Two weeks ago, I visited Charleston in South Carolina to deliver a session on the 2025 Hybrid Identity Protection Conference.

As I like to help my customers tackle their identity challenges, I didn't have the opportunity to spend an entire week in this lovely place. The conference was scheduled for Tuesday til Thursday, but I was only able to fly in on Tuesday and fly back on Friday. It meant I missed all the sessions on the first day, receiving a ton of messages in-flight, but – fortunately – I did not miss out on the Tuesday party.

I flew in through Atlanta with a nice lay-over and landed on Charleston International Airport (CHS) at around 5 PM. I quickly got in a cab towards the venue, that doubled as the speaker hotel, showered, changed my clothes and headed out to the party. Many familiar faces on the way over pointed out I was missing a conference badge. At the entrance, I received a hand-written badge, so that I could hang out with all my Identity friends:

I met Guy Teverovski for the first time in real life. Straight after he read my name off my badge his reaction was: "Ah, you're the guy that got me fired!"… Awkward.

The next day, I shoed up at the presentation check and proceeded to the room to get an initial peek in. At 11:15 AM, Guido introduced me to the main stage, and I started my presentation on Entra applications.

Of course, my slide deck included some sarcastic slides based on conversations throughout the years.

After the session, I caught up with the other speakers. After the Happy Hour, a couple of us gathered at Burwells Stone Fire Grill to talk technology.

After Jake's session on Locksmith, Elevator and Stairs, Thursday October 9th introduced us to the inside of the Riviera Theater for an exciting preview and discussion on cyber security.

On Friday, I headed back to the Netherlands on flights from Charleston to New York's John F Kennedy International Airport and finally to Amsterdam Schiphol Airport.

I owe a big bag of gratitude to Mickey, Guy, Sean, Darren, Gil, Thomas, Christopher, Christoffer, Jorge, Joe and especially Jake and the Hybrid Identity Protection Conference attendees for making this my favourite conference next to the MVP Summit.

Let’s do this again sometime soon!