The Intelligence Age

FULL SHOW NOTES
https://podcast.nz365guy.com/96

• Personal background – living in Uruguay, being bilingual (Spanish and English), the popular food in Uruguay, family 
• Becoming a Microsoft MVP – being a 10-year MVP, how different the Microsoft MVP program was since he first got nominated 
• About Communidad 365 – starting the Spanish speaking community 
• Becoming officially part of the Dynamics User Group community 
• Membership in the Spanish speaking Dynamics and Power Platform community 
• Area of specialisation as a Microsoft MVP and professional projects 
• How being a Microsoft MVP has impacted Pablo in the last 10 years 
• Passion for product, deciding factor for pursuing a career in Dynamics CRM / Dynamics 365 
• Various project involvement over the years – customer service platform, XRM, sales, current case systems

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/95

• Personal background – living in Issaquah, hobbies, family 
• Career highlights being part of the Microsoft Business Applications team 
• Thoughts on the idea of Microsoft’s shift in focus from apps to the platform 
• The “measuring stick” that Microsoft uses to define a top ISV 
• Patterns that successful ISVs do effectively to become a top ISV 
• Creating a business model around being an ISV 
• Various tools that Microsoft have available to enable ISVs in their journey to the Power Platform 
• Unpacking the different categories of ISVs: Build ISV, Extend ISV, Connect ISV 
• Examples of companies that are under the three categories of ISVs 
• Splits between the different types of ISVs 
• Difference between vertical and horizontal solutions 
• Understanding the Power Platform and app separation, pivoting towards starting with CDS and building dedicated applications at their layer 
• Thoughts on possible changes in how recognition works in the future for an example use case 
• Size of the potential market opportunity for ISVs in the business application market 
• Opportunity for SIs to spin up new business units that specifically focus on creating IP 
• Dev Centres – what they are, their purpose, and who can access them 

RESOURCES

• Dynamics 365
• Become a Microsoft Partner
• Azure Consumed Revenue (ACR) 
• Dynamics 365 blogs 

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/94

• Personal background  
• Recommendations for visiting Jordan – destinations, food (mansaf, falafel) 
• Moving from Jordan to live in Norway as a career move – interviews abroad, deciding to stay within Europe 
• Journey to becoming a Microsoft MVP – what's unique in Ahmad’s journey as a Microsoft MVP, getting married and bringing family 2 years after moving to Norway 
• PowerApps and Flow community, co-organising SharePoint Saturday 
• Being a SharePoint and Microsoft Flow developer, working on automation, Office 365 
• Working on automation in Flow 
• Being a Manchester United fan 
• Thoughts on where possibilities in PowerApps and Flow are headed in the future 
• Thoughts on machine learning, cognitive services, and AI 
• Future plans in career – pivoting to the Power Platform, Flow, Power BI, and PowerApps 
• The best thing about becoming a Microsoft MVP 
• The best thing about the Microsoft MVP Summit 

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/93

• Personal and professional background – living in Perth, hobbies, working as Solution Director at DXC-Eclipse 
• How to assess whether an opportunity is worth pursuing 
• Weeding out the concept of “column fodder” 
• Importance of getting to the face-to-face phase of the bid process
• Essential elements of a bid proposal to get you into the next phase of the bid process 
• Handling lighthouse customers when you don’t have the industry experience 
• Tender response (RFPS, RFQs) – structured response vs unstructured response 
• Running a bid process – Is writing a bid proposal a project in its own right? 
• Going into a demo – what to include in a killer demo when presenting to a customer 
• Essential elements of a successful client presentation 
• The thought behind and the value of having a pricing sheet  
• Importance of standardising your presales process 
• How to educate your customer and combat underpricing your project 
• What is the concept of a “cone of uncertainty”? 
• Winning industry awards – key things when going after an award 
• How to go about winning an industry award 

Resources

• Winning Partner of the Year Award (2016) – https://www.nz365guy.com/microsoft-public-sector-public-safety-national-security-partner-of-the-year/
• RFP (Request for Proposal) – https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/request-for-proposal.asp 
• RFQ (Request for Quotation) – https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/request-for-quote.asp 

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/88

• Personal background – working in Switzerland, becoming a Microsoft MVP 
• Main Microsoft MVPs that introduced the Microsoft MVP program 
• Journey working on Microsoft Flow and experience with PowerApps 
• Moving from Paris to Switzerland for quality of life and job opportunity 
• The biggest difference from Parisian lifestyle as compared to Swiss lifestyle 
• Missing Parisian food when travelling, esp. Baguette, the best time to buy a baguette 
• Interests and hobbies outside of work in Geneva 
• Shuffling between Paris And Switzerland 
• Thoughts on Nintex workflow vs Microsoft Flow 
• Thoughts on Microsoft Flow heading into the BPM space as Microsoft continues to develop it 
• Typical use cases he applies Microsoft Flow to 
• How becoming a Microsoft MVP has affected his career 
• PowerApps use cases  
• Features he would ask Microsoft to add to PowerApps or Microsoft Flow 
• Matthieu’s YouTube channel 
• Networking with or following Flow and PowerApps MVPs 

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/91

• Background – living in Seattle, moving to the Pacific North West from Philadelphia, working in Microsoft engineering team, interests outside of work 
• Thoughts on home automation, i.e. Alexa vs Google Home, and a rundown of house automation devices 
• How Smith started working for Microsoft — internship in Redmond campus and working with the product, getting a job offer, working in different capacities, different teams and services 
• How long the Microsoft Industry Accelerator has been running 
• What’s an accelerator – Microsoft's viewpoint on what problems are being solved with Industry Accelerators, and what they are from a component level 
• Creating additional schema on top of the core Common Data Model, having a managed solutions that are going to be put in Github that one can consume on the CDS for App environment 
• Having multiple data models and how they are handled 
• Breakdown of what is included in the Microsoft Industry Accelerator JSON file 
• What is a schema – a way to represent a set of entities or tables and define the relationships between them 
• Difference between UML (Unified Modelling Language) and ERD (entity relationship diagram 
• How Smith decides what to leave out in the Common Data Model, and the senior leadership team’s involvement 
• Why Microsoft sees the need to create Industry Accelerators 
• The rationale behind creating data models to enable consistency across the industry 
• Biggest changes between version 1 and version 2 
• Various components on the visual layer, pre-packaging around flows, unique experiences (Canvas apps vs model-driven), PCF controls unique to the accelerators 
• Who owns the IP — Microsoft, partner or ISV?
• How Microsoft supports what’s built from an Accelerator  
• Best practice or success stories of partners that have jumped on the Accelerators that Microsoft have a documented case studies on
• First party app dependencies for the Industry Accelerators outside of the Common Data Model
• Plans for Business Applications with regard to the Accelerator Programme

RESOURCES

• Accelerator Overview 
• Extending an Accelerator Overview 
• Health Accelerator Overview 
• Nonprofit Accelerator Overview
• Higher Ed Accelerator Build with ISVs 
• Sign up to participate in the Accelerator Program 
• CDM Industry Link

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/90

• Personal background – moving back to Galicia, Spain, from London, practicing the queimada, seafood in Galicia 
• Changing jobs 
• Becoming a Microsoft MVP, then a Microsoft employee, and then again an MVP, continuing to participate in the Dynamics community 
• Roles handled when he was still working for Microsoft 
• Overview of some highlights around how the core technology has changed since he’s been involved with it 
• Changes around Dynamics 365 and Power Platform internal to Microsoft or observation about the matter being in the community 
• How Microsoft compares to competitors like Salesforce and SAP 
• Views around Microsoft leadership and how the company has transformed over the years 
• Advice to people who are new to the Dynamics platform and want to build a career in the Dynamics space 

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/89

• Personal background – living in Brussels, family, hobbies, etc. 
• Background of  SAGlobal – role, being chairman,  
• Decision-making process at getting in and building a Dynamics based business 
• Thoughts about Microsoft not pushing Dynamics GP to the market 
• Thoughts on Dynamics 365 Business Central as a product vs Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations
• Thoughts on recent big company acquisitions and the possible cycle of boutique startups coming to market 
• Importance and the value of awards (Dynamics 365 Global ERP Partner of the Year for 2017, and Global Talent Partner of the Year for 2018 ) and is seen as world leaders in the Dynamics market space  
• Key ingredients to growing a successful Dynamics practice 
• Potential revenue streams for an SI 
• Business opportunities around AI to market 
• Activities within the ISV space, being one of 12 global ISVs 
• Thoughts on the Microsoft 20% tax to ISVs 

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/88

• Personal background – places she’s lived 
• Growing up in Pittsburgh and top things to do in the City 
• The turning point for when Sandy decided to live a nomadic lifestyle, living off of a carry-on and a laptop bag 
• How PowerApps and Flow changed what’s traditionally being done from a strictly SharePoint and using workflow tools that used to be available in SharePoint 
• Working on PowerApps and Flow, and being nominated as Microsoft MVP for business apps
• How the change to Power Platform affects what Sandy does 
• Tips for people renting an Airbnb 
• Best Airbnb experience – hosting experience, location, etc. 
• Differences between the Power Platform, CDS, SharePoint 
• How Power Platform has landed in the community environment, from the Summit perspective over things like User Group, finance and operations, etc. 

Books & Other Resources Mentioned  

• Lightning Tools

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/87

• Personal background – living in Seattle, family 
• Professional background – studying at MIT, teaching, and working on Bing Predicts at Microsoft  
• Transitioning to Microsoft Business Applications team from Bing Predicts 
• Career highlights and achievements – Bing Predicts, training elementary students for Math competitions 
• Dynamics 365 AI for Market Insights – what it is and Walter’s involvement with the technology 
• Use cases around Dynamics 365 AI for Market Insights 
• Understanding how people say, seek and feel about market products 
• AI advancements in how nuances of language are picked up 
• How to ask an effective question to Market Insights 
• Focusing on the use case around understanding the market (marketing/brands) 
• Examples of industries that Dynamics 365 AI for Market Insights is landing effectively in 
• Looking at data sources (IE and Edge) in aggregate and anonymizing them
• What part machine learning plays in what the product team is doing in Dynamics 365 Ai for Market Insights 
• Difference between machine learning and deep learning 
• What’s exciting about where machine learning and deep learning are going 
• Dynamics 365 AI for Market Insights integration with Common Data Services for Apps 

Resources Mentioned

• Walter Sun’s Complete Bio
• Dynamics 365 AI for Market Insights 
• Bing Predicts
• Leveraging Search Algorithms for Bing Predicts 
• How does Bing predict the future?

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

Thanks for listening 🚀 - Mark Smith