Who would have guessed?

In just a few short months, we’ll once again be at Worldwide Partner Conference (#WPC10), this time in Washington, D.C. One of the great opportunities that Worldwide Partner Conference provides is not only the chance to meet up with peers that you have not had the chance to see in some time (sometimes since last WPC) but also the opportunity to meet so many new people from all around the world through tools like WPC Connect for scheduled meetings or impromptu meetings throughout WPC. 

What is always fascinating when meeting new Partners from all across the world is not just learning about the the company itself and what they do, but also for the individuals themselves, such as: what they do, how they got to where they are, what lead them to IT, what they enjoy doing as hobbies, how they spend their off time, etc. It’s amazing all of the varied backgrounds everyone has and what everyone does for fun or as hobbies, because often you hear the stories and think to yourself, “Who would have guessed?”

I know that when I’ve shared my background with people and information about me, I often get that, “I never would have guessed,” response. To try and help spur some of these conversations at the upcoming WPC10, I thought I would share some of these items here, so that if any of you see some similarities between our backgrounds or interests/hobbies, or if you find something of interest with these things, hopefully you will take the opportunity to introduce yourself and start up a conversation with me while at #WPC10. As I have said many times, it is always great to get to meet so many of you each year at WPC (like through the “Find Me” contest I did last year).

If you’ve looked at my overview page, you have seen that my IT career began working for a Partner (computers were a hobby for me) many years ago. From there, I started and ran my own Microsoft Partner company for several years before coming to Microsoft. For the past 10+ years, I have held several positions here at Microsoft, and I put up a 10 year recap post of these here on the Blog. From an interests and hobbies perspective, here are just a few of mine, and I think you’ll see, I’m someone who likes to make/build things, plus I have a sweet tooth and love speed/racing:

Building computers: (Click for full size)

Woodworking: (Click for full size)

Cakes & Sweets: (Click for full size)

Racing/Speed: (Click for full size)

Knife & Sword Collecting: (Click for full size)

Brickwork: (Click for full size)

As I stated above, maybe some of the items above are similar interests of yours, or maybe they are just things that you find interesting and would want to have a conversation about. On the other hand, maybe you have some interesting hobbies or facts about yourself that you’d like to share, in addition to what you do now and the company you work for. I just thought I would throw a few of these ideas out there for you. I look forward to meeting and speaking with many of you at #WPC10.

Thank you and have a wonderful day,

Eric Ligman – Follow me on TWITTER, LinkedIn, and RSS and see “What I’m thinking”
Global Partner Experience Lead
Microsoft Worldwide Partner Group
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights

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