Highlights from Workplace Ninja Summit

I have just returned from Switzerland where I flew to attend the Workplace Ninja Summit – a standout conference on endpoint management. 

This year’s event was held in Luzern from 12-14 September, drawing hundreds of IT pros and architects from around the world to share knowledge about workplace management and security. 

For me, the highlights started well before the conference. For starters, I arrived early and avoided jetlag – always a bonus. But what was really special was getting to meet Ramya Chitrakar – Vice President, Engineering – Microsoft Endpoint Manager (MEM), and a keynote speaker for the event. 

We had a great chat about the future of MEM and even spoke about how Devicie and Microsoft could work closer to test new features, provide feedback and accelerate adoption for our customers and partners. Devicie and Microsoft already have a strong relationship and the prospect of working together to elevate and extend the reach of MEM is really exciting. 

As the first registrant, I had the opportunity to meet the great team of organisers and volunteers behind the conference and the Workplace Ninja brand. We spoke about the possibilities of bringing the Workplace Ninja brand to Australia. As it happens, there are already many user groups around Europe, so be sure to watch this space! 

Another highlight was the keynote, with Ramya and Steve Dispensa, Microsoft VP of PM, providing a sneak peek into the long-awaited new features of MEM to be announced at Microsoft Ignite next month. 

The conference continued with many great sessions: 

• Sami Laiho presented on best practices on how to plan and implement Privileged Access Workstations (PAW) and why it is important to use them to reduce the risk of a breach. As Sami said, “You don’t use Facebook on a computer that can bring your whole infrastructure down.” 

• One thing we know at Devicie is the importance of historical data, whether it’s for auditing purposes or to demonstrate continuity on security posture. In his presentation on ‘The power of historic data’, Simon Goltz shared some really valuable lessons on why having compliant devices is so important. 

• During the ‘Protecting devices with MEM in a Zero Trust world’ presentation, we saw a great demo of Intune working with MDE (Microsoft Defender for Endpoint) and blocking access to corporate resources in 90 seconds after a suspicious action was run on a device. 

• The presentation on ‘How to get more data out of Intune’ was also interesting, focusing on Graph and how to use it to for reporting. 

• ‘Troubleshooting MEM-managed Windows 11’ had great tips around Pro to Enterprise upgrade via Windows 10/11 Enterprise license and some gotchas to be aware of and not utilising Windows Hello for Business. 

• Closing the Monday was the presentation on ‘Securing your organisation’s applications for the future’, which explained what MSIX packages are and how to get started with migrating your applications to Microsoft’s latest containerisation solution for apps. 

All in all, Monday over-delivered in terms of content and insights. It was great to travel to Switzerland and meet so many incredible people who have so much knowledge and passion to share. Stay tuned for another blog covering the highlights from day two!