Microsoft IT Showcase

The great mindset migrationThe future of IT has shifted from uncertain to a fast-paced technological bonanza. Jim Adams, a Microsoft IT veteran who once side-stepped skills extinction by embracing digital transformation, talks with IT professionals about the industry’s shifting landscape and the importance of staying relevant.

By Jennifer Warnick | October 6, 2016Does IT matter?So asked the notorious title of Nicholas Carr’s 2004 book, which speculated whether IT departments would be able to transform after most computing moved to the cloud.More than a decade later, Microsoft IT jack-of-all-trades Jim Adams enters a packed hall at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta, where IT professionals from around the world have gathered for the sold-out Microsoft Ignite 2016 conference.All these years later, the answer to Carr’s question seems to be a resounding yes—at least when you look at the 22,000 passionate technologists at this IT-focused get-together. Adams, an industry veteran, traveled to Ignite not to find out whether IT still matters (he has no doubt it does), but rather to find out what matters to IT professionals.“It’s the single most authentic way to get to the real opinions and values of our customers,” says Adams as he picks up a roast beef sandwich and a soda. “By talking to them, and breaking bread with them, you’re demonstrating you’re a colleague, and you understand where they’re coming from—that you feel the same pain.”Adams approaches a nearly full table where a vibrant conversation is already underway. “May I join you?”He does, and tells the half dozen people at the table that he works for Microsoft IT, specifically IT Showcase, a group dedicated to telling the story of how Microsoft does IT for the benefit of customers.“Believe it or not, Microsoft IT is a Microsoft customer—we like to say the first and best Microsoft customer, and IT Showcase is about exposing all of the knowledge and information that comes from that relationship,” Adams tells his lunch companions. “I go around to talk to people like you and answer questions you may have about how we deployed a technology or service. I’ll tell you the good, the bad, and the ugly—how we failed or stumbled, and ultimately how we persevered and succeeded in cracking a particular nut.” Adams has a sort of instant, just-add-water rapport with almost everyone he encounters. “I can strum up a conversation with anyone, anywhere,” says Adams. This is due in part to his affability and pun-based sense of humor, but also to his street cred, which immediately becomes apparent when he tells people what he was doing before he came to work for IT Showcase. Adams, a technology evangelist who began working at Microsoft in 2000, had been managing Exchange and SharePoint for years when the company decided to go all-in on cloud computing.

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Jim Adams, a Microsoft technology evangelist who speaks to IT professionals from companies of all sizes, speaks to attendees of Microsoft Ignite.

“The only way to show our customers that the cloud was a viable platform was to jump in the swimming pool all at once. So that’s what we did,” Adams says. “We worked with Office and Azure, and worked through all of the issues in migrating SharePoint and Exchange to the cloud.” The process took four years, but even as he began the project, Adams fully understood the meaning of the literal and figurative memo that he’d received—he was “clouding” himself out of that particular job. But instead of being upset about it, or paralyzed by fear, he threw his arms open to embrace the new technology and the changes that came with it. He tucked, rolled, and stuck the landing, reinventing himself as a technology evangelist who helps other companies troubleshoot similar moves to the cloud. And, in doing so, Adams became a one-man metaphor for what’s happening in IT departments all over the world right now: Transformation.

“The only way to show our customers that the cloud was a viable platform was to jump in the swimming pool all at once. So that’s what we did.” — Jim Adams, Microsoft technology evangelist

Trains, planes, and rainAdams now travels the world telling people his story of digital transformation and talking about technology.In a way, he is the IT answer to Dr. Seuss’s Sam-I-Am (minus the whole obsessive green-eggs-and-ham thing). Adams has talked about collaboration software in the rain, and he’s talked about privacy and security on a train. Once, he even talked to actor Kelsey Grammer about cloud computing on a plane. Last year, on a flight from Miami to New York City, Adams was upgraded to first class. Ecstatic at his good fortune, he was settling into his roomy seat when the actor of “Cheers” and “Frasier” fame sat down next to him. Some people might freeze, get star struck, or even gush. Not Adams.“Hmm, you look just like someone I know,” Adams deadpanned. “I’m Jim Adams.”

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Grammer introduced himself and asked Adams what he does for a living. When Adams told the actor he was a technology evangelist for Microsoft, Grammer peppered him with questions: “What is this cloud thing?” “Can you explain the Internet of Things?” “Have you ever created a mobile app?” The two talked about technology for the entire two-plus hour flight, and Grammer asked Adams for his card. Remarkably, they keep in touch, and their chats about technology continue. Adams has conversations with IT professionals and business decision makers from all over the world and from across the spectrum—some who are sprinting toward full cloud adoption, and others who are more tentative. He talks to people building hybrid cloud solutions, and others who for now are keeping their data on-premises for regulatory reasons. He talks to IT professionals from Fortune 10 companies—and those from companies with 10 employees. The one constant in his many conversations with IT professionals over his four days at Microsoft Ignite, is change.“It’s a disruptive time for IT,” says Adams. “People are looking for answers and ways to reinvent themselves and their businesses.”

Today’s IT pros need a strategic and collaborative mindset they can use to solve specific business challenges. This graphic shows how roles and skills are changing within Microsoft IT.

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The quest to stay relevantBack at Microsoft Ignite, as the IT professionals at the lunch table consider Adams’ questions about their thoughts on the industry, it doesn’t take long for a passionate, full-blown conversation about the future of IT to ensue. The hall starts to empty, and everyone finishes eating, but no one moves. “I think we’re at a very exciting inflection point that’s going to explode,” says Subbu Dixit—a neatly pressed director at Avanade in Chicago—who twists and eventually solves a Rubik’s cube as he talks. “It doesn’t matter whether it’s software or hardware—what matters is the kind of experience you’re presenting. If you look at Microsoft as a company, and how it used to be, I see people looking at you in a much different and better way than before.” Kai van den Berg, a data and analytics consultant for Macaw Nederland, agrees. It’s an exciting time—he and his colleagues can “fail fast with no regrets” and make promises to customers that they never would have dreamed of making in the past. “At the start of a project, instead of taking days or weeks to scope the workload and network demand, we can say, ‘Do you want to start tomorrow? Let’s start tomorrow,’” van den Berg says. “In every decision and every conversation I used to have, there would be some kind of technological limitation. Now it feels like everything is possible. Our customers ask us if we can help them, and we say, ‘Yes we can.’ The tech part comes in way after that first confirmation.”This earns nods around the table.“The future will all boil down to the experiences you are able to create for customers, whether using hardware or software,” van den Berg adds. “It’s a whole new world.”His colleague, Charlie Molenaar—a senior system engineer at Macaw—agreed: “We don’t have any limitations anymore. The only limitation is ourselves, and keeping pace with continuously learning.”Though it took some adaptation, another colleague, Henko Kors—also a data and analytics consultant for Macaw—says he loves this new world.“Previously, I’d learn a stack and certify every two years and be on point until the next time. Now, with monthly releases, I have to stay on top of the news to bring the most value to my colleagues and customers,” Kors says. Like his colleagues around the table, he says that even though the industry and his role are changing rapidly, the future is sunnier than ever.At first, as product and feature cycles shortened from years to months to weeks, staying informed felt like swimming up a waterfall. Kors now uses a massive Twitter dashboard to keep track of key industry hashtags, as well as email alerts and LinkedIn to stay up on all the latest data analytics product news and releases. He’s developed a bigger, faster appetite—but keeping up with the breakneck speed of technology is more than just a habit.“Staying relevant has to be in your DNA. It helps me and my colleagues do cool things, which I like, but it’s also where my heart is,” Kors says. “I’m a techie—that’s my goal, to stay relevant.”“Yeah,” adds van den Berg, “Innovation is a culture, not a department.”Later, after Adams asks the group how they feel about cloud computing (for the record, they’re all-in, too), Kors says one of the greatest things he’d noticed at Ignite was all of the IT industry veterans who seem to be embracing a rapidly transforming industry.“When I see all of these IT professionals in their sixties ...”“Hey now. Careful there,” Adams interrupts, raising one salt-and-pepper eyebrow teasingly. Kors laughs, and starts the sentence again.“When I meet IT professionals who are older and on the cloud train?”Kors pauses. “I don’t wear a hat, but if I did, I would tip it to them.”After a sprawling conversation with the young IT pros, Adams walks back to the IT Showcase booth in the expo hall. He is smiling.“That right there is one of the many reasons I love my job,” he says. “Reinvention is becoming such a big part of the culture. It seems like a lot of people are embracing the change. As long as they do, IT will evolve and endure.”

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So, it seems, will Jim Adams.

For more informationMicrosoft ITmicrosoft.com/itshowcaseSpeeds and feedsSharePoint to the cloud: Learn how Microsoft ran its own migrationBuilding an IT partnership through agile developmentView the media-rich, online version of this story on the IT Showcase website

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