So I didn’t get a chance to write my Year in Review 2022 post in the actual year, so I have decided to look at it now. As most people do they reflect on the previous year and their areas of success and areas where they need to improve. 2022 feels very much like a transitional year for me and one where I have had a lot of personal challenges to overcome (so still ongoing).

In summary, did I see 2022 panning out as it did? Nope… Was it a good year, it was great and I am very fortunate for the opportunities, successes, and failings which I have had this year because without them I wouldn’t be able to learn and improve.

Some of the months are patchy but I am sure that is because I have 3 young boys and a load of things I am juggling at the moment, so I will try to highlight some of my achievements.

The Highlights

Arranging the first Microsoft Cloud Security User Group - this has been a fun-filled experience with the User Group growing from strength to strength, being able to work with a good friend in Chris Wright (ChrisWAzure), and also getting our first sponsor in HTG - who has provided the quiz prizes for each year. Really enjoyed ending the year on a high with our Christmas Quiz which was run for the Festive Tech Calendar. Already can’t wait for 2023 to start with our first session scheduled for the 12th of January!

Speaking at my first in-person conference was planning to do this in February but the event got postponed, however, this eventually happened in June at the Scottish Summit. It was one of the most terrifying things I have had to do and wasn’t helped by the wrath of technical problems which hit me at the start. I was fortunate at the start to have some awesome members of the community with me and help me out, with an especially big shout out to Derek Smith, who lent me a dock! The session was on Defender for Cloud Apps and was well attended, hopefully in 2023 I will get to do more in-person speaking events.

Then the in-person events, Scottish Summit was the first one of the year which I attended from a community perspective, it was great to meet people again or for the first time, and there were some great catchups and sessions which I managed to attend and support the rest of the community in. It just showed the power of the Cloud Community! In addition to Scottish Summit, I got to go to Seattle twice, the first was the Entra Partner Airlift event, which was a partner conference to discuss the roadmap of the Entra product suite, it was great to meet with the product teams at Microsoft but also to meet with professionals from across the globe and talk about how they were utilising the Entra suite to enhance their customer needs, etc.

The second Seattle trip, was to Microsoft Ignite (about 2 weeks later), the first in-person Ignite in the post covid years. It was a 2-day event but was clear that people from across the globe were attending, now the event was smaller than previous years and a little underwhelming at points. However for me, it was more than the conference it was the people, I got to catch up with old friends from past jobs, but also met some more awesome people within the Community and once again catch up with the brilliant Gregor Suttie for the second time this year. As well as spend some time with my current colleagues and discuss future plans etc.

In 2022, I set some personal targets for my career and growth, one was exam based and during the year I managed to successfully renew a number of my certifications, but in addition to that I gained a few more, including SC-200, SC-100, AZ-700, and MS-100. I had a couple more on my list for 2022 but I didn’t get the time to complete them so I am very much looking forward to pursuing these in 2023, including MS-101, AZ-800, AZ-801, and SC-400.

Conclusion

For me it felt a very successful year and put me in a situation where I feel I will be able to grow further in 2023, there were some obvious low lights in the year, with the User Group having to take a break but also my blogging taking a backwards step. I look to correct some of this in 2023 and grow the Cloud Security community and wider Cloud Community with content and opportunities.

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