Articles by Alex
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Identiverse 2023: Open Standards for the Intelligent Trust Fabric
Identiverse 2023: Open Standards for the Intelligent Trust Fabric
Identiverse is one of my favorite events of the year. Where else can you spend hours talking about identity standards…
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Volleyball, Identiverse, and Open Identity Standards
Volleyball, Identiverse, and Open Identity Standards
Howdy folks! This week I begin a sabbatical from Microsoft so I can coach women’s volleyball at the University of…
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Come join us! We're hiring!
Come join us! We're hiring!
Howdy folks, Are interested in an opportunity to have a global impact, to make the world more secure from cyber attacks…
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12K followers
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Alex Simons shared thisHowdy LinkedIn Compatriots! Part 6 of my NCAA volleyball analytics series just dropped, and I'm pretty excited about this one. I pulled every transition Dig-Set-Attack sequence from the 2025 NCAA season — 521,139 of them — and mapped attack efficiency by set location and attack type. The results confirm a lot of what great coaches already know intuitively. But a few findings genuinely surprised me. The single most effective transition attack in Power 4 play isn't the most common one. It's a gap attack and most teams significantly underuse it. The teams that have figured this out are running it at 34% attack efficiency. The teams that haven't are leaving real points on the table. I also found that slides in transition hit at 32% efficiency across all of DI — almost identical to middle quick attacks — yet teams run them at a fraction of the frequency of other middle attacks. The data doesn't have a great explanation for why. My suspicion is that it's a training and development habit that starts at the club level. Worth thinking about for those of us who coach younger athletes. There's also a set of individual player leaderboards in the post with some names I'd never heard of before who are doing something really well that nobody seems to be talking about. If you're interested in sports analytics, data-driven coaching, or just love volleyball, I think you'll enjoy it. 👉 https://lnkd.in/g5BHNByE
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Alex Simons shared thisI spent 34 years at Microsoft building and shipping products. One thing I learned: the skills that make you successful in the regular season (regular parts of the cycle) don't always translate to the playoffs (the end-game). I've been retired for almost 3 months now, and I'm diving deep into a second career as a volleyball coach and analyst. This week I published what might be my favorite piece of analysis yet — a deep dive into all 63 matches of the 2025 NCAA Women's Volleyball Championship, comparing what predicts winning during the regular season versus what predicts winning when everything is on the line. The findings map surprisingly well onto competitive dynamics I saw repeatedly in the tech industry: In the regular season, efficiency metrics dominate — teams that minimize errors and play consistent, low-variance volleyball win more. Sound familiar? In a stable, competitive market, operational excellence and consistency are often enough. In the tournament, the emphasis shifts completely. Error rate stops distinguishing winners from losers. The teams that go deep are the ones that take aggressive, fast swings and finish — even if it means accepting more risk. When the stakes are highest and every opponent is dangerous, playing it safe is its own kind of risk. Nebraska had the best numbers of any team in the entire field. They went home in the Elite 8. The team that won it all got there by elevating exactly the right skills at exactly the right moment. I've seen that movie before. Haven't you? https://lnkd.in/gPcTZ7mz
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Alex Simons shared thisOne of the most satisfying moments in data analysis is when the data tells you something that contradicts conventional wisdom. I just published Part 4 of my NCAA volleyball analytics series, and the serving result is a good example: across 66 Power 4 teams, serving toughness correlates with winning at r=0.17 — not significant in a single conference. Meanwhile, a blocking metric I constructed (stuffs + positive touches as a share of total opponent attacks) hits r=0.67 across the same dataset and is significant in 8 of 15 conference groupings. Same sport. Same teams. Wildly different predictive power. What I find most interesting analytically isn't the headline number — it's the conference-level pattern. Serving toughness ranges from r=0.90 in a 6-team mid-major to essentially zero in the SEC. Blocking stays positive and consistent everywhere. That kind of result tells you something about what creates competitive differentiation at different talent levels, and I think it has parallels well beyond volleyball. If you're interested in sports analytics, applied statistics, or just enjoy seeing how data challenges assumptions, the full post is here: 👉 https://lnkd.in/giDFWNx3
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Alex Simons shared thisMost volleyball metrics measure a single action. Kill%. Pass%. Attack Efficiency%. But some of the most useful metrics measure a chain — three consecutive actions that all have to work together. First Ball Side-Out% (FBSO%) is one of them: a pass good enough to set, a set good enough to attack, and an attack that produces a kill. Break any link and it doesn't count. Across 66 Power 4 teams and 349 DI teams, FBSO% turns out to be the 6th strongest predictor of winning I've found (r = 0.81) — stronger than MTRP%, Good Pass%, and every individual resilience metric I track. But the number I find most useful isn't FBSO% itself. It's FBSO Share: what percentage of your total side-out points come from that first ball? The Power 4 average is ~50%. Teams above ~55% tend to be first-ball dependent — excellent when the chain works, vulnerable in extended rallies. Teams below ~48% may have room to improve their first-ball offense even if their transition game is carrying them. Texas A&M's FBSO Share? 56.4% — the highest in Power 4. When you're also passing at 59.2% (2nd in Power 4) and serving as aggressively as they do, that first-ball dominance is a feature, not a vulnerability. Wisconsin vs. Penn State is the contrast that really jumped out. Almost identical FBSO%. Very different FBSO Share. And a 5+ point gap in Side-Out% that tells you exactly where the difference is coming from. Full analysis (with charts and the full DI dataset) is out here: #volleyball #sportsanalytics #ncaavolleyball
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Alex Simons shared thisAfter my first blog post, Serve Error% was the topic that generated the most debate. So I decided to dig in. I started with a hypothesis from David Hunt at Texas about why the SEC looked different from the other Power 4 conferences. That led me to a fascinating story about Kentucky and Texas A&M pulling the data in opposite directions. And then I ran the analysis across all 349 NCAA DI teams and 5,100+ matches. The result? Serve Error% ranks 31st out of 36 metrics in predicting winning. Meanwhile, Creighton rode an 11.2% error rate all the way to the Elite 8.Micro post — Do Service Errors really hurt your chances of winning?Micro post — Do Service Errors really hurt your chances of winning?
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Alex Simons shared thisAfter 34 years at Microsoft, I retired as a Corporate VP to pursue full-time what I've been doing on the side for 15 years: coaching volleyball. One of my first projects in this new chapter was building something I'd been itching to create — a data pipeline to analyze what actually wins sets in NCAA Division I volleyball. 630 match files. 66 teams. All 2025 in-conference play across the ACC, Big 10, Big 12, and SEC. 30+ metrics. Built in R with Claude Code. A few findings that I think any coach — at any level — will find interesting: 📊 Dig-Set-Kill% (r=0.83) is dramatically more predictive of winning than raw Dig% (r=0.23). Getting the ball up isn't the goal. Getting a kill out of it is. 📊 There is not a single Power 4 conference where fewer serving errors correlates with winning. Not one. Aggressive serving — even with elevated error rates — is the winning approach. 📊 SR OOS Setter Conv% and Trans In-System Conv% are the strongest "second tier" predictors. Both are specific and trainable. Most programs probably underinvest in them. 📊 Good Pass% consistently outperforms Perfect Pass% as a predictor. The biggest gains come from eliminating bad passes, not perfecting good ones. The analysis also includes a spotlight on Nebraska (a textbook outlier case study) and Texas A&M's national championship profile. Full post with all charts, tables, and the complete correlation table: https://lnkd.in/gaUBEX4S I'd genuinely love feedback from coaches and analysts who work with this data every day, especially if you think I got something wrong.What Really Wins Sets? A Deep Dive into Power 4 Volleyball StatisticsWhat Really Wins Sets? A Deep Dive into Power 4 Volleyball Statistics
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Alex Simons shared thisHowdy folks - Sharing the news today that after 34 years, I've retired from Microsoft. It's hard to capture three decades in a single post, but what I'll carry with me most are the people, the colleagues who became friends, the customers who challenged us to be better, and the partners who built alongside us. You made my career at Microsoft richer and more rewarding than I could have imagined. I'm not slowing down, though! I'm going all-in on my second career as a volleyball coach. I've been coaching volleyball for over a decade, and I'm excited to get to focus full time on developing the next generation of athletes. Thank you to everyone who was part of this incredible journey. The crystals in the photo mark the milestones, but the relationships are what made them meaningful.
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Alex Simons reposted thisThis is *big* news... Now the Entra App gallery integrates with the Microsoft Defender for Apps (MDA) app catalog into one Unified App catalog. This will allow you to be able to relate the app usage in Global Security Access discovery to the apps you can setup SSO and secure access for.Alex Simons reposted thisEntra #AppGallery becomes Entra #Unified #AppGallery We have now brought #risk #intelligence from #MicrosoftDefender for Apps to #EntraID #AppGallery. This is seamlessly integrated with App Gallery API and UX. Now we have 37,000 applications in App gallery! You can find Graph API documentation here: https://lnkd.in/grWMM87G
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Alex Simons shared thisIf you have a complex set of Conditional Access Policies, understanding them and identifying potential gaps can be challenging. Our Conditional Access Optimizer AI Agent offers a cost-effective solution to enhance your security posture while saving time. Discover the latest improvements in this agent and how it can streamline your security management. https://lnkd.in/gDQ5ze7cThe Conditional Access Optimization Agent keeps getting better—and making your life easier | Microsoft Community HubThe Conditional Access Optimization Agent keeps getting better—and making your life easier | Microsoft Community Hub
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Alex Simons reacted on thisAlex Simons reacted on thisArt has been a key ingredient in my life for the past few decades, enriching my home, workplace, and public spaces. Being surrounded by color, motion, stillness, texture, abstraction, expression, meaning, ugliness, and beauty is integral to my wellness routine. Recently, I have been learning to create art, which has been more challenging than I would have imagined. Despite the stimulating process, occasional pleasing result, and encouragement of my teachers, I sometimes struggle with the belief that everyone can do it. Artists, we need you. Please keep doing what you're doing! Inspiration for today from my home collection: "Gravitation" by Laura Viola Preciado.
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Alex Simons liked thisAlex Simons liked thisMicrosoft is expanding Copilot with AI upgrades that make your favorite apps even smarter. From Word and Excel to Teams and Outlook, Copilot now helps workers create, organize, and collaborate more efficiently—right where they already work. Early access customers are testing these AI-driven enhancements to simplify tasks and boost productivity. Read more: https://msft.it/6042QAAEsMicrosoft unveils AI upgrades, rolls out Copilot Cowork to early-access customersMicrosoft unveils AI upgrades, rolls out Copilot Cowork to early-access customers
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Alex Simons reacted on thisAlex Simons reacted on thisThree decades of moving at full speed. And then I stopped. That was the seed of The Knowing Moments. The first thing I expected was relief. What I got was withdrawal. Without thinking, I kept swiping four pages over on my phone, pulling down to refresh — looking for messages I'd already turned off. My brain had been trained to expect constant stimulation, and suddenly it was gone. That was day one of my sabbatical. After 28 years at Microsoft — leading global teams, running platforms that billions rely on — I took a 12-week pause. Not because I was burned out. But because of a quieter realization: I was moving fast, but not always with intention. What I didn't expect was how disorienting stopping would feel. Or how much I'd confused being busy with being alive. The first real shift came not from planning, but from space. Suddenly my mind could absorb again — new ideas, long conversations, the kind of curiosity I'd quietly starved for years. I realized something: I was very comfortable being busy because busyness meant I didn't have to sit with uncertainty. Episode 1 of The Knowing Moments explores exactly that — the shock of slowing down, and what surfaces when the noise finally settles. If you've ever wondered what might emerge if you actually paused — this one is for you. → Full episode link in the first comment.
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Alex Simons liked thisAlex Simons liked thisAt #RSA2026, I shared how Microsoft is rethinking Identity Security for real-time defense. Traditionally, IAM and SOC teams have operated separately—with different tools, processes, and priorities. That model doesn’t hold up anymore. Identity-based attacks are accelerating. Defending against them requires a closed-loop approach to identity security. We see Identity Security as three pillars working together—without gaps; and we see Microsoft as the only platform to provide these: • Identity infrastructure • The control plane • End-to-end threat detection and response We had great conversations with customers and partners and shared in our theater session and podcast (shoutout to Anna Q. for moderating—we’re podcasters now). And we’re just getting started. Take a look at our updates from RSA: https://lnkd.in/gqNuGujG #IdentitySecurity #Entra #Defender #Unified #Security #IAM #SOC Yair Tor Yaron Paryanty Melanie Maynes Lopez Kim Kischel Daniel Lynch Sandeep Deo Martin Schvartzman
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Alex Simons liked thisI can’t think of a single presentation that Pamela Dingle has given that I didn’t love.Alex Simons liked thisWhat happens when identity standards collide with AI, APIs, and the next generation of digital credentials? At Identiverse 2026, Pamela Dingle will share insights from the front lines of identity standards and how the IAM ecosystem is evolving. From shifting authentication models to emerging credential frameworks, identity infrastructure is changing fast—and the decisions being made now will shape what comes next. 📍 Las Vegas | June 15–18 Join the global identity community shaping the future of digital identity. https://bit.ly/2JgjAU5 #CRAEvents #DigitalTrust #Identiverse #DigitalIdentity #Identiverse2026
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Volunteer Experience
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Volleyball Coach
Sudden Impact Volleyball Club
- Present 14 years 8 months
Children
Head coach for U17 Storm
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Board Member
ID2020
- 3 years 1 month
Poverty Alleviation
Member of Board of Directors + Finance Subcommittee Member
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Board Member
Sudden Impact Volleyball
- Present 6 years 5 months
Children
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Didier Durand
Claude Skills - which improve how Claude performs specific tasks - were just announced on Oct 16th 2025. But, Travis Van Nimwegen shows how active the Claude community already is by publishing his "Awesome Claude Skill" Github repository, with a 3rd-party contribution list that augments by the day It aggregates not only the reference documentation and the skills officially published by Anthropic but also all the skills and companion tools already developed by users and developers . The MUST-VISIT spot if you (plan to) leverage Claude Skills ! Awesome Claude Skills repo: https://lnkd.in/eGZzDgyJ Claude Skills announcement: https://lnkd.in/eFJwG8QS #claude #anthropic #skills #llm #genai #agents
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Alexander DEJANOVSKI
It’s official! DataStax is now part of IBM. 🎉🎉🎉 Our mission remains the same: Empower enterprises to build and scale mission-critical applications. Now, with IBM, we’re bringing even more power, reach, and innovation to our customers and developer community. → With Astra DB, HCD, and now watsonx.data, we’ll provide seamless access to unstructured and structured data for real-time AI insights. → With Langflow + watsonx.ai, we’ll help developers design, build, and deploy AI apps faster. → With Cassandra at the core, we’ll continue to deliver scale, reliability, and openness at the heart of critical infrastructure. Let’s build what’s next, together. https://dtsx.io/3Se4xiU
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Ryan Baker
As Generative AI evolves, so do our usage patterns. In my latest essay, Writing with AI (https://lnkd.in/g3Gvg98z), I talk about my experience, and share a process that's helped me improve my own writing. I've seen three common types of articles on this topic - cold prompting, idea generation, and copy-editing. I think this process fills a middle, uses tried and true writing patterns, but with a different partner. There's a few tips, a few deeper reflections, and my own experiences mixed in. #GenerativeAI #Writing #Creativity #FutureOfWork #ContentCreation
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Safi Rajput
The way you walked through Goose over the last two years and tied it into MCP for tools and ACP for agents made things much easier to follow. That clean storytelling really helps simplify some pretty complex ideas. Also found your thoughts on where an AI gateway like Envoy could fit into ACP and A2A interactions very interesting. Feels like a natural direction as things evolve. Really well done on refining this. Looking forward to what comes next
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