 Everybody this is Christian Buckley with another MVP buzz chat interview and I'm talking today with Ryan. Hello. Hi. Hi, Chris. How are you? I'm doing well. Another relatively brand new MVP. Always exciting to get to know folks as they join in and get some of your backstory. But for people that don't know you or your company, what you do, where you are, why don't you give us that background? So my name is Ryan Mangan, just recently been an MVP. I work for AppCure, the CTO of AppCure, which is an application packaging, migration and transformation company based in the United Kingdom. Excellent. We're at the UK. Yeah. Yeah. So, well, you know, not in London as everybody seems to orientate everything in other UK is London. No. So I'm currently based just just outside of York. The famous iconic kind of thing is the York Minster. But obviously, instead of the company, it's global, but, you know, across the country as well. Sure. Yeah, so countries, countries. So yeah, so do you have, do you have an office over in the US as well? No, no, suddenly everything's here, but you know, we're in the world of remote as you know, you know where we're going with all this conversation is, you know, you don't really, you don't really need an office anymore. It can be, it can be a virtual phone system, it can be virtual, anything really, whatever you want. That's always, that's going to be interesting. That's a great topic. Maybe we'll come back to that on what's happening with virtualization because I mean the cloud, I mean, we both work in that world. But I've worked as a remote person for, you know, for in person companies for the over the last decade. And so I was part of an acquisition and then, you know, I was based in Seattle, my company was based in Boston. And so it's been that way for the last decade. And so a lot of the transition hasn't been really been a transition for me, just because it's the way that I've been working for so long. So what's kind of your experience? What are you talking about? What are you passionate about right now? And then we would come back to customers. So, yeah, well, I've been busy for quite a few years on the community side of it. So I think for the last, what, 10 years I've been producing blog posts, you know, speaking content, work around the kind of areas is, you know, the old end user computing side of it. And before I go down into end user computing, I'll start with a little bit more of a background of myself. So kind of builds up a bigger conversation. So I believe I actually started my career in the British military, so working with telecommunications, construction and I believe an explosive. So I had quite a broad kind of start of my career. And when I left the military, I went into kind of IT as it is today, the more network engineering. But I have to ask with that combination. I mean, were you like installing desktop computers, hooking up phone lines and diffusing bombs? Like, what is that? It's kind of random. So the kind of regimen of the car was the Royal Engineer. So it's quite a prestigious regimen, you know, kind of car as we call them. And you start off as trainers like an infantry, you do your training first and then you become a Royal Engineer, which is the bridges, the civil engineering, the kind of explosive element of it, you know, like cutting bridges, cutting trees, you know, using various different methods to kind of bear obstacles on the battlefield. And then the third you get a trade and the trade I chose was communications in the end, which was, you know, it's kind of following me through. But to be fair, I built my first PC when I was 11 years old. So I've always had that technology thing in the background. And obviously when I left the military, it put me in good stead. Obviously today I sit here as an MVP in various other kind of business interests that I've established and built over the years. But yeah, so I started off in the military and then came into technology. And then I kind of ended up specializing in remote desktop services. You know, the, the kind of problematic challenges of scaling and the pain points which Microsoft have fixed by releasing Azure Virtual Desktop in the cloud platform. Yeah. Well, that's, yeah, look, that's been an interesting space. I've never been on that side of it. I've always been more on the product program management side of things. But of course, all my friends that are like in that side to see the evolution of desktop support and external user support and the distributed team geographically dispersed team, you know, support. I mean, it's dramatically changed over the last decade. I mean, it's just, it's just a different thing altogether. Well, I mean, the kind of how I got into it. So I started off fixing networking virtualization and then people want to work for a group of colleges and they effectively they had Citrix presentation server. And, you know, it was very basic and they wanted to change it and we went out to suppliers and they came back with these ludicrous prices and I said, you know what, let's have a look at remote desktop services, you know, 2012 at the time. The first, you know, it's just been released, you know, with tech head and stuff. If you remember back, I used to attend some of them, you know, that's where I met Freak Bateson if you've ever spoke with Freak before. Anyway, long story short, that is, I ended concocting my own solution for about one eighth of the price of what the supplier put together and was actually featured in the Microsoft Education blog, where we were able to basically 200 users and deliver virtual apps using remote desktop services 2012. And, you know, from that point, I realized how problematic and challenging the technology could be and some of the problems and started blogging and producing that content on Ryan Magnus IT blog. And today I sit here with about 3.5 million, you know, hits and views 20,000 views a month plus. And it's just a lot of it is on that sort of thing, you know, like fixing some of them dreaded problems over there because a lot of these challenges you don't see until you start using the environment for, you know, in anger or over a period of time. And obviously, you know, yeah, just kind of writing, it's like writing, you know, you don't know why you're writing it, but it's useful for you and others, do you know what I mean? But I find it's interesting too is I was just looking at my, my monthly stats this morning from my personal blog and of course I write in other locations as well but I've seen that the content that does the best even though I primarily write about more on the strategy side of the business. So I talk about more business programmatic marketing topics and things like that around mostly the Microsoft ecosystem. But still blog posts that I wrote a year to ago, which is very much like how to go and deploy this and I do I talk about the why I always like walk through this is what you do here's the features that are available. And then I say like this is why this is important this is how it fits in with SharePoint teams that your windows in general and your strategy, but those are still the most heavily traffic blog posts. And so I know that the, you know that my marketing team would say well like go and write more of that content I'm like, I'll do it when it makes sense it's not my primary thing that I'm focused on. But that is a, it's a common story that I hear from new MVPs that you to go out and talk about like break fix type topics like something went wrong, I went and researched it this is what I came up with. And at least glued and paste this together may not be perfect architecturally, but it solved this immediate need is a great place to begin within the community and everybody has those kinds of stories. Yeah, and, you know, as I progressed, you know, I produced more and more content I had the opportunity to publish ebooks on Microsoft publications on Azure Virtual Desktop Citrix and Microsoft working together VMware and Microsoft working together and I mean good stead really if you think about it was it was a indirect career milestone stepping stone I didn't realize what I was doing at the time, but over a period of time I developed new skills without realizing I did it. And it's not because you know I was trying to go after the MVP or go after all of the other accolades of the expert and things I've done. It was just, you know, I am obsessed with technology. You know, when I found out that my car had, you know, electronic gearbox and all these other things I wanted to know exactly how it works, and I didn't want I didn't like the fact that the dealer knew more about how to reset things like the essential locking on the system and I did. So I went out of my way and I found out how it all works and it's just, you know, the person I am I'm inquisitive and like to understand things right. And I suppose if you're passionate about something as I am in technology space you'll always succeed because you know it's what drives you if you're not interested in that subject like you know certain things at school at the time. You know, I can't remember what it was was to certain subjects which I couldn't stand because it was just so, you know, monotone and, and, and bland I think the phrase is. I just didn't enjoy it but obviously as you go on in your career you find these areas which really draws you to it and you spend more and more time. Whereas, you know, you know yourself, how many jobs do you find in your life you think I'm going to put that off and I'm going to do that I'll wait I'll put that on the bottom of the pile. You get to that point where I need to do it now I'm not going to fall into this. It's them sort of things right. I was for years I was a runner and in one of the things that your runners just like cyclists have the same passion where they like they love the hills well the hills are the hardest part. You know, we exerted yourself, but there's, you know, there's something about you have that constant tension, you know, in our in our career of going and and then getting over those hills, you know, solving those hard problems and there's certain amount of pride and you can. You can feel the development happening while you're doing that you know that hey this is going to be something where it's going to get easier I'm going to be able to go and do this and so hard things can become really fun. And that's a lot about your technology to go and figure things out ask the questions. I always tell people to like be very careful be transparent about what you don't know, like don't just be inquisitive ask questions is very much this my Ted lasso commentary, you know, ask questions. And, and open up to collaborate with others on what those answers are, you're going to learn a lot quicker, you're going to the solutions that you end up delivering, no matter what your role and are going to be stronger are going to be better. And you're going to build contacts elsewhere. So, kind of on that one something I wanted to ask you so enterprise mobility as a focus for MVP what is that you know what what's included within that. So shall I, shall I kind of open it up so obviously I do the endpoint, I do the, I do the visual desktop and the endpoint, you know, autopilot but um, let's just throw in the mix MSI X and MSI sabotage as well. So they're two different completely separate and the development side so I spent a bit of time out before my MVP days as a, as a CTR up here working with the product teams at Microsoft. I've had the likes of Stefan Giorgio and, and your clinic I've had the opportunity to kind of talk and discuss things with these really in clever people you know, and who drive the bus you know, including john Vincell should mention him as well. So, it's kind of bizarre because I'm on one side I'm talking about enterprise mobility, you know, autopilot and endpoint manager system center configuration manager and remote desktop services windows 365 and Azure virtual desktop. When you look at this now and when we look 10 years ago, the whole kind of your ecosystem just evolve right it's just like wow we've just created another 10,000 different potential jobs here. Um, you know it's such a massive topic but the problem we've got with these workspaces will call them is applications so what we do. And at Apcare is we solve the people call them legacy apps I call them applications, you know if they run on the modern operating system it's an application right. So, not only am I looking at enterprise mobility, I'm also looking at the app development the MSI X MSI X app attack because we can now deploy a workspace in five minutes right cloud has accelerated these amazing opportunities for us. We don't have to spend weeks ordering tin and plugging it all in and spending all them years doing all that hard work for it to be ripped out again. You click a few buttons run a few and templates and off you go. The problem is, and it still relies today is the applications, you know how long did it take to get them apps moved. What are the challenges with them applications 16 bit doesn't run a 64 how do we challenge that. How do we really want to run type two hypervisors, these massive list of problems right. And this is where I think, you know, from a uniqueness from from me, I'm looking at things completely different. And so I'm not just enterprise mobility I'd say I'd say I'm Windows apps as well. I would say that it says hard but you know, I'm covering a lot of ground. There's really a blurring of lines between those areas I mean even like you can think about your enterprise mobility and where the focus is for a lot of those folks. And with business applications with data platform for, you know, the enterprise administration what is that when the, the data center site of things as well. I mean there's blurring between those different things that's one of the, and for folks that aren't familiar with the in the NBA MVP program where like I'm an office apps and services I was started as a SharePoint I was one of the first to transition over to office 365 and then office servers and services and then office apps and services. And like SharePoint and teams and Yammer and the office suite and kind of everything that's that's within that. There's a broad range of topics, but they're increasingly have been people that have been on the office apps and services side that are now business applications because they've gotten into the power platform side or straight over into dynamics and doing more on that side. So, there's once you become an MVP. And you're interacting with people that are kind of cross specialty, you may find that you are writing and doing less and less and less around the topic that you became an MVP around, but the volume of, you know, content and things that you're doing, contributions and the community involvement become broader and broader and broader, which is fine it's perfectly fine. Yes, it's interesting that way I mean like like anything. I mean you come in you with a new role as you start learning about something and not that you have to master that area entirely to become, you know, like the expert, maybe within your organization. But then you start learning about other things that are connected into what you're doing and there's your it's going to open up paths to go and learn. But that's one of the things that I love the most about the MVP program is taking advantage of that is reaching out and finding out about new areas helps you in your current role, your current company helps you expand as far as your community contributions. So if you started, like, looking into other areas of you, besides saying, you know, signing up and doing this and getting to know me and office apps and services person over in, you know, Utah in the US, getting to know people kind of cross workload. Have you started to kind of expand your view of what you'll be focusing on next. So yeah, I mean, I've always been a technologist I've always looked to the bigger picture so I do know quite a bit about the dynamic side of things I do know a lot about teams and direct routing with my team so my experience in the networking and all the rest of it kind of I have done in my career, lots of different things. Today, I'm obsessed with I don't know why Windows 365 endpoint manager and Azure virtual desktop and the app side of it because of what I do in a day today, because you know, it was said in I think it was don't quote me might be completely wrong but I'll give you the figures anyway, with a caveat that I might be wrong. I think it was saying that there's 176 million different applications out there Microsoft stated in 2018 I believe I'll double check later. And there was then another 176 million variations. And, you know, every developer's different written different ways. It's fascinating to see how it all comes together because it's a part of the puzzle. But in terms of like, be having access to all these new areas in the MVP program, because I'm a very positive person right. I always look the pros to cons and in between. I'll never ever say a product rubbish. I'm never, I'll never ever, you know, be one of them pessimistic people I'll always give you the good, the bad, the ugly. You know, there's not there's not bad product. It's meeting somebody's requirements somebody's outcome somewhere it's delivering on it. Yeah, I mean, you know, nothing's ever perfect. If someone could ever give me, you know, utopia. You know, that's me done in my career. And I never will will never get utopia because these requirements these demands these change every day you know it's a it's a revolving dorsal one said to me right. You know, and similar SharePoint right on your side, you know, you'll deliver something in SharePoint you did a solution. And then next minute that that requirement changes right and you've probably gone through your career is that the same way. Yeah, well, you know, that's part of, you know, an operations view of the world a change managed view of the world is that. And I find myself saying this a lot I just did this in a mention this in another discussion I think yesterday or day before is that, you know, look we look at everything that we experienced especially in technology, through the lens of our understanding today and what happens is you learn something new, you pick up the new technology, you then come up with questions that you would have never known to have asked before you learn that new thing. And so my, my understanding of what I need in my role what my business needs what I think where I think things are going from an industry from a competitive landscape changes I learn more and I experienced these things and so it is that's one of the things that I talk about it is that it constantly changes that, you know, even though you could be at high performing than the needs of the business change the needs of your customers change the, the, the new technology that comes out, all of which can impact everything as well. And so it's the skill we need to develop in this world is at getting better at change management getting better at, you know, how do we react to change as it happens, not playing continually catch up that is always going to be catch up to, I feel like I'm up to speed on that, like that'll that'll, you might have that for a day or two, and then suddenly feel you're behind again, which is okay, just learn to operate at that different speed. And just kind of finishing off on the area of like what the MVP kind of the product management meetings and things, you know, the opportunities which I mean in space of one month, you know, to kind of go into these sessions and meet these new people interact You know, a lot of friends in the community, you know, I enjoy socializing I'm a human being the end of the day humans love socializing, unless you're hermit but most of us are not. But, you know, it's open so many doors in the sense that we can start looking and the thing about Microsoft is it's so big people don't realize actually how big Microsoft is, there's you know there's specific teams which have to all kind of sync up in so many ways to make this whole ecosystem work and unless you actually see it from behind the scenes you don't realize actually how complicated can it can really be. And it's the same with all global, you know, software companies as you all know yourself. But yeah, honestly, it's been, it's an eye opener in one sense but it's great because it opens these new world of opportunities not just for me but for the communities and also the things I write about research and document on, you know, recently I did some testing on Microsoft Azure, the, the, the different skills for virtual machines right for desktops and it came back that, you know, from the desktop testing for running Microsoft Office applications and things. It showed that using AMD Epic CPUs was much better than Intel, right and obviously clouds evolving and cloud can be anything because it can be any data center, you know, that will change but it really kind of was interesting to see that, you know, servers might be great on Intel, but when we're building virtual desktops we should be using AMD. So that, you know, like I said, it's, you never get bored, do you? You know, every two years there's a significant change and it's great because you're always interested in your job. Whereas, you know, some, it's probably like cars, right? New car technology comes out, the mechanics probably get farmed up on the new stuff every year. It keeps you going. Doing the same thing every day which is, you know, monotonous, you know, repetition is quite frustrating. So, you know, honestly, I couldn't be in a better position in terms of my career and enjoyment, but there's still, I believe, a lot of problems in industry which we all need to solve. And I think the communities, especially the Microsoft community, how vast and large it is are really kind of contributing. I mean, have you seen how much content now flies across LinkedIn? It's crazy. There's new content weekly. And then there's all these new user groups starting up, you know, it's pretty impressive. But like I said, you know, did you see some of the night announcements this week where they spoke about the Microsoft spin on the metaverse, as it were, all this virtual world? The Microsoft mesh. Yeah, so what does that look like in three years' time, right? That's what I said straight away. Yeah, yeah. And you think of like, in Microsoft Loop, which is the new, which is the fluid, the, you know, the dynamic applications across that. I mean, like, there's so many things that are constantly changing in every part of technology, like you. I mean, that's why I'm so passionate about it. And it's very supportive of those of us with ADD, ADHD. Yeah, but as technologists, yeah, like I'm excited to go and see new things like I will go to locally there will be an event like I was telling somebody about how I went to kind of a half day of VR AR number of vendors that came in and were demonstrating and some this is like a year and a half. You know, COVID so almost two years ago. It, some of it was just kind of like, yeah, I've seen it. What's what's new. And a couple of them where I'm just like, oh my gosh, like this. This is amazing. I can see the business application of it today. Like what what what are you doing? What's what's the go to market around this and, you know, it even has nothing to do with anything that I'm working in other than it's just exciting technology to see it at firsthand. I feel like that is so much about my day to day. And that's one of the things I love about, you know, I can't go and consume it all I'm focused on the things that I'm focused on. One of the reasons why I started this interview series was to, I kind of, you know, get it like the information through these interviews of other things I should be paying attention to, or just experience it through others, you know, in this way. But just to kind of, you know, keep up on, you know, all of the different areas within the stack and what's important and what we should be looking at so. Well, listen, I, Ryan, I really appreciate your time and sharing information. People want to find out more about you get in touch with you. What are the best ways to reach you? Yeah, so my Twitter handle is Ryan mangan. So why mangan on Twitter and my blog is Ryan mangan's IT blog. So you can't get that wrong. So it's Ryan mangan's IT blog.com. Even though I'm in the UK, right? Yeah, global presence. That's right. Exactly. But we'll have everything out. So if you're finding this video out on YouTube, of course, you go to buckleyplanet.com and you'll be able to find, of course, through SEO, you'll be able to find this information out there. SEO likes when there's a blog post, a video and a podcast all, you know, tagged the same way it raises up in the in the SEO. So but Ryan really appreciate your time and getting to know you today. And hopefully see you at the next MVP summit. But in fact, it's Christian.