The last couple of days I have been at the Scottish Summit in Aberdeen, I thought rather than write lots of different posts for all the sessions, I would just write a blog to tell you all about my trip & experience.
The event was being held at P&J Live, which was a fantastic venue for the event, had the great combination of the big halls for Exhibition and keynote, with the meeting room/ conference rooms for all the great sessions.
The trip to Aberdeen started with a early morning coach journey to Heathrow T5 from Bristol on Thursday 17th. With only taking hand luggage and already being checked in on the BA app, it was walk straight to security. Not as as much as experience when I went to Barcelona, but still had my suitcase checked due to my toothpaste (and it was the correct size!). The flight was very busy, but I was shocked that it only took 55 minutes to fly there, but the weather conditions were much better than they are today, I landed around lunchtime so I had time to grab some lunch and explore the area before checking into my hotel.
Friday was Day 1 of the summit and it was an early start, as I decided to do some volunteering whilst there. The hotel I was staying was about a 15 – 20 minute walk to the event space, so I enjoyed walking to the venue and watching the sun come up.
I was on the registration desk for the 1st hour with the mass influx of people attending the event. It was only right that a Microsoft community summit, that we were using a PowerApps for the registration which was great.
Was the 1st hour of registration was up, I headed into the key note hall for the session with Scott Hanselman, who is the Vice President at Microsoft, Developer Community on his session on AI: Hero or Villain. He certainly came in with an entrance with bag pipe parade and fireworks on stage. It was interesting seeing / hearing the perspective on AI and whilst it is a great tool, it is a mathematical system that will base an answer on statistical response. In of his examples he asked the OpenAI model “Its a beautiful day, lets go the..”, and statistically it brought up what the best probability would be. He compared it to Family Fortunes (Family Feud in the US).
The rest of the Friday sessions included:
- The AI, Low Code, Pro Code Talkshow – Presented by Ulrikke Akerbaek, with her panel of guests of Dona Sarkar, Scott Hanselaman & Scott Durow. It was good to see their perspectives on the use of AI especially on the impact on sustainability, but also where they think AI, Low Code or Pro code should be used at what scenario.
- Automated Data Security: Identifying Sensitive Data with Microsoft Purview – Myron Helgering – I have exploring Purview more recently especially with becoming the Data Protection Officer at Shine, so seeing how this can be automated is a real good knowledge to have, especially seeing how powerful this tool really is.
- Our roads to public speaking – Areti Iles, Andrew Bibbly, Malin Martnes & Rex De Koning – I went away feeling inspired that as quite an introvert myself that you can become a good public speaker and show off your knowledge, so thats continuing to be on my PDP and who knows I might end up speaking at the next Scottish Summit.
- IT Pros guide to Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 – Chrag Patel – I couldn’t go to a summit like this and not go to a session that related to Copilot, and whilst I am not using copilot for m365 it shows how quickly this is being adapted and how much benefit can bring to business.
- The Windows 11 security tips I wish I knew last week – Alexander Solatt Rodland – Interesting tips that some I knew about and some that I didn’t, or how you should use them against what people suggest.
The Saturday sessions included:
- Master Power Apps: Best Practices, Performance Tips, and Common Pitfalls – Charlie Phipps-Bennett, Akshansh Sharma – This was a packed out session, but It has made me realise that I should learn to use Dataverse & SQL with my PowerApps rather than using SharePoint as it will improve the performance
- Power Pages Fort Knox: Security So Good, Even We Can’t Get In – Lisa Akinfiieva – I haven’t really used Power Pages yet, but it was good to see the security features that help keep your data safe.
- How to get productive on Power Platform with Resco – Michal Magnusek & Matej Vanik – This was interesting seeing how Resco have designed low code solutions that can be integrated / used within the power platform.
- Taking Your Power Apps Skills to the Next Level: From Enthusiast to Pro – Julie Yack – A great informative session on how to progress from dabbling with PowerApps to becoming a full time job. It was especially interesting hearing her definition of a Citizen Developer, as I don’t class myself as a PowerApps developer, but I am in a technical position rather than being an Accountant and creating an app.
- A view to the Future by Telefonica Tech – Areti Iles & Brad Ainslie – This was an interesting session hearing about what Telefonica Tech think the future of tech will be like, hearing about that by 2029 there will be more “Machine Customers”, basically meaning robots will be ordering your groceries etc, which sounds cool and scary at the same time.
It was a really great event, thank you to all the organisers. Looking forward to 2026 when Scottish Summit returns.
I learnt lot and gave me a lot of ideas of potential future projects which I will share future blogs or Linkedin posts if I get them off the ground.
The Saturday evening involved the travelling back, waiting in a very deserted Aberdeen Airport, and that was just after 6pm.
Unfortunately the plane was delayed, but it was a great sight flying low over London and seeing it all lit up when we were getting closer to landing. Due to the plane being delayed, I thought I had missed my coach, it was due to depart at 9:05pm and I landed at 9pm. I panicked brought a different ticket, then was informed that my original coach was delayed by an hour, so it was very late night it was 1am by the time I finally got back home, but it was all worth it.
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