. All these
people are like, why aren't you an MVP?
Why aren't you an MVP? I'm like I
don't. I don't really know because you all
think I should be. Apparently, there's somebody over
here that doesn't think I do enough, and
it's I still kept doing it because I
loved doing it, and eventually it happened. And
that's the thing. We do what we do
because we just love it. And I joke
all the time. My husband thinks I'm the
not normal one. I say all the time,
I could win the lottery tomorrow, like, the
lottery, and I would buy a home in
Bora.
But
I would do the fun stuff for free.
A 100%. 100%. It would be John White.
Yeah. Right? I Are you saying John White
won the millionaire?
No. But I just He's another good guy.
Right? So he supposedly retired, I thought, but
he says a free conference. Yeah. No. I
don't know. No. He's not. I'm not even
retiring.
No. You know what? Do it for fun.
Do you feel overwhelmed by trying to manage
your Office three sixty five environment? Are you
facing unexpected issues that disrupt your company's productivity?
Intelligink is here to help. Much like you
take your car to the mechanic that has
specialized knowledge on how to best keep your
car running, Intelligink helps you with your Microsoft
cloud environment because that's their expertise.
Intelligent keeps up with the latest updates in
the Microsoft cloud to help keep your business
running smoothly and ahead of the curve. Whether
you are a small organization with just a
few users up to an organization of several
thousand employees,
They want to partner with you to implement
and administer
your Microsoft cloud technology.
Visit them at inteliginc.com/podcast.
That's intelligink.com/podcast
for more information or to schedule a thirty
minute call to get started with them today.
Remember, Intelligink focuses on the Microsoft cloud so
you can focus on your business.
I won't speak for you. I'm gonna get
old and I'm not gonna be remember
stuff, and already I'm like, I'm tired. I
can't keep up with all this change. Thanks.
Like yeah.
This gen whatever? It was there's an MVP.
Another MVP story. I was at a conference
recently,
and we were all sitting down and chatting,
and there was
another m b a new MVP there. And
it came out that this individual
was born in 2001.
Ouch. I
we yeah. Like,
now I don't feel like I'm so young
anymore because
Yes. That reminds me I need to go
get a bone density test soon, probably.
Oh. Because we're just so old now. These
young kids. These young whippersnappers.
No. It was funny because earlier in that
week too, someone had made a reference to
a movie, to The Matrix.
And in that session, it was like, if
you haven't seen The Matrix and you're in
IT, and I've looked, I'm like, wait. Where
did that come out? That came out two
years before this individual was born. It was
99. And I'm like, oh, now we're really
old. We're referencing movies and saying every IT
person should watch it, but there are IT
people that were born They were toddlers.
Years after this movie was released.
Well, I'll say this. Like, okay. Yes. The
Matrix. I mean, it's so relevant,
especially now, right, with all with the AI.
Right? We were yeah. The Office Space. We
were talking we the other day, I was
talking to different TV shows and movies that
are really funny to go watch now that
came out years and years ago. But, yes,
you're matrixing the Office space is one, and
I probably haven't seen it in three or
four years now. I need to go with
your ride. Now we're gonna go watch it,
like, on the plane. It's not on is
it on the plane? I don't know. I
don't think my airline
that flies direct to Tulsa and Seattle has
seatback entertainment,
but I maybe I should. I've got that
little thing where I can clip my phone
to the back of the seat. Okay. Right?
Thanks, Jay, for that recommendation.
Yep. So, yeah, I should download that, and
I'll watch it on my if I don't
just conk out.
I'm so tired. It has been so fun.
Yeah. I'm taking a red eye home. I
will absolutely conk out.
I don't I try not to do those.
I going all the way to the East
Coast from Seattle, it's a five hour flight
to Atlanta Mhmm. An hour flight to Jacksonville,
a three hour time change. And then you
have to fit a layover in there too,
so it's like five, seven. It's like a
ten day. It's a difference of ten hours.
Yeah. If I don't take the red eye
on Fridays, I feel like I miss
the weekend with my family. Because I do
have the four kids. They, like, see me
on the weekend. Props for that. Like, okay.
I can take the red eye. Can you
sleep on a plane? An okay. So here's
the other aspect of it. I kinda like,
I can sleep. I don't sleep great. Yeah.
I sleep enough
that I can get through I'll get through
the day tomorrow without taking a nap. Yeah.
I'll be dead tired though by, like, 10PM.
So I can actually fall asleep
Okay. At a normal time for eastern time
zone. Force yourself to adjust. Right. And force
myself to adjust rather quickly instead of if
I left tomorrow morning after a full night's
sleep, I would not be tired tomorrow night
till, like, 3AM.
Got you. So I respect it. There are
it it's
rough, but it does help with that adjustment.
So Yeah. I used to have the deal
with going from Seattle to Atlanta then back
to Tulsa, but thank you for Alaska Air
for having direct now from Tulsa to Seattle
and back. That is a quality of life
improvement for me. Nice.
Yeah. Yeah. See if they wanna sponsor the
podcast. Alaska Airlines? Yes. We appreciate you,
That would be interesting. Swag. I'm shameless. You're
shameless in your promotion of everybody.
Alright. With that, we've been talking for, like,
forty five minutes. It's what we do. It
is what we do. The I think you
made this comment the other day. Somebody asked
if we could talk for twenty minutes. You're
like, we're consult. We can talk about absolutely
nothing for twenty minutes. Twenty minutes? Yeah. And
make it seem like
Let me show you. But we have there
is a little bit more of a session
we could go to, and our listeners might
want to yeah. Yeah. You might have other
things to do. They might have other things
to do. There was something else I was
gonna say, oh, we would get kicked out
of here if we keep talking too long
because there's someone else returning a podcast after
us. Unless that door locks. Does it? Yeah.
I
feel like that might be the end of
our MVP status when we lock ourselves in
the studio. Why did you lose your status?
Well, we barricaded ourselves in the recording studio.
Yeah. Oh my. Alright. Awesome. Well, thank you.
You're welcome. Thanks for coming on. It's been
fun. Scott, you missed out. Sorry. You triple
booked yourself today. Yeah. Maybe you should learn
how to use a calendar in Outlook.
Do we have the technology?
We do. Like, there are ways to make
sure you don't triple book yourself. Pretty soon,
AI will make sure we don't.
I don't know that I'm ready for that,
to be honest. Don't know. Because I don't
know that it'll depend on how smart AI
is because I very much will get triple
booked, and there is quite a process I
go through to decide
which the one. Of the one I'm gonna
keep because it is not always the first
one in. Agree. It could be how easy
one is to reschedule versus another,
deadlines that AI may not know anything about.
Yeah.
Yeah. But it should because it's all on
the graph. Are my deadlines on the graph,
or are they in my head? That's a
you problem. That is a me problem. Thanks.
I have lots of me problems. Y'all do.
But Okay. Yes. With that, thank you again
for My pleasure. Joining me last minute due
to Scott's
faux pas.
Yeah. Thanks, Scott. It was fun. So good.
Yes. Enjoy. Safe flight home. Same to you.
We'll see you in April. Right? Orlando? Are
you coming to Orlando? You be determined. TBD.
I found out yesterday there's a 20% chance
I might get drop shipped there. Okay. In
a cardboard box? Like, would you really get
shipped in a cardboard box with little air
holes in it? And If they put a
mattress and I could lay down and just,
like, conk out, yeah, I would be down
for that. That's probably better Right. So where
are you gonna be if people do want
to
yeah. If people wanna go find you or
see you in person or you're on so
where's your social media of choice? Is it
LinkedIn? It's pretty much LinkedIn these days. That
is Sure. That's where we've done. So, yes,
they can go find you on LinkedIn or
what conferences do you have coming up? I'm
gonna be at Comms v Next in Denver.
If you've never checked that out, do it.
Do it. Do it. If you have a
passion for unified communications and or collaboration, they
will have you covered. So that's
a May,
I think. That sounds right. I'm not gonna
be there, but those dates sound right. It
should be there. I have been told I
need to go there. Every year, I end
up with so much
that time of year, and it hasn't worked
out. But I don't have a worry. See,
I'll make you do it next year. I'm
also gonna be at TechCon
three six five in Chicago
in June. Okay. Tech mentor back here in
Seattle in August.
Alright.
Maybe Techcom three six five Seattle also in
August. I just can't remember if they've started
accepting or if I could have accepted. Not
started accepting. I do know that because I
submitted for that one, and I talked to
people that said Okay. They have not started
Okay. Accepting yet. Cool. So you have not
been rejected.
Yes. I hope it's still alive. Right? That's
always I wish yeah. Anyways, side topic. Yeah.
That one. Ignite, maybe. Two big meetings. Okay.
November.
And Sandy Branson.
I'm gonna be yep. I'm gonna be in
Branson. September. Yes. Yes. Early September.
Early September. So, yeah, we're gonna be everywhere.
I might even be at ESPC.
Oh, that one's coming up soon. Right? Since
it Or as soon as that one? You'll
leave the weekend of Thanksgiving.
Okay. That one's November.
Mhmm. Late November. Alright. That's right. Because that
one's right by night. Yeah. Like, there are
people that, like, go from Which is why
I did it last
year, I think. I don't know. Okay. It
would just, like if my calendar says to
be there, I book a flight and I
go. Got it. It's kinda how my world
works. Perfect. Alright. So, yes, if you wanna
go connect with Joy, find Joy. I would
say the other thing, some people say, I
felt this before I was an MVP. I
was I'm an introvert. I am not one
to, like, go up and talk to I
was always like, oh, they're speakers, they're MVPs.
I was intimidated.
Yeah. I get that. Don't be intimidated. No.
Yes. Come, like this, I would say, is
another good thing about if you think this
is something you'd wanna do, one, let's do
what you love, but come talk to us.
Like, MVPs,
introverts or not, we genuinely love talking to
other people, helping other people, giving other people
advice. I've had people reach out to me
at conferences and said, I'm not an MVP.
I would love to just talk to you
about being an MVP. Yeah. It's like not
we're not gonna give you a checklist of
how to get there, but we'll talk to
you about our experience about Right. We've had
other MVPs tell us, to your point, you
haven't done, go do this, go Yes. Here's
guidance that might help get you closer. We
just can't guarantee anything. Right. And we love
doing it. MvB stuff aside, if you wanna
be involved in the community, that does not
mean standing on stage as speaking. It could
be. It could also mean just help doing
behind the scenes organizing or if you want
to write or if you wanna do something
like this. I mean Yep. We have thoughts,
we have ideas. It is not a cool
kids club. It's a nerd kids club, and
everyone is welcome. It's a cool kids club,
but, you know,
it's because
it's just a cool club.
It is cool. You don't have to be
cool to be in the cool kids club.
Like, I feel like that's it. Like, it
is absolutely a cool club. Yeah. Maybe that's
the better phrase. It's not a cool kids
club, club, but it's a cool club. It
is a cool club. And just And you
don't even have to be an MVP to
hang out with the speakers too. There's lots
of speakers that aren't MVPs.
Yes. Again, I hung out with speakers and
MVPs for, like, five or six years before
I was an MVP. Yep. Yep. And they
are they're all very friendly. It's just fun.
Yeah. We enjoy being Just fun. We like
to talk. We like to share. We like
to hang out. We like to hang out
at the bar till We like to stay
up past the time. Way later than we
should. Yeah. Alright. With that Yes. Squirrel. Jacqueline,
we're gonna wrap up, like, ten minutes ago.
Yes. Good. Alright. Until then, thanks again for
joining us. Always Join us, and we'll see
you again soon. See you soon. Bye. Bye
bye.
If you enjoyed the podcast, go leave us
a five star rating in iTunes. It helps
to get the word out so more IT
pros can learn about Office three sixty five
and Azure.
If you have any questions you want us
to address on the show, or feedback about
the show, feel free to reach out via
our website, Twitter, or Facebook.
Thanks again for listening, and have a great
day.