CollabDays Bletchley 2023 - Microsoft 365 Community Day at the National Museum of Computing
I went along to CollabDays at the National Museum of Computing Bletchley Park for a one-day Microsoft 365 Community Day.
The event was free to attend, with over 30 fantastic speakers: Microsoft staff, partners and Microsoft MVPs.
00:00 - Intro
01:20 - Organiser's Welcome
01:43 - Jason Wynn
02:10 - About The National Museum of Computing
04:40 - Al Eardley
04:58 - Staff at TNMoC
05:31 - Phillip Worrell
05:43 - Rick van Rousselt
06:04 - Pieter Op De Beéck
06:26 - Organiser's Closing Speeches
07:22 - Final Thoughts
This was a really good day. I learnt a lot from the likes of Json Wynn, Al Eardley, Phillip Morrell, Rick van Rousselt and Pieter Op De Beéck. as you'll see in the video.
Of course, Copilot and AI were very much present in the themes of lots of the sessions, but it was also a good opportunity for me to learn about features and tools that I wasn't previously aware of. For instance, Al Eardley's talk on Assistive Tools had tips and tricks that I can make use of today.
I gave a session on using Microsoft Teams and Azure Communication Services together. There have been some big new features added to Azure Communication Services Call Automation recently, including extra interop with Microsoft Teams, so it was good to go though them.
My demo for the talk involved a GPT-powered assistant for Bletchley Park, which could answer questions about the museum, and which was powered by Azure Communication Services. Anyone calling it up could also be transferred to me, using Microsoft Teams. Although it was a bit of a contrived demo, it's very applicable to all sorts of organisations that want to explore using AI-powered answers yet be able to quickly transfer the user to a human if needed.
Let's talk about the location for a moment. The National Museum of Computing is a really fascinating place, particularly if you work in the industry. They have all sorts of amazing artefacts, not just from "historic" times such as the Second World War, but also more modern times, including the advent of the modern PC, fibre-optic communications and the Internet. Some display cabinets reminded me of my childhood, buying cheap second-hand computing equipment from car-boot sales - stuff long thrown out that would probably be worth a fortune now! Some of the machines were running and could be interacted with as well, which was a nice reminder of how far we've come. Everywhere there were knowledgable staff on hand to explain what we were looking at, how it worked, and why it was important. For a technology conference, it's an amazing venue.
Big thanks for the organisers for putting this event on and all the hard work that goes into making it happen. Thank you to the sponsors and speakers for enabling it to happen. It was great to catch up with many of you, and looking forward to the next time.
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