Monday 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM · Room 447-448

Data Protection, Collaboration, and User Engagement: Assisting Your Organization in Doing it All

With the ever-changing cloud landscape, organizations struggle to help their employees collaborate and be effective in their day-to-day responsibilities. Adding data protection and security could raise the difficulty even more, as the business needs to balance the ability to collaborate while keeping its information and users safe. Ensuring user engagement and adoption is fundamental to success.

In this workshop, David and Sarah will cover the design and implementation of Microsoft 365's collaboration tools, such as SharePoint, Teams, Viva Engage, and more, while ensuring the solution is safe, secure, and fully collaborative. They'll help you understand how you can work together to protect your organization's information and employees in a manner that encourages endorsement from those using the tools.

Tuesday 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM · Room 437-439

The AI Champion’s Playbook: Empowering Change Agents for Microsoft 365 + Copilot Adoption

As organizations race to harness the value of Microsoft 365 and Copilot, one truth stands out: sustainable AI adoption doesn’t begin with technology—it begins with people. This highly interactive session empowers attendees to step into their identity as AI Champions, equipping them with the clarity, confidence, and community needed to drive meaningful change across their teams. We’ll kick off by uncovering the core traits of effective AI champions and exploring five practical AI Champion archetypes—from the Visionary to the Skeptic‑Turned‑Believer—brought to life through real stories from the field. Participants will then complete a rapid self‑assessment to discover their own Champion Type and reflect on how it shapes their leadership approach. Building on that insight, attendees will dive into a hands‑on workshop using a custom Champion Canvas to design actionable toolkits tailored to their archetype. Each toolkit includes key messages, engagement strategies, success metrics, and approaches for overcoming common organizational barriers to Copilot adoption. Through a collaborative “Champion Circle,” participants will exchange ideas, vote on the most inspiring strategies, and contribute to a shared library of field‑ready tactics. The session concludes with a downloadable AI Champion Starter Kit—complete with templates, role guides, and advocacy tips—and a personal action commitment to put tomorrow into motion. Whether you’re leading transformation from the C‑suite or championing new ways of working from within a team, this session will help you activate your strengths, amplify your impact, and accelerate AI adoption with purpose, clarity, and momentum.

Wednesday 10:20 AM - 11:30 AM · Room 433-434

5 Steps for Driving Sustainable User Adoption of Your Copilot Investment

Every Copilot rollout starts with a buzz. Then reality hits. Users drift back to old habits, the "results" feel underwhelming, and leadership starts asking the uncomfortable question: where's the ROI on what we just paid for?

If that sounds like your organization, you're not failing — you're at the exact point where most Copilot deployments stall. The gap isn't the technology. It's the absence of a system to drive activation after the launch hype fades.

This session skips the theory and hands you a practical framework built on five pillars of sustainable adoption: the "Adoption as a Service" model, designing rollouts around what users actually care about (WIIFM), tactical leadership involvement that goes beyond a kickoff email, and more. These are the moves high-growth organizations use to close the activation gap and turn licenses into measurable behavior change.

Wednesday 10:20 AM - 11:30 AM · Room 337-339

Master your Microsoft Environments: Manage, Secure and Recover to Reduce Complexity

As Microsoft environments continue to grow, so does the complexity of managing them. IT teams must oversee an expanding mix of users, endpoints, identities, cloud workloads and security controls across multiple dashboards and disconnected tools — all while defending against increasingly sophisticated and fast-moving cyber threats. Join this educational workshop to learn 8 winning strategies for simplifying your Microsoft operations, strengthening security and improving recovery. The session focuses on real operational challenges, common blind spots and actionable steps IT teams can take to make Microsoft environments easier to manage, harder to compromise and faster to recover. Attendees will discover how to: Centralize visibility across Microsoft users, devices, identities and cloud resources. Automate routine management and security tasks to improve efficiency and accelerate response. Connect email, identity, endpoint and cloud telemetry to detect and contain threats faster. Recover Microsoft 365, Entra ID, Azure and collaboration workloads quickly, after ransomware, accidental deletion or malicious changes. You'll leave this event with practical strategies to reduce operational silos, strengthen your security posture, automate key response workflows and accelerate recovery across your Microsoft environment.

Wednesday 11:40 AM - 12:50 PM · Room 433-434

Lists, Loop, and Sanity: Your Survival Guide to Collaborative Chaos

Information is the lifeblood of modern work, but it often feels like it’s coming from every direction at once. Projects shift, requirements change, and keeping everyone aligned can quickly slip into chaos. The result? Missed deadlines, duplicated effort, and collaboration fatigue. We’ve all been there, struggling to tame the constant flow of data and conversation.

That’s where Microsoft Lists and Microsoft Loop come in. These powerful tools are built to bring order to the madness. Join Mark Kashman, the Sage of SharePoint and Lion of Loop, as he shows you how these apps work together to help you track progress, manage details, and keep your team on the same page (literally). With real-world scenarios, interactive demos, and practical strategies, Mark will guide you through proven ways to turn scattered information into structured, actionable outcomes.

Don’t just survive the information overload, learn to thrive in it. This session is your chance to get hands-on insights from one of the community’s most trusted experts. You’ll walk away with practical tips you can apply immediately, plus fresh intel from the Microsoft roadmap. Come ready to ask questions, see solutions in action, and leave with the skills to turn collaboration chaos into progress.

Wednesday 1:50 PM - 3:00 PM · Room 333-334

Start your adoption journey with adoption.microsoft.com

Don’t start from scratch. Discover the resources, frameworks, and proven guidance available on adoption.microsoft.com to help you successfully drive the adoption of Microsoft 365, Copilot, and AI solutions in your org. Learn where to begin, what resources to use, and how to build a sustainable adoption strategy that drives lasting value for your organization.

Thursday 10:20 AM - 11:30 AM · Room 335-336

Practical Magic: Power BI secrets for development & adoption that scale from start-ups to Microsoft

This session organizes hard-won lessons into two lenses. Adoption covers the technical decisions that determine whether users embrace what you build: performance, agility, reliability, and write-back. Scalability covers the back-end architecture that lets it grow without breaking: security, master data, and refresh cadence. For each area, we use a problem-and-solution framework grounded in real deployments, including the post-launch surprises nobody warns you about, from user friction and silent data drift to entity inclusion after an acquisition.

Friday 9:00 AM - 10:10 AM · Room 423-424

From Catch-Up to Takeoff: How to Take Charge of an Existing M365 Copilot Adoption Journey

Starting a Microsoft 365 Copilot adoption journey is one thing when you're there from the beginning—but what happens when you step into an initiative that’s already underway?

In this session, Lindsay Shelton shares her experience stepping into a newly created role focused on Microsoft 365 adoption and training—and how she took the lead in shaping and driving the company's M365 Copilot adoption efforts. When she stepped into the role, multiple adoption efforts were already underway—but many had stalled or lacked clear ownership. She identified these gaps, reignited momentum, and provided the structure needed to turn scattered initiatives into a cohesive strategy that empowered users at scale.

You'll gain insights into assessing an ongoing adoption effort, fostering collaboration, and implementing training that empowers employees to make the most of Copilot. Whether you're launching an adoption plan or enhancing an existing one, you'll walk away with practical strategies to guide your journey.

Key takeaways: • How to assess and document an ongoing adoption effort • Strategies for gathering data around existing usage across departments • Best practices for user engagement and training at scale • Lessons learned from a real-world Microsoft 365 Copilot adoption case study

Friday 12:30 PM - 1:40 PM · Room 423-424

Brand, Format, Ship: Your Microsoft 365 Newsletter Playbook

Ready to elevate your internal communications? Microsoft Outlook’s built-in newsletter feature makes it easier than ever to share updates, announcements, and stories across your organization. In this session, you’ll learn how to launch an internal newsletter that people actually read. We’ll cover practical tips for gaining your first subscribers, defining your newsletter’s scope, and creating a consistent brand identity. You’ll also discover formatting best practices, common pitfalls to avoid, and strategies for keeping your content engaging. Whether you’re starting from scratch or refining an existing newsletter, this session will give you the tools to make your communications stand out.

Walk away with: Understand the Microsoft Outlook Newsletter feature – Learn how to set up and configure newsletters using the built-in tools for internal communication. Develop a strategy for engagement and growth – Explore practical tips for gaining seed subscribers, defining your newsletter’s scope, and maintaining consistent branding. Master formatting and content best practices – Discover techniques for creating visually appealing layouts, avoiding common pitfalls, and keeping your content relevant and engaging.