Wes Preston

Maybe it’s me, but it seems that there aren’t enough end users at technical conferences. There are a variety of tech events out there and some of them are absolutely deeper dives for technical professionals. But there are more – either professionally produced or community-run – that include content for everyone.

Now, I could have said “training” instead of “conferences”, but training is more obvious (everyone needs it, including end users) and often covered by training departments within larger organizations. The conferences part here is also important because it involves networking with peers – usually outside of the organization. People with different perspectives and company cultures that can bring new ideas and approaches to common issues. Conferences are also great opportunities to interact with SMEs – either community contributors or the folks building the products.

Obviously, you can’t stop work and send everyone. But you can often send more than we’re currently seeing – especially free local events. These events aren’t just for IT. Ultimately, having end users in attendance can also help IT by bringing a business perspective to product features. And yes, these product feature conversations do still need to be tempered by IT realities: cost, time, risk, and many more…

We’ve always had end users at conferences, but never enough when you consider where and how the impact on business occurs and just how many users there are out there. The impact they make isn’t isolated though. It requires partnerships within each org. Users aren’t going to be successful if the platform isn’t deployed or configured correctly (IT Pros). Users aren’t going to be successful if platform owners don’t make connections between tech and business priorities, train users, and keep them up to speed.

Engaging technology to further the business requires awareness, skills, and a bit of balance between a number of teams. The benefits can be awesome.

End users are challenged by awareness, instruction, divided priorities, and limited time. We can group these a bit. Priorities and time go together as there’s often not enough time (this continues to get worse as organizations keep trying to get lean…) and business, not tools, are (and should be) the priority. Learning tools is secondary even if the end result makes the business more efficient.

Awareness and instruction go together with the awareness part often overlooked (also another topic…). Users need to get a grasp of what tools or capabilities are available (awareness) and then learn how to use them (instruction) when they’re relevant. In an ideal situation someone like a platform team or a customer success team may cover awareness in terms of what features are available and where they fit – translating between the tool and business needs. In many cases, however, IT can be a blocker of sorts… not letting users know features are available, or even disabling them.

Disabling features can very well be for legit reasons (security, conflicts with capability offered by other products, etc.). In some cases, they might not enable features until they’ve been tested and validated, IT trains up on them, or training materials are created. And again, we run into crunch time with IT not having enough time to dig in. If end users learn themselves about features, they can inquire about them with IT and help determine when it might be a business priority to deploy features and capabilities. It’s for each organization to find the balance that works for them between business needs, IT capabilities, and prioritizing them.

More than ever before (at least that I’ve seen) the makers of apps, tools, and services are reaching out directly to end users instead of relying on IT as an intermediary. They’re both building tools that appeal to end users and marketing directly to them. Microsoft Lists, for example, has been around for over 20 years (SharePoint, then Microsoft Lists) and is aimed at end users to manage information with structure. More recently the Microsoft Power Platform targeted all users with Power Automate and Power Apps – though I’d argue Power Apps is very much NOT for all users… but that’s another post. Currently, we’re in the midst of AI and Copilot rollouts that will have impact on everyone.

Summary

The more end users we can get at conferences, in training, and engaging within technical communities, the better. They can gain awareness to features and capabilities to understand where and when they might be useful in their business needs. They’ll know when to ask IT to turn a feature on they might not have access to initially. They can build personal networks and provide valuable feedback to product owners.

So, especially when it comes to local and free (or for marginal costs…) events, make the time when you are able to enable your employees and your teams to join the conversation! It’s good for mental health to step away from the grind every so often too. 🙂

Context and Perspective

My opinion and experience here is biased on several accounts:

• I’m an event producer. Just small, local, community-run events, but still. I’m interested in getting folks to events both because I want events to be successful and because I want folks to have the opportunity to learn, to skill up, to become more effective with the tools they use (that’s why we put them on after all…).
• I’m also involved with a group that promotes community events and encourages folks to produce them.
• The tech spaces I work in (Microsoft M365, SharePoint, Lists, Teams, Power Apps, etc.) have historically been near the “edge” of where tech professionals, power users, and end users come together.
• I speak at a variety of events – both community-run and larger commercial events.

References

• M365 Twin Cities – Next one on Sept. 6, 2024 – The event I put on with a team of awesome folks
• MGCI (Microsoft Global Community Initiative) – The organization I am associated with as a Regional Leader to
• Community Days – Community-run events (Primarily. Others are listed as well) associated with MGCI’s efforts..
• TechCon 365 – A larger professionally run event that typically produces 3 or so events per year across the US. A week-long event with workshops, keynotes, and sessions.
  If you’re interested in these, let me know as I often have discount codes available.