We have a winner
One reader is headed to MMS Midway Edition in San Diego this October, conference pass and hotel included. Thank you to everyone who entered and shared their story.
So many great entries
We had a lot of fantastic submissions, and choosing a single winner was genuinely hard. Reading through them, we kept wishing we had more passes to give away, because plenty of people clearly deserved one.
Every story was a reminder of why this community is worth showing up for. Thank you to everyone who took the time to write in.
Robin Hardman
@aHardmantofind on XCongratulations, Robin! You are headed to MMS Midway Edition in San Diego this October, pass and hotel included. Here is the entry that won it, in Robin's own words:
Well, first off, I have a hard time thinking of why I deserve to go, insofar as I wouldn't know how to compare my own deserving to anyone else's. But I can definitely speak to why I'd really like to attend.
I'm a self-taught hobbyist who realized (a bit later than he probably should've) that all of the tinkering I was doing with computers probably translated well to a career. I started out working a loading dock for an IT department and got moved into tech support pretty quickly once they realized I had some skill at fixing issues and working with users. From there, with all of the time I spent finding the same kinds of issues with newly set up devices, I started to do a lot more digging into how those problems could be solved before they presented themselves, which naturally led me to device management and all the different tools and approaches to it. I spent many hours on blog posts and YouTube rabbit holes trying to better understand these systems, and took every opportunity to "rescue" an EOL device for a testing lab in the office to see what I could do. That eventually led to me getting the opportunity to be the main desktop engineering guy for my current company, which is partially into the cloud management world with Intune but still has its roots in AD for identity at least.
All of this is to say I've spent a lot of time learning on my own and making use of the excellent guides and discussions out there, but I've always felt like I was coming in to a party already in the swing of things. There's lots to catch up on, but I feel a bit on the outside of the main circle because I didn't get here when or how others did. I don't have certifications or formal education in all of these tools, I just enjoyed the prospect of optimizing and streamlining things for technicians so much that I trial-and-errored my way through as much as I could without breaking anything important (usually, Apple Push Certs being renewed and not replaced was certainly a fun lesson along the way.) So the prospect of getting to talk with a bunch of people who work on the same things I do but have they're own unique perspectives is really exciting for me.
My company supports growth opportunities like these, but the amount of capital available for engineers to go learn about MDMs and being that information back is pretty limited at the moment, so I get the usual "maybe next year" response when I ask for some help getting there. And looking around at all of the belt-tightening, I can't say that I blame them entirely. But I know there are so many useful things I could learn and bring back with me that would make the investment worth it if I got the chance.
So, I hope that paints a bit of a picture for the powers that be to explain why I'd jump at the opportunity to attend. There's plenty of folks out there who should get the experience to network and learn and grow in their careers, and I'm sure whoever's picked will have a blast. Here's hoping it's me!
Matthew Teegarden
@TheEmptyGarden on XWe could not let this one pass without a mention. If we had judged the contest on the most humorous and entertaining story, Matthew would have won hands down. Read it and you'll see why:
Verily, oh mighty arbiters of the MMS MOA San Diego giveaway, allow me to elucidate, in the most thunderously eloquent fashion possible, why this hotel-inclusive cornucopia of technological enlightenment must be lavished upon none other than myself: The Matthew Teegarden. It ought, naturally, to be more than sufficient that I bear this prodigious, almost regal appellation; yet, in a spirit of magnanimous overkill and to preempt any feeble objections from lesser mortals, I shall now unleash the full, inexorable torrent of my qualifications. Behold! I am the one and only living legend who attended the sole two MMS conferences ever held in the sun-drenched, palm-fringed paradise of San Diego, back in the primordial, halcyon years of 2005 and 2006. My memory of this is etched in titanium because the musical firmament itself aligned in a once-in-a-millennium cosmic conspiracy: Tool unleashed their earth-shattering sonic opus upon the world, Depeche Mode dropped their electronic magnum opus, and both titanic acts simultaneously headlined Coachella. The sheer, unadulterated coolness of that era still echoes through the ages like a guitar solo played by the gods themselves. How glorious would it have been to exist in such a perfect storm of conference wizardry and rock-god transcendence? (Extremely glorious. Obviously.) It is therefore not a request, but my sacred, inalienable, cosmically ordained birthright—nay, my manifest destiny etched into the very DNA of the conference multiverse—to attend every future MMS gathering in San Diego. To deny me this would be to spit in the face of history, to slap the universe across its celestial cheek, and to risk tearing a hole in the space-time continuum of Microsoft management summits. Furthermore, I find myself in a state of existential, soul-crushing desperation for a glorious respite from the soul-sapping drudgery of my professional endeavors. I yearn to frolic upon the pristine, wave-kissed beaches like a conference-attending sea god, to bask in the profound fraternal fellowship of my esteemed colleagues, and to gorge myself upon the mind-melting, paradigm-shattering learning opportunities this event so generously promises to dispense. In short: The Matthew Teegarden has spoken. The stars have aligned. The hotel awaits. Resistance is futile.
See you in San Diego
Thank you again to everyone who entered. We loved reading your stories, and we hope to run something like this again. Until then, we will see some of you at MMS.
Back to PowerStacksThis giveaway was sponsored and run solely by PowerStacks. It is not sponsored, endorsed, administered by, or associated with MMS, the MMS Midway Edition conference, or its organizers. Entries are published with the entrants' permission.