Microsoft Innovation Podcast

FULL SHOW NOTES https://podcast.nz365guy.com/468 Mohammad Yasar discusses his role as a family man and how he spends quality time with his daughter.  Discover Mohammad’s secret to finding a healthy work-life balance while enjoying activities and bonding with loved ones.  Mohammad shares his passion for technology and how his hobby of building computers in his teenage years paved the way for a successful career. Mohammad shares his career journey and how he gained expertise in various applications like JD Edwards, Oracle, and SAP. Mohammad delves into the world of low-code development and its benefits for organizations.  Discover how platforms like Power Apps and Power Automate enable business users to build custom applications and automate processes without extensive coding knowledge. He explains the value of leveraging Power Apps, Power Automate, and Dataverse in their project deliveries to enhance customer experiences and meet industry-specific requirements. Mohammad also emphasizes the significance of sharing knowledge and believes in the power of collaboration to foster personal and professional development. Mohammad's journey to becoming a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional and learn about the community contributions that earned him this prestigious title. Gain insights into how Mohammad continues to support and mentor others in the tech community. OTHER RESOURCES: Microsoft MVP YouTube Series - How to Become a Microsoft MVP  90-Day Mentoring Challenge - https://ako.nz365guy.com/ Support the showIf you want to get in touch with me, you can message me here on Linkedin.Thanks for listening 🚀 - Mark Smith

FULL SHOW NOTES https://podcast.nz365guy.com/467 Em D’Arcy updates us on her recent promotion to the position of Director of Low Code at Hitachi Solutions.  Em reflects on her career growth within the Power Platform and highlights the importance of organizations embracing low code to empower business users and free up IT resources. How the Power Platform has transitioned from being seen as a platform for simple apps and games to gaining acceptance and respect as an enterprise solution.  Highlights the role of citizen developers in creating business solutions and the platform's increasing prominence in events like Microsoft's builds, ignites, and inspires. The challenge of perceptions surrounding low code platforms in enterprise settings and the need to educate customers about the capabilities and maturity of the Power Platform and its ability to deliver robust enterprise solutions.  The conversation explores strategies for bridging the gap between traditional development approaches and embracing low code for faster innovation. Learn the critical role of governance and security in successful Power Platform adoption and the significance of digital guardrails, encompassing environment strategies, data policies, and connector management. Em shares insights on fostering a viral maker community within organizations and highlights the importance of providing a platform for makers to share ideas, consult with others, and ask questions. Em also emphasizes the need to invest in makers, including sending them to conferences and recognizing their achievements, to drive adoption and create a sense of pride within the community. Microsoft 365 Copilot Adoption is a Microsoft Press book for leaders and consultants. It shows how to identify high-value use cases, set guardrails, enable champions, and measure impact, so Copilot sticks. Practical frameworks, checklists, and metrics you can use this month. Get the book: https://bit.ly/CopilotAdoptionSupport the showIf you want to get in touch with me, you can message me here on Linkedin.Thanks for listening 🚀 - Mark Smith

FULL SHOW NOTES https://podcast.nz365guy.com/466 Introducing Ben den Blanken. He shares his personal life, highlighting the importance and challenges of balancing work and family, which he considers the most significant part of his life. As a Power Platform Lead, Ben excels in connecting the dots and leveraging the Power Platform, Azure, and modern work. Join us as we dive into his journey and discover the key factors that contribute to his success. Ben sheds light on his role at Dynamic People, where he leads teams, engages with customers, and combines specialized knowledge to deliver successful projects. The challenges of keeping up and staying up to date with the constant changes in the Power Platform and Ben's approach and strategies for achieving remarkable results. Delve into Ben's experiences with Power Virtual Agents and his special interest in the technology.  Discusses the value of utilizing Power Virtual Agents to connect different areas of the platform, create quick wins, and alleviate pressure from departments such as HR. Discover how this technology contributes to enhancing the flow of work within organizations. Join the conversation as Ben discusses the exciting advancements in AI, including OpenAI's language models and Microsoft's acquisition of Nuance.  Explore the potential of voice technology, AI chatbots, and the challenges surrounding privacy and gain valuable insights into the evolving landscape and the future possibilities that lie ahead. The evolution of chat GPT and AI voice assistants - the changes in AI voice assistants and the impact of chat GPT since November and the limitations of current voice assistants. OTHER RESOURCES: Microsoft MVP YouTube Series - How to Become a Microsoft MVP  90-Day Mentoring Challenge - https://ako.nz365guy.com/ Microsoft 365 Copilot Adoption is a Microsoft Press book for leaders and consultants. It shows how to identify high-value use cases, set guardrails, enable champions, and measure impact, so Copilot sticks. Practical frameworks, checklists, and metrics you can use this month. Get the book: https://bit.ly/CopilotAdoptionSupport the showIf you want to get in touch with me, you can message me here on Linkedin.Thanks for listening 🚀 - Mark Smith

FULL SHOW NOTES https://podcast.nz365guy.com/465 Malcolm McAuley shares the importance of family in his life and how he cherishes the time spent with his wife and two boys.  Discover Malcolm’s family fun revolves around their regular trips and enjoying the water and creating lasting memories. Malcolm delves into his current focus on AI and its potential for leveraging within his organization. Malcolm discusses the evolving landscape of AI and the opportunities it presents for businesses and customers.  Discover how Malcolm’s teenage boys are also intrigued by AI and its applications, exploring the possibilities it offers in the online realm. Malcolm dived into the world of the Power Platform, discussing its dynamic side and its integration with Microsoft 365.  Explore the latest developments, including Copilot and VivaSales, and highlight how these tools are bridging different applications and helping organizations craft adoption and modification plans. Emphasizes the importance of collaboration tools to facilitate remote work and foster better interactions within organizations, moving away from the limitations and inefficiencies of email. Highlight the advantages of inline threads and the ability to see others' comments, allowing employees to form relationships and collaborate more effectively, especially in large organizations with distributed teams. The conversation delves into the various components of Microsoft Viva, focusing on its employee insights features.   OTHER RESOURCES: Microsoft MVP YouTube Series - How to Become a Microsoft MVP  90-Day Mentoring Challenge - https://ako.nz365guy.com/ Support the showIf you want to get in touch with me, you can message me here on Linkedin.Thanks for listening 🚀 - Mark Smith

FULL SHOW NOTES https://podcast.nz365guy.com/464 Simon Owen shares his journey from accidentally starting his Power Platform journey to becoming a group manager of the Global Power team.  Simon’s experience in leading adoption, establishing governance, and growing a user community across multiple countries and levels within an organization. The conversation revolves around the evolution of the Center of Enablement and the importance of scaling the Power Platform within organizations.  The significance of not only implementing governance and guardrails but also empowering individuals to leverage the technology to its fullest potential. The positive impact of digital literacy within an organization and how a digitally literate workforce benefits careers improves productivity, and paves the way for innovative business solutions. Insights into the changing perspectives on scaling the Power Platform and enabling individuals within organizations. They explore scenarios where organizations either limit citizen developers' involvement due to security concerns or embrace a team-based approach with a software factory mindset to build numerous solutions.  The conversation offers valuable insights into the decision-making process and its impact on governance and enablement. Discusses the timeline for establishing a stable and effective system within the Power Platform. Explore the varying durations required based on the number of apps and flows involved, shedding light on the potential months or even years it may take to achieve a fully stabilized system. Simon highlights the licensing complexities faced by large organizations when considering the widespread adoption of the Power Platform and the importance of demonstrating value and gradually expanding usage to gain organizational buy-in. Simon discusses the benefits of starting with low-risk, low-cost experimental projects and gradually expanding the capabilities and expertise of citizen developers to solve increasingly complex problems. Microsoft 365 Copilot Adoption is a Microsoft Press book for leaders and consultants. It shows how to identify high-value use cases, set guardrails, enable champions, and measure impact, so Copilot sticks. Practical frameworks, checklists, and metrics you can use this month. Get the book: https://bit.ly/CopilotAdoptionSupport the showIf you want to get in touch with me, you can message me here on Linkedin.Thanks for listening 🚀 - Mark Smith

FULL SHOW NOTES https://podcast.nz365guy.com/463 Lindsay Shelton talks about her love for taking care of her cat and how she spends her time with family and friends. Transitioning from Teaching to Tech - Lindsay shares her journey from being a middle school English teacher to transitioning into the tech industry. Being Open to Opportunity – Lindsay emphasizes the importance of being open to opportunities, even if they are unexpected or not necessarily in your field. Learning from Experience – Lindsay shares how teaching and using Google Apps for Education led to her interest in technology and eventually pursuing a career in the industry. Non-traditional Backgrounds – Lindsay's story highlights how having a non-traditional background can be an asset in the tech industry, and how companies can benefit from taking chances on people with different experiences. Lindsay shares how a chance encounter at a party led to meeting someone who helped her transition into the tech industry, highlighting the role of networking and being open to new connections. Lindsay talks about governance in Power Automate. She discusses the considerations that are similar to governance around Power Apps and other Power tools.  Lindsay talks about connectors and shares her experience of going through Microsoft's recommended list of connectors and separating out the business connectors for their personal productivity environment.  Talks about implementing governance in Power Automate and how Lindsay set up a system where users can get access to connectors and how she turned on connectors in the makerspace specifically if they were blocked by DLP policies. Discussions about personal productivity environment in Power Automate. Lindsay shares her experience of changing the default environment into a personal productivity environment and the challenges she faced in keeping everything in that environment. Talks about the importance of understanding the different types of Power Automate flows.  OTHER RESOURCES: Microsoft MVP YouTube Series - How to Become a Microsoft MVP  90-Day Mentoring Challenge - https://ako.nz365guy.com/ Support the showIf you want to get in touch with me, you can message me here on Linkedin.Thanks for listening 🚀 - Mark Smith

FULL SHOW NOTES https://podcast.nz365guy.com/462Jon Gilman shares his experience working at Microsoft for over 18 months since the acquisition and how they have incorporated their products into the Power Platform. Talks about Jon’s focus on creating exciting content for enterprises to quickly adopt and implement the Power Platform, as opposed to the traditional DIY approach. Jon shares his background as an industrial engineering major and his journey from General Motors to Accenture, where he worked on implementing SAP and building custom software. Explains the challenges faced by organizations when implementing ERP systems, where operational efficiency increases on the back end but creates complexities and inefficiencies for front-end users. Jon reflects on his journey from founding Clear Software to joining Microsoft. He discusses his dissatisfaction with ERP systems and the need to improve the user experience for front-end users. Shares Jon's journey of building productivity tools and transitioning to web applications using technologies like Silverlight, Adobe Flex, and HTML5. Jon talks about the acquisition of Clear Software by Microsoft and the process of integrating its capabilities into the Power Platform. He highlights the technical integration and the migration of pre-built app templates as power apps. The Concept of Clean Core in SAP Systems Migration - The concept is driven by SAP itself and involves extracting different workloads through APIs and the relevance of the Microsoft perspective and the SAP Power Platform Azure story. Emphasizes the importance of avoiding writing business logic in custom code within ERP systems and the challenges faced by organizations with extensive custom ABAP code in the SAP world. Jon explains how the Power Platform, including connectors and pre-built templates, streamlines and automates business processes, reducing the time and effort required for tasks such as vendor setup and purchase order entry. The discussion revolves around allowing organization members to update applications in different systems and the need for a balance between security and flexibility is emphasized. Microsoft 365 Copilot Adoption is a Microsoft Press book for leaders and consultants. It shows how to identify high-value use cases, set guardrails, enable champions, and measure impact, so Copilot sticks. Practical frameworks, checklists, and metrics you can use this month. Get the book: https://bit.ly/CopilotAdoptionSupport the showIf you want to get in touch with me, you can message me here on Linkedin.Thanks for listening 🚀 - Mark Smith

FULL SHOW NOTES https://podcast.nz365guy.com/461Billur Şamdancıoğlu talks about life in Istanbul, how Turkish people love eating, and how Turkish people love eating and mentions that they have a rich food culture.  We delve into Billur's journey as a Dynamics 365 F&O App Solution Architect and the latest developments in the industry. Billur experience as a Microsoft MVP award winner. Billur is a passionate advocate for the Power Platform and Dynamics, and she shares some great insights! How Billur discovers her passion for technology, and now uses her knowledge to help businesses and organizations in her area with Microsoft Dynamics. Billur discusses how becoming an MVP is not about achieving a badge to make oneself seem worthy, but rather a voluntary role for those who enjoy helping people and want to help their community. The discussion revolves around the Turkish community and the number of individuals who are utilizing Dynamics and the Power Platform within various enterprises. Dynamics is used widely in Turkey, with many big companies utilizing it. Billur has worked on more than 30 projects in Turkey, including outside of Istanbul. Discusses how Dynamics and the Power Platform can be used for a range of purposes, from managing projects to facilitating customer service. Emphasizes the importance of keeping up with updates and advancements in the field, as well as the value of networking with others in the community.  OTHER RESOURCES: Microsoft MVP YouTube Series - How to Become a Microsoft MVP  90-Day Mentoring Challenge - https://ako.nz365guy.com/ Support the showIf you want to get in touch with me, you can message me here on Linkedin.Thanks for listening 🚀 - Mark Smith

FULL SHOW NOTES:  https://podcast.nz365guy.com/460 Discussion about the separation of Dynamics 365 and the creation of Dataverse, enabling app and automation development at scale. Keith shares his perspective on the initial challenges and how the platform has evolved since then. Keith’s own experience and journey on the Power Platform and gain insights into his current role in app development. Keith shares his experience working with CDS version one and the transition to the current Dataverse. The role of the COE in enabling these app makers and promoting excellence within the Power Platform.Keith highlights the significant overlap between Power Apps and Excel. He also points out about Excel's capabilities are available in Power Apps, with no support for macros. Keith discusses the challenges of configuring and deploying automated architectural pipelines for Power Apps, emphasizing the need for extensive meetings and discussions rather than the actual technical configuration. Keith compares his experience with VBA in Excel, where he could perform tasks like screen scraping, handling cookies, and implementing RPA-like automation. Discover how Excel, Access Databases, and Fox Pro systems emerged as makeshift solutions within organizations to meet specific needs when IT products were unavailable. Keith emphasized Power Apps' power to streamline processes, automate tasks, and unlock opportunities, but it requires careful configuration and deployment planning. Keith explains the benefits of building an ecosystem on top of a data platform like DataVerse. The importance of education and comparison when evaluating technology options. Talks about the challenge of adapting to changing roles and skill sets within IT organizations. Microsoft 365 Copilot Adoption is a Microsoft Press book for leaders and consultants. It shows how to identify high-value use cases, set guardrails, enable champions, and measure impact, so Copilot sticks. Practical frameworks, checklists, and metrics you can use this month. Get the book: https://bit.ly/CopilotAdoptionSupport the showIf you want to get in touch with me, you can message me here on Linkedin.Thanks for listening 🚀 - Mark Smith

FULL SHOW NOTES https://podcast.nz365guy.com/459Priyesh Wagh shares his background and how he started his career in Cloud Technology. He also talks about his hobbies and how he got involved in contributing to the community. Priyesh talks about the importance of continuous learning and how to grow in the field of Cloud Technology. He also shares his tips on how to get involved in the community and contribute. Priyesh talks about the benefits of contributing to the community and how it can help you grow in your career. Priyesh shares the company's focus on Dynamics 365 on Microsoft Cloud and how it has evolved over the years and his experience working at CloudFronts and the opportunities it has given him. Emphasizes the importance of in-person interaction for building relationships and how it changes the dynamic of the relationship when meeting people in person. The value of in-person networking and the limitations of virtual sessions, which provides fewer opportunities to exchange ideas and connect with others. Discusses the impact of the last three years on community events in the tech industry, specifically the disappearance of in-person events due to the pandemic. Talks about the benefits and challenges of working with the platform. He also discusses the latest trends and updates in the Dynamics 365 and Power Platform space. Priyesh talks about his journey into becoming a Microsoft MVP and shares his plans for attending the MVP summit. OTHER RESOURCES: Microsoft MVP YouTube Series - How to Become a Microsoft MVP  90-Day Mentoring Challenge - https://ako.nz365guy.com/ GitHub: https://github.com/priyeshwagh777 Support the showIf you want to get in touch with me, you can message me here on Linkedin.Thanks for listening 🚀 - Mark Smith