 Hey everybody, this is Christian with another MVP buzz chat interview and I'm here talking with Diana. Hello. Hello. Hello. Good afternoon I should say it's late afternoon for you so thanks for joining me. So for folks that don't know you want to give us an introduction who you are what you do where you're located. Nobody calls me that because people really struggle to pronounce my name so I have made it really simple. Everybody calls me DD. What do I do so I am a senior consultant with incremental group incremental group we have offices in a few different places across the UK. I'm based in Glasgow because I think that's the best city obviously. What do I do. So, loads of different things I think that's probably people would agree is the beauty of consultancy that you never you never ever have two days that are the same. So, I tend to do everything from pre sales when our pre sales need a bit of help so that's demos and meeting customers before they even know they're a customer. I am trying to understand what they need doing them was showing them what, what the potential is, then when they move into delivery, I help with the whole project life cycle so we built what we need to build for them. And then sometimes I also help with the support side of things and so really the whole life cycle. I think that's what keeps it yeah that's what keeps it exciting to be honest. Well, that's something that I was a philosophy throughout my career has been you know I never want to be more than I always want to be customer facing and some degree of that because the further you get away from the customer engagement, the quicker that you have the sense of what is real out there and you, you buy in too much of your own marketing and you know that kind of thing so having those regular interaction points. And that's, I think that's so at uni, I did computing science and management, and I think even then that was exactly that. What I was thinking because I knew I didn't want to do purely computing science, because computers always make sense, and that's good for some time but then it gets boring. I also did the management because people are the opposite people don't make sense. So for me, that was exactly the right balance between people and technology. You know, it's funny it's my, my degrees are in so business degrees and MBA, but my degrees are marketing in my almost 30 years of working I've spent maybe three four years of all of that career doing marketing type functions. But always in technology, only one time did I go work for a company for a year as a contractor as a consultant for a non tech company, and I didn't like it. But see you say that but I think I think you have actually spent much more time using what you have learned in your marketing degree, even when it's not for a marketing specific task because everything in life is marketing. So I completely agree. It is everything is your brand. And there's there's certainly a lot of room for it doing a similar role so I've had the titles of pre sales but like like a solution architect type role. I've been evangelist and chief evangelist for a number of ISVs. There's a evangelism is kind of in my blood that that side of it which is all about helping translate and this is kind of a marketing function to have taking very technical topics and breaking that into consumable chunks of information to help people that are not, you know, living and breathing the tech every single day. I like that role of helping explain tech to non tech people. What I didn't like was being surrounded by and being like the only technical person in a non tech company. It was frustrating. So somebody at work actually introduced that idea that we should have a tech test so essentially it's the same as like the driving test that we do technology. So that we shouldn't let people get a job or get to a certain level unless they have passed that basic technology. I mean that certainly happens with like technical roles there's a lot of companies that do that will actually throw out tests I know that like Microsoft for example some interviewers as part of that that interview loop process for those that are interested in going to work from Microsoft, and certainly at headquarters, how they were doing that when they would send out these, you know, math problems send out your technical problems have this all before they even bring them to Redmond to interview for those roles. But I think that so there are some folks some good friends that are big on the idea of, you know, technical competency, and it's not so much a like to keep somebody out of a role. But even information workers need to have a regular refresh and so there's nothing wrong with doing kind of a level set a check and see, you know what have they learned what have they unlearned so that an organization knows what they need to go in and reinforce. 100% and I love the word unlearned. I'm definitely going to use that sounds like the technical term for it. Well that's, I like that because, because it what it says is it explains like I did learn it I did know it like I've unlearned everything about so Unix. I took a couple years of classes I worked that back when I was working in data warehousing, and knew all that. I don't know any of it now I don't remember any of it. I'm glad it's not just me things all the time. So so it's it's reassuring. Yeah, I think it's a good because it again it reinforces that it was learned at one time I did that for that role but it's no longer needed in my life, you know, I just like riding a bicycle. I'm sure it will come back exactly in the right time if you needed it. The other thing I want to point out is that so I had my math teachers, you know, in in middle school and high school that were like did that phrase is like, you're going to use this throughout your life. It's a lie people. There are roles like use like I had my last courses of course for my MBA I had my finance and statistics classes was the last time I picked up a physical calculator. I did any kind of math of any kind, and have not used it my career at all. So, I do agree with you on a professional level, but my dad is a mathematics high university teacher so higher math. So I feel like I have to just show the other side of this just from a personal level, because I do think I'm the same I went to a school, then I went to mathematics higher school, I did a lot of maths throughout my whole education I did some math maths at uni as well. And I, even when I agree I don't think I have used any of the formulas there they have all faded away they're long forgotten, but I think the combinatorial thinking that you get by learning that is something that that I still use on a day to day basis. I don't think people always draw the parallel between how you can solve some life problems and doing math to school but I think that is a very strong, strong connection. Well there, there's, I think it's it's hard for a lot of students that are going through and seeing the world through a certain certain way and saying I am struggling with math I'm not good at this thing it's like there are so many different roles that are out there. I didn't technology, or so we're talking about my undergrad is in marketing that I have a business degree on top of that. And so I've had, you know, while I did the minimum possible on that I just did what was required for the program to get the degrees. Because I just didn't enjoy it, which really, if you get to the root of it psychologically is I had a really bad math teacher that made me hate math because I hated him. It was on the teacher sounds sounds fair. It was so that I know and I know that. It's like, doesn't matter it just kind of broke me of that and I was in advanced math classes when I was younger. But, alright, we don't need to do that so much. That's a that's a different path that you never know with these interviews. So kind of what are the stuff that you focus on what what's kind of your passion right now with the technology. I last two years, three years. I've been mainly specializing on dynamics 365 marketing. And because I think the more you do have something the more it comes your way and the more opportunities like that you attract. So that is kind of happened. But when I'm not doing that I do the whole Microsoft dynamic 365 certainly we do sales as well we do customer service. But if I had to choose my favorite ones would be dynamics marketing and things like customer insights, for example, because that's another product that links really nicely with the marketing product for that targeting segmentation as well. So I have to say you're the first person I've talked to that besides talking with members of the, the dynamics marketing product team, seeing them at shows, like two years ago at the inspire the partner conference, I spent a lot of time over at talking with the, the dynamics 365 marketing team to understand, you know what Microsoft is doing like obviously, you have the leaders that are out there the marquettos and, and, and hub spot and you know that are at the for the mid market up to larger than that. And Microsoft doesn't appear on that list of of known in top as far as as penetration. So what what's kind of different where does it fit what's the story for Microsoft dynamics. And I can tell you only my opinion, but I think it's a matter of time, because it always needs to start somewhere. Those products have been about on around and about for quite a long time. And I think that's probably one of the one of the reasons why I like dynamics marketing so much, because when I started three years ago or so it was such a. I don't want to go with basic but it was, it was a product very early on in its development. So it was missing quite a few very important fundamental features, but just seeing how much it has evolved in three years. I think it's definitely one of the products that are gaining popularity more, much more quickly and market penetration than the other ones that have had it for a while. I completely agree there's a matter of time. If Microsoft makes the investments and pursues and goes I mean it is look it's positioned because in and maybe get guided given overview of what's included within that. But because of the Microsoft approach to kind of data science and analysis and being able to like the analytics back end the possibility, but also to be able to plug in and leverage LinkedIn acquisition. That's one of those things were when Microsoft acquired LinkedIn and people said, Why does this this doesn't make any sense I said are you kidding. You're on the dynamic side be able to plug in and leverage that data and read that data and be able to leverage that from a marketing standpoint from, you know, anyway, there, there's your marketing degree talking see it's the rich data that's behind it that the company has that rich business user data. We're not talking about Facebook API getting data from the consumer standpoint but this is, you know much more, you know, clean relevant data to from a business standpoint to these marketing systems. And the data point I think that's why I to marketing, definitely a favorite but customer insights is another product that I don't think he's got as much as attention is it probably should have been agree you probably have seen one of the new features around data enrichment. I think it's exactly that concept that you were just talking about getting more data and better data or even better using the data that you already have as a company, but a plugging some gaps and enriching that data with with external sources and that's what customer insight is really good at, and then plugging that into a marketing system and using it that as an entry point. I think it's coming very close to closing the whole cycle. I agree. I think you know without all the emphasis to talk around Microsoft is make moves around Microsoft Viva. We talked about the three other components of Viva, and we talked least about the insights portion. So everybody wants to talk about, you know, data connections which is that front page the intranet page that integrated in of SharePoint into teams. You have the learning component, of course, and then you have topics, which is really cool. There's a lot to that one, but then no one's really talking about the insights part of that. I think it has the potential to be the biggest component of Viva, because when you start talking about understanding how people work and then leveraging that and building campaigns whether internally or externally around that data. That's going to be so important. So important. We just absolutely agree. We just need to make sure because we can we have heard that from from a few customers. We just need to be careful. We don't cross the line between important and creepy, because I think that's the technical term. But I think it's important and I think it's important when we, even when we have those conversations with customers, sometimes when we show them things, they get so excited because we are showing them things that they have never ever been able to do or even think of doing. So they always go, oh, now we can do this and this and that. So it's always important to say, yes, you have a lot of possibilities, but how about we start small when we see where we get to just let it evolve naturally and organically rather than surprise your customers with 20 minutes when you haven't done anything like that for the past three years, let's say. Well, there's a there's a that's a whole that's that's a it's a worthy life pursuit to try and ease customers into. But I think that's how you gain their trust you want to let them explore you and want to let them get adventurous and excited, but you also need to have a strict hand and make sure that you tell them when they're crossing. Maybe there's an opportunity like for for Microsoft could have for like new when that's like a transition you could set it up within your profile that the system actually throttles what you can do that only lets it kind of trickle out if it's like a net new thing. Like again the company can decide hey we want to be careful. We don't want to just barrage our entire list with all of this marketing campaign, we want to trickle out and then ramp it up slowly organically over time. Because I know that's that's an approach. That's why it's it's the key to these marketing systems is that it's more personalized for the recipient of those messages. And it's going to be more actionable and more personalized and there's it's more likely that you'll have a conversion activity they'll do something they'll click that link they'll open that that file they'll respond and buy something. If you're just spamming the same message out to 100,000 people, then don't be surprised if nobody responds because it's not aligned with that's what the marketing systems that's what it is that's why it's so important to understand how people are working. And the one thing to add to that so personalization, absolutely crucial and another concept that I think needs to be considered on the back of this is different channels, because it's really important to have your message personalized it's much better to say hi john and then tell them something about the product they have used. But if you do it over a channel that they don't have access to, then that's not very useful. So picking the right channel for the right messages I think the next logical step to this one. So integration in with the sales side and this is again another disconnect for so many companies out there and we've all received these phone calls from the sales person and be like, yeah, I downloaded that ebook, like, two months ago I've seen it already so, or, you know, and so I was always impressed when a sales person, you know contacts me not that anybody likes getting called by a sales person, hold on, but where they're able to say like, you know, hey, so I see you downloaded this, and that you also participated in that webinar two months on this topic. We had this new thing coming out so they already know what I've not yet consumed. And so, and I know where I am I can envision it when they envision it when they call me, like where I am on that customer journey where they're contacting me for that next step around that this is again for folks that are in the marketing side of things. Yeah, we do think about this we know where you are and we have a plan for for each of those things. One cool thing that sales people have started doing is sending personalized videos. So I think that's that's that that makes the whole journey a bit more a bit more pleasant I know you said you don't like them but I think they're also making an effort to be a bit less annoying. It's well the thing that annoys me is when I get called for and they clearly don't understand it's like it is like oh we saw on your LinkedIn I'm like get did you look at my profile at all. I don't do that at all or that's not my function at all why are you calling me. And I just look at that and say bad marketing or lack of effort around that. I actually appreciate where it's plug whether whether plugged in and they know where I am on that flow and and I just I try to be nice and say well look I'm, I'm not looking to make a purchase around this I was investigating this, so that they can go back to their notes and fill that in. Don't harass Christian, you know, not that it that it only means when they when they enter that in the system that not to harass a customer. It's only for one to three months, and then if you're lucky. Yeah. Yeah. Well very very cool well so for folks that want to get to know more about you and find out like where your blog is and what you're doing out there and social. What's the best way to reach you. I don't have a blog or give you the details we can post it under the video afterwards, but LinkedIn Twitter. I like both and probably a bit more active on LinkedIn as well, but I think it. I don't think I don't even know why I think I just get a bit more better engagement on LinkedIn so that's where I put a bit more of my time. Twitter is fine my handle is my name and surname. I know you guys will struggle to spell it so we will put the details. It'll be up on my blog post as well. Yeah, everything so if you go to buckleyplanet.com you'll find kind of the summary of this that will have the video and the podcast link, and then links to all her social details as well so if you're watching this on YouTube or via social channels or Facebook, then you can go over to buckleyplanet.com and you can find the recording with all the info. So for everybody watching out there do keep in touch it doesn't have to be only if you guys want to know about marketing or customer insights. If a lot of people have been getting in touch recently and saying things like I'm, I'm giving my first presentation or I'm speaking at my first event. Do you have any pointers. So anything like that absolutely happy to help as well with anything you want to chat about doesn't have to be Microsoft or Dynamics 365 specific. That's right. It could be about martial arts, for example, you know, preferably, we didn't even get into that you know so my background is not as impressive. Well, what's what's your what's your martial art. So I did Kenpo for years I was a wrestler. And then so Kenpo was actually started by an American by a wrestler that created this. I was drawn to it because it had a lot of moves that were of grabs and throws that were akin to wrestler just felt more natural to me. I did that for a couple years. I got up to a, see I almost got my brown belt. See almost got my brown belt, but then I moved and so left my dojo and stop doing things. You can go back. It's never too late. It's, it's not an interest anymore. Yeah. Yeah, he's always been a passion love it. It just, it's such a good way to decompress in distress after the workday. I don't know how I become a worse person if I don't go to training. So for those watching in her MVP profile, she has her favorite kick. So that's an important information. What if people want to know now they know how to find out. Well, but now if you have a person that's in the MVP community and they're aware of that and you get into a life or death fight situation. They know your favorite go to kick that's not good. But it doesn't mean that I cannot use all of the other ones. Take that out of your arsenal. So I don't know that just seems like, you know, it's unfortunate you shared that information. Maybe it's a preventive technique, because maybe it's a very difficult kick. So maybe them knowing that I could hit them with that kick. They're like, oh, well, better not getting that fight. So maybe it's actually good for them. And they're looking for that you just do a straight punch and taking. Oh, no, I'm sure we can figure it figure it out just by talking. Right. Or I'm right. So we can do arm wrestle as well as that talking through problems. That's an interesting concept. I don't know that I like it, but I it's an interesting approach. Well, thanks so much for your time and hope to see you as things kind of open up hope to see you over in that part of the world. Sometimes soon. I'm sure it's such a small community. So I'm sure we'll see each other soon. All right, we'll talk to you soon.