Conf Special: Developers! Developers! Developers! & “Don’t fire your SEO.”

Microsoft hasn’t always been everyone’s friend. Recently though, you might have noticed the Borg doing some unusual things, such as hiring developers that don’t write code on the Microsoft stack, and, uh, buying GitHub. What are they up to? Is it another plot to frustrate the success of open source, or something more benign. Maybe they have something to offer developers in today’s world, to complement AWS and existing open source tools. In this not-super-technical-but-demo-heavy-talk-with-code for developers, Tom Morgan (disclaimer: a Microsoft MVP, but not a Microsoft employee) will attempt to convince you that today’s Microsoft is a very, very different company from the one that still lives on in many people’s prejudices, and that knowing more about what Microsoft is offering to developers could be beneficial to you.

PS: we promise no one will be assimilated.

Tom Morgan

Tom is a Microsoft Teams & Skype for Business developer and Microsoft MVP with over 10 years experience in the software development industry. He is the Product Innovation Architect at Modality Systems (modalitysystems.com), a top-tier Microsoft Gold Partner for Communication that deliver software solutions to FTSE 100 companies, multi-national corporations, government organizations and charities. He is based in the UK but travels worldwide to help customers achieve more from their communication platform.

He is also passionate about creating great software that people will find useful. He blogs at thoughtstuff.co.uk about Teams, Skype for Business, AI and Bots with plenty of code samples and freely available products. He is an international speaker and storyteller and a contributing author on the Skype for Business Unleashed book (published 2016).

“Don’t fire your SEO. Out of a cannon. Into the Sun.”

Mark Cook

What do SEOs do, anyway? Do devs in 2018 need them? Director at Candour, Mark Williams-Cook, a 15-year ‘blackhat’ and ‘whitehat’ SEO veteran will tell you some reasons it might be worth listening to your SEO, for at least a few more months.