INTEGRATE 2024 was recently announced, and although we still don’t have a list of speakers, I’m super excited about it. The event will occur between 10 & 11 June 2024 at Kings Place, London. You can do an early registration and know more about the event here: https://www.serverless360.com/events/integrate-2024.
This is one of my favorite tech conferences. Talking about it feels like walking down a memory lane filled with great moments. Interestingly, it all started with a simple pizza.
At a time when international tech events were rare, five tech guys from different European countries came together. Specifically, Nino Crudele (Italy), Saravana Kumar (UK), Steef‑Jan Wiggers (Netherlands), Tord Glad Nordahl (Norway), and I (Portugal) met in Piacenza to eat a pizza. While we were there, we asked ourselves a simple question: why not organize an integration event?
At the very least, it gave us a good excuse to travel. At that moment, believe it or not, it became the real starting point of one of the world’s largest integration conferences.
📝 One-Minute Brief
A personal reflection on how the INTEGRATE conference was born and why it has become one of the most important events for the Microsoft Integration community. This article shares the story behind the event and explains why it remains a must‑attend conference for integration professionals.
That pizza reunion gave birth to what we later called “The BizTalk Crew.” Soon after, it also led to our first event on May 24, 2012, at the OVERNET office in Milan, Italy (see this blog post).
Just four months later, we were on the road again. This time, we traveled to Stavanger, Norway, for our second event. There, we welcomed our first guest speaker, Lex Hegt.
From that point on, we started calling these events BIDs (BizTalk Innovation Day).
Because the UK was more central and strategic, Saravana convinced us to organize a larger event. We called it BizTalk Summit, now known as INTEGRATE.
On January 16, 2013, we hosted our first BizTalk Summit at the Microsoft Office in London, Victoria. The event welcomed 128 attendees from more than 70 companies across 16 countries, including Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, India, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK, and the USA.
We also had more than 10 Microsoft Integration MVPs attending as speakers, Q&A members, and participants, along with three members of the Microsoft Product Group.
Fact: I was the first speaker to speak about cloud integration technologies at INTEGRATE in a session about BizTalk Azure Service EAI/EDI capabilities
We made this round trip in several countries (Portugal, Italy, the UK, and Norway) for a few years until we dedicated it to this single event: INTEGRATE. Saravana and his team took charge of this event and put it to another level! The rest is the story that most of us already know.
Here is a glimpse of my story on the INTEGRATE conference:
Why should you attend this event?
Learn from the experts in the field.
The #1 reason people should come to this event is to make themselves more valuable to their companies by learning new ideas and techniques from experts in the field. I’m not only talking about the speakers but also the attendees, your peers with real-world implementation experience from around the world, with similar or different approaches and needs. This conference will provide valuable information on integration topics, new trends, and technologies that will benefit your firm and your clients.
As I usually say, this conference covers enterprise integration from 360 degrees! There is something for everyone, regardless of job role: developers, administrators, architects, decision-makers, and so on, both on brand-new cloud topics and on legacy components on-premises, such as BizTalk Server and Host Integration Server.
Last year, over 700 people worldwide joined INTEGRATE, so get insight and answers to your questions from these real-world experts.
The knowledge and experience of all the attendees, speakers, and product group members at these events was unreal!!! You will not find an opportunity like this every day.
At these events, speakers are usually available to chat and answer questions. And if you are bold, remember to pull out your camera and ask if you can take a photo with them.
Take this opportunity to connect face-to-face with experts and peers who will give you valuable insight into industry trends, meet influential colleagues, and generate new solutions to common problems, like increasing profitability and solving staffing challenges.
I love being around great thinkers…it can really get your mind flowing. We always have something new to learn from one another and take back with us.
Interact with the Microsoft Product Group and Most Valuable Professionals.
There is no other Integration conference in the world with 12+ Microsoft Product Group members and 13+ Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs) focused on Integration in a single conference.
DO NOT BE SHY and take this opportunity to have one-on-one inspiring conversations with the product group – they are eager to get your feedback – and with MVPs,
Network, Connect, and Reconnect with Colleagues.
Take this fantastic opportunity to meet the people you have been following on Twitter and blogs, and network with others interested in the same things you are. This is another chance for return attendees to hang out with the most intelligent people you know – and I’m not talking about the speakers! – and meet new ones.
Please don’t be afraid or shy; don’t wait for them; take your chances. Engage the people you want to meet by simply saying, “Hi, my name is…”. This experience can be a great morale booster for you. Lifelong friendships and connections have evolved from such conferences – I’m speaking from personal experience!
The next big thing…
What we can expect for the future… Connect directly with the Microsoft Product Team to gain exclusive insights into Microsoft’s upcoming plans. Engage in conversation and ask your burning questions. Discover how Microsoft is shaping the future.
Refresh and recharge… and have some fun.
This will be two days off busy work schedules to learn, refresh, and recharge. And most importantly, have some fun!
Once you’ve soaked in all the knowledge from the speakers and breakout sessions, your day will be far from over. Use the evenings to connect with colleagues and experts in a relaxed, fun environment, such as a Bar, a speaker dinner, or a restaurant. Sometimes, the most interesting conversations happen at the end of each day in the Lobby Bar.
And then return to work reinvigorated.
This is one conference you can’t afford to miss! What are you waiting for? Go ahead and book it!
I will be there… and don’t hesitate to reach out to me and say hi! It doesn’t matter that it is to say hi to get to know each other, to ask a question, or to discuss a business opportunity.
See you there!
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