ESPC23 - It's a Wrap!

It's been a slice, Amsterdam!

At the end of November 2023, after months of planning and prepping, shortly after shipping about 400 lbs of goodies to the Netherlands, 5 brave members of the Orchestry team arrived in Amsterdam, for a much anticipated European Microsoft 365 conference of the year - ESPC23

For us, this event was truly special - it was Orchestry's first-ever live event since our inception in 2020. So naturally, we wanted to take Europe by storm!

Follow along for a recap and highlights!

What is ESPC23? 

ESPC is the European SharePoint Conference, where close to 2000 attendees, 200+ knowledgeable speakers, and 50+ sponsors come together over 3 days to share experience, expertise, and knowledge on all things Microsoft 365, including SharePoint, Microsoft Teams and more.

Orchestry was proud to make an impact as a Platinum sponsor of ESPC23!

The Team

Most of Orchestry's team members are based in Canada, so Amsterdam was not exactly a short-haul flight or a train ride away for us. Still, 5 members of our best and brightest took the journey across the pond, including:

Michal Pisarek 

Our fearless leader, CEO, and Janitor, Michal Pisarek, made probably the wildest decision to take a 10-hour flight directly from Vancouver to Amsterdam, arriving only 6 hours before his speaking engagement.

For those wondering, he does not recommend being up for 48 hours before presenting to  100 attendees about the very important topic of Microsoft 365 Governance.

That said, he delivered one of the most engaging sessions, with questions pouring from everyone!

When asked what Michal enjoyed most at ESPC23, he responded, "Spending time with all of our awesome staff and partners"! 

Joy Apple

Joy is our incredible Director of Customer and Partner Success and Microsoft MVP. She is a proud and VERY active member of the Microsoft 365 community who must have known 80% of attendees personally!

She presented alongside Michal and even managed to find time to interview a few of our partners (you can watch them later in this article!).

Here is what Joy enjoyed the most about ESPC23: "The best part about ESPC, for me, is coming together as a community to share, learn, and support each other."

David Francoeur

David, our Director of Product Delivery, truly shone as the demo and product master of Orchestry and ESPC.

He must have given over 100 live demos of the Orchestry platform during the 3 days of the expo, including a demo on the main stage to nearly 1,000 attendees. Talk about pressure! He did not fold under it and delivered an incredible experience that blew away many attendees (as seeing the Orchestry platform in action often does). 

"For me, there's still nothing like showing Orchestry to someone new and seeing their eyes light up as they piece together how many of their current challenges it will solve. To hear again and again that our user experience was the best they had ever seen was so inspiring and validated all the effort we spent before shipping new features." shared David.

Juha Koivula

Juha is our amazing Director of Partner Channels. He comes to us with a wealth of industry experience, so attending ESPC23 was like visiting a group of old friends. The amount of handshakes and hugs he gave out during the event must have been close to 2000 (or equal to the number of attendees). From demoing the product to prospects and sharing the value of Orchestry to potential partners, he showed up 500%, bringing his Finnish charm and attentiveness to the table.

He shares: "I had an amazing time with my friends and business partners from the European M365 community".

Valerie Sergienko

I am the Director of Marketing at Orchestry, and an opportunity to sponsor the ESPC23 event for me and my team was one we could not miss!

From planning our booth, logistics, attire, swag, and giveaways to having an opportunity to meet with our valued partners and members of the community, the entire journey was nothing short of exciting for us.

I had a ridiculous amount of fun interacting with M365 Admins and Consultants, demonstrating our incredible product in action, and periodically engaging in cheeky activities, like "borrowing" a garbage bin or other cleaning supplies, and even giving the expo stage a nice thorough clean 😜

The highlight for me was having meaningful conversations about M365 challenges and seeing people's faces light up when they saw how the Orchestry platform could solve them with ease!

Our Theme

One of the many prominent challenges the Orchestry platform solves is the Microsoft 365 sprawl.

After a massive push towards digital and remote work, many organizations have hastily deployed Microsoft Teams and SharePoint online, which led to a massive sprawl of content. Orchestry solves that with the help of automated archiving, controlled self-service provisioning, M365 templates, Guest user management, and automated M365 governance.

Our creative team chose 'M365 cleanup' as our theme for ESPC23 and did we ever make a clean sweep with it!

Starting with our attire, we dressed in very fashionable custom janitor suits with "M365 Cleanup Crew" branding. We were a real hit at the show with people offering sizable rewards in exchange for our suits!

Our swag also took center stage, with every attendee dying to get their hands on it. Our swag included branded garbage bin pen holder cups, custom Lego sets in the shape of garbage trucks, very nostalgic notebooks, and of course, with us being a Canadian company, we could not pass up on the opportunity to share some Canadian maple syrup with the M365 world.

We took our theme to the limit by "borrowing" a real recycling bin and cleaning supplies from the event staff for the duration of the expo. Plus we polished it off by performing a live cleaning of the stage ahead of our live demo of Orchestry in front of close to 1,000 attendees (you MUST watch the video at the end of this article to witness!).

What Did We Get Up To?

Met with our present and future partners

A huge part of Orchestry is our network of trusted and knowledgeable partners who support many of our customers in their digital transformation efforts, and get the most out of Microsoft 365 tools. 

During the 3 days of ESPC23, we were able to meet in person with many of our partners and even interviewed a few of them (see below)!

Check out the interview with Maarten van de Wiel, the CCO of IT Concern:

And another one with Katleen Van Trier, the Digital Workplace Consultant at Inetum Realdolmen:

For all of our active partners who made it to Amsterdam, our team hosted an exclusive partner event. There was food, there were drinks, and most importantly, sneak peek previews of what's coming to the Orchestry platform in 2024. And let us tell you - 2024 will bring many new opportunities and possibilities to Orchestry partners!

Want to learn more about becoming a partner? Reach out to us!

Demo our groundbreaking new functionality

Just in time for ESPC23 Orchestry announced the launch of our groundbreaking new functionality - Recommendations. 

Launching soon as an integral part of the Orchestry platform, and the first module in the new AI-driven Signals experience, the Recommendations engine is designed to become the nexus for suggested actions and recommendations for your Microsoft 365 environment. 

Recommendations features allow you, as an IT professional, to begin your day viewing Orchestry’s latest recommendations – always reflecting the most recent activity and data in your tenant – and quickly get an overview of the areas that require your attention. These dynamic recommendations will provide clear direction on how to prioritize your valuable time and guide you through taking action.  

Rather than spending hours of gruelling data analysis, let the machine learning of Orchestry’s Recommendations curate your experience and support you as if a team of Microsoft 365 experts were truly by your side. This will save you time, reduce costs, and mitigate risk – and your users will thank you for it!

Want to be one of the first to see this new functionality in action? Make sure to register for our upcoming Recommendations launch webinar!

Have so much fun!

Coming together as a team and pouring all of our energy into this event was nothing short of amazing. We genuinely had fun, every minute on the floor of the expo, at speaker sessions, catching up with colleagues, partners, and peers, and sharing our passion for our product and Microsoft 365.

We want to thank all the participants, attendees, partners, supporters, and our amazing team for making ESPC23 a truly unforgettable experience!

Watch this wrap-up video!