0:00

Welcome everyone to another episode of Dynamics

0:02

Corner , the podcast where we dive

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deep into all things Microsoft

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Dynamics . Whether you're a seasoned expert

0:09

or just starting your journey into

0:11

the world of Dynamics 365 , this

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is your place to get insights , learn new

0:16

tricks and hear from industry experts . I'm

0:18

your co-host , chris .

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And this is Brad . This episode was recorded

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on May 1st 2024

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. Chris , Chris , Chris , it's

0:28

already May .

0:30

Oh , don't remind me .

0:32

It seems like that the

0:34

year just started yesterday . Yeah

0:37

, thankfully for you . Hopefully the season's

0:39

changing and you'll have some nicer weather

0:41

. We had another amazing

0:43

episode . We were able to talk a lot about

0:45

the community , how to inspire

0:48

younger talent to join the community , and

0:50

also some good conversation

0:52

about the differences

0:54

between conferences in the United States and

0:57

in Europe . With us today , we had the opportunity

0:59

to speak with Tina Starch starch I

1:15

think this is early . It's early dude

1:19

, it's early in the morning kind of honey , because you're

1:21

like pitch black and I'm frigging . Yeah

1:23

, it's early in the morning .

1:24

Hello .

1:26

Daylight

1:28

. Hello , good morning , good afternoon , good

1:30

evening . We have the whole spectrum here

1:32

. How are you doing ?

1:33

Good Afternoon here . So

1:39

, I like it .

1:39

That's good , that's good .

1:46

It's early morning here , but not as early as it

1:48

is for chris , but that's okay . Hey , can I ? Can I

1:50

say something because I just saw ? I just saw . Congrats , my

1:52

friend , thank you for getting mvp you got an

1:54

mvp .

1:55

Congratulations . I have not gone

1:57

on . That's first . I

1:59

have not gone on to

2:03

any social media yet today

2:05

, nor did I get on yesterday afternoon . This week has

2:07

been a tough week for me , but congratulations

2:09

.

2:09

I'm just going to go with chris's words yeah , it was like

2:12

the first thing I saw , like I just

2:14

like maybe two minutes right before this

2:16

started yeah , I've been an mvp for five

2:18

hours that's

2:23

it awesome I hope to be one

2:25

of the first to congratulate you , chris .

2:27

Thank you for sharing that . I wish I had known

2:30

that . The

2:33

big praise to you . So

2:36

I'm sure you must be excited now with

2:39

that news that you received this morning . It

2:41

is the first of the month , so we should see

2:43

quite a few new additions to

2:45

the mvp

2:47

crew . How are you doing ? You

2:49

recovered from your ?

2:50

jet lag . Oh yeah , it was . Uh , it

2:52

went up to like thursday , friday

2:54

and then after the weekend I was , I was fine again

2:56

. So now I'm back to to the usual

2:58

sleep schedule oh

3:02

, that's good .

3:02

That's good . I'm still impressed and

3:05

in awe . I don't know , maybe I just

3:07

don't have it anymore . Back many years ago I might

3:09

have been able to do it , which is a

3:12

. It's powerful . What we're going to talk about , uh

3:15

, so you went from europe for

3:17

a conference directly

3:19

over two directions north

3:22

america and san diego back to back

3:24

and back , and that's quite

3:26

a run for you . And

3:29

, like I said when I said to you when

3:31

I spoke with you in San Diego , I don't know

3:33

how you did it , but

3:35

you did , and you pulled off some great

3:38

presentation on code

3:40

review . I'm still referencing it when I have

3:42

conversations with everybody . I have to talk with you about

3:44

that afterwards as well

3:46

. But before we jump into the discussion , would

3:49

you mind telling everyone a little bit about yourself

3:51

? Sure , who you are , what you

3:53

do ?

3:53

So my name is Tina Stajic

3:55

and I'm originally

3:57

from Slovenia . So for

4:00

the past almost three years now , I've

4:02

been living in Lithuania

4:04

to kind of see

4:06

how other countries , how other

4:08

people approach the same problems that

4:11

we were doing solving it . Back in Slovenia

4:14

, I'm more or less a

4:16

developer in the BC world . Now

4:18

I have the title of an architect

4:20

, but I don't know . I still see the

4:22

work as the same . Yeah

4:26

, that's pretty much the professional side

4:28

. Aside from that , what I really like

4:31

doing is conferences , speaking

4:34

, and I'm slowly getting into writing

4:37

things . I think I've

4:39

adopted this knowledge sharing part

4:41

of my life quite well

4:43

at this point .

4:47

That's good and you do a great job at

4:49

presentations . As I had mentioned , I had

4:51

sat through some of your presentations

4:53

and the knowledge sharing

4:55

it's important

4:59

and

5:08

I've been doing a lot of reading on you know the mind and how you think and how you work and the

5:10

chemicals that are released in your brain or the hormones I guess you could say not chemicals , but

5:13

the sharing to a community

5:15

is actually important to

5:18

a person and how you feel with

5:20

a sense of belonging and you make you feel good in the

5:22

circle of safety and a number of things . So I

5:25

do notice , in this remote

5:27

digital world I guess everybody calls it where a lot of people

5:29

are working remotely , that there's . We

5:32

have all been finding ways to share

5:34

and connect and get together , even

5:36

though we're not in person , to get those

5:38

hormones , um , that

5:41

make you feel good . So

5:45

it's another thing . So you also

5:47

had moved . It's so many people

5:50

, chris , move to

5:52

different countries , like I mean I

5:54

guess I keep saying it's from here in the United States

5:56

. A lot of individuals move from state to state . So

5:58

I guess it's similar but it's different

6:00

. I mean because it's a state to a state . You're

6:03

still in the United States . Each state has different rules

6:05

, but generally speaking it's

6:07

still the same type of culture

6:10

. There's some differences between regions , but

6:13

to get up and move from one country to

6:15

another where you know

6:17

there's different rules , you know

6:19

legally that you have to learn to adopt

6:21

to . From the government point of view . From the government

6:24

point of view , from the cultural point

6:26

of view , from the language point of view , there's a lot

6:28

to it and I admire everyone

6:30

who does that . I

6:33

have never been

6:35

brave enough

6:38

to do that .

6:39

So yeah , it's well .

6:39

So I wanted to say that I don't know .

6:41

A lot of a lot of people have said that

6:43

to me like , wow , you're so brave , you were

6:45

able to move . But I'm

6:48

not sure . I honestly just don't

6:50

think I've thought it through enough . I was like

6:52

, oh , this is a cool idea , let's go with it , and

6:54

over time you just see where

6:56

you land . So it's not as

6:58

like this huge change that you make .

7:07

It's okay , let's's move , let's figure out the rest one thing at

7:09

a time .

7:14

That is . That's good . I think that that's important . Just jump and and head into it , um , and

7:16

, like you said , see where you land and uh . So so your work as a developer

7:18

, primarily , as you had stated , your role , uh

7:20

, working with business central

7:23

. How long have you been ?

7:24

doing it . The very first time

7:26

I touched NAV was in 2015

7:28

. I

7:32

still remember it was the same

7:34

year that I started my university and

7:36

on the first day of university , all of the students

7:38

, they have this huge party . And

7:41

the next morning I came home and

7:43

my father and my brother they

7:46

were already in this business . So my father was a consultant

7:48

, my brother he's a developer and I

7:50

said come here . And I had to fix a

7:52

report , I had to add a line somewhere

7:54

, and that was october

7:56

2nd that I got introduced

7:58

to this world of erp oh

8:03

wow , you know the exact date .

8:07

I would remember it too if you're asked to fix

8:09

a report it's

8:14

nice to see that your family brought you

8:16

into it , because that's one

8:18

of the topics that we wanted

8:21

to talk about with with

8:23

business , and I wanted to

8:25

hear your story of what attracted

8:27

you . And now I understand the story that your family brought

8:29

you in . But what attracted you

8:31

to jump into

8:34

Business , central development or Nav Development

8:36

, I guess back in 2015 ? And

8:40

what attracts you to stay

8:43

with it ? Because you know , as the

8:46

product has been around I know Microsoft

8:48

purchased it in early 2000

8:50

, but the product had been around even longer under

8:53

Novision , and

8:55

there's a lot of , I

8:57

guess , old timers not to be disrespectful

9:00

that are in the community , that

9:02

are moving on because

9:04

of age , they're retiring or they choose

9:07

to do different paths . So there is a need

9:10

to introduce younger

9:12

talent to

9:14

the pool to be able to support such a great product

9:16

. So what is

9:18

it that drew you to it ? What keeps

9:20

you to it ? I have a lot , so many , questions about this

9:23

, because we had some great talks about this

9:25

, and what do you think can be done to

9:27

attract others ?

9:29

so maybe if I start with what

9:32

pulled me in and what kept me here

9:34

, uh , so yeah I I started

9:36

at that october 2nd , right

9:39

the hungover morning , trying

9:41

to fix a report , which nobody likes to do

9:43

. I think my brother

9:45

and my father had I

9:48

won't say they had noble reasons to bring me in

9:50

. Like everybody , they just needed more help

9:52

, more work . So I was the free

9:54

resource in that household and

9:58

then over the years I've

10:00

only worked like occasionally right

10:02

if there were more reports to fix or

10:04

some easy fixes to make . And

10:07

, to be honest , I wasn't really good at

10:09

it , partially because I

10:12

had to learn a lot of those things

10:14

on my own . Because at the time , in

10:16

2015 , I was actually trying to

10:18

study to become a math professor

10:21

, which didn't really end

10:23

the way I wanted it to a math professor , which

10:25

didn't really end the way I wanted it

10:27

to . So after the first

10:29

year when I failed , I switched to economics , because in that one year I was

10:31

already playing around with NAV so much that I figured

10:33

, hey , actually I can teach myself

10:36

how to code . This is fun , but

10:38

I had no clue what it means to post

10:40

an invoice . What does it mean to post ? So

10:43

at that time I then decided I like numbers

10:45

but I want to switch to numbers with more meaning

10:48

. So I started studying

10:50

accounting and kind of take the path

10:52

of let me try to teach myself

10:54

how to code and let the university teach me

10:56

how to post a document . What

10:59

does everything mean in accounting

11:01

sense ? And like

11:04

? The main reason was I always

11:06

liked computers and with

11:08

NAV , the simplicity

11:10

of development is something

11:12

that brought me in

11:15

quite quickly . And then when you work with customers

11:17

, you have this really short

11:19

feedback cycle . But when I adjust the

11:21

report , I can get an email within

11:23

two hours , somebody saying oh thank you , you've done

11:25

such a great job . And I mean , all I did

11:27

was move some fields around , and

11:30

that keeps the happy hormones

11:32

flowing . And you like

11:34

to do this more . So at

11:36

some point , it's your dopamine .

11:38

Is that what it is ? It's the dopamine that

11:40

gives you that short-term high . We'll

11:45

talk about the others too uh , oxytocin , serotonin , and then the dreaded cortisol

11:47

too , if we can jump into that , but we'll keep it away

11:49

from psychology . No , but this is amazing

11:52

um , yeah

11:54

, so that's .

11:55

That's kind of um . It was really

11:57

good because with development you can

11:59

do only , let's say , two hours per week and

12:02

you've done something . I don't have to be

12:04

at a job for eight

12:06

hours each day . They don't need

12:09

me for that amount of time , and

12:11

that was really cool , so I could always work alongside

12:14

my studies . But then at some

12:16

point , because this first company

12:18

was sort of a garage firm , I

12:20

realized that we're not going to move

12:22

to Business Central , and that's when I said

12:24

, okay , let's find a proper partner . And when

12:27

I was there , the biggest , let's

12:30

say , revelation was wow

12:32

, you can have seniors that guide

12:34

you , you can have people to teach

12:36

you how to do things , you can learn what you're

12:38

doing wrong without breaking a production

12:40

, and that was so awesome . I

12:42

was like let's continue doing that . And that

12:45

also then kind of led

12:47

me to relocate

12:49

to Lithuania in kind of search

12:51

of new challenges and this kind

12:53

of . The last part which I would say cemented

12:56

why I want

12:58

to be in Business Central is

13:00

when I started going to conferences

13:02

, when I saw the community , when

13:04

it's like , okay , you have seniors that can help

13:07

you , but now you can also have all

13:09

of the seniors in this whole industry that

13:11

are so willing to teach , to

13:13

help , to suggest things , and

13:16

I think I've never gotten off

13:18

this high of community goodies

13:20

.

13:21

That's amazing because you do have you

13:24

know . You get more courageous

13:26

because you have people that can help and mentor

13:29

you . I mean , I really

13:31

you kind of came at the right time

13:33

because the community has continued

13:35

to grow and everyone's willing to share

13:37

their knowledge . You

13:39

know online and just about everywhere . You

13:42

know I I wish I could say

13:44

the same thing like that early , and

13:46

I've shared that story before , but

13:49

it's great to hear that you know you stuck

13:51

with it and you had the

13:53

senior , senior

13:56

folks near you to help you

13:58

through that . So that's awesome . It

14:00

is pretty weird to go through a different path right

14:02

, like what you thought you're going to do in life

14:04

, and then you like find something that's like

14:06

this is cool , I'll stay here .

14:08

I wonder how many people actually do that

14:11

. I've thought about that before . You had mentioned you started

14:13

off as a math major and

14:15

then , due to some revelation

14:18

or some circumstance , you decided

14:20

to change majors and

14:22

your studies were on accounting , which

14:24

is great for ERP . I mean , to do

14:27

development and understand accounting is

14:30

a huge bonus when working with ERP

14:32

software . But I actually wonder how many individuals

14:36

start off or even finish college

14:38

or university and stay with

14:40

that career , or if they switch careers

14:42

. It's , it's

14:45

interesting to see . I mean , I'm I don't know if any of us

14:47

know , I'm just throwing that out philosophically , it's , it's

14:49

something because I come across and discuss with

14:51

many individuals how many you

14:54

know they they had a change in career . Um

14:57

, and it's chris's point , it's , it is

14:59

. And you had mentioned the community . I , I think

15:01

over the past several years

15:03

it it seems to be

15:06

growing closer , even

15:08

though there's a global group now . Is

15:10

that , you know ? I don't know if that's because of

15:13

the internet , I guess you could say

15:15

in the open communication . Is it because

15:17

the application is evolving so much that

15:19

everybody needs to help each other in order to survive

15:21

with it ? Because everybody's working on implementing

15:23

with customers and , to point , you don't want to break someone's

15:26

production . So I think it's

15:28

a point to me personally . It

15:31

feels like everyone's getting closer

15:33

and there is a lot of mentorship

15:35

for each

15:37

other . And it's not

15:39

only I see it bi-directional as

15:41

well , because some of the senior

15:44

, older folks may

15:47

not know or understand some of the newer technology

15:49

, newer terminology , newer processes

15:52

. So some of the individuals , such as yourself , when

15:54

you go to the conferences yourself , you share

15:56

and present and also train

15:58

information . So

16:11

with that , what do you see , or how do you think that we could get others like yourself into this

16:13

community ? What type of attractions do you think there could

16:15

be ? Because there is a challenge out there . Microsoft

16:18

has the reskilling , the upskilling

16:20

programs to try to attract

16:22

newer talent to the

16:25

space . But from your

16:27

point of view , your

16:33

perspective , from where you

16:35

are .

16:35

What do you see as some of the challenges and some things that could

16:37

help with it ? So there are a couple of angles . One that I have thought

16:39

about a lot is , you

16:41

know , from the university

16:43

perspective , I'm an accounting major

16:45

and honestly , I feel

16:48

like in this business

16:50

central world , it's easier

16:53

to pick up business

16:56

focused people and teach them how to develop

16:58

, rather than picking up I

17:00

don't know C++ developer and trying

17:02

to bring them into AL because well

17:04

, honestly , al is not the

17:07

best language in the world and even

17:09

I had a couple of points

17:11

in my career where I was thinking should

17:13

I stay here or should I go for a mature

17:16

language ? So one of the things

17:18

and that's also something that we

17:20

notice in our organization

17:22

that if

17:26

you bring people from Python into

17:28

AL , sooner or later , if

17:30

they don't have this interest

17:33

for the business side of it , they'll

17:36

move away again to building

17:38

something with Python right , Because

17:41

AL can only go so far . So

17:44

I think that's one of it , that we shouldn't

17:46

hunt for technical people . We should

17:48

hunt for people with interest

17:50

in business and try to upskill

17:53

them to understand what

17:55

we're doing on the technical side as well . Another

18:00

one would be the

18:03

whole community aspect . For

18:06

me , for example , for a long time I didn't

18:08

even realize that there are conferences . I

18:10

didn't realize that there are bloggers , I didn't

18:12

realize that there are webinars . Once

18:15

I did , that opened my eyes so

18:17

much and

18:19

I don't really know how we could do that . But

18:21

I do wish , uh , we could

18:23

bring more

18:26

, more

18:28

younger people to the conferences to see there's

18:30

more to this than just just an application

18:32

. Right , you're not just posting an invoice

18:35

, you're here doing this together

18:37

with with everyone else . Uh

18:39

, and that was we can . We can talk about

18:41

that later , but that was a weird

18:44

experience for me at directions north america

18:47

, where two-thirds were about

18:49

above 50 or something like

18:51

that , and I

18:53

would prefer to to have more people that

18:55

are my age

18:57

oh

19:01

, that is wait .

19:02

I have to say . I always have to

19:05

say I forget the sound sometimes

19:07

and I don't want to abuse it , but that's a .

19:15

You hit on some key points

19:17

.

19:18

You hit on some key points because some

19:20

of those challenges it

19:23

is the exposure , it is the sense

19:25

of belonging to a community . I

19:27

think it goes back to where we are , where everyone

19:30

now is predominantly remote

19:32

and you don't have a lot of those

19:34

interactions . I know someone like

19:36

myself . It's

19:38

not as difficult

19:41

for me , I think , because I

19:44

started my career and

19:46

a majority of my career was in person

19:48

, in office , where I had that in office

19:51

discussion with coworkers

19:53

, where if I had a problem I yelled

19:55

over the . You know we had cubicles in the office

19:57

I was in . I yelled over the cube to somebody and

20:00

asked them for help , or , you know , we threw

20:03

pieces of paper over .

20:04

There's someone showing up at your desk , or

20:08

you just went to get water .

20:10

you know that's what the whole water cooler conversations come

20:12

in , but you could sit and talk to them and I think that's a big

20:14

portion that we're missing . And

20:16

I realize that now , just with

20:18

some interactions with younger

20:21

talent coming into the industry , as

20:23

well as some of the challenges of working remotely . But

20:25

your relation

20:28

of that to having the community

20:30

and doing the conferences , it just hit

20:32

me . It's impactful because it gives

20:34

you the sense of belonging .

20:36

Yeah , you also hit a key point too when

20:39

you had mentioned that the younger talents

20:41

should come from

20:43

more of the business aspect and

20:45

just upskilling them to learn how to do

20:47

some development or

20:51

getting into the functional side of

20:53

things . And

20:55

I think one of the things that I've noticed that what you've been doing is

20:58

you've sort of combined that power

21:00

automate , which is another area of

21:03

the business too . So I

21:05

mean , you kind of have to have somebody that

21:07

can think about things as

21:09

holistically in

21:12

a sense . So but

21:15

yeah , I'm just I was

21:17

curious about your experience of North America

21:19

and so there

21:23

are a mixture of

21:25

background Because , yeah , a lot of people that came from

21:28

another ERP system too , going

21:30

into Business Central and

21:32

they're doing it successfully because , like

21:35

you said , they have that business consulting

21:38

mindset and how things should work

21:40

for a business and they're just translating

21:43

it into the development side of things as

21:45

well I think

21:47

, uh , so there's

21:50

two things that that pop up .

21:52

Um , first of all , if

21:54

, if I come back to to the

21:56

fully remote work , right ? Um

21:59

, that's something that we

22:01

struggle as well . On the one side

22:03

, I will always say that

22:05

we , as employees

22:08

, we need to have remote work . I

22:10

, personally , I go to the office 90%

22:12

of the time because my mindset is I

22:14

didn't relocate to Lithuania to work from home

22:17

. If I wanted that , I would stay back in Slovenia

22:19

. But at the same time , if somebody would say

22:21

, no , you now have to come back to the office

22:23

, I'd be like , okay , let

22:26

me see who won't force me back

22:28

to the office . But at the same time , we

22:31

struggle with the same thing . When

22:33

we do knowledge sharing , when we try

22:35

to have brainstorming sessions

22:37

, it just doesn't work the same

22:39

way because people are not engaged in

22:43

those conversations , in those

22:45

discussions . So we are trying to

22:47

find a carrot

22:50

to get people more

22:52

well coming back to the

22:54

office , at least for those events where

22:56

I think it would be

22:58

beneficial and

23:05

I had , oh yeah , and to the point of having

23:08

, like

23:11

the business background , something

23:15

that I I

23:17

kind of miss in our current organization

23:20

. We're so heavily developer focused

23:22

that we

23:25

don't really have a lot of consultants , and

23:27

then a lot of people are left with

23:29

just trying to figure

23:32

out the business , and I would much

23:34

rather have more

23:36

seniors again , more people who you

23:38

can ask , so all of those dinosaurs

23:42

, as they like to call themselves . I think they have very

23:44

much a role to play

23:47

still it

24:08

.

24:08

it's important because also the applications evolving to where I don't see there to be a need

24:10

for as much development as they used to be because a lot of the functionality is there . And

24:12

then having business focused

24:14

individuals , they think with using

24:17

the application to solve the problem versus

24:20

developing a solution , so then

24:22

the aspect of development becomes

24:24

a little more

24:26

meaningful or valuable

24:29

versus just redoing something or

24:32

doing a function because you may not understand how the application

24:34

works .

24:36

I think in the US you have a

24:38

much more mature

24:40

approach when it comes to that . Again

24:43

from my experience at North

24:45

America , in US you're more willing

24:47

to find a partner

24:49

in ISV who has already done this , while in

24:51

Europe I think we're more prone to . I

24:53

think we can build this again on our

24:56

own .

24:59

I appreciate this and

25:01

I want to make sure we don't forget

25:03

. I want to also talk about the differences

25:05

because , you understand , we had conversation

25:07

between the North America conference

25:10

and the EMEA conference

25:12

or the European type conferences , because

25:14

there are cultural differences

25:17

between the US when it comes

25:19

to business , centrally implementation , and

25:21

in Europe , generally speaking . I know

25:23

that it's not , you know , a

25:26

cookie cutter for both countries . There are different organizations

25:28

in each region , I

25:30

guess you could say , but

25:33

that was a

25:35

nice way to put it because one

25:37

of the differences is in the US

25:39

, the partners aren't as

25:41

small , I mean aren't as large

25:43

, excuse me , we have a smaller partner base , whereas

25:46

if you talk with some individuals , with the partners

25:48

generally speaking , in the European region

25:50

, they're larger partners . You know they

25:52

have a large development staff , right , they have

25:54

a large number of people . I think it might be attributed to what

25:57

you had mentioned , it's ah , I can just create that

25:59

, so

26:03

. So to go back to

26:05

what are your thoughts , you said you'd mentioned to

26:07

have it's

26:09

. It's a catch-22 in a sense

26:11

, because you had mentioned to get the

26:14

draw in younger talent

26:16

that are more business focused

26:18

versus technical focus , draw

26:20

them into conferences , draw

26:22

them into learning

26:25

information about . You know we

26:27

all laugh . Quote the community um

26:29

, how can you , how do you see you can

26:31

draw someone there , because that is difficult , because there

26:33

is a certain point where they almost have to be either

26:36

guided to it or they have to search

26:38

for it . Right , they have to come across

26:40

it somehow . So how

26:43

? You were fortunate because your family was

26:45

already . Your family was already

26:47

involved and they brought you in

26:49

in a sense by working on a report . But

26:53

how could we get that information out there to others

26:55

? Is it through university ? Is

26:57

it through , you know , tiktok

27:00

or something like that , or you

27:02

know ? Where do you see or

27:04

think , in your opinion , your opinion , this is what

27:06

it is , you know a way to attract

27:10

younger talent to come in and then to be able to

27:12

mentor them to be successful

27:14

with the application I'm

27:17

not sure about tiktoks

27:20

, but mainly just because I um

27:23

, I've never searched for career

27:25

advice on on tiktok , but

27:28

maybe that is the future , who knows ? well

27:31

, I've never used it myself , but I just hear

27:33

a lot about it .

27:33

But I um

27:35

, I

27:39

would say the university

27:42

career fairs are

27:45

still the best way to go . I

27:48

personally was exposed

27:51

to many different

27:53

industries just by going to

27:55

the fair each year . However

27:58

, I think it's important

28:01

that you

28:04

have enough time with with the students , right

28:06

? Because if this is just some huge hall where there

28:08

are a bunch of stalls

28:10

, where there's a company after company

28:12

trying to introduce you to a different industry , you

28:15

won't remember any of those . Um

28:17

. So , yeah , well

28:20

, maybe my answer is I don't know either , uh

28:23

, how to get more people , more

28:25

people like me , in , uh , into

28:27

this world yeah , I mean

28:29

, we know what it attracted you and it's see

28:31

, that's what I'm saying it is , it's sort of a catch , it's

28:33

.

28:34

It has to be something like you had mentioned the carrot , to

28:36

draw somebody in . Then

28:38

you have the opportunity to work with them and show

28:40

, and you know

28:43

that's what I mean . Is it university ? Is

28:45

it , you know , the job fairs ? Because in

28:47

some cases you have to be in front

28:49

of somebody and I think

28:51

now , with the digital world , it's in

28:53

all this information . It's difficult

28:56

in some cases to target and

28:59

have people pay attention to that Because , again

29:01

, it's , if you think back several years ago , when you first

29:03

started with mathematics , if someone said

29:05

, oh , come for this career in ERP

29:07

software , what are the chances

29:09

that you would have , you know

29:11

, jumped on ?

29:13

A lot of us kind of came into

29:15

the ERP space in happenstance

29:17

. You know it's

29:20

I certainly did not come across

29:22

in my experience through school . You know it's never's . It's um , I certainly did not come across in my experience through

29:24

school . You know it's never been an option

29:26

that say there's an erp career

29:28

that you can get into you , there's a consulting

29:30

thing you can get into , uh

29:33

, or development in erp you can

29:35

get . It's usually been apps

29:37

that you could build . You know , in the

29:39

marketplace and all that stuff . Never been that

29:41

case . And maybe

29:44

that is one thing , that as

29:46

a community partnering

29:52

up with universities and finding ways to say , hey

29:54

, where can we or maybe we do it individually . I mean go

29:56

to a university and say , hey , I'd

29:58

love to have

30:01

a little booth to talk about ERP . I'm

30:04

sure they're going to be like what is an ERP ? But

30:08

yeah , it'll be interesting to see where

30:11

that path is going . I know that there's been

30:13

talks about upskilling and

30:15

putting someone through some

30:18

of the classes for a year . But

30:20

that's if someone knows

30:22

about it , you know it's . Certainly

30:25

they'd have to search for that

30:27

, they'd have to Google for that or Bing

30:29

it and I'll

30:33

be curious of where talent's

30:35

going to be coming from . But

30:37

to your point earlier , it's

30:40

like getting someone doing

30:42

Python to do AL . It's going to be

30:44

. I don't think that's the right

30:46

path . I think it's going to be a lot of people coming

30:48

from finance and people

30:50

that does operations and things like that would

30:52

be the people that would love

30:55

to see yeah with the technical

30:57

push .

30:59

I think I had an interesting um

31:01

a

31:03

couple of weeks ago in

31:06

in the days of nev . That was simple

31:08

because the cal language was simple

31:10

, and I'm not saying that al became

31:12

much more complex , but it

31:14

is growing , uh , and it is pushing

31:16

us to to like this weird middle

31:19

ground where it's not as easy to teach

31:21

somebody from accounting or finance how

31:23

to develop but at the same time , we're

31:26

not the the strong programming

31:28

language that somebody who's passionate

31:30

about technology would would want to spend

31:32

the rest of their their career in this . So

31:35

I think I think it might be even

31:37

more of a challenge than what we

31:39

have right now .

31:41

You hit that perfectly and

31:44

that is a perfect analogy

31:46

because the language it was that

31:48

simplistic . You know , I almost think of like that COBOL

31:51

type language where you have everything

31:53

built within the application and

31:55

people used to create crazy solutions

31:58

, right , just because oh . I could just go in and just do

32:00

this and done . And now

32:02

it is in that it's moving to more and more of a contemporary what I Just because , oh , I could just go in and just do this and done . And now it is in that it's moving to more

32:04

and more of a contemporary , what I call , you

32:07

know , contemporary language . You know they

32:09

are . It's still not C sharp but

32:11

it does get converted into C

32:14

sharp and built for the

32:16

application , but it's becoming more and more

32:18

that type of language . But it's

32:20

not there yet . So , like you had mentioned someone

32:23

who may have gone to university

32:25

or have spent time working professionally

32:27

developing with Python , c Sharp or

32:29

some of the other modern languages , it's

32:32

like a step backwards , I

32:34

guess you could say in a sense . And

32:36

then someone who has come from Cal

32:39

or that business mindset they

32:42

struggle in a sense because now

32:44

there's more structure to it , right

32:47

, there's more functionality to it , there's more

32:49

, you know , c-sharp to it . I guess

32:51

you could say . So that middle ground is a good analogy

32:53

. It is moving . You know , I like

32:55

it because it's my passion , what you can do with

32:57

it . We just have to

32:59

make sure that the language keeps up

33:01

with being practical for what you need

33:03

from the business .

33:05

I am curious what your thoughts about

33:07

you know for people that are coming in , maybe not

33:09

jump into AL . I know you've shared

33:11

a lot of power automate . You

33:14

know that's kind of a low code . You

33:17

could still create really impressive

33:19

solutions to

33:22

your day-to-day needs . So what's

33:24

your thoughts on that ? Would that be a good

33:26

path for somebody to get into

33:28

ERP , but not quite full

33:31

development ?

33:34

I think it's a great start . Before

33:41

I started working for a

33:43

let's call it a proper business central partner

33:46

, I was actually in a

33:48

sort of like a sales and project

33:50

manager role , which I didn't like , but

33:53

still , I spent six , six months there

33:55

and of course there were some

33:57

things to automate . And I started looking at

33:59

our automate andate and it was great . Right

34:02

, I just put some things together and

34:05

I automated things that previously

34:08

took a lot of manual hours . But

34:10

I didn't stop there and it kept growing

34:13

and it kept growing and by the time I

34:15

left I think like two or three months later , and

34:17

I had to pass it over to

34:19

someone else somebody said I'm not going to support

34:22

this because it turned to Power

34:24

Automate Flow , which had I don't know 18

34:26

if statements with everything just

34:28

going . It was so big

34:30

. I think that's kind

34:33

of the problem with Power Automate

34:36

for me , where it's a great start

34:38

, but it's a great start where the

34:40

scope is small . If you try

34:42

to make it big , you

34:44

won't be able to maintain that

34:46

. So you

34:49

know , I see the same . I

34:51

see all of the benefits of how AL

34:54

has evolved , because we need to maintain

34:57

all of those things . So I

34:59

don't really have the best

35:01

answer here . Is it to to start

35:04

quickly and then make a mess quickly , or

35:06

is it better to start slow and

35:08

maintain it for years ?

35:10

to come . That's a good , that's , that is a good point

35:12

, I think . Uh , you're right , it can

35:14

go pretty messy and

35:16

if you're the one that's building it and trying to give

35:19

it to somebody , yeah , it is going to be like how did you

35:21

, you know ? How do you document

35:24

that ?

35:26

right , it's . It's not only documented

35:28

that , but it goes back to the importance

35:30

now of having a proper architecture

35:33

or an architect , because

35:35

sometimes , when you're developing you're going down

35:37

this road either you don't know how . You always think you're about ready to cross

35:39

the finish line , you're going to cross the't know how . You know you always think you're

35:42

about ready to cross the finish line , you're going to cross

35:44

the finish line , and then you find that you have

35:46

further to go . So you keep building upon where you

35:48

are . So is it , at

35:51

some point , the proper

35:53

tool to use for what you're trying to

35:55

achieve ? You may start off , you

35:57

know , I see this with a lot of solutions . You start off with one

36:00

requirement and then they build , and they

36:02

build and they build , whereas if you now

36:04

look at the whole end requirement

36:06

, that may have not been the best solution

36:08

, because oftentimes I'll say , oh , I would have done it differently

36:11

had I known we were going to need to do this

36:14

around

36:17

and go well , wait a minute , you know

36:19

now that we're moving into this additional requirement

36:22

, it may be a few more minutes . This

36:24

is what happens , I think , is it's oh , it's a few more minutes for

36:26

me to add this it's a few more minutes for me to add this . It's

36:28

a few more minutes for me to add this , but

36:30

ultimately you're at a tipping point or a breaking point

36:33

. It's like that bowl of rice right , you can keep dropping

36:37

, put one grain on the

36:39

whole bowl of spills . So

36:41

I think it's

36:44

using the right tool and being able

36:46

to take a step back and say is this the right

36:48

tool to use , or should we

36:50

pull in other features

36:52

from other applications , such as with

36:54

workflows , with Business Central and Power

36:58

Automate ?

37:01

I'm just on a tangent this morning there's

37:03

a lot to consider , and one of the things that I'm

37:06

curious , from your perspective too , is

37:08

, uh , what you know , trying to get younger

37:10

talents . They , they're going to see whatever's

37:12

marketed out there and one of

37:14

the most , one of the most biggest thing that's

37:16

being marketed right now . Have you heard the ? Have you

37:18

heard about co-pilot ? Right

37:21

?

37:22

yeah , I think there was a mention or

37:25

two , right , so ?

37:27

I am curious what your thoughts are for , for

37:29

you know , if anyone was interested

37:31

in in maybe developing within

37:34

co-pilot , have you played with it ? Have

37:36

you uh done anything around co-pilot

37:38

with business central or even not in

37:41

Business Central ? Kind of outside Curious

37:43

in your perspective .

37:46

Yeah , I've played a lot

37:48

with Copilot . Also

37:50

, there was the hackathon from Microsoft

37:53

, you know to just spend a couple of days

37:55

and think about AI features

37:57

in Business Central . Honestly

38:00

, I think this is going to be

38:02

really good because

38:05

we can start solving a

38:07

completely different set of problems . Now

38:10

I am sometimes a bit struggling

38:13

to find what are we going

38:15

to build within Business Central , because I

38:18

feel like you come up with

38:20

best ideas if you're actually using that and

38:22

as a developer , I'm not exactly

38:24

using Business Central in the sense that I would know

38:26

which functional parts would

38:29

benefit from AI features

38:31

. But I'm kind of applying

38:33

the same thinking

38:36

process to what I

38:38

use in my daily life DevOps

38:40

or VS code and things like that and

38:43

there's so many opportunities and I'm excited

38:45

. I want to build more things

38:47

with AI , but I think it's

38:50

something that

38:52

the younger generation is going to

38:54

be more

38:56

willing to do , I think , Because

38:58

if you don't know the old

39:01

ways , then you're

39:04

not really stuck to them and you

39:06

are willing to adopt the AI

39:09

much sooner . And especially

39:11

when I talk with students , ChatGPT

39:15

is so popular there right

39:17

now because everybody has to write

39:19

essays or master's

39:22

thesis and ChatGPT

39:24

now does that a lot of wording

39:27

for you . So I

39:29

think because , like ChatGPT

39:32

and co-pilots are going to be part of

39:34

the studies , it's going to be much easier for them

39:36

to also move this mentality

39:38

to the workplace move

39:47

this mentality to to the workplace .

39:48

This is where it's easier to adopt for the younger talent if the

39:50

older talent can't let go of

39:53

what they know .

39:54

Maybe a question to you too how much

39:56

do you two use co-pilots or chat gpt

39:59

?

40:00

oh , one

40:03

, I have to say it . That's how

40:05

chris got his name chris gpt , because

40:08

one day , you know , when chat gpt

40:10

became popular , we were having conversations

40:12

and chris went from using uh

40:15

, certain uh phrases

40:18

to then coming up with you know

40:21

many facts and many you know , like a thesis

40:23

on it . So no , I joke with him on

40:25

that . I use it

40:27

daily , yeah

40:30

, and several times a day . It's , it's

40:33

to me , it's great for

40:35

idea generation sometimes

40:38

. And again , you , you summed up the

40:40

words . It's . It's not like they'll write a thesis for

40:42

you . You have to validate and verify everything

40:44

that you ask . It right

40:46

, it depends what you're asking for . Again , it's a tool . You

40:49

have to use the right tool for what you're looking for . Uh

40:51

, for with me , I use it , I still use . I

40:54

talk with some who use copilot for searching

40:56

. Now , instead of uh

40:58

like google search or bing search . I

41:02

still do a lot of Google searching , but

41:04

I also do a lot of co-pilot

41:06

for idea generation , or

41:08

some

41:10

quick lookups , or put togethers

41:12

as I call it . I definitely create a lot of images every

41:14

day , but as far as factual

41:16

stuff , I'll throw in . You know I was doing some of the

41:18

PowerShell the other day to you know , hey , how

41:20

can I do this with PowerShell ? You know regular expressions

41:23

or or some other aspects .

41:24

Yeah , I use it . I use it daily

41:26

, just like what Brad's saying and that

41:29

joke about Chris GPT . You know

41:31

, I'll tell you , english is not my first

41:33

language and sometimes

41:36

I struggle , you know , quite

41:39

a bit , believe

41:43

it or not , sometimes I struggle even putting a few sentences together

41:45

. So using ChatGPT at the early days really

41:47

helped me kind of not only generate

41:51

content in a sense of like

41:53

how to say certain things , but it also gives

41:55

me a good starting point of an idea

41:57

. To Brad's point , you have to kind of validate

41:59

what you're trying to convey

42:01

and then you change it here and there . But

42:03

it does give me a structure to start

42:06

, as anything else , it's a tool

42:08

for me to kind of save

42:10

me some time . So it would have taken

42:12

me time to kind of like , okay , how do I

42:14

put this together ? What's the best

42:16

way for me to convey something ? And

42:19

then I would use Copilot to kind of help me

42:21

structure that , to convey my ideas

42:23

or what I'm trying to

42:25

put there . So I

42:28

do use it daily in a personal sense

42:30

and also

42:32

, you know , professional sense

42:35

as well . So it really depends on what I'm trying

42:37

to accomplish . So

42:40

, yeah , and I'm not afraid of it , I mean a

42:42

lot of people kind of scared

42:44

what it can . You know what it's doing to uh

42:47

uh in the world , but you kind

42:49

of embrace . It's another tool that's certainly

42:52

saving me a lot of time

42:54

, even translation Like I . So I've

42:56

had to use it to translate certain things to

42:58

family members that

43:00

, uh , where English is not the first language , I just say

43:03

translate this to another language

43:05

, and so I can help convey

43:07

what I'm trying to say .

43:10

I was going to ask that question . I have never

43:12

used it for a translation . I was listening to

43:14

you explain how , if

43:17

English isn't your primary language , it helps you

43:19

construct structure

43:21

sentences . How

43:24

was it with translation ?

43:25

It does a pretty good job in translating , because

43:27

if you use like Google Translate , sometimes

43:30

it's not exactly

43:32

correct . So that actually

43:34

does a better job of structuring of how

43:37

a paragraph should look like in a certain

43:39

language , versus Google Translate

43:42

, where it's not always , you

43:44

know , accurate or straightforward . So

43:46

it is . It does a pretty good

43:48

job day to day

43:50

, day to day things . So

43:52

even email composure . I mean

43:55

, you compose an email , change

43:57

a few things here and there , but hey , it's exactly

43:59

what I'm trying to say here .

44:01

So I

44:04

think that's I

44:06

mean , it's great to hear that you're

44:08

using it every day , Because

44:11

sometimes when I talk to people and

44:13

I'm saying , hey , we're going to get M365

44:16

co-pilot , it's

44:19

going to be great for you . As a project manager , you deal

44:21

with a lot of email generation

44:23

and preparing these reports and these reports

44:25

Are you excited

44:27

and like how should

44:29

I use it ? Now I have it , what

44:32

do I do with it , what can you do ? And I'm

44:34

like everything . But you also

44:36

need to kind of explain what is everything

44:38

. How should people even start

44:40

thinking about the challenges ?

44:42

That is interesting , your comment about using

44:44

M365 Copilot for project

44:47

managers . And so one of the things

44:49

that I had conversation

44:51

with somebody not from where

44:53

I work , just an

44:56

old colleague , not even in the

44:58

space and we were having a conversation

45:00

. It's like you know , you could use Copilot . When

45:03

you have a recording of

45:05

something like when you're having a project

45:08

meeting recording , you can take

45:10

some of that transcript or even any

45:14

recording . As long as you have a transcript , you can feed

45:16

that to a

45:18

co-pilot and say , hey , I need you to summarize this

45:20

. I don't have time to listen and

45:23

watch this video that maybe

45:25

you had a conversation with somebody I need

45:28

you to summarize . Now , sometimes

45:30

a project manager

45:32

or somebody would have to summarize it

45:34

of what they're trying to convey . Now you can take

45:36

the transcript and say , hey , I

45:38

want you to summarize this . That saves you

45:40

so much time to do other

45:42

things . So there's so many

45:45

ways to use Copilot . It

45:49

just depends on where you want to save time . So

45:53

it's fascinating .

45:56

Actually , to

45:58

be honest , I still have not graduated

46:01

from my university because

46:03

I still have to write my thesis . But

46:05

what I'm actually researching and trying

46:08

to write my thesis on is how

46:12

are elderly going to

46:14

use JetGPT or GPT-enabled

46:17

browsers , because you

46:19

mentioned that , for example , you sometimes struggle

46:22

with language and how to compose

46:24

sentences , but with

46:26

them it's the opposite . How do I put

46:28

it in keywords ? Because that's what Google

46:31

understands . And now with GPT-enabled

46:33

browsers , with Bing Chat

46:35

, you don't have to do that . So

46:37

I think , even in this part , it's going to be quite

46:40

cool , because , I don't

46:43

know , it's going to be more inclusive . Everybody can now search

46:45

the internet without knowing how

46:47

to search the internet . So

46:49

it's uh cool times ahead .

46:51

Yeah , it's like . It's like facebook right when

46:53

. When . When facebook came out , uh

46:56

, you know I I don't have facebook anymore

46:58

, but when it came out , like I was in it , I

47:00

thought it was pretty fascinating . Connected many people

47:03

, even family members , across uh

47:05

oceans , and my

47:08

parents didn't know how to do it and now they're

47:10

like on it all the time . So eventually they'll

47:12

, you know , pick up of how

47:14

to use it . But they're more

47:16

in social media than I am . I'm

47:18

not in so much in social media , so

47:21

it's eventually they'll adopt . It

47:23

may take , you know , a couple of years for

47:25

them to adopt , but

47:28

certainly an opportunity out

47:31

there .

47:33

Well , it's a whole new

47:35

world . Brave new world . I don't know what to say there

47:37

. To jump back , another

47:39

conversation that we had and something that you were interested

47:42

when we were talking with Directions in San Diego

47:44

, is the comparing

47:47

and contrasting . You had just come from a European

47:49

conference and you have attended European conference

47:52

and this was your first US directions

47:54

that you had gone to . What

47:57

are some of the differences that you noticed

47:59

between those conferences ? And

48:01

also , just for to preface

48:04

it , which conferences have you attended

48:06

outside of the US ?

48:09

So what I did in the

48:11

past and also what I'm

48:13

going to do in the upcoming

48:15

future are the whole Days of Knowledge tour

48:18

, the European one . So Days of

48:20

Knowledge , UK Days of Knowledge , Nordic Days

48:22

of Knowledge , Central Direction , Zemilla

48:25

, BC Tech Days

48:27

and one

48:29

of my favorite ones , Dynamics Lines , because

48:31

it's in Slovenia . Those

48:35

were the ones that I can compare the

48:38

experience of Directions

48:40

North America with .

48:42

And what did you think was a

48:44

big difference between Directions

48:46

North America and the conferences that you attended

48:48

?

48:50

So I did already mention

48:52

one that

48:54

the attendees in North America

48:57

were older

49:00

than what I've experienced

49:02

in Europe . I think

49:04

it's also partially because the

49:06

price of attending

49:09

Directions North America is

49:11

so much higher than

49:13

somebody going to

49:16

Days of Knowledge , which is the

49:18

whole idea is to let's make it cheaper so

49:20

more people can come to an event like that

49:22

. Another huge

49:24

difference was what

49:26

type of people come to the conference

49:28

. I'm used to more

49:31

okay , of course you have sales and of course you

49:33

have leadership , but there's also

49:36

a huge part of developers

49:38

and consultants that come to these

49:40

conferences there

49:43

in North America . Again , two-thirds

49:45

were either sales or leadership , and

49:48

so you could also tell that

49:50

on the sessions

49:52

. Not a lot of people attended the

49:54

sessions . It was all about networking , it

49:56

was all about doing business . So

49:59

that was another

50:01

surprise , I would say .

50:04

Do you think , though , that's driven based on

50:06

the agenda or content ? When they

50:08

see the agenda online , do

50:11

you think companies now look

50:13

at it and said , okay , who ? This sounds

50:16

like it's something that our sales

50:19

engineers or leadership

50:22

should know how to position their business based

50:24

on the content that's being provided I

50:28

don't think it's the

50:31

content influences who goes

50:33

to directions ?

50:34

because you know , I'm a developer and I

50:36

could find sessions for me every

50:38

hour , almost on

50:40

every slot . Same

50:42

for more power , platform things or

50:44

consultancy things . So the content is

50:47

there . I

50:49

think it's becoming just more of the idea

50:51

that directions oh okay , yeah , that's

50:54

for leadership and sales , so it

50:56

just goes on with that . So the

50:58

company sends people that fit that

51:00

profile .

51:01

Yeah , that makes sense . I'm always curious

51:03

. You know the early days of

51:06

directions . As a technical

51:08

person , I thought I learned a lot . There

51:11

was a lot of technical content at that

51:13

time . Now I

51:15

did see a shift in that , I

51:18

think , because a lot of things are still new . I

51:20

think businesses are trying to figure out or maybe partners

51:22

are trying to figure out how can we

51:25

incorporate this into our business

51:27

, and maybe that's where the shift

51:29

is right now . Maybe it'll eventually shift back

51:31

where , okay , now the

51:33

dust has settled in some of these new

51:35

things . Now let's send our technical

51:38

people of how to develop

51:40

something against it . I don't know . That's

51:42

a . That's an interesting one .

51:45

It's a tough challenge because it's

51:47

what's the position for

51:49

the conference and the

51:52

attendees there and

51:54

which type of business you are

51:56

. I think if you're a partner that

51:58

works on T&M , where

52:01

you're taking individuals

52:03

out of the office in essence to

52:05

now they're going to a conference for several days

52:08

, there's an expense to that and

52:11

also you're losing the revenue

52:13

that they would generate . I'm not saying it's a reason not

52:15

to somebody , but it's a decision you have to make . Is is

52:19

the investment that I'm going to make going

52:21

to return more

52:25

for the business versus not ? Or

52:28

also , is what you were talking about , is the content

52:30

there appropriate for the

52:33

individual that I'm sending ? Because if you

52:35

had mentioned days of knowledge , days of knowledge is

52:37

primarily technical right

52:40

Directions North America typically

52:42

had been primarily , as

52:44

you had mentioned , a sales networking

52:47

functional type event . There are

52:49

technical tracks , don't get me wrong . I'm not saying

52:51

because I mean for the years that I've been attending , there's always been

52:53

development type

52:55

functions . But also , how many

52:57

development type functions can you drop

52:59

into hour-long blocks throughout the

53:01

day , or 50-minute blocks of the day to

53:03

have somebody be able to get the value out of it , to

53:06

where they're learning something versus

53:08

just being exposed to something . See

53:10

, that's kind of a challenge that I see with it

53:12

. It's , those sessions are

53:14

15 minutes long . How

53:17

much will a developer or a technical person

53:19

get out of it other than exposure

53:21

? And that exposure is that already

53:23

available to them through , like the Business

53:26

Central launch events or through blogs

53:28

, through other sources , that

53:30

of information that shared .

53:32

Yeah , that's , that's a good point . I remember , I

53:34

remember there used to be an

53:37

event , I think they , I

53:39

think dynamics communities had put this out . It's

53:42

called folk and I

53:45

remember going to those events where

53:47

there's 60 , 90 minute

53:50

sessions where it hits hands

53:52

on you know their technical

53:54

and functional areas of you

53:56

know nav . At that time I'd

53:59

love to see that come back where it's . You

54:01

know it's a smaller event for sure

54:03

, but it's more hands-on

54:06

kind of things .

54:11

So and Tina , you

54:13

were going to say something . I apologize , no

54:16

, no , no , it's fine . I

54:19

wanted to add that you know it might be partially because of what we mentioned at the beginning

54:21

that in US you are more likely to just pick up things from

54:23

AppSource , pick up things from partners

54:26

. You're not as inclined to build everything things

54:28

from AppSource , pick up things from

54:30

partners , You're not as inclined to build everything . So

54:36

then you prefer the networking aspect and seeing what other partners have to offer , instead of

54:38

building out the best development team that I can

54:40

have . Of course , I'm on

54:42

the side of let's learn . That's

54:45

the best part , but I also understand

54:47

that maybe that's not where everybody

54:49

else is coming from well

54:52

, I think it's .

54:53

Then it's just a different audience . I mean , I think it does

54:55

matter for your perspective because there are . I

54:59

think it's individuals will gravitate to

55:01

where they feel

55:03

the it's

55:05

best for them to be . That maybe

55:07

, maybe there are two different markets for it . I

55:09

know days of knowledge is going to make a trip to the

55:11

us this year . Are you going to attend that ? Uh

55:14

, no fortunately it's

55:17

it's tough . it's it's tough with

55:19

the conferences because and

55:22

I even think here there's a challenge I go back to what

55:24

I was saying to send individuals to those conferences

55:26

, because in europe , from my understanding , some partners

55:28

will send , you know , 10 , 12

55:30

, 15 , 8 , you know a large

55:32

number of people where , if you know I don't know if you noticed in

55:35

the directions usa a lot of companies

55:37

only sent a handful of people , or

55:39

some companies sent one or two . So

55:42

it's , it

55:44

goes with , I think , the content , but also the

55:46

cost . I think in the us

55:48

it's a little more difficult because

55:51

of the distance , that it's not like you

55:53

can go quickly and come back . In

55:56

some cases you spend a

55:58

full day traveling to the conference

56:00

, then you're there for the conference for several days

56:03

, then you have to spend a full day back , whereas

56:05

in Europe , from my understanding , the

56:08

countries are a little bit smaller , so the travel

56:10

between those countries

56:12

is a little bit easier . Also

56:14

, I think you have a better rail system than we have here too , so

56:18

we pretty much drive or

56:20

fly everywhere .

56:23

I think the whole days of knowledge

56:25

concept is what's going to make

56:27

this better for everyone . I hope it grows

56:29

even further to

56:33

more countries , because if it's a local event

56:35

, it's cheaper to

56:37

send people there . And , of course , I get that

56:39

. There's the cost involved and

56:41

no revenues generated while you're

56:43

at a conference . But what I see in

56:45

conferences is also what we were talking at a conference . But what I see in

56:47

conferences is also what we were talking

56:49

at the beginning . This is the

56:52

way how we can expose the

56:54

more junior people that hey , there's more out

56:56

there and that's how we can keep them here

56:58

. So I think not only

57:00

is there the part of we

57:02

need to upskill people , because everything's

57:05

evolving , everything's growing , we also

57:07

want to retain people . And this is like two

57:09

points upskill people because everything's evolving , everything's growing . We also want to retain

57:11

people .

57:13

And this is like two points that

57:15

we get with these kind of conferences . Yeah , it is , it's a matter of perspective

57:17

. We'll get there

57:19

. One other thing to jump into

57:21

quickly . You had mentioned

57:24

you enjoy conferences

57:27

, presenting a conference and speaking

57:29

at conferences what

57:31

?

57:32

drove you to do that . That's actually

57:34

. I

57:37

liked doing presentations

57:39

for some time , for

57:41

I don't know for the last 10 years

57:43

when there was a chance , I liked to present

57:46

, even

57:53

though I always got super nervous , I always liked the feedback at the end that , oh , this

57:55

was good , uh . And I tried to be a speaker at tech days I think like three years ago and I

57:57

wasn't accepted . And then I tried being a speaker at directions

58:00

, emia , and I wasn't accepted

58:02

. But then , luckily , one of our architects

58:05

he , got two sessions accepted at

58:07

um , directions , emea , and

58:09

he didn't have enough time to prepare for both of them

58:11

. So then they asked me hey , would

58:14

you like to do one of these ? On what

58:16

was it ? Business Central and Power Pages . Like

58:18

yes , yes , and they haven't

58:20

even told me the title at the time . They

58:22

were just like , do you want to do a presentation

58:25

at Directions ? I was like , yes , I'll do it . You

58:32

don't know what's what it's on , it doesn't matter , I'll do it . So they told me it's business central , power

58:34

pages . And um , when , when I did that first session in a

58:36

room of I don't know 200 something

58:39

people , um , that

58:41

was such , a , such

58:44

a good experience for me that , even

58:46

though I still get nervous every time I

58:48

go on stage . I'm

58:50

willing to spend as much time as it's

58:52

needed to prepare and to deliver

58:55

those sessions , because it's just , I

58:58

don't know .

58:59

I've never done it before I'm , I'm , let's go do it , uh , and

59:09

it is nerve wracking . It's

59:11

. You know what I mean Like public speaking is

59:13

is not an easy feat to overcome

59:16

. It takes a lot of uh

59:18

uh , experience and courage

59:20

to just even get up there , uh , and

59:22

just go with it . You know so , uh it , you

59:24

know . So that must have been nerve-wracking for you . It's 200

59:27

people in the first speaking session

59:29

that's crazy that

59:33

one wasn't .

59:34

Uh , I didn't feel as nervous just

59:37

because I knew how how important

59:39

this is to me and I was rehearsing it

59:41

days in advance by the time I actually

59:44

did it live . I think that was my 12th

59:46

, 13thth time

59:49

. I've already went through the whole content

59:51

and I

59:53

just kind of trusted myself . I know how I want

59:55

to present this . I know that this

59:58

is the best that I can do , so

1:00:01

that was okay , but it's

1:00:03

still . I was , for example , talking with

1:00:05

a couple of speakers at Days of Knowledge . It's

1:00:08

interesting how , even if I do

1:00:10

the same session on different events , sometimes

1:00:14

I get nervous , sometimes I don't . Sometimes I

1:00:16

feel like , oh , this went really well . Sometimes I

1:00:18

feel like , oh , I should have done things better

1:00:20

, I could have said other things

1:00:22

, I could have used different words , even though

1:00:24

the audience has no clue what I wanted to say in the first

1:00:26

place .

1:00:28

That's true . That is true with speaking

1:00:30

. Sometimes you feel you've made

1:00:32

a mistake and nobody will even notice it . It

1:00:35

is a lot to speak publicly or

1:00:37

to do presentations . It is also

1:00:40

difficult in some cases . You

1:00:42

know , I know I do technical presentations

1:00:44

because you have a bunch of other individuals

1:00:47

who are technical as well , who understand the

1:00:49

content . Potentially some

1:00:51

of the data learn as well . It's strange

1:00:54

with me when I do it , I don't

1:00:56

see anybody . It's odd

1:00:58

. I feel like I'm up in front

1:01:00

of an empty room sometimes

1:01:02

, or I'll see one or two people , or maybe only

1:01:04

one or two people attend , but that's

1:01:06

uh , it's strange for me that's

1:01:09

, that's a good point .

1:01:10

Uh , when I was in UK I

1:01:13

started doing a session I think it was

1:01:15

on major blob storage , and

1:01:17

I was quite calm , I knew what

1:01:19

, what I want to say and then , about 10

1:01:21

minutes in , waldo walks into into

1:01:23

almost the front row and sits down . Oh

1:01:26

, my stress level just went three

1:01:28

levels higher .

1:01:31

That is nerve wracking .

1:01:33

You're right .

1:01:34

People are joining your session , are technical and

1:01:37

they know their stuff sometimes

1:01:39

, so that's

1:01:42

nerve wracking .

1:01:44

I can't imagine . Well , I'm

1:01:46

glad that you are in the Business

1:01:48

Central community . I've appreciated spending

1:01:51

a lot of time with you and conversating

1:01:53

with you and talking about the Business

1:01:55

Central community and also the conversations

1:01:58

we had about the conferences

1:02:00

in person as well . I would

1:02:02

like to congratulate you again on your MVP

1:02:04

. It's a big accomplishment

1:02:08

. I

1:02:10

think it's very well deserved . I see a lot of the content that you're doing and what

1:02:13

you're sharing , what you're doing for the community and keep

1:02:16

doing it . It's inspiring and

1:02:18

I like to see others become

1:02:20

successful in their journeys With

1:02:23

that . I appreciate

1:02:25

you taking the time to speak with us today . Time

1:02:27

is very valuable . It's once you

1:02:29

spend it you can't get it back . It's not like anything

1:02:31

else . You can return it . So

1:02:33

for you to spend that with us is , I'm , greatly appreciative

1:02:36

.

1:02:36

Really quick , I would

1:02:38

like to say . I think getting

1:02:40

to meet you in person first before

1:02:44

a podcast it's nice

1:02:47

, because then people don't realize

1:02:49

the height difference . You're

1:02:51

pretty tall dude . That

1:03:01

was , that was amazing .

1:03:03

That is true , we did . We did take that picture

1:03:05

and that was uh one of the points that you

1:03:07

mentioned chris , and it is nice to meet

1:03:10

with us doing this . We do get to speak with

1:03:12

a lot of members of the community , obviously

1:03:14

, and some we meet in

1:03:16

person ahead of time and others we

1:03:19

have the opportunity to meet in our journeys

1:03:21

as well , and it's always wonderful to talk with

1:03:23

everybody . Talk with everybody . How

1:03:26

would someone get in contact with

1:03:28

you to learn more about you

1:03:30

, learn

1:03:37

more about what you do , or also see some of the great

1:03:39

content that you're putting out with your knowledge sharing .

1:03:40

So I'm always available on LinkedIn

1:03:43

and on Twitter . Anybody can reach

1:03:45

out there About

1:03:47

the content . I have my

1:03:49

own blog . I

1:03:53

don't know how to

1:03:55

say it so that somebody would remember

1:03:57

it . I'd say just follow me on LinkedIn

1:04:00

and a new post

1:04:02

is going to pop up sooner rather than later . And

1:04:04

then anytime I do webinars or things

1:04:06

that have recordings , everything ends up

1:04:08

on the blog all the presentations , all the slides

1:04:10

. And one

1:04:13

thing that I'd like to say is

1:04:15

we talked a lot about

1:04:17

the community , and for me

1:04:20

to be able to kind of grow with this community

1:04:22

was that I was able to reach out to

1:04:24

the MVPs , to other speakers , and

1:04:28

I just like to say to everyone

1:04:30

else that everybody

1:04:32

here is really open to help

1:04:35

and to

1:04:37

answer questions , to help you become the

1:04:39

next speaker , including me , I

1:04:41

think , including you , Brad and Chris . So

1:04:43

just reach out to people

1:04:45

, send a message .

1:04:48

Yeah , absolutely . That is a great

1:04:51

note and

1:04:53

again , thank you very much . We appreciate

1:04:55

your time and all of the

1:04:57

great things that you do for the community and

1:04:59

for everyone else have

1:05:02

a good day .

1:05:02

Thank you for having me . Thank you .

1:05:03

Bye , bye . Thank

1:05:06

you , chris , for your time for another

1:05:08

episode of In the Dynamics Corner

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Chair , and thank you to our guests for participating

1:05:13

.

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Thank you , brad , for your time . It is

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a wonderful episode of Dynamics Corner

1:05:17

Chair . I would also like to thank

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our guests for joining us . Thank

1:05:22

you for all of our listeners tuning in as well

1:05:24

. You can find Brad at

1:05:27

developerlifecom , that

1:05:29

is D-V-L-P-R-L-I-F-E

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dot com , and you can interact

1:05:34

with them via Twitter D-V-L-P-A-L-I-N-Oio

1:05:38

, and

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my Twitter handle is Matalino16 . And you

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can see those links down below in the show notes . Again

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, thank you everyone . Thank

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you and take care .