About Us
Welcome to M365 Chicago Community Days – where innovation meets community!
M365 Chicago Community Days isn’t just another event; it’s a vibrant community of professionals dedicated to advancing their knowledge and skills in Microsoft Collaboration and Cloud Technologies. Our events are driven by a passion for learning and sharing, bringing together experts from various fields to educate and engage members of the local technical community.
Meet some of our esteemed event volunteers who play pivotal roles in shaping our gatherings:
It is where Microsoft 365 specialists, Cloud IT administrators, Power Platform administrators, end users, architects, developers, and other professionals that work with Microsoft Collaboration or Cloud Technologies meet to share the latest information for working with anything and everything related to Microsoft 365 and Power Platform.
The events are community-led, dedicated to educate and engage members of the local technical community. It draws upon the expertise of IT Professionals, Microsoft MVPs, Developers and Solution Architects who come together to share their real-world experiences, lessons learned, best practices, and general knowledge with other like-minded individuals.
Come to our events and get warm and fuzzy with:
- Teams
- Power Platform
- Employee Experience
- User Adoption & Productivity
Thanks again to all who have attended, participated, asked questions, bantered, presented, supported, volunteered and liked our past sessions! Remember to engage us in social media so we can keep this going!
Heather Ackmann (MVP), Instructional Designed and Co-Founder – AHA Learning Solutions
Heather Ackmann is an instructional designer, Microsoft MVP, and author for LinkedIn Learning and Pluralsight. She recently completed an MS degree in HCI at DePaul University. She loves helping people communicate and connect better through technology. In her spare time, you can find her pulling weeds on her Animal Crossing island “Coronomore.”
Twitter: @heatherackmann
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heatherackmann/
Michael Blumenthal (MVP), Office 365 Platform Lead
Michael Blumenthal is a Microsoft MVP and the Microsoft Product Manager at NORC. He helps teams of business people be more productive and ensures that the organization gets value from its Microsoft 365 investment. As a technical community leader, he is one of the organizers of the M365 Chicago events. As a public speaker, he can be found speaking on business technology topics including employee experience, the modern workplace, business productivity, collaboration, knowledge and expertise management, communication and content management, cloud adoption, and Microsoft 365. See him year-round at technology events and user groups as well as national conferences such as Microsoft Ignite and 365 Educon Chicago.
Twitter: @michaelbl
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelbblumenthal/
Hal Hostetler (MVP), Senior Consultant for Roland, Schorr, & Tower
Hal is a retired Certified Professional Broadcast Engineer, Microsoft M365 Apps and Services MVP, and Senior Consultant for Roland, Schorr, & Tower, an MSP firm. He worked for KVOA Television in Tucson Arizona for 34 years and has been a Microsoft MVP for 25 years. His passion is pulling stone walls out of the paths of oncoming foreheads. He is an avid bowler, an Amateur Radio operator, a technology enthusiast, and loves cats.
Twitter: @TVWizard
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hal-hostetler-514420a/
Craig Jahnke, Customer Engineer – Microsoft
Craig has been interested in technology since getting a Commodore 64 for Christmas. He has been working in professionally in the technology field for the past 12 years. He started working with SharePoint as a side project to his main job about 15 years ago and been working primarily with SharePoint for the past 10 years. He is a member of several user groups and loves to get together with others and talk about technology and how it best can be used to solve business problems.
Twitter: @TechJahnke
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/pub/craig-jahnke/2/b0/49/
Jeff Willinger (MVP), Modern + Future Workplace Innovator, Employee Experience, SharePoint Consultant
Jeff has over 20 years of experience in digital transformation, focusing on customer and employee experience, collaboration, and enterprise IT. As a Digital Experience Director at Withum, a Microsoft gold partner, he helps organizations integrate AI and create secure, scalable environments using the Microsoft Cloud. Recognized as a Microsoft MVP, Jeff is an expert in migrating and modernizing legacy systems to Microsoft 365 and SharePoint. He has implemented over a hundred SharePoint solutions, emphasizing user adoption and engagement. Jeff frequently shares his insights on collaboration and knowledge management at industry events worldwide.
Shari L. Oswald, MCT, MSOM Chief Experience Officer for PowerUP! Learning
Shari is a Microsoft Certified Trainer, a Microsoft Certified Specialist Master, consultant, presenter, author and evangelist. Her focus is the “People Side of Change”. As a Microsoft 365 Solutions Architect and Consultant that grew up right along with SharePoint, Shari’s practical knowledge of the Microsoft Productivity stack coupled with a passion for empowerment via learning makes her an excellent resource as a consultant and evangelist for Microsoft 365. When not architecting SharePoint magic as a consultant, she in the classroom or creating online learning for LinkedIn Learning, ClipTraining.com, and Pluralsight.
Twitter: @ShortcutShari
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shortcutshari/
Ralph Rivas (MVP), National Solutions Architect/Offer Leader/Office 365 Champion – Sogeti
Ralph is a seasoned professional with over two decades of experience delivering quality software and solutions. He is also the co-host of the online (light) blue collar video blog/podcast https://www.cloudtalkshow.com. He helps run the Chicago Power Platform User group in addition to being a speaker for events such as SharePoint Saturday and other virtual venues. He is active in the PnP community with some modest contributions to docs.microsoft.com and some bits (ideas and support) with the Power Platform Center of Excellence kit.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ralphrivas/
Gordon Schrenk, Marketing Communication & Business Technology Strategy | BBA
Gordon is a dynamic marketing professional with a rich background in web development, online marketing, and media production. As the former Marketing Director at Azamba Consulting Group, he led marketing strategies for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales and Sage CRM, managing social media, web design, and graphic design, applying his expertise to diverse projects. Gordon holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Illinois Chicago and various certifications in graphic design and social media. His passion lies in creating high-quality content that drives business success and engages audiences across digital platforms.
Join the Team!
At M365 Chicago Community Days, we believe in the power of community-driven learning. Join us and be part of a dynamic network of professionals shaping the future of Microsoft technologies.
