#MSIgnite 2019 is done

I cannot believe that #MSIgnite is over for another year. It really doesn't feel like it was only last week. So much happened in such a short period of time, it feels like it was so long ago now! I only returned home yesterday, but I wanted to get everything out of my head before it became a distant memory!

I was honoured to be approached by the amazing Shona Bang to be a part of the #HumansOfIT track at Ignite this year and I was lucky enough to be chosen. Thank you so much Shona for all your hard work and energy - you did awesome work!

I arrived on Saturday night, greeted at Orlando airport by Amy Kapernick & Akanksha Malik - Amy and I had known each other on Twitter for quite a while, and we both think it's hilarious that, although we're from the same country, we finally met for the first time halfway around the world in the US!

On Sunday, still struggling with the affects of jetlag, I was part of the Intersectionality pre-day, talking on a panel regarding neurodiversity as a superpower, moderated by the inimitable Dona Sarkar, with fellow panelists Paul Warren, Christopher Gill, Brandon LeBlanc, Glenn McClellan & Kristine Zwick. The panel session was amazing and my fellow panelists were phenomenal in sharing their stories and personal insights, especially on such sensitive topics.

On Monday, I gave my talk on the hidden stories from women in the tech industry and how we need to go about fixing it. I was blown away by the number of people who came to listen, who gave feedback, who stopped by afterwards to say they loved the talk, who watched online and sent me messages on Twitter, who shared it internally within their companies. Thank you so much - I'm so pleased I could further this conversation and keep it going so we *can* fix this!

On Tuesday, I was one of 5 women chairing an unconference session around building a Women IT Pros community, along with Sonia Cuff, Cathy Moya, Tania Lima Pereira & Nivine Zakhari. Never have I loved being in a room filled with women more. These were my people - sysadmins, database admins, service desk managers, infosec specialists, system engineers - and it was amazing. I was also interviewed by one of the Community Reporters, Kyle Rosenthal - a fellow Aussie from my home town of Brisbane!

On Wednesday, I had the distinct privilege of being interviewed by the wonderful Rick Claus, about why leaving a legacy isn't always a good thing - focusing on our legacy systems and why it's so important to migrate or upgrade from them and how we can sell our business on doing so. Rick has known me for so many years, so doing this interview with him was just like having a chat to an old friend about something I'm passionate about!

On Thursday, I spent the morning staffing the #AzureAD booth along with Libby Brown and Mark Morowczynski - I'd say it was out of the goodness of my heart, but really it was because Mark had very kindly called me out on Twitter to come staff the booth, so I couldn't really say no! I had a fantastic time talking to people about Active Directory and Azure security products such as Sentinel, Security Center and Advanced Threat Protection.

I was then graciously voluntold (thanks for that word, Dona!) to be a part of Microsoft Ignite Wrap-Up...and Slide Karaoke! With the hilarious Joey Snow as the host, and fellow contestants Rob Tougher aka ThreddyRex, Anna Chu, Rick Claus & Sarah Critchley, we had an absolute blast.

Thursday night was the party at Universal Studios and I spent the evening with someone I've been friends with on Twitter for such a long time and we finally got to meet in the flesh - Tasha, spending the night with you doing all the Harry Potter worlds was just awesome and I couldn't have asked for better people (Rob, Greg, Scott, Maira & Andrew - with a brief cameo from Ned!) to spend it with!

Friday was the wrap up, in which I spent most of my day at the #HumansOfIT booth on The Hub floor, saying goodbye to all the amazing people I'd met that week and ensuring that we wouldn't lose touch.

I got to see some amazing sessions from some amazing people. These are the ones that I recommend you go and watch, as I was actually in the audience for them!

• Threddy and the dinosaurs: A software engineer’s tale about how a visit to a paint studio changed his career and life
• How raising diverse children positively changed my life (and my career)
• Plan for Z-Day 2020: Windows Server 2008 end of support is coming!
• Accelerating your IT career
• Leverage the cloud to strengthen your on-premises Active Directory security

All other sessions are available online, so go check them out!

I cannot express how grateful I am to have had such an experience and to have been allowed to be a part of such an amazing conference. To all the people I met last week - thank you for coming and saying hi, for getting selfies with me, for tweeting at me, for your wisdom and humour, for your understanding - for being *you*. And to Akanksha and Ryan for being my "safe space" during and after the conference - I've made friends for life from meeting you both and I'm so grateful to have met you.

Fingers crossed I'm back next year and will get to see you all again!