Episode 425 - Exploring Collaboration and Governance at the MVP Summit with Joy Apple

Welcome to episode 425 of the Microsoft Cloud IT Pro podcast recorded live 03/27/2026 from the Microsoft Studios at the Microsoft MVP Summit. This is a show about Microsoft three sixty five and Azure from the perspective of IT pros and end users, where we discuss a topic or recent news and how it relates to you. In this episode, Scott quadruple books himself with meetings, and Joy Apple joins Ben once again on the show. It's the end of MVP summit, and Joy and Ben are a little short on sleep, but have a great time learning a bit more about Joy Apple and her road to becoming a Microsoft MVP.

We also spent some time chatting about SharePoint, OneDrive, Teams, and the importance of governance in Microsoft March, especially in this age of AI. And finally, we wrap up just talking a bit about the community around around Microsoft three '65 at the MVP summit, at conferences, and that family atmosphere that we enjoy so much at these events. Let's dive into the show. We are here for another episode of the Microsoft Cloud IT Pro podcast with Joy, and we are we're in a fancy studio.

It is so fancy. It is. We're at the Microsoft I was gonna say, I was gonna name the podcast. We're at the MVP summit in Redmond at Microsoft headquarters at the mothership as people like to say.

Right? Yes. Right. We are at the Microsoft mothership.

And they offered up the opportunity for podcasters to, like, sit down Mhmm. And record podcasts in fancy studios. So this one's audio and video, and I know most people listen to the podcast on audio. We will put up the video probably on at least the podcast YouTube channel, and we'll put links in the show notes if people wanna actually go see Joy and I.

And Who wouldn't wanna do that? You'll have the video. I don't know. You may put stuff up some places too.

But I've been known to do it. You have. I will let you most people know me. I mean, you've been on the podcast once or twice?

Is it just been once? This is twice. So do you wanna tell us a little bit about Joy Apple? Who Joy Apple is?

What Joy Apple does? Where Joy works? I can do that. All of that?

All the things. But first, I have to be paranoid because we had to put a push a button to turn on the video, but the audio is just going. Right? The audio is going.

I can see we can see it over here. See the little green lights? They're, like, flickering on the bottom there. Okay.

Do you feel better? Perfect. I'm good. So hi.

I'm Joy Apple. I'm paranoid. But let me see. Who am I?

What do I do? Where do I do it? So Joy Apple, I've been in the Microsoft space. This year turns over to twenty official years.

Does it really? Where did you get your start? In a bank. In the Microsoft role in a bank?

Nope. Oh. So I was in the financial industry. Did you know that human beings in general are really uptight about their money in their houses?

Yes. Imagine that. Imagine. Just those things.

I didn't love it, but it was fine. Okay. When I was the self taught geek nerd, if something didn't work, I was not, but I was the on-site IT person because our IT was two hours away. And you weren't scared to push a button?

I'm not scared to push a button. Even at a bank. There are destroyed household appliances from when I was a child. Because before Joy could walk, she would crawl and push buttons.

And a microwave with metal in it? Yeah. So I had an opportunity. I was approached by someone who was helping to write a book with Microsoft Press, and they asked them to do some copy editing.

It was for the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server Administrator's pocket consultant. That is a mouthful. I know. And if you had a pocket that was, like, 10 by five by three, the pocket consultant would fit into that.

That's a really big pocket. Really big pocket. Was it because the title had to fit on the front of the book so that I had to make the book that big? And I think it was like a some kind of a that was when they would put, like, tool images on the front of the book.

So it was like a pneumatic handle or I don't know. I don't know. But I was like, this is really cool because the bank at that time used Lotus and that which was like, that's some of the OG collaborate software. Right?

And I was trying to convince them, like, we could see each other's calendars. We could manage mortgage appointments and things like that. We could do that. And they're like, that's so complicated.

Just print the calendar out. So all those kinds of things. But going through this book, I was like, this is it's really interesting. I I wanna know more.

Well, if you've ever written a book, probably does it, like, make you rich instantly, if ever? You know what? I have heard this. I have never written a book, but I have talked to enough people writing books.

It's always so it's always in my the back of my mind, it would be really cool to, like, have a book with my name on it. And then I talk to anybody that's ever written a book and they're like Don't do it. Don't do it. Like, okay?

Don't do it. No. It was fun, but I wasn't paid in money. I was paid in training.

Oh, interesting. Because I was like, this is and I look. Because I wasn't a cover author. I wasn't contributing content.

I was taking engineering words and putting them into sentences. Engineers don't talk Shocking. Sentences. We love you.

You engineers. Understandable words. We love you. I was raised by an engineer.

We love you. I'm an engineer. You can make fun of me. I would have to completely rewrite everything.

So I learned SharePoint. I went to web content management training. I went to end user training. I went to admin training.

And within two years of that, I moved to an official IT role at a government contracting facility in Huntsville, Alabama. Then I became a trainer. Does it have a name? We are just gonna leave that alone.

Then became a trainer and then a consultant. So, like, literally, it was right time, right place, grace of God, the right opportunity, because I don't think any of us grew up wanting to be SharePoint professionals when I did not. Well, SharePoint didn't exist when I was a kid. Fair.

But I also did not grow up with these aspirations of Oh, but it was as amazing journey. And thinking back, like, holy moly, twenty years. Like, we got to see some really cool stuff today Yes. That I couldn't have imagined twenty years ago.

When you were right? When you were doing SharePoint 2007 because yeah. Yeah. It's wild to think about all the changes in SharePoint It's amazing.

Over the last twenty years. And it what, like, is it was this year earlier in March. Well, it's March now. A week or two ago was, like, SharePoint's 20 birthday.

Yep. Growing up. So we have almost been with it the entire time. I got my start about the same time you did.

It was, like, 02/1956. It was sometime I did stuff with SharePoint 2003. Mhmm. Old.

That'd be a success. But it was about the time 2,007 was coming out. Yeah. Okay.

So I think it was somewhere between it was, like, 02/1956 time frame that I got my introduction to it. Yeah. It's an amazing journey. I mean, you always take turns as you're going down your career path and sometimes, like, why did I do that or I wish I'd done this different.

But in like, for me personally, at my third or fourth in person MVP summit. Okay. So did you go to any of the in person ones? Like, the what?

The first one or two right after COVID Mhmm. People I I heard feedback that it wasn't great those first year. I didn't have anything to compare it to because I was a woman during COVID. Did you go then as soon as it was back in person after?

Maybe I did you know what? Maybe it was Ignite that I didn't go to. I think I did go to the first person in Ignite. First in person in Ignite too.

Also, I mean, we were figuring things out and doing the best we could. Yes. Very true. Right.

But no. It's been fantastic. Oh, so, yeah, twenty years, Microsoft, firmly on the collaboration side of the house. Right now, I am with Orchestra Tree Software now.

So that is where I have expanded, and I've been there for about three and a half years. It's been three and a half years already? It's man, the stuff we're doing, also exciting and fabulous. So I love governance.

We can say that now with our head held high. We can say govern yes. We used to be like, okay. I wanna say this word.

It's the g word. It don't hit me now. It's like, y'all gotta do your governance. You need to do governance.

And I feel like you need to do governance. I mean, we both been in SharePoint line. If we've seen SharePoint site sprawl, I feel like governance is even more important now. People create it's kinda like AI.

Right? AI helps you find things faster, easier, all of that, but I also feel like it helps you create things It does. Faster and it expedites the ability to have sprawl or for content to get where it shouldn't be or all of that. So Yeah.

Yeah, I feel like governance is way more important now. It's very important. My colleague, Reyna O'Neil, wrote a little article on LinkedIn the other day. I've got my phone on airplane mode, so it doesn't make noise.

So now I can't remember the type. Something like your AI isn't broken your processes or something like that. Right? And she saw about the fact that AI amplifies whatever practices you have in place.

Oh, yeah. That's right. Yep. So if it's just the gates wide open, anyone could do anything, anytime, any place, anywhere, just go nuts.

Or we talked about a lot this week, YOLO mode. Right? If you're if everything in your tenant is YOLO, AI is gonna it's gonna be so bad because, right, everything's there. Nothing gets cleaned up.

You just put things wherever you want. You don't really approach things with a process. AI can't magically fix that for you because it's feeding off of what we give it. So if we're giving it chaos, it's gonna amplify that chaos.

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com/governance. It's similar. We talked about this a lot even in the years with like, when Power BI and business intelligence and data warehouses and all those are coming out. Right.

You give it bad data, you're gonna get bad reports. Input output. Yeah. You give Copilot bad data, incorrect data, old data, whatever data.

It's yeah. It's just gonna amplify the bad the badness. So Buckley Christian Buckley and I were talking about this recently. So we're dusting off our old presentations because they're relevant again.

Right? Because we're we have to talk the fundamentals this is a bold statement. But it's like the fundamentals are so much more important now, it feels like, than they ever were. Now I've got a talking heads song in my head.

Do you guys sing for us? Maybe not right now. This is only coffee. It's only coffee.

They're not recording this late in the day when their beverage requires a switch. Just the ammo bets are off. But, yeah, it's like information architecture. How many times have we said that phrase this week going, hey, Microsofts, don't forget about information architecture.

Hey, folks using m three six five, don't forget. And if you're not really familiar with that, we have so many good resources in the community. Information architecture is so important. Data hygiene is so important.

The concept of archiving things, setting permissions right. Oh, so important. And this is a lot of stuff. I'll let you do a little bit of a orchestrate pitch here.

Okay. Alright. Because a lot of this stuff is stuff you're building into orchestrate Yep. Now.

Right? There's a lot of that governance Totally. Controls, reporting. My my little elevator pitch is that Orchestrein is a governance automation layer for Microsoft three sixty five.

Okay. Right? Yeah. Load it in.

It's great from a user perspective because the apps right there, pen it to the left rail in Teams because that's where we all are all the time. So templated provisioning, it it it's one of the one of the things I never appreciated when we switched to modern experience inside of SharePoint is it was so difficult, if not impossible, to have a cookie cutter homepage template. Right? It's very difficult.

Yep. My favorite thing about orchestra, I think, still to this day is the fact that you can point orchestra at what we call a live template and say, I wanna use this every time something new is created. Mhmm. Pages, web part layouts, links, icons, images, lists, libraries, columns, JSON formatting.

Boom. Go. Yeah. And it's not even just SharePoint sites, but, like, teams.

Because I Teams. I use orchestrate. Communication sites to even engage communities. Right.

Like, I create a team for every client I have in consulting, and that's how I do it with orchestra. I'm like, I want this team, these channels. I want it set up this way for every client team and SharePoint site and structured this way and Yeah. Yeah.

So that we've had archiving in the product for years. When Microsoft released m three six five archive, we have added that to our archive suite. So you can make that policy driven now. So you can go in and say every time this template is used, this is the archive policy.

If it goes, let's make it up. If it goes inactive for ninety consecutive days, reach out to the owner. And maybe for some sites, we don't wanna delete anything yet, but let's keep it in place, make it read only, set the group to archive, prune the drafts, and reclaim some storage. Alright.

There's things you can do. Yeah. There's a variety of options there to get that rot out of the way. A redundant outdated and trivial content, if that's a new acronym for you.

Secure guest management. I don't know that I've heard that acronym before. ROT yesterday. I had to do it.

I don't know that I don't know that I have. Vlad said it today. Did he? Yeah.

You don't listen to Vlad though. No. I think he just let it just wash our feet up. Because Vlad did not come say hi to me the other night.

You did. You came down when you got back and said hi. Vlad blew me a kiss and got on the elevator. I don't That was a brush off of it.

It was. I don't yeah. Anyways So much love in this community. Yes.

This is the best. This is Which we'll have to come back to that here in a minute. Well, yes. It will.

But no. Not to get salesy or pushy or anything about that, but this is a topic and a passion that I've always had around the technology stack. So I get to work at a company where that's what we do. And I think my favorite thing about Orchestra is the creators of the product are founders, our director of product, David Ferencore.

Shout out David. You do amazing work. They've lived it since the early days. They've been the developers.

They've been the consultants. So it's not just making a product to do a thing. It's like, this is the pain. Let's go fix it.

Right. I've lived this pain. I've been in this world long enough. I know what hurts.

Let's make it. Like, we just really solution. We just released our phase one of OneDrive governance. Because if you have your point's bad, OneDrive is horrible.

Have I told you the story about my OneDrive? Well, this was OneDrive and SharePoint. I think I've I think I've told it on the podcast before. But I'm I'll tell it to you just, again, from your perspective.

I have some client I've had a lot of work lately around people running to roll out Copilot and do governance. Mhmm. On their data, they're like, what do I need to do to roll out Copilot? I'm like, you should really make sure how your stuff is in SharePoint.

Put your bare fist on speed dial. Yes. And then And I did it. Like, I'm sure I could do this with our history.

I have my own PowerShell script that I point at SharePoint and just say, go find me all the sharing links and how they're shared and who they're shared with and all of that. Yeah. It's already built in. I built a PowerShell script.

You don't need it? We can do it for you. Well, I did not build a PowerShell script. Claude built a PowerShell script.

Thank you, Claude. But, anyways, I ran it against one client. They had 25,000 links in their SharePoint environment that were shared with the entire organization. I believe it.

That's probably their default. Yeah. It was their default, and then we went in and switched their default and all of that. This was a new one for me.

One of their users, OneDrives, it gave you this was one of the built in SharePoint reports in SharePoint advanced management, the same reports For data access governance, do you need to tighten your Yeah. I feel like it's you know, we're having to Go higher. Technical difficulties will drive. Okay.

I'll keep going, though. Yes, sir. But I looked at this report, and one of the items in there is how many users is your content shared with. This one user, one user's OneDrive, 2,500 different people had content to or access to some content in his OneDrive.

That's cool. Going back right? Going back to your OneDrive governance, it's like, how because of sharing is great. I love the ability to share, but there is absolutely that governance need.

Like, you cannot have that many people having access to somebody's OneDrive without realizing what and how, especially folders. That's the other aspect. Someone shares a folder and all of a sudden they, like, start dropping content in it without realizing that the folder is shared. For long.

Yeah. Yep. Because that content grows because it's what we do. We create content.

And, yeah, it part of that comes back to us. And I'm saying us as, like, the broader admins, subject matter experts, whatever your role may be. We've got to convince our organizations to do proper training. Yes.

Got to. Because just because you can share everything out of your OneDrive, it does not mean you should Right. That should be in a team with the proper audience, guardrails, what have you. I can let anybody into my house, but should I let anybody into my house?

I don't know. Sharing is caring. I'm not that sharing with my house. No.

Going back to your early statement about the bank. I care about my house. Right. We can't tie it about the house.

I am not sharing my house with everybody and anybody. I have proper governance around who's allowed in my house. External users. Yeah.

What's an internal my family is are those my internal users in my house? We. My coffee cup is a leak. This is a problem.

Oh, I'm sorry. I don't have I'm gonna look like the messiest guest ever by the time. It's fine. Okay.

Anyway, so yeah. It's proper go over there. Stuff. Yeah.

I get to have great conversations. And part of my role, it's like one of those other duties is assigned just because I decided I wanted it to be. I get to be that kind of strategist for a lot of our customers too. It's like, look, I know you know what you're doing, but if you need to brainstorm, if you need I call it corporate therapy.

If you just need someone that's been there, done that, has the shared trauma, set up a call. Let's hop on Teams. Talk it through. So again, I get to help be an unofficial adviser in some ways.

Therapy. I think there is someone out there on the socials that is a SharePoint therapist. I should know who that is. I can't think of it right now.

I don't know who that is. Yeah. I'm no. I'm not gonna look.

I'm gonna stay focused. Resist resist the ADD. Yes. I will do it.

Squirrel. Yeah. So, anyways Tell me. This week, tell you, we're at the MVP summit.

Yeah. We mentioned that earlier. We did. And this is we've both been have you been an MVP have we been MVPs for about the same amount of time?

I think I'm on year three or four. Four? I am on year five. I just got a five puck.

Oh, yeah. Last week. So you're ahead of me. I think I can't remember how many clicks I have.

That is cool. That was very exciting. But this is one of you said it earlier, your favorite week. This is a lot of people's favorite weeks.

It is. And it's not we can't really talk about The details. The details. There are a lot of details.

We wouldn't get to be invited back. Yeah. We would lose that MVP. But I think we can talk about just the experiences and even why it's our favorite week.

Mhmm. And a lot of it has to do with, like, what I for me, it's like what I said about Vlad. Just Yes. The feel of it almost being like a family out here.

It's, yeah, it's like a family reunion every year. It really is. And people are like, oh, it's lame or roll their eyes, but no, really. When I was in my Uber pulling up to Building 30 3 on Tuesday, my driver saw the lines because it was before the keynote, right?

That was the official day, right? Yeah. So people everywhere, shuttles were dropping, all this stuff. And he was like, oh my gosh, what is happening?

I was like, today is the first day of MVP summit. I said there are people we're here coming in from all over the world, and I said this is the one time of year if you get to come, you might only see your friends this one time a year. Yeah. And I think that's the first bit of excitement is that.

But then, I mean, we're MVPs because somehow, someway, we got on the right radar or whatever, but it's because we love to share and to talk and to explore and to experiment with this technology. So now we get to come to the mothership once a year. Yeah. Talk to the builders, talk to the program managers.

They do a little bit of show and tell. We get to give them feedback. We may or may not have bingo cards for those conversations about things. Fuzzwords.

Yeah. No. I think you're right as you were talking about it, it's we love to share, go talk to people, go show people all the cool stuff. Yeah.

But a lot of times, we go to conferences, different events, all of that. We see each other there, but we're also there presenting Yes. Talking to people, showing people how to do it. This week, it, like, it's a week where it gets to flip.

We're the attendees. We're the attendees. We're just here seeing our friends that we only see. It's funny.

There's someone that lives in Jacksonville, same city as me. Okay. He and I played ultimate Frisbee together for years and years. Like, five or six years in Jacksonville.

I had not seen him in, like, five years. He became an MVP, and I saw him last year. Didn't see him for a whole year. Saw him again this year.

It's like we live in the same city. We're different No. It's categories. Right.

We're different categories of MVPs. Like, he does a lot with he works at a company doing path building a password manager. Okay. You would think me being in security, we'd see each other more, but he's a lot more on, like, the development side of it, the product side of it.

I'm doing consulting. But we see each other, like, once a year at MVP Summit. But it is it's that it's flipped. We're the attendees.

We just get to hang out, spend time with people, spend time be sassy. Spend time with other people we maybe see at conferences. But at conferences, we are busy writing our presentations that we have to give the next day because we plan ahead. Yeah.

Like, conferences those conferences feel busier. They're very busy. Is it's still busy, but it's different. It's relaxed for the attendees.

We get to be the people being talked to, shown Yep. The new buttons, the new things Yep. All of the stuff we have to talk about really vaguely like that. Yeah.

And it's great. Though I was just thinking as we were talking through that, I was like, what would it be like to turn our conference presentations into feedback sessions? And now I would like to gather your feedback on that. Yeah.

Because I would say this, if if anyone at Microsoft can hear me now, it's still dropping. It is still dropping. Crazy. When you stand up in front of us as engineers, as program managers, project managers, and you open yourself up to that feedback, thank you for doing that.

Yes. We really appreciate it. And we apologize for the brutal honesty that we can give sometimes. Yeah.

Like, this was funny. I will talk about this. This is one session. It is not crank that thing down, Joy.

There you go. One of the sessions I was in, it was all the questions that you how did they phrase it? Now I'm gonna blank out. It was something about oh, it was all the questions about a certain product that you're afraid to ask.

Oh, that's bold. They crossed off the you're afraid to ask and just x it out and said, we have very quickly realized that MVPs are not afraid to ask anything. That's weird. But it is.

To that point of we appreciate it is I appreciate those sessions when it really is. Like, just come in and ask us if you are from Microsoft and you're listening. Really, don't take it personally. We just No.

We're very opinionated about the products we love. Well, I so few years ago, there was a sneak peek of some things that they were working on, and 99% of us in the room lost our minds over it. In fact, Jonathan Weaver said, I wish I had a video of how fast your hand went up. I'm like, oh.

So we stayed after because you gotta get out of the room because other things are going on. People gotta get playing. Another session. Just like a typical conference, there's another session coming in.

People are coming in. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

But But we kinda hung out in the room for a few minutes. I was talking with a gentleman who, again, he gave some great presentations and took some good feedback yesterday too. Very much appreciated. I was like, well, I don't understand why you would do it this way.

He said, well, this is what our customers want. But I think from our perspective as consultant because we've been the consultants. Like, you don't have to have MVP after your name to live to be this valuable resource for your customers because sometimes our customers think they want something, so they go do it or they hire someone to do it for them. And then as consultants, we get brought in to fix it later because they didn't really understand what they were asking for or the ramifications of going down a certain path.

Yep. So this is that chance to have that conversation with the product makers. Yeah. And that is amazing.

And it's so it's kind of fun too. It's like I was joking the other day. It's like, well, I asked a question, I couldn't really get them to answer it. But sometimes it's like, well, I wasn't asking it the right way.

Yeah. Or the terminology is a little different from one side of the table to the other. Or you ask a question, you see them go, oh, when you think about that. Yes.

Right? Because they're not out in the field working with the customers as much as we are. So you just see this massive collaboration happening real time. 100%.

So good. And then sometimes they truly just have no idea. I've been in a few of those where it's like, what about this or this? And I don't know.

We don't know yet. And that's fair, especially as fast as things change now. It is. And I think from a consultant perspective, that honesty feels good because that's what I hope we bring to our clients too is I should not be making up answers to my clients, and I appreciate not having answers made up to me.

Like, just I don't know is a perfectly valid answer. And it's the right answer because and this was a piece of advice given to me in my early consulting days. Some of us tend to have some overachieving tendencies and we just feel like if we don't immediately know what to do, when to do it and do it right all the time, we're failing. Right?

But my mentor pulled me aside and said, your job is not to know everything. Your job is to figure it out. So or find someone who knows to help you figure it out. Yeah.

He said, so stop putting so much pressure on yourself. If you don't know the answer, you are allowed to gracefully say, I don't know, but I will find out. He said, then go figure it out. Yeah.

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Even if that's exactly what you have to do is go take a little time, figure it out for them so you can get them the right answer and Yeah. Go from there. So we said this is fun. We get to see all of our family.

I've gone out for dinner a couple nights. We come home. You said this to me the other day. I said it when I got home back from dinner last night is because we do really just feel like it's a big family.

You get back from dinner, and you're like, I'm gonna walk into the hotel. There are a lot of us staying at the same hotel. And last night, I walked in and I'm like, I don't wanna really make eye contact with anybody because I'm tired and I wanna go back to my room. But at the same time, I'm like, I kinda wanna see who's down there because it's the last night to hang out.

And you did it the other night. I had gone out to dinner. I came back. You were out at another event, and I was down at the bar there.

And Uh-huh. You looked over and you're like That was what you did. Because if you've never seen him stand up, he's tall. He's so tall.

Yes. I was standing up and you saw me, and I was about to go back to my it was 11:30 at night. I was about to go back to my room. I had literally just said, okay.

I'm going back to the room. I'm going to sleep. I turned around to walk out, and you walked down the steps, and I'm like, I'm not going back to my room. Well, yeah.

Because it yeah. I'd left one of the one of the various kind of party meetup things. And I thought, well, I'll just at least see who's here. I don't really wanna hang out because it was late.

I'm gonna be good. I'm gonna be disciplined, and I'm not gonna be so it's like, well, I see. But there was Ben standing up in a very bright blue hoodie, so it was hard to mix. I was like, well, crap.

I guess I have to go talk to Ben. So I go down the stairs and then, like, it was probably an hour. Yeah. I think it was, like, 12:30 or something.

Talking and you're like, I was gonna go. You walk down the stairs. I was like, well, I was gonna go, but you were standing here. But at the same time, I don't know that either of us we say we were gonna go to bed, but it's so much fun.

It's so much fun. And I was thinking that, like, the other night when I was getting ready for bed and everything, I was like, it's it's a interesting combination of exhausted, depleted, but so full. Yes. It's like your your social, your community, your family cup, oops, gets filled up, but you're so tired.

Like, my husband, he's like, I'm gonna pick you up at what time? I was like, 04:30, five. He said, maybe you wanna go to dinner? I said, yes.

And then I'm gonna go to bed. And then to bed. Yeah. And then Vlad I mean, Vlad did a good job the other night.

Like I said, he came in and he made eye contact with me, and I yelled something to him across the hotel lobby. And he blew me a kiss and turned around and Yeah. Because it was Vlad. Yes.

Vlad, I have That's disappointing. Things I can learn from you beyond just SharePoint is how to get to my room on time. How does this go? Nope.

Yes. But it is fun. So other people, like, this is always an interesting conversations. I've done other interviews at MVP Summit as well is, like, if people are listening, they're like, oh, this really sounds like fun.

I wanna be there. Obviously, the first requirement to doing this is being an MVP, but what was your journey to being an MVP? Like, how did you go from I'm doing consulting, I'm Mhmm. Helping out at Bucks, now I'm doing SharePoint consulting to the MVP.

Because I feel everybody's journey seems to be different. It's a little different. It it's interesting. Because so that's one thing to call out.

It is different for everybody because there's no checklist that says do these 10 things, and you two will be an MVP. It's not a certification. It's an award. Yep.

I am a communicator, trainer, teacher, sharer at heart. Right? Like, if I know something, I want everyone to know it because it's amazing. Consulting and I was really interested way earlier in trying to figure out what this MVP thing was and what these what conferences and speaking and all that is.

I have a drama and theater background. Obviously, I mean, you don't come into IT with anything normal. Right? So I did.

But, apparently, I'm abnormal. I mean I've been told that multiple times. My family tells me I'm not normal. I'm the not normal one in my home, and I embrace it.

But So was that your educate was you went to school for drama and theater? I went to school on a drama and theater scholarship. Okay. Yeah.

But then I became a star for admin, and it was like Natural career progression. As one does. Because I got married very young the first time around. So that straight, I'm gonna go to college for four years, I wanna go get this degree, I knew that didn't happen.

So there was a lot of, like, turn left, turn right, zigzag, zigzag. When it was my turn to go through school, right, because I had to go work jobs to live, landed the IT job, and I was like, do I wanna keep paying for my college a semester at a time now because I dropped out of college, did this thing, or do I wanna invest in learning this technology? Okay. I chose the technology.

I'm so glad I did. But the community stuff wasn't encouraged at that point in my life. So I'm basically living joy two point o. Okay.

So I took some pivots. Part of that included relocating from Alabama to Oklahoma. Okay. So various things happened.

My first SharePoint Saturday was in 2010 Alright. In Dallas at the Microsoft campus. And it was my first taste of it, but then I had to, like, reboot. So things happen and then, oh gosh, eight years.

I can't do math. We're just gonna say at some point later, years later, someone approached me and said, hey, there's a SharePoint Saturday happening in Atlanta. They need speakers. I think you should do this.

And it had been a couple of years, a few years in between 2010 and that. It's like, okay. So I just started speaking because I I love to be on the stage. I love to share.

I love to teach. Social media, speaking, the occasional blogs here and there, writing articles if somebody asks, consulting and things like that. Okay. But then in 2019, there was an MVP dinner, and Joel Olsen asked me where I was gonna go.

Oh. Was like, no. Was this like after a conference where it was a bunch of MVPs going out for dinner? Or six five Friday or Saturday, San Diego.

Okay. Right? Yep. Joel's like, are you gonna come to the dinner?

I was like, no. He's like, why not? He's like, well, I'm not an MVP. He's like, you're not?

I was like, no. He's like, you need to fix that. I'm like, okay. So I talked with him, Rob Windsor, wonderful, good mentor.

Thank you, Rob. I love Rob. He's the best laugh in the industry too. Yes.

Rob, we love you so much, man. But I had some mentorship. Time was right. I was told, yep, you're good to go.

And my application was approved. Did you get it the first time? Yeah. Congratulations.

Oh, thank you. But I I had some very wise counsel, right, of, like, wait. Because there was a few moments, like, am I ready now? No.

Wait. Yeah. Wait. But yeah.

And it's been amazing. Some people are like, what did you do to get it? It's like, I talk too much. That's what I do.

I don't. Well, it's interesting comparing your story how you got there to mine because I had several similar experiences where I would go speak at a conference or I'd go do something. And there was one in particular I remember. I think it was I was talking to Stephen Rose.

Another guy, everyone. He's in? Stephen. Yeah.

Again, we're all just one big happy, lovable family. The best. And it was at a conference, and he's like we were saying, bye. See you later.

He's like, I'll see you in March. I'm like, what's in March? What's in March? In March?

MVP Summit. And, like, I'm not an MVP. And he same response. You're not an MVP?

And I had that response from multiple people at different events, but I think what that illustrates is that it's not something you get that checklist to. Most MVPs are MVPs because we love what we're doing to the point that people are surprised we're not MVPs because you're already doing the MVP stuff. You love doing the MVP stuff. Yes.

So you're doing it to the extent that people are surprised you're not MVPs. Right. And then it just happens. I would say my number one thing about the whole program is if you approach it from what do I have to do to be an MVP, don't proceed.

If that's the mindset, don't proceed because it's not what you do for your job. It's not your nine to five. In fact, it's your everything that happens Outside of your nine to five. Nine to five.

It's a lot of meetings, it's a lot of calls, it's a lot of work, but it's the kind of thing like if I found out tomorrow we decided, Joy, you're not part of the MVP program anymore, it would not change what I do. Right. Because I didn't do these things to get it. I love the technology.

I love the product. I love helping people have a better experience at work, and we're at work so much. Right? The technology needs to work.

That's what we do. Right? We make it work. Right.

And we love going to conferences and hanging out and With friends. The podcast, doing this. Like, this was one of the things that I think helped with my MVP. Sure.

But I had done the podcast, what, I think I said four years. This is year nine of the podcast. Congratulations. Thanks.

But it illustrates that point. I did this for five years. Before there was an acronym. Before there was an acronym Yeah.

Yeah. By my name for doing that, for speaking at conferences. My first conference was 2009, 2010, something like that. Yep.

Yeah. So it is. It's not something and there were times it was a mix for me. There were times where I actually I legitimately got frustrated because I've done all these conferences and everybody's like, you're not an MVP?

I'm like, no. What am I doing wrong? Yeah. Yeah.

And I did not have the experience of my first nomination getting it. It took me, like, two or three. Okay. Okay.

No. You haven't done enough. And I'm like, I What more can I do? Right?

Like, what more can I do? And it's not that it was again, it wasn't like there was a checklist, but it was like It's not. I don't know. I'm doing enough that everybody thinks I'm an MVP except for the people that are approving the MVP.

I think that's where my frustration was coming from was all these people are like right. All these people are like, why aren't you an MVP? Why aren't you an MVP? I'm like I don't.

I don't really know because you all think I should be. Apparently, there's somebody over here that doesn't think I do enough, and it's I still kept doing it because I loved doing it, and eventually it happened. And that's the thing. We do what we do because we just love it.

And I joke all the time. My husband thinks I'm the not normal one. I say all the time, I could win the lottery tomorrow, like, the lottery, and I would buy a home in Bora. But I would do the fun stuff for free.

A 100%. 100%. It would be John White. Yeah.

Right? I Are you saying John White won the millionaire? No. But I just He's another good guy.

Right? So he supposedly retired, I thought, but he says a free conference. Yeah. No.

I don't know. No. He's not. I'm not even retiring.

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com/podcast for more information or to schedule a thirty minute call to get started with them today. Remember, Intelligink focuses on the Microsoft cloud so you can focus on your business. I won't speak for you. I'm gonna get old and I'm not gonna be remember stuff, and already I'm like, I'm tired.

I can't keep up with all this change. Thanks. Like yeah. This gen whatever?

It was there's an MVP. Another MVP story. I was at a conference recently, and we were all sitting down and chatting, and there was another m b a new MVP there. And it came out that this individual was born in 2001.

Ouch. I we yeah. Like, now I don't feel like I'm so young anymore because Yes. That reminds me I need to go get a bone density test soon, probably.

Oh. Because we're just so old now. These young kids. These young whippersnappers.

No. It was funny because earlier in that week too, someone had made a reference to a movie, to The Matrix. And in that session, it was like, if you haven't seen The Matrix and you're in IT, and I've looked, I'm like, wait. Where did that come out?

That came out two years before this individual was born. It was 99. And I'm like, oh, now we're really old. We're referencing movies and saying every IT person should watch it, but there are IT people that were born They were toddlers.

Years after this movie was released. Well, I'll say this. Like, okay. Yes.

The Matrix. I mean, it's so relevant, especially now, right, with all with the AI. Right? We were yeah.

The Office Space. We were talking we the other day, I was talking to different TV shows and movies that are really funny to go watch now that came out years and years ago. But, yes, you're matrixing the Office space is one, and I probably haven't seen it in three or four years now. I need to go with your ride.

Now we're gonna go watch it, like, on the plane. It's not on is it on the plane? I don't know. I don't think my airline that flies direct to Tulsa and Seattle has seatback entertainment, but I maybe I should.

I've got that little thing where I can clip my phone to the back of the seat. Okay. Right? Thanks, Jay, for that recommendation.

Yep. So, yeah, I should download that, and I'll watch it on my if I don't just conk out. I'm so tired. It has been so fun.

Yeah. I'm taking a red eye home. I will absolutely conk out. I don't I try not to do those.

I going all the way to the East Coast from Seattle, it's a five hour flight to Atlanta Mhmm. An hour flight to Jacksonville, a three hour time change. And then you have to fit a layover in there too, so it's like five, seven. It's like a ten day.

It's a difference of ten hours. Yeah. If I don't take the red eye on Fridays, I feel like I miss the weekend with my family. Because I do have the four kids.

They, like, see me on the weekend. Props for that. Like, okay. I can take the red eye.

Can you sleep on a plane? An okay. So here's the other aspect of it. I kinda like, I can sleep.

I don't sleep great. Yeah. I sleep enough that I can get through I'll get through the day tomorrow without taking a nap. Yeah.

I'll be dead tired though by, like, 10PM. So I can actually fall asleep Okay. At a normal time for eastern time zone. Force yourself to adjust.

Right. And force myself to adjust rather quickly instead of if I left tomorrow morning after a full night's sleep, I would not be tired tomorrow night till, like, 3AM. Got you. So I respect it.

There are it it's rough, but it does help with that adjustment. So Yeah. I used to have the deal with going from Seattle to Atlanta then back to Tulsa, but thank you for Alaska Air for having direct now from Tulsa to Seattle and back. That is a quality of life improvement for me.

Nice. Yeah. Yeah. See if they wanna sponsor the podcast.

Alaska Airlines? Yes. We appreciate you, That would be interesting. Swag.

I'm shameless. You're shameless in your promotion of everybody. Alright. With that, we've been talking for, like, forty five minutes.

It's what we do. It is what we do. The I think you made this comment the other day. Somebody asked if we could talk for twenty minutes.

You're like, we're consult. We can talk about absolutely nothing for twenty minutes. Twenty minutes? Yeah.

And make it seem like Let me show you. But we have there is a little bit more of a session we could go to, and our listeners might want to yeah. Yeah. You might have other things to do.

They might have other things to do. There was something else I was gonna say, oh, we would get kicked out of here if we keep talking too long because there's someone else returning a podcast after us. Unless that door locks. Does it?

Yeah. I feel like that might be the end of our MVP status when we lock ourselves in the studio. Why did you lose your status? Well, we barricaded ourselves in the recording studio.

Yeah. Oh my. Alright. Awesome.

Well, thank you. You're welcome. Thanks for coming on. It's been fun.

Scott, you missed out. Sorry. You triple booked yourself today. Yeah.

Maybe you should learn how to use a calendar in Outlook. Do we have the technology? We do. Like, there are ways to make sure you don't triple book yourself.

Pretty soon, AI will make sure we don't. I don't know that I'm ready for that, to be honest. Don't know. Because I don't know that it'll depend on how smart AI is because I very much will get triple booked, and there is quite a process I go through to decide which the one.

Of the one I'm gonna keep because it is not always the first one in. Agree. It could be how easy one is to reschedule versus another, deadlines that AI may not know anything about. Yeah.

Yeah. But it should because it's all on the graph. Are my deadlines on the graph, or are they in my head? That's a you problem.

That is a me problem. Thanks. I have lots of me problems. Y'all do.

But Okay. Yes. With that, thank you again for My pleasure. Joining me last minute due to Scott's faux pas.

Yeah. Thanks, Scott. It was fun. So good.

Yes. Enjoy. Safe flight home. Same to you.

We'll see you in April. Right? Orlando? Are you coming to Orlando?

You be determined. TBD. I found out yesterday there's a 20% chance I might get drop shipped there. Okay.

In a cardboard box? Like, would you really get shipped in a cardboard box with little air holes in it? And If they put a mattress and I could lay down and just, like, conk out, yeah, I would be down for that. That's probably better Right.

So where are you gonna be if people do want to yeah. If people wanna go find you or see you in person or you're on so where's your social media of choice? Is it LinkedIn? It's pretty much LinkedIn these days.

That is Sure. That's where we've done. So, yes, they can go find you on LinkedIn or what conferences do you have coming up? I'm gonna be at Comms v Next in Denver.

If you've never checked that out, do it. Do it. Do it. If you have a passion for unified communications and or collaboration, they will have you covered.

So that's a May, I think. That sounds right. I'm not gonna be there, but those dates sound right. It should be there.

I have been told I need to go there. Every year, I end up with so much that time of year, and it hasn't worked out. But I don't have a worry. See, I'll make you do it next year.

I'm also gonna be at TechCon three six five in Chicago in June. Okay. Tech mentor back here in Seattle in August. Alright.

Maybe Techcom three six five Seattle also in August. I just can't remember if they've started accepting or if I could have accepted. Not started accepting. I do know that because I submitted for that one, and I talked to people that said Okay.

They have not started Okay. Accepting yet. Cool. So you have not been rejected.

Yes. I hope it's still alive. Right? That's always I wish yeah.

Anyways, side topic. Yeah. That one. Ignite, maybe.

Two big meetings. Okay. November. And Sandy Branson.

I'm gonna be yep. I'm gonna be in Branson. September. Yes.

Yes. Early September. Early September. So, yeah, we're gonna be everywhere.

I might even be at ESPC. Oh, that one's coming up soon. Right? Since it Or as soon as that one?

You'll leave the weekend of Thanksgiving. Okay. That one's November. Mhmm.

Late November. Alright. That's right. Because that one's right by night.

Yeah. Like, there are people that, like, go from Which is why I did it last year, I think. I don't know. Okay.

It would just, like if my calendar says to be there, I book a flight and I go. Got it. It's kinda how my world works. Perfect.

Alright. So, yes, if you wanna go connect with Joy, find Joy. I would say the other thing, some people say, I felt this before I was an MVP. I was I'm an introvert.

I am not one to, like, go up and talk to I was always like, oh, they're speakers, they're MVPs. I was intimidated. Yeah. I get that.

Don't be intimidated. No. Yes. Come, like this, I would say, is another good thing about if you think this is something you'd wanna do, one, let's do what you love, but come talk to us.

Like, MVPs, introverts or not, we genuinely love talking to other people, helping other people, giving other people advice. I've had people reach out to me at conferences and said, I'm not an MVP. I would love to just talk to you about being an MVP. Yeah.

It's like not we're not gonna give you a checklist of how to get there, but we'll talk to you about our experience about Right. We've had other MVPs tell us, to your point, you haven't done, go do this, go Yes. Here's guidance that might help get you closer. We just can't guarantee anything.

Right. And we love doing it. MvB stuff aside, if you wanna be involved in the community, that does not mean standing on stage as speaking. It could be.

It could also mean just help doing behind the scenes organizing or if you want to write or if you wanna do something like this. I mean Yep. We have thoughts, we have ideas. It is not a cool kids club.

It's a nerd kids club, and everyone is welcome. It's a cool kids club, but, you know, it's because it's just a cool club. It is cool. You don't have to be cool to be in the cool kids club.

Like, I feel like that's it. Like, it is absolutely a cool club. Yeah. Maybe that's the better phrase.

It's not a cool kids club, club, but it's a cool club. It is a cool club. And just And you don't even have to be an MVP to hang out with the speakers too. There's lots of speakers that aren't MVPs.

Yes. Again, I hung out with speakers and MVPs for, like, five or six years before I was an MVP. Yep. Yep.

And they are they're all very friendly. It's just fun. Yeah. We enjoy being Just fun.

We like to talk. We like to share. We like to hang out. We like to hang out at the bar till We like to stay up past the time.

Way later than we should. Yeah. Alright. With that Yes.

Squirrel. Jacqueline, we're gonna wrap up, like, ten minutes ago. Yes. Good.

Alright. Until then, thanks again for joining us. Always Join us, and we'll see you again soon. See you soon.

Bye. Bye bye. If you enjoyed the podcast, go leave us a five star rating in iTunes. It helps to get the word out so more IT pros can learn about Office three sixty five and Azure.

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