This years SCU Europe 2016, for the first time outside Switzerland in the 4th year running, was held in Berlin at the BCC (Berlin Congress Center) close to the Alexander Platz in the eastern parts of “Berlin Mitte”.

 

 

The intro video introducing the Experts:

Let’s begin with the end: at the closing note SCUE general Marcel Zehner announced and with a little bit of emotion that this was the last ever SCU Europe to be held.. You and your organization should be proud of what you have achieved, Marcel, it is one of the best community conferences around, and I have been fortunate to be able to visit all 4 starting with Bern in 2013, Basel in 2014 and 2015, and now Berlin in 2016. It’s only cities with B’s is it? In fact, you never know what twists and turns your career takes, but looking back I’m not sure I would be where I am now in turn of being presenter, MVP and community influencer myself if I had not travelled alone to Bern 4 years ago, that’s where I really started working with and for the Community (with a capitol C)!

Luckily SCU Europe will continue as Experts Live Europe next year! Same place at BCC, same organization and format, and the same dates only next year it will be: 23rd – 25th of August 2017. A new web page was launched, www.expertslive.eu, and Twitter (@ExpertsLiveEU) and Facebook have been changed to reflect that. The hash tag #SCU_Europe will eventually be inactive and you should now use #ExpertsLive.

I think this is a very good decision, there has already been discussion on that the name “System Center Universe” is not really reflecting the content and focus of the conference, now embracing the Cloud, with content areas for Management, Productivity, Security, DevOps, Automation, Data Platform and more. ExpertsLive, originally a 1-day community conference in Netherland running each year back from 2009 and with up to 1200 participants, will now be a network of conferences, ranging from region based (ExpertsLive Europe, but also SCU APAC and SCU Australia will be ExpertsLive APAC and Australia next year), and local, country based ExpertsLive like the one in Netherlands, but more will come.

The closing note video announcing Experts Live Europe:

This year at SCU Europe I was one of the Experts and presented two sessions on “Premium Identity Management and Protection with Azure AD” and “Deep Dive: Publishing Applications with Azure AD”. I also took part in a “Ask-the-Experts” area together with Cameron Fuller and Kevin Greene where we took questions on the topic System Center 2016. I participated on a discussion panel on Friday morning with Markus Wilhelm from Microsoft Germany on the subject Defense Strategies and Security, and of course we had the Meet and greet with the Experts at the Networking party. It was a really great experience speaking at this conference, thanks for having me!

 

 

 

 

The content of the conference this year was great, and for the first time there was 5 tracks, with over 70 sessions presented! All presentations and session recordings will be at Channel 9 in a few weeks time, so make sure you look at anything you missed or want to see again if you where there, or if you weren’t at the conference this year you can look at your sessions of interest.

I was travelling with a group this year, both from my company and some of our customers, in total we were 7 in the group, and also had 3 cancellations the last week before the conference from some customers that could not make it after all. Moving the conference to Berlin is a big part of why it now was easier to attract more Nordic attendance I think. We stayed at the Park Inn by Radisson right by the Alexander Platz and BCC, so it was really central and nice.

 

 

 

 

In good tradition there are a lot of parties and social networking going on. On the first night there are the Sponsors and Speakers Party, which was held in Mio right by the TV Tower by Alexander Platz, on Thursday we had the attendee Networking Party at the conference center. Later that night our group and some more partners/customers of Squared Up went on to another party at Cosmic Kaspar. It was really hot, so basically the party was at the pavement! On the last day we had the Closing Drinks, sponsored by Cireson and itnetX at Club Carambar, also close to the Alexander Platz. In addition, there are a lot of unofficial gatherings going on, lots of laughs and new and old friends have a good time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

See you next year at Experts Live Europe in Berlin 23-25th August, 2017!