The Intelligence Age

FULL SHOW NOTES
https://podcast.nz365guy.com/166

• Getting to know Michael Vakoc – from the Czech Republic, who now lives in the US and how he met his wife  
• Michael’s favourite thing about Prague and what brought him from Prague to the United States  
• Michael’s transition from Microsoft teams to Power Virtual Agents  
• A discussion on how he got started working with Microsoft  
• Michael’s role and his involvement with Power Virtual Agents  
• An Introduction to what a Power Virtual Agent (PVA) 
• The expectations and what the interest is from a customer’s perspective like in the market 
• How Power Virtual Agent is built, features, and the benefits people can get from using it 
• The relationship between Power Virtual Agent and Power Automate 
• The story of CDS – do we need it for Power Virtual Agent? 
• What's the support model for finished apps from Dynamics 365? 
• The type of personas they see working with Power Virtual Agents 
• The type of industries that can adapt and use this technology 
• How much does AI Play in the Power Virtual Agents Product? 
• How do microservices (275 prebuilt connectors) work with Power Virtual Agents?  
• Talks about the product pricing for Single App and Unlimited App 
• Minimum requirements for licensing 
• The ability of the Power Virtual Agent to hand-off to a real agent 
• Does Microsoft have their own live agent? How can people access it and use it?  
• Ways to capture issues when a bot does not have an answer 

If 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/165

• Personal and career background of Nicholas Hayduk and what makes him busy every day 
• The biggest surprise of becoming a Microsoft MVP 
• Benefits of being part of the MVP Community 
• Talks about his focus, his responsibilities and his area of specialty  
• A discussion about Portal licensing and PowerApps Portals 
• Discussions about the award he got from Orlando Community Summit 
• Talks about Nicholas' speaking events he will be doing in the future – Summit in Barcelona and MVP Summit 
• Talks about the changes happening in MVP Program when it comes to “Nomination” 
• The big things he is planning within his company and what product are they working on right now 
• What his company focused on? Portals or Consulting? 
• Talks about the typical industries he is working in 
• His recommendation to people who are wanting to become a Microsoft MVP base on his observation 
• Any activities in the MVP community that concerns him the most

If 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/164

• Peter Linke talks about the place he lives in and how he spends his time when he’s not working. 
• Talks about the Orlando Microsoft Ignite event – how great the event was 
• A discussion about the history of Peter’s company 
• Peter’s journey to becoming an ISV 
• Discussions about the product lineup they have now 
• Peter’s career as an ISV and how did he start from being an ISV to becoming a CEO 
• Explained what a team service is and what they are building in team service that they were able to sell – time tracking solution 
• What is proMX AG, how did it start and the evolution to where they are today 
• How has proMX AG adopts changes, and how they ensure that their business is aligned 
• Talks about how they plan out their marketing strategy to rise above the competition  
• How they get partners to promote their product? 
• What are the four solutions they have built?  
• Introduction to PSA 
• How Peter handles selling their products internationally, for instance, doing transactions from a currency perspective 
• The process of how they train their partners in remote locations 
• How they handle the 24/7 support in different Time Zones 
• The key lessons he has learnt in this Industry  
• Three points he wants to recommend to people starting an ISV business 
• Talks about selling software as an ISV and do they have trained salespeople  
• The timeframe and how quickly do they move to this sale cycle 
• Talks about co-sell, how Peter see success with co-sell content 
• The challenges ISV’s have and the ability to protect their intellectual property – anything special around preventing the unauthorized use of their IP 
• Peter’s advice to new ISV’s about working with Microsoft and what should they do to foster a great relationship with Microsoft

If 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/163

• Olena Grischenko was born in Ukraine, lived in Russia and moved to Sidney, Australia ten years ago 
• Became a Microsoft MVP in September 2019 
• How did Olena get into the MVP Program? 
• Who nominated Olena to become a Microsoft MVP? 
• What was Olena working on before she was nominated to become an MVP? 
• Talks about the benefits and positive things that are coming up on the changes in the community 
• Olena’s skills when it comes to Business Applications 
• What gaps Olena sees in PowerApps Portals that needs to be addressed  
• Shares Olena ideas about PCF 
• Who supported Olena the most and what lead her to become independent? 
• Talks about the company called PowerLabs 
• What made Olena take her career using Microsoft Technologies? 
• A discussion on what made Olena focus and grow to use Microsoft?  
• Olena’s advice to those who want to engage and share more of their ideas in the community 
• How should they get involved? 

If 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/162

• Family and Career background of Hayden – where he and his family lives and what’s his home city famous for  
• The things he enjoys doing with his family during his spare time 
• Hayden’s role and his responsibilities in Microsoft and its importance 
• Hayden and his team’s mission and goal 
• The opportunity for business to modernise, digitise and create a competitive advantage 
• A discussion on what he sees around customer profile 
• The things he does to make the new Power Platform licencing technology available to all 
• Microsoft plans to achieve the 500 million apps that are going to get created in the next five years – according to Satya Nadella (Inspire) 
• What thinking does the community need to change to achieve this? 
• Opportunities available for people who are changing or switching careers  
• Talks about how customers should be looking at the Power Platform from the Office 365 
• Hayden’s thoughts on companies adopting the Power Platform and resources internal teams at present 
• Shares examples in various industries where AI capability is being implemented 
• For the FY20 what Business App partners should be focused on this financial 
• What option Hayden sees for SMB Partner to play as they move forward 
• Shares his opinion on what a modern Microsoft Business Application Partner looks like 
• What should Microsoft Business Application Partner be doing to be successful? 
• What should partners do to improve their chances of success? 
• The role for the professional developer along with the IT professional in a world of low code applications for the citizen developer

RESOURCES

Tools and weapons by Brad Smith

If 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/161

• Beth Burrell talks about what is it like living in Tampa, Florida – known to be the lightning capital of the world  
• Her journey to becoming an MVP and her award category  
• Discusses the most significant changes that happened since she became an MVP   
• How she handles the constant amount of noise, how she is working out on what to focus on and what not to  
• Beth’s path to becoming an MVP  
• The importance of venue, speakers and social media in an event
• Beth’s advice to other people putting on a D365 Saturday event or Power Platform Saturday event   
• What people need to do for an event to work well  
• Her thoughts of being in the MVP community   
• Being in the program, how does she manage to balance work and life.

If 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/160

• Simon’s brief introduction about his life and what he does when he’s not working 
• Talks about his educational and professional background 
• How Simon started with the Power Platform 
• Talks about his journey to GSK 
• Discussion about what is GSK, who is GSK and his role on GSK 
• Simon’s definition of Digital transformation 
• Talks about the Power Automate and the Flows they built 
• The key Flow they now depend on that builds on what they can consistently use in their organization 
• Areas where they use Flow at present 
• Talks about the next challenge they might deliver next year 
• The important functions in Power Automate and building Flow for productivity 
• The hero PowerApps they have right now that is the best example of their application 
• The recommendation he can give to people on how they can get started in creating a COE inside an organization  
• How they make sure that the Apps they are building are supportable by the organization long term 
• Discusses how they manage the Governance, Digital guide rails and the Support infrastructure 
• How did the Power Ranger Community in GSK come about? 
• A discussion about the story behind the Power Ranger Community in GSK 
• The impact of having individuals who are great in developing various products and how it changed the view of capabilities of those who are non-technologies and coming to power Platform 
• The social tool they use so they can share information within the team which allows conversations to flow where people can learn 

If 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/159

• A brief introduction about Kylie’s life – she grew up in Canada, presently residing in Washington, DC.  
• The story of Pink Monkey  
• How she started with Microsoft Business Applications and her area of responsibilities   
• Kylie’s journey towards becoming a Microsoft MVP 
• Kylie’s industry role and to the various companies she works for   
• The different industries she works with  
• Discussions about the CRM User Group  
• Advice for people who are wanting to start a new user group community   
• How to effectively promote a user group chapter as a whole and the individual event as well  
• Kylie's speaking experiences in different conferences on topics like Change Management and User Adoption  
• Discussions about the process of how she comes up with an idea and the techniques she uses to prepare for speaking at a conference or event   

If 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/158

• Judd Salisbury’s background – where he lives and where he has travelled  
• His interests and how he spends his spare time   
• Judd’s journey working with Microsoft – how he started and what led him to work with Microsoft  
• Current role, responsibilities and projects 
• How Judd got involved with Product Insights
• What is Product Insights?
• The available features Product Insights offers  
• A brief introduction to Digital Feedback Loop  
• Background and use cases for Product Insights  
• What data will feed the algorithms of Product Insights  
• The long term vision for Product Insights  
• Discover the new features coming up for this product
• Resources and training materials available to get started with Product Insights 
• How people can start using Product Insights   
• Data types accepted in defining a signal   
• The right customers for this product  
• What industries will adopt this technology  
• Shares his views on Data-Driven Action  
• What customers need to do to create data sets   
• A short discussion on web analytics 

Resources

Product Insights
Community Dynamics for Product Insights 

If 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/157

• A brief introduction about Paul’s life – originally from the UK, worked in the middle east where he met his wife and moving to New Zealand with his wife and two young children. 
• What’s so special about his place. 
• What he does when he’s not working and how he spends time with his family 
• Paul’s journey to becoming a Microsoft MVP 
• Who nominated him to become a Microsoft MVP? 
• The area he specialises in: Business Applications – Canvas PowerApps 
• How has the MVP program affected his career 
• How he got involved with PowerApps 
• Discussion about his YouTube channel 
• His contribution to PowerApps Community Forum 
• Paul's thoughts and advice to people wanting to become a Microsoft MVP – it is all about the community and sharing your Platform experience 
• Discusses what he creates to learn more about Power Platform 
• His advice to people who are thinking of sharing their learning via YouTube  

If you want to get in touch with me, you can message me here on Linkedin.

Thanks for listening 🚀 - Mark Smith