We’re excited to invite the MVP, MCT and RD communities to take part in our Call for Speakers, Hosts and Staff at Microsoft Ignite 2017. Every year we look for the most qualified experts in our community to help others learn best practices, share tips and tricks, and illustrate how Microsoft products are helping people and organizations solve problems with specific case studies on use cases with real life customers. This will be the first year Microsoft Teams will be at Microsoft’s premiere event for IT Pros in Orlando, Florida (Sept 25-29) and we look forward to reviewing many submissions featuring Microsoft Teams. There are three roles for community involvement at Microsoft Ignite 2017:
- Speakers: We are looking for speakers to deliver the following
- Breakout sessions to support Microsoft speakers delivering product news straight from the source
- Community theater sessions where we get to hear the unique perspectives, how-to guides, industry best practices and evidence
- Podcasts, vlogs and other recorded video segments that can be edited onsite for later publication or broadcast live (live broadcasts will be prioritized for podcasts and vlogs with a wider established audience)
- Hosts for Meetups hosted onsite e.g. User group lead meetups, Driving User Adoption meetups
- Staff: We are looking for attendees to staff the following areas
- The Hands-on Lab (HOL) area as a Technical Learning Guide (Seeking broad product expertise)
- Certification exams as Certification MCT Ambassadors (Seeking broad product expertise)
- The expo at the Microsoft Solutions Experience (MSE) as a Product Expert (Looking for specific product expertise)
Those who are successful in selection of at least one speaker or staff role will receive a complimentary pass to Microsoft Ignite 2017, 6 nights of hotel accommodation and coverage for the cost of return flights to Orlando (up to USD$600 for domestic flights and USD$2,000 for international flights). Those who are successful in selection of staff roles will receive a complimentary pass to Microsoft Ignite 2017.
Please note that Breakout sessions are designed for attendees to learn about Microsoft products directly from the teams behind the product. Your role as a breakout speaker is to support the Microsoft content delivered. If selected, you will be chosen because of your product expertise, knowledge of best practices and how the product is successfully used in real-life scenarios. If you want to take on this role, you must also make a submission for a Community Session.
Community Theater, the Podcast Center and Meetups are considered Community Sessions. A maximum of 5 can be submitted. We have a diverse list of priority topics for Community Sessions we’re looking for, but the priority topics that relate most to Microsoft Teams include:
- How do you approach collaboration with Office 365 (real-world examples of using Microsoft’s Universal Toolkit – Teams, SharePoint, Yammer, Groups, Skype for Business working together)
- Driving usage and adoption of Office 365 within an organization
You can submit Community Theater sessions in a number of different formats including:
- Standard presentation
- Panel discussions (only include names of panelists you are certain will be attending Microsoft Ignite)
- Hubtalks where Surface Hubs can be requests for your presentation. All requests will be considered – requests that showcase the breadth of Surface Hub functionality will receive priority.
To increase your chances of selection, please make sure that your submission:
- Include priority topics as mentioned above
- Include Microsoft Teams in a real-world scenarios
- Reflects your technical expertise
- Helps attendees learn best practices
- Includes evidence of your engaging speaking skills
- Effectively explains complex ideas with simplicity where applicable.
MVPs, MCTs and RDs will be able to attend an exclusive pre-day briefing where key announcements will be disclosed under NDA to help our community of speakers be briefed on all the critical announcements ahead of their presentations. Only eligible Microsoft Ignite attendees from this community are able to attend. We have the right to refuse deny entry to those who are not eligible to attend.
The call for speakers, hosts and staff is now open for Microsoft Ignite 2017 via https://microsoftignitecfs.hubb.me/. Please note this is not an open call to the public – we will not be accepting submissions from individuals outside of the MVP, MCT and RD communities. For further NDA communication on the call for community speakers, hosts and staff at Microsoft Ignite, please stay tuned to the following channels:
- MVPs: Microsoft Community Influencers network (open to all MVPs)
- RDs: Look out for upcoming direct-to-email communications
- MCTs: Subscribe to the MCT newsletter
Via these channels you will also be updated on other ways you can be involved at Microsoft Ignite 2017 so please look out for future announcements.
We will be closing submissions on May 19th 5pm PST/UTC-8. If you have any questions regarding the call for speakers, content suggestions or Microsoft Ignite, please let us know at ignitesp@microsoft.com.
