The Community Lounge at the Microsoft 365 Community Conference

Up on the 3rd floor of the MGM Grand Convention Center, the Community Lounge will be a'buzz with activity throughout the #M365Con event – providing learning opportunities, scheduled meetups, peer inspiration and connections, creativity with friends in the creative corner, fun daily food and beverage, and interviews at the Community News Desk.  

Come up and say hello and connect with the best community (lounge) in tech! Start by discovering more about the Community Lounge plans in the video below from Senior Product Manager, Mark Kashman, about leveraging the Microsoft Community for your product knowledge and career development. Then keep scroll to review the schedule of activities planned up at the Community Lounge space.  

Below is our evolving schedule of activities in the Community Lounge:

Meetups in the Community Lounge: Great opportunities for attendees to meet Microsoft leaders and product makers in an informal setting, take selfies, take group photos, and chat about tech, life and community.

• AI meetup with Dona Sarkar | Tuesday, May 6^th, 11:30am – 12:00pm
• Vasu Jakkal Meet-n-Greet | Check the Whova app for date and time
• Planner team meetup | Tuesday, May 6^th, 1:00pm – 1:30pm
• Microsoft Global Community Initiative (MGCI) meetup | Tuesday, May 6th, 2:00pm - 2:30pm 
• Jeff Teper Meet-n-Greet | Check the Whova app for date and time
• Comms & Coffee with Venkat Ayyadevara, Dan Holmes, Amy Morris, Allison Michels, et al. | Wednesday, May 7^th, 9:00am – 10:00am
• Microsoft Teams meetup with the Teams team | Wednesday, May 7th, 10:00am - 10:30am  
• Microsoft Mechanics meetup with Jeremy Chapman | Wednesday, May 7th, 10:30am - 11:00am 
• FYI | Women in Tech and Allies luncheon | Wednesday, May 7th, 12:20pm - 2:00pm PT [Terrace Ballroom 150]
• Women of Microsoft 365 meetup | Wednesday, May 7^th, 2:30pm – 3:00pm
• Developer Extensibility meetup with Vesa Juvonen and team | Wednesday, May 7^th, 3:00pm – 3:30pm
• MVP Meet and Greet + Group Photo with Laurie Pottmeyer | Wednesday, May 7^th, 3:30pm – 4:00pm 
• Microsoft 365 companion apps Q&A: People, Calendar, Files | Wednesday, May 7^th, 4:30pm – 5:00pm
• SharePoint Hackathon winners meet-n-greet | Thursday, May 8^th, 10:00am – 10:30am
• Meet and Greet with Heather Cook | Thursday, May 8th, 11:00am - 11:30am PT
• Community Reporters Meet and Greet | Thursday, May 8th, 12:00pm - 12:30pm 
• Talking adoption with Karuana Gatimu and M365 Champions | Thursday, May 8th, 12:30pm - 1:00pm 
• OneDrive and SharePoint meetup with Adam Harmetz, Jason Moore and product makers | Thursday, May 8^th, 1:00pm – 1:30pm

News Desk interviews in the Community Lounge: Tapping into the minds of experts across multiple products and offerings. Karuana Gatimu and our Community Reporters ask questions and prompts newsroom style about the important things people should know when planning for Copilot and AI, tackling user enablement, hardware choices, project management, and succeeding in the AI era when working in a collaborative, secure fashion.

• Vasu Jakkal (Microsoft Security) | Check the Whova app for date and time
• April Dunnam (Copilot Studio) | Tuesday, May 6th, 1:30pm - 2:00pm 
• Microsoft Global Community Initiative (MGCI) - Heather Cook | Tuesday, May 6th, 2:00 - 2:30pm 
• Jeff Teper (Microsoft 365 in the AI era) | Check the Whova app for date and time
• Brenna Robinson (SMB) | Tuesday, May 6th, 3:30pm - 4:00pm 
• The Intrazone (Talking Teams and ID.Buzz) | Tuesday, May 6th, 4:00pm - 5:00pm 
• Carrie Clements (Shure) with Kim Matlock (Microsoft) (Teams + Shure) | Wednesday, May 7^th, 9:30am – 10:00am
• John Cirone, Amy Morris, and Allison Michels (Communications / Viva Engage) | Wednesday, May 7^th, 10:00am – 10:30am
• Caroline Stanford (IT for AI) | Wednesday, May 7th, 11:00am - 11:30am 
• Scott Van Vliet & Ron Pessner (Planner) | Wednesday, May 7^th, 2:30pm – 3:00pm
• Sree Lakshmi (Microsoft 365 Backup) | Wednesday, May 7^th, 3:00pm - 3:30pm
• Yogesh Ratnaparkhi (SharePoint Embedded agents/extensibility) | Wednesday, May 7^th, 3:30pm - 4:15pm
• Angela Byers (Copilot + SMB + Neurodiversity) | Wednesday, May 7^th, 5:30pm - 6:00pm
• Jay Leask (Copilot use/adoption) | Thursday, May 8^th, 10:30am – 11:00am 
• Adam Harmetz | Thursday, May 8^th, 12:30pm – 1:00pm

Table Topics in the Community Lounge: Small, open forum-style discussions on various community 'topics'. Each topic has an expert guide to facilitate discussion, prompting participants to share ideas, stories, lessons learned, ask questions - all to hold space for each other to improve, learn, and share.

• "Dealing with information overload" with Steve Pucelik, Tuesday, May 6th, 11:00am - 12:00pm
• "Agentic AI: Share your agent ideas and experiences" with Vlad Catrinescu & Gokan Ozcifci, Tuesday, May 6th, 1:00pm - 2:00pm
• "How Microsoft adopts Copilot - Ask Us Anything" with Anne Fernando and Cynthia Johnson, Tuesday, May 6th, 2:00pm - 3:00pm
• “Lifting up diverse ideas and perspectives” with Sarah Haase, Tues. May 6th, 3:00 – 4:00 PM.
• "Share tactics to help users build good AI habits" with Kristin Ginn, Wednesday, May 7th, 10:00am - 11:00am  
• “Inclusive design” with Ben Truelove and Ihcene Cheriet, Wed. May 7, 11:30am – 12:30pm.
• “Empowering Neurodivergent Employees” with Angela Byers and Kayla Paterson, Wed. May 7, 4:00pm – 4:50pm.
• "Connecting the Disconnected: Discuss what matters most in digital solutions for Frontline Workers" with Navjot Marwaha, Thursday, May 8th, 9:00am - 10:00am

Lastly, we’re working with the event team to support a daily Costume Contest. Plan ahead to pack accordingly and join in each day:

• March 6^th | Throwback Tuesday: Wear your favorite Retro T-shirt 80’s outfit.
• March 7^th | Wednesdays We Wear Pink/Blue/Purple: Women, Allies and Breast/Prostate Cancer Awareness (philanthropy tie in)
• March 8^th | Thursday Space & Sci-Fi: Wear your favorite space T-shirts or costume or go full on as your favorite Sci-Fi character.

Winners announced daily in the Community Lounge and on the Whova app! Check out the event team's Contest page for more details. 

Below is our evolving schedule of fun, interactive activities in the Community Lounge:

General open hours of the Community Lounge during M365Con25:

• Tuesday May 6th: 11:00am- 6:30pm 
• Wednesday, May 7th: 9:00am- 6:15pm
• Thursday, May 8th: 10:00am- 4:00pm

Daily, self-service Community Lounge engagement and interaction

• Caricature Artist
  • 11:00-4:00pm Tuesday
  • 11:00-4:00pm Wednesday
• Friendship Bracelet Making Station
  • 11:00am-4:00pm Tuesday
  • 9:00am-6:00pm Wednesday
  • 10:00am-4:00pm Thursday
• Build your own LEGO Figure Station
  • 11:00am-4:00pm Tuesday
  • 9:00am-6:00pm Wednesday
  • 10:00am-4:00pm Thursday
• Stickers, coloring sheets and creative fun!
  • 11:00am-4:00pm Tuesday
  • 9:00am-6:00pm Wednesday
  • 10:00am-4:00pm Thursday
• Bean Bags and Giant Connect 4
  • 11:00am-4:00pm Tuesday
  • 9:00am-6:00pm Wednesday
  • 10:00am-4:00pm Thursday 

Simple schematic to highlight the layout (and busy'ness) of the Community Lounge up on the third floor during the Microsoft 365 Community Conference (May 6-8, 2025).

BONUS | "Transform the Future at The M365 Community Conference" with guests, Jeff Teper and Karuana Gatimu, in conversation with Chris McNulty on the latest Polaris pod by Synozur: 🎙️