A week at Workplace Ninjas US 2025

Last week was the very first Workplace Ninjas US event in Dallas, TX, USA.
I was invited to come and speak with my good friends Oktay, Joery and Maxime. More on that later.

The trip started on Saturday, December 6 with the flight from Amsterdam to New York and then to Dallas. Eventually I was at the hotel around 23:00.

Sunday 7 December

In the morning, I and other speakers went to the Dallas Cowboys' stadium, AT&T Stadium. There we did a VIP tour which took about 2 hours. Since I had left the hotel in an Uber with Simon Binder, we went to Maple & Motor after the tour, on the advice of on Jon. I think I ate the best hamburger of all time there. And, for a decent price. Then we went back to the hotel.

In the meantime, good friend Jose had also arrived from Australia. And in the afternoon, we walked around in a shopping mall and then went to a Katy Trials beer/taproom. In the meantime, Simon Binder had also arrived and the 3 of us drank a few beers. Then it was time to eat and a block away was a good Mexican restaurant. Absolutely great! Then we walked back to the hotel through a neighborhood with the well-known Christmas decorated houses. Once back at the hotel we sat at the bar for a while and then went to bed.

Monday 8 December

Hackathon day!

As a kind of pre-day, the team of Workplace Ninja's US had organized a hackathon at Westlake Brewery Company. The attendees could also just be here. I shook hands a lot with new MVPs / speakers and chatted with the MVPs / speakers I had already spoken to or known from previous events.

There were five teams made with nice team names. I was in team OOPS.EXE with good friend Somesh as team captain together with Oktay, Joery, Maxime and Ashley (from the scholarship program). Unfortunately, we didn't win.

In the evening it was time for the speaker dinner at Chamerlain's. Here all speakers were invited to eat and catch up together.

Tuesday 9 December

The official start of the Workplace Ninja's US has begun.

Started with the keynote by Jon and then the attendees went to several breakout sessions.

In between, I had an appointment with Ryan Huang and colleague from IKEA IT to go through how you can best use and configure Windows 11 Shared PCs. This was a nice 1:1 session.

I did the session "Security Copilot in Entra and Intune: The Ultimate Trio for Cybersecurity and Maybe World Domination" with Joery and Maxime at 15:15 and we were accompanied by Lavanya Lakshman from Microsoft who also did a small presentation.

In the evening, we went out for dinner with a whole group at Hibiki. Since I don't eat sushi and fish, there were plenty of options for meat. At the end of the evening, back to the hotel.

Wednesday 10 December

Day 2 of the Workplace Ninja's US. Today the day started with a keynote by Christiaan Brinkhoff and Scott Manchester about Cloud PCs and AI.
Then the attendees went to different breakout sessions spread over 3 tracks. As the last session of the day, it was our turn for our session "What Zombies Can Teach You About Security Baselines". In this session we entered the room as zombies. Must honestly say that Oktay pretended to be a zombie much better then I did. Check the video below.

Then the closing was with the Golden Clippy Awards and later in the evening we ended up in a restaurant. We ended the evening with a drink in the hotel and then it was time for bed.

Thursday 11 December

Last day in Dallas. But first I’m looking for a soccer jersey from FC Dallas. I've been looking online for days where I can buy these jerseys, otherwise my daughter won't let me come home. Found a store, but yes, Dallas, so another half hour drive. Together with Jose we went that way, found jersey, and went back to the hotel and then not much later went to the Fort Worth Stockyards.

Here you imagine yourself back in the Wild West. Show how cattle were driven through the streets. Sitting at a brewery in the sun with beer and food. After a few hours, we went back to Dallas to quickly eat and drink something and then it was really time for bed.

Friday 12 December

Back home. Said goodbye to many people and eventually went to the airport with Somesh (and family), Joery and Oktay to get on the same plane to Paris. In Paris we split our own ways because of several flights to Amsterdam.

Conclusion

WHAT A WEEK!

I really enjoyed the whole event.

Well done, Jon and team, if you happen to read this. Dallas is seen from east to west and from north to south. Seen nice places, "met" the wild west and much more.

See you all in February 2027 in Arizona!

Original Post https://www.burgerhout.org/a-week-at-workplace-ninjas-us-2025/