 This is Christian Buckley with another MVP buzz chat and I'm talking today with Lynn. Hello. Hi, Kristen. So for folks that don't know you, who are you? Where are you? And what do you do? Oh, yeah. Hi. My name is Lynn Zawin. I'm currently based in New Zealand, Wellington. And I'm currently working in the Dynamics 365 and Bob the form area. Yeah. Very cool. I love that city. For 12 years, I was living in Seattle and Wellington is a lot like Seattle. Yeah, it's always like rainy. Well, the weather wise too. Yeah, yeah. But no, it just has that same vibe. Like there's a coffee place in every corner. Yeah. It's a very walkable, interesting, vibrant city. It's a really, really big deal. The coffee culture in Wellington. Yes, it is. And of course, home of Weta and all that good fun. So we're good times. So what kind of stuff are you focusing on? So your Dynamics 365 or Power Platform MVP, what's kind of your focus? So my main focus is as I background is Dynamics CRM and then came Dynamics 365. When Bob the form came, main focus is still in the model driven app part of the Dynamics, our apps. And we also do a lot of our automate cloud flows to the backend process. So my main focus is if in terms of the Bob the form, my focus is more on the more driven apps and the cloud flows and occasionally power pages. What's interesting, how long have you been working with Dynamics 365, the CRM platform? Well, as long as my career started back in like last 12, 13 years ago. So back in it was Dynamics CRM. I started my career with CRM 4.0 days, really, really old. I don't have a lot of experience with it. I left Microsoft in 2009, went to a little startup or little ISV. And that was my first experience, all Dynamics CRM. And so it was very automated, like our website, you would breathe on it. And we were picking up those signals and doing things with it. And then of course, I've gone companies kind of back and forth between Dynamics and Salesforce. But I know that it's why I understand that it's a very rapidly growing space yet again. So yes, a lot of that I think has to do with the power platform, a lot of the cross integrations between tools. Yes, indeed, it's a really growing market. And there's a lot of demand, especially in the New Zealand, we are always looking for people. And during the lockdown, we can't bring in people from overseas and the demand is really high. Yeah, well, that's, I've tried to convince my wife that we need to go live for a year or two in New Zealand, because I've been many times I love it down there. And I've hiked all over both islands. Yeah. And absolutely love it. I've had friends that have done, like summertime, they went down and rented like a camper and just drove the country and different experiences, I'd love to do that. Yeah, you should totally try it out there a lot of great hiking areas and a lot of great tracks. How difficult is it for somebody, you know, international to, to come down and work out of New Zealand? I know this is a little bit of a sidetrack, but I've always been interested. Like, I don't know if you if you pull in a lot of expats in to work and what that process is like. Definitely, it's now that the border is starting to open up is going to be a lot easier. And especially for the countries who has the like holiday walk visa privilege in New Zealand, they are like way easier. They just come in and then just start working for a couple of years kind of thing. But for those who requires to the company to sponsor the walk visa, it's a little bit tricky situation. And because it's a longer process, the company has to advertise the ads. And they need to prove to government that they cannot get the required results locally. And then they have to sponsor it. So it's a little bit of a lengthy process. I always wondered how that, especially now that so many organizations have made the decision to go, you know, partially or entirely virtual. What happens there? I mean, because you could technically pick up employees anywhere in the world, you know, they'd have to work, you know, time shift a little bit to to fit in with the hours. But I mean, because my my thought was always the opposite. Like I always thought, you know, I could work anywhere in the world. I've been working remote for 12 years now, 13 years, a long time, more than a decade, I could be anywhere. And if I lived in New Zealand, I just have to be up at weird hours to to be in all the meetings. Yeah. Right. And that's tough. But that's not every day you can build your schedule around that. It's tougher for me. And I have grandkids now. And so it's kind of difficult to move to the other side of the planet. When you've got great kids, you know, the time zone is the only tricky part where it's really the same part of the whole world and then not really aligned with much with the other time zones. The closest is Australia, which is two hour later than us. Yeah. Yeah, it's always when I when I'm doing sessions for, you know, APAC and realizing that even the variety there, people in Perth, people out of Auckland and Wellington, and people out of Singapore, and just finding a time that'll work for everybody just and then it's it just never really aligns for especially my team is all in the east coast of the US. They're two hours ahead of me. And so I do an APAC call and I try to pull people from our New Jersey office, for example, in on those calls. And they complain that I'm making them jump on a call at 9pm, 10pm at night. But yeah, well, fun. Well, what was your so tell me about your journey to becoming MVP? This is your is this your third? Yes, yes, this, like, as of last three days ago, it's my third. Yeah. So my journey started back in, let's say, last 10 years, since I started working in like CRM. And when I did the development, as you know, we all developers, we do Google, when we don't know, we just walk that way. And I found a lot of my issues, solve by those people in the forums, and some of the problems by in the blog post. And since then, I was inspired to start contributing in the area. So if I can find something in the online, I try to solve the problem by myself, and then I try to blog it so that I remind myself if I encounter this problem in the future. And eventually, I also started answering questions in the forums back then, it was MSDN forum. And it was really good. And, but eventually, it just starting to really get busy in Singapore. And I just happened to do it like on and off, not routinely. And then I, since I migrate to New Zealand, I just want to restart it again. And then I just participate it in the user group forums, meetups in the Wellington, and also just restarted the blog. And then I just do, like, do it more consistently this time. And also, but participate in the forums. And one day, and a trust from Australia, he reached out to me, hey, Lynn, I really like your, you're really active in the community doing these contributions, would you want to be nominated as an MVP. So that's, that was the time that I was contributing for, started my contribution for three, four months. So I was like, I don't think I have enough content to submit if I were to show for my last 12 months on contribution. So can you give me a few more months? And so, and that was around January, February, and then he reached out to me again. I reached out to him on May, June, okay, now I'm not ready. I think I'm ready to do the submission. And then after submission time, there were some same time like this, there's a renewal happened. So I had to wait for a renewal round. And then I think it's August, I was called an MVP award. For folks that don't know, too, I mean, the submission process, so it's looking back over the past a year of activities. And so sometimes like, and, you know, when you get submitted, and especially if Microsoft likes you, they'll be like, it's not quite, you know, not for this cycle, but we like you. And, and, you know, let's we'll consider you again for the next round. And there's some people that, you know, wait a while, I always talk about I have a good friend who's a an MVP and an RD now and, and he had gone through that cycle and been considered a number of times. And finally, he just said, you know, look, I'm the amount of effort he owns his own business is very busy, very successful. And the amount of time that he was taking to collect all of that work and, and compile all of that. He's like, it's never going to happen for me. I'm not just forget about it. I'm just, I'm happy doing this stuff. But I don't have time for this activity. And then he got it. You know, and then he was in now he has to do it to renew. But it's just a year, you know, yeah. But it's, yeah, I mean, it's, it can be depending on the level of contribution, you know, and what you're collecting a building. It's not a small task to go and put all that together and organize. What did I work on the last year? Yeah. So it's more like time cheating, filling time sheets. If I do regularly, I don't feel it's okay. But if I do it at the end of the year, and I have to recollect all look at through my all blog posts and all my activities and user group speeches and like, oh, it's I know. Well, so I tell this advice, like for you, Lynn, and but I so I started years ago when I was working for another software company. And, and I was writing most of the marketing material. And I'd have sales people like, Hey, did you write an article about that? Or didn't you do a webinar on that topic? And like, Yeah, let me compile it. So I did an internal newsletter on a monthly basis of everything that I did the prior month and would send it to the sales folks. And then I just like, Why didn't I just put this out on my blog? And so I've been for years, I have what Mike, I call my my monthly. So I've got like the I just published on the first of every month, I do a like June 2022 content wrap up. And then I, I take the time it's it takes a time to compile that article once a month of all of those activities, all the links. And then I put the kind of the narrative the story around Hey, here's what I was working on. Here's the event that I went to here's the webinar that I did. And then all of those links and publish that out. So what I need to get better at, and I don't know what your process is, but is adding that now into the tool on a regular basis, not waiting for the end of year. Yeah, the renewal process. Because that's that's a pain where everybody is trying to go and add their contributions, all in the month of March, all in the last week. Yeah, sometimes they even decide this down. Yeah, but, but anyways, I the other thing is like, so I know that there's, there's a lot of people that have questions about getting started, you just talked to a perfect example of starting in the forums and then starting to expand on maybe what you shared in a forum in a blog post. So what was your process? I mean, did you like set aside time every day to go in and answer questions or what did that look like? Yeah, for me, the blogging, I put some blog, my calendar and one of the weekends. So I started for five hour blog for, let's say, Saturday first. So that if something come up on Saturday, I can move it to Sunday. For forums, I usually do it during the night, like block half an hour each day, go through the all the new questions and reply the response to my previous questions. It's a bit of blocking your personal calendar. Yeah, well, that's again, that's I think that the only way to do it to be consistent, block out the block out the time and, and it may be that all you're doing is going in and I always remind people it's not just about what you're answering but recognizing when somebody else has a good response and commenting and liking it and doing that thing. So, so that maybe you get other notifications that there's follow up questions on that topic, but recognizing others is a big piece of that as well. Yeah, indeed, throughout the whole process, you're not just answering the questions. You also learn from other people's problems and also same as what you mentioned, you also learn from other contributors. So you go to the new question, you see someone answer it and you say, oh, that's quite a good answer. I've never, I wouldn't have never thought about it. So this not just contributing, it's also the learning process. That's why I love forums. That's why I like panels is because even though you may have the correct answer for that, somebody else brings in a different perspective from a different industry or a different novel approach that you're like, you know, I never thought of it that way. And, you know, and so it's great to have those other insights. And if you are blogging, I mean, you could, I mean, a lot of us where we have our regular jobs, we're not just blogging all the time. But I mean, I don't think there's any shortage of topics that are out there. If you did nothing more than go and collect good answers from other people, give the attributions, recognize the people that gave those answers, which is always key. It's a one a secret to growing your blog is make sure that you're properly citing the work of others. You always want to do that. But and then and then putting together your thoughts around the topics. I mean, you I could go and blog once a day and find interesting technical problems that you'll have something to add to and, you know, build up a content. And that's a great way for people that are looking for ways to start, just go and find common problems that you've run into that you have some experience with, but pull in the work of others as well, you'll grow a lot faster. Yeah, that's also one of my source of the blog topics back in the days when I do forum answers. So when I get run out of all these problems that I encounter as my projects and my work, I can see all those people's questions and answer them. And then I blog about it. And reference to those threads. Yep. For one trap. Yeah. Well, that's, yeah, that's a it's a great point because a lot of people think like, well, what do I write about? What do I talk about? What are the experience? And you know, sometimes when I'm doing, I do Microsoft 365 AMA. So M365 AMAs, we do these regular basis with a group of us. I've got, I don't know if you know, Kirstie McGrath out of Melbourne at MVP participates in these as well. And we were just recording earlier this week and some of them and a couple of the responses, like I have no experience with that. And so I'm listening to them share their, their feedback on that. And then I found I did, I said, Oh, you know, hey, this might also work to help solve that. And so having just that interaction sometimes sparks another thought, another idea of, Hey, I have had something experienced that's relevant to solving this problem that, you know, that could help there. But yeah, well, that's why I'm in collaboration technology, because I love that kind of collaboration. Yeah. Yeah. Well, then I really appreciate you taking the time to one great to meet you. I hope to get down in your neck of the woods sometime soon. And maybe this year, but definitely next year, I'll be back down your way. But for want to find out more about you or get in touch with you, what are the best ways to reach you? Where are you most active in the social platforms? I'm equally active in both LinkedIn and Twitter. So it's my full name, Lynn Zowin, ally double N, ZAW, WIN. So this is the same as for my Twitter handle. Excellent. Of course, I'll have the links within the YouTube and within the blog and podcast. So Lynn really appreciate you taking the time today. It's great meeting you and have a great weekend. I should have put it at the beginning. This is your weekend. Yeah, it's Saturday. Saturday morning. It's Saturday, 10 a.m. Dedicated, all right, to community. Well, thanks for doing that and appreciate it. Thanks for it. Yeah, I'm really glad to be on this show.