 is Christian Buckley. I'm here with Dave. Hello. Hi. Hi. Good evening. Good morning. Good afternoon. Depends where your viewers are. Well, why don't you introduce yourself? Who you are? Where you are? What you do? Absolutely. So my name is Davide. Even though, you know, since I moved to Hong Kong where I live now, I've been called in so many different ways that, you know, as long as I know that you're talking to me, I'm fine with that. I'm Italian. As I said, I moved to Hong Kong about six years ago. And I've been working in IT in general for, I don't know, 20 years, even though I'm not that old, but I started very, very early in my career. I'm focusing initially on developers, but now transition more on application of second management, DevOps, and those good things. I know there's a lot that's happening within the space, and it's kind of evolved the way I just was sharing, you know, so my background way back, you know, that was in the, you know, in the DevOps space. But kind of what was your, what was your path into why DevOps? It just happened at the beginning because my very first job was more on the infrastructure and virtualization, virtualization side when, you know, VMware started coming out. And then, but I always had the passion of developing. I love creating things. And so I transitioned then from the infrastructure job into more development. And, but then I was working on a very small company in which we didn't have many people. So I had to take care of many different things at the same time, apart from developing. And then I started also developing some more skills around people, around organization, around processes. And so it gradually just, just happened when I, when I got promoted like Tech Lead at that company, basically, I was, yeah, doing everything and anything, but focusing also on what now we call DevOps. So since then, my, my passion for, for the discipline just got bigger and bigger. And I made that my career. There was a, I mean, a lot of the people, and I, working for big companies, as well as for startups, a lot of the startups and some I was working for one in Northern California that was very well funded venture capital, a lot of outside investment. And yet the people that were setting up new laptops for new employees were the same people that were managing the code base. And, and so when I thought of DevOps, I thought of those people that were running the scripts at, you know, every evening that were checking servers under desks, as well as increasingly as we brought on new, you know, SaaS platforms and services that they just kind of owned all of those different pieces to keep things running. I mean, did you special, do you specialize in a certain area? Right now, no, I mean, I obviously, as many people do, I started with the tools, even though it's the wrong, it is kind of the wrong way to start, but you had to start somewhere. But, but then I tried to embrace DevOps at 360 degrees, focusing on the three pillars, you know, people, processes and tools. And I think I, one thing I always consider in my roles is the people part, because it's the most challenging part of DevOps and the one that makes the most difference. So I used to work in different capacities before, like DevOps engineer, DevOps architect at Microsoft. But now also in my current role, I have to focus on, again, everything in DevOps, excuse me, because I do, you know, I do manage two teams, one DevOps team, one infra team, we're trying to merge. We were trying to, you know, do everything that DevOps kind of prescribe, even though it's not, it's not a very strict, you know, roadmap, but trying to basically get more value to our users as quick as we can, as more consistent as we can. So, yeah, well, that's always the, look, I, you know, again, I'm not an engineer, that side of things, but I liken it to, you know, I came up through a technical project management program management to that world. And where I had a lot of people where I managed teams, and I was a group manager and would fund people to go and get their like PMP certification. So get the formal project management certification. And I was told that people that would go through that process, you know, that I, it's great that you're learning this, you're learning these methodologies, you're learning these tools, ways of doing it. I never want you to attempt to apply a hundred percent of what you're learning to it. And DevOps, I look at this the same way. It's, it's not, there are methodologies, there are tools, there are systems and things that are in place. But when you start to have those people conversations and understand the culture of the organization and the, and the difference of the nuances of the needs of your company, it's never going to be a hundred percent down any methodology, any, any place that you need to do what fits and what meets the needs of your business. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. It's, you know, DevOps provide you probably like a framework and some set of not even rules, but like guidelines, if you will, in which you need to move between, right, or within, because as you said, the company's cultures are different, objectives of the company's organizations are different. There are some things that you probably need and want to do, like, you know, removing silos and barriers, more communications, you know, adopting some sort of self, self, sorry, continuous improvement and those kind of things are kind of pillars that you want to keep. If not, you're not basically doing DevOps, but within those things then it needs to change and adopt based on your organization, how you work and what you want to achieve. That's absolutely true. And so it's very dynamic and I think a good, a good DevOps person should understand that and it should understand how to apply those macro principles, if you will, to the reality that you're in. Right. Well, that's one of the things that makes it interesting. I mean, that, that space as well. I mean, it's what kind of drew me again as a parallel in the project management is because every project could be very different. Every client engagement, you know, could be, you know, so I can leverage what I've learned and take that into it and you, of course, you develop experience and knowledge and understand about things, but, you know, you have a variety of things that you go sink your teeth into, certainly on the technology side, that's constantly changing. And so, so how do you keep up? I mean, because that's a question, I know that every MVP gets asked that question, but so how do you keep up with the rapid rate of change of innovation that's happening? Well, in different ways, I love consuming content. So I'm a content creator on the side, but I also love consuming content, especially video content and not much reading or, you know, written content for technical aspect, because I find the, like the video content quicker to assimilate and to consume, but apart from that, my main point is I try it out. So whenever something comes out, then I think that's interesting, let's try it out. And either on personal projects or I'm lucky enough to work for, I've been lucky enough to work for companies that let me experiment, if you will. And so I was able to integrate that into my work life as well. So having a chance to experiment to try it out and say, okay, maybe I can apply these to this specific area or maybe not this is not for me or something like that. In general, I think that experimentation and trying out things and practice is the most important thing you should do. You just brought up a great point. This is kind of a side topic. I don't want to go chasing down the rabbit hole here, but for companies that are not supportive, I don't know if you've ever worked for any that are not supportive of community activities and for that level of experimentation, because I certainly have. And I tried to get out of those organizations very quickly once I discovered that they wouldn't support that. Have you ever worked in an organization that was- Yeah, I've been lucky enough to work for a similar organization just once. And that was right before I moved to Hong Kong. Yeah, I had to fight a little bit to try and do what I normally do as an experimentation, but also talking about community. Like I was already MVP at that time. So we talk about events and public speaking and all those kinds of things, either as an attendee or as a speaker. And I had really to fight my way to the city or that was reporting at that time or other people to be able to actually not only join those events, but to create community and to grow basically, because for me, community is growing for everyone. So yeah, then I left. It's amazing to me, though, that this day and age and maybe now, having gone through what we've just gone through globally with the pandemic, that it's getting more organizations to understand that it's business critical to have for us to be connected through the various social networks that are out there. And I'm not talking about the tools themselves, but the broader sense of the networking and be plugged in and be participating and sharing of information. Because it's like doing a pilot on a software deployment. You do a smaller scope, very clearly defined outcomes, but you do it quickly. You fail very quickly. You learn from that. And then you repeat the piloting process and take what you've learned and grow in a depth. That's what we're doing collectively through these community activities is we're learning. We're failing faster. We're learning for the failures of others and so that we're not repeating some of those same mistakes, but we could do more faster together. Absolutely. And I was mentioning before that I am a content creator. So I have this YouTube channel, right? And of course, I try to talk about things I know, right? But most of the time, maybe I know the macro topic or the macro tool, but then I want to showcase a specific feature or a specific service or subservice in that macro area that I really need to go and explore more and try it out because obviously when I make a video, I want to be sure that I'm saying the right things and I want to be sure that I know what I'm talking about. So I need to spend time on doing those things. And then of course, that reflects on the video because yeah, I can make a video that can be useful for people, but also has some reflection on my professional life because then I can go back to my company or to my team and say, you know what? I discovered that tool or that specific feature that I didn't know before. And I think it really can apply to our scenarios or to our day-to-day work life and stuff like that. And I think that's beneficial for everyone. Yeah, well, definitely. I mean, that's some of the best content that's out there. I know that when I take the time and to your point, I mean, it takes time to go through and research, experiment with it to understand kind of the limits of a feature or a new product or solution that's out there and to be able to talk about that, do research, find out what other people have said and written about and created on, and then to go and do like even then to record a walkthrough versus, you know, this is easy. Like we're sitting here, we're talking, have a, we don't have questions printed out, but there's a rough structure to how I run these interviews. And so it's very simple to go and do something like that. And I do productivity. I have not done one in a while, but productivity tips where I've actually gone through and I've demoed some things and talked through these, takes a lot longer. It's like four or five times as long to record and pre and post production on that. Especially for me not being a native speaker, I try to get my English right in the videos. So sometimes it takes me, you know, quite a few takes to get there right. Oh, you sound great. We've never known that you weren't American. Not sure about that. Yeah. No, I'm just kidding. Hey, so what was your, what was your path to becoming an MVP? So I know, especially, I know that people ask that question. Is it like easier to be a former Microsoft person and then to become an MVP? Um, I don't think so. No, apart of, I used to be an MVP also before joining Microsoft. So I got awarded the first time, if I remember correctly in 2015, and I joined Microsoft only, you know, three and a half years ago or four years ago. So that was not connected. So at the beginning, when I, I didn't even know what MVP was back in 2015. And, but I've always been kind of into public speaking or putting more, more, more than anything, putting myself out there, whatever it was. And so I got, I started being part of an awesome community back in Italy called Dotnet Toscana. And we've tried to, you know, to get, you know, to get it first and collaborate within each other. But then we started thinking, well, maybe we can organize some event and participate to bigger events. And then the thing got bigger, bigger and bigger. And one day I received the email, you know, oh, you've been nominated for MVP, for what? And so yeah, and then the process started and I got really into that, even more than I was before. And then yeah, I got re-awarded like in 2016 and 2017. And then, yeah, 2017, I moved to Hong Kong and then I got my offer from Microsoft that I had to, I couldn't refuse. And so obviously I had to give up my MVP title being for independent professionals. But now that I left Microsoft in December last year and I've been doing, you know, all the videos, as I mentioned before, I have a blog or article platform. I tried to do events, but obviously with, in this time and age is difficult to do in person events. So putting together all the stuff, I've been lucky and fortunate enough to be able to be re-awarded as an MVP. I know that there's a couple other instances where people within a couple months of having left Microsoft, you know, got to be, you know, MVPs, for people to understand though, it's not because they were an employee that it was easier, it's because throughout that time, so like you, before you were Microsoft, while you were Microsoft, you were still a content creator doing all these activities because it really is an award for, it's a recognition of the community activities for the year prior. Exactly, exactly. That recognition. And so, yeah, so I did things that were above and beyond, you know, my Microsoft role. I did things that were very different. In fact, my last two years, I was in advertising operations, but I was still writing about, talking about SharePoint and Office 365, which had nothing to do with my day job. And so I kind of continued along that path as well. Well, very cool. Yeah. So, you know, anything else that you, any advice you would give to anybody that is thinking about becoming an MVP? Well, first of all, don't think about becoming an MVP, but do it because you want to, because you want to share your knowledge, because you want to help people, because if you, if your goal is becoming an MVP, maybe you can make it, for sure you will not be re-awarded afterwards, but it's not meaningful, right? I'm an MVP, not because I wanted to be an MVP, but because I wanted to share the things I know, because I wanted to help people. And as a result of that, someone noticed my efforts and I got awarded for that. But the main goal for me was, you know, producing my videos, producing my content, doing my articles, and trying to help people. And for me, even if one person comments in one of my videos saying, oh, that's so good, bro. Thank you very much. That makes my day. That's the thing that should drive you, not I'll become an MVP. And then if you are lucky enough or good enough to be awarded as an MVP, then enjoy it. That's great advice. I've heard from a number of people that, in fact, a good friend of mine who had as a goal to become an MVP. And for a couple of years, I mean, he was putting in the effort and doing the things, but he was with that focus. And he actually said to me, he said, you know what, I've really just kind of given up on becoming, it's just not in the cards for me. It's not going to happen. He says, but you know what, it doesn't matter. Since I've benefited so much, I've enjoyed this. I've built relationships with made friends and contacts and my business is thriving. It's been so rewarding just doing that thing. And about two months later, he got an MVP. So it was surprise for him. And it was very great. But it was gravy on top. He'd already been fed. So it was extra. It was fantastic. But, well, I really appreciate you taking the time to, one, to meet you and to hear about your background. Hopefully I'll get out in your part of the world, maybe this year. It could happen. Yeah. Let's see here, there's a lot of travel restrictions still in situation. It's a little bit, you know, not open up, but yeah. But I think we're, we're, I'm confident we're at the, the backside of this thing. And we're going to, things are starting to open up again. And so hoping to get out in your part of the world. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thanks so much for your time. Time. It's been my, my pleasure, my pleasure. Anytime.