Excel MVPs Liam Bastick and Tim Heng, together with over 50 other MVPs, leading experts across communities around the world, and Excel product managers (PMs) at Microsoft, held the Excel Virtually Global summit this past July, offering over 50 hours of in-depth discussions and presentations on Microsoft Excel, Power BI, and more.
Liam recently shared with us a bit more on how the event came about, lessons learned, and what’s next:
“I had the brainwave to host a bigger virtual event that would run for two days – 48 hours – straight. I asked around and actually had enough for 55 hours (which ended up 57 on the day!), made up of MVPs, Microsoft staff and other experts. I didn’t want to stop anyone from presenting, so I invited them all.“
“Working around the clock was just as fun as we envisaged… To be fair, it was an absolute blast. Running on adrenaline with three to four hours sleep a night, feeding off the energy of other presenters, it’s quite a unique feeling! In terms of what the audience got to see though, one of the best bits in the conference was an ad hoc session that we ran in one of the breaks.”
“To be balanced though, some things were not challenges: it was easy to fill 48+ slots, language barriers were easily overcome, everyone happily marketed, everyone was fully committed and contributed, people turned up on time and hitches were at a minimum (just one internet drop-out). And we all had fun – and then said we’d never do it again. But of course we will!”
“The main thing that inspires me to continue is seeing all the way people use Excel. When it’s good, I want to propagate it and let the world know. When it’s bad, I want to show people how they can do things faster and more easily.”
Read more in Liam’s Excel Virtually Global 2020: A Personal Look Back.
