 Hey everybody, this is Christian Buckley doing another MVP buzz chat and I'm talking today with Jeeva. Hello. Hello, hi Christian. How are you? I'm doing well. And for folks that don't know you, who are you, where are you and what do you do? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Myself Jeeva. My full name is Jeeva Rajen Kumar. I'm a Microsoft business application MVP for last almost four years now. I'm a pandemic baby, I would say, in terms of MVP. So I had my, I got my MVP just a couple of months before the pandemic and how I get all my tickets booked and all those stuffs arranged for the Microsoft MVP Summit and then the great news came out and then never had a chance to go to the Summit, In-Person Summit, fingers crossed for this one. Yeah. And I'm currently, I got my MVP when I was in Singapore. So most of my community activities, when I started I was in Singapore, especially my focus was around, I was the co-organizer for the Singapore Dynamics 365 and Power Platform User Group. And also, we used to often conduct events at ASEAN level. So we have events that come between ASEAN countries. And then I do, I've been a part of the global communities like Global Power Platform Bootcamp. So I'm one of the global organizers of the Global Power Platform Bootcamp, which is going to happen in next two, three weeks. Oh yeah. Okay. And then TDG, other community, and then Power Community, which is to be called as 360 per Saturday. So I've been part of these communities since like three, four years now. And recently, like six months before, I moved to Auckland, New Zealand. And yeah, I'm organizing an Auckland chapter of Global Power Platform Bootcamp here along with another MVP from Auckland. So that's on the organizing side. I do, I'm quite active speaker as well. So I do speak in the several sessions and global events for Power Platform and Dynamics 365, especially here on site of it. Yeah. I'm trying to be quite active with my blogs and then videos, but I'm just trying to catch up with all this immigration process on the top. There's a whole conversation around that of like the popular question is always like, you know, how do you keep up? And we all have kind of variations of the same answer of that. I always start with saying it's like, oh, I don't, I really like other people to keep up on everything. But hey, I wanted to ask though, so somebody that's very plugged into the user groups and stuff. Do you, is it returning to in-person? Is it still mostly virtual down there? Well, now it's returning into in-person events. So especially this year, we started doing in-person events both in Singapore and also in Auckland. Yeah. Things are getting into normal, I would say. Yeah. That's, it's great to see that. I know that there's a lot of user groups and hey, my local user group as well, where still we have the majority of people that are joining virtually and have no plans to go back to in-person. They're just fine and yeah, but it's, it's great to see that stuff is kind of on the rise and getting back to in-person. Yeah. Yeah. And that's not like now we are just giving that flexibility of doing the events as a hybrid because just, because people still want, it's comfortable to join online instead of, you know, like going in-person. So we are, whatever we do in-person, even we're also trying to make it as, we also have a teams link or make it a live one. So that person who, people who wants to join virtually, they will get briefed as well. Yeah. I love doing that. Well, I always like to hear kind of like the, the origin story of MVPs. Like, so how, what was your path to becoming a MVP? What was that? What's the background? What were you doing beforehand? Yes. Yeah. So before MVP, I used to follow the MVPs. So I, I quite actually listened to the podcast in, in Power Platform, before Platform, it was like CRM. So we have the CRM MVP podcast and the CRM audio podcast, those kinds of podcasts. And then I followed certain MVPs, but actually, you know, like ask them about the, about how the MVP program works and they are very generous, you know, in terms of any MVPs, if you go for, if you have any questions, they are, they always know, try to help you with the process and those stuffs. And then I, you know, what happened was, is I was in one of the meetups, Azure meetups in Singapore, so there was no Dynamics 365 or Power Platform meetup at the group, user group at that point of time. So I was in the audience in one of the Azure user group and then one of my fellow user group organizer was this presenting a session there, just, you know, like, I want to start Power Platform. And out of the blue, one of our seniors, who is my co-organizer now, just as who was interested in doing or coming, attending the Dynamics 365 and Power Platform events, I was the only one who raised my hand. Then we, we connected after that, and then he joined Microsoft, which really helped us to do that in our community. And then three more people joined and then there's become like a good team, like 10 more folks we joined. And then, you know, we tried to start the event and then we successfully started the user groups. And then it's been running for three and a half years now. So that's, that's the story now. Like, that's, that's kind of like, I'm so close to, so attached to the Singapore user group, because that's something we started from scratch with, you know, with the other existing MVPs and then the new other community leaders. Yeah. And then since then it's mostly on the organizing, speaking. And then whenever I get a time, I try to do the blogs. And then answer producing the forum, something like that. Yeah. Yeah. That's something I think there's a great lesson there. It's a pretty common story of, you know, knowing people through the community, be plugged in enough to, you know, folks, Microsoft does a lot of hiring out of the community, like people that they follow and MVPs that they will then go and hire. So if you already have that connection to the local community, the regional community, then they can be one of your best advocates. I always say that it's like that, like some of the best contacts for, for as a, as a community person that organizes events and activities. I reach out to the people that are former MVPs that I'm friends with that are now at Microsoft, because they still, you know, they understand more than most of what it means to start and run community and, and how Microsoft can help. And so they're, it's great to have those contacts. So. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. It's always, and I'm sure most people, if you're in the Microsoft ecosystem, then, um, I mean, that's, that's why if you don't know any other MVPs, I'm getting to know the local end user communities in any of the technology areas, because there's people like us that we go, it's not like I'm, I'm a former SharePoint MVPs, like, but I go, we have our Microsoft 365 related. So all the collaboration technology things, but we're plugged into the Azure events. I've run the Azure boot camps, like the mobile event. I did that twice and we're planning to do that again. Um, and we do other things around power platform and a variety of topics. I've done blockchain events as well. Not doing as much in blockchain these days, but I'm still out there, I believe, but, uh, yeah. So I mean, you can find people that are active in other product areas. Yeah. It starts with going to something, some kind of user. Exactly. Right. It really helps to build that network and then you can tend to meet lots of new people and then, you know, like, uh, you find a mutual interest. You basically work with them to see how you can extend your contribution in whatever way it is possible. Yeah. So what are your kind of, uh, hot topics? What are the big things that you're talking about and writing about? And, you know, right now con created content around? Uh, yes. So, uh, right now in terms of writing content, I'm working on, I'm drafting, uh, the recent wave one releases of 2023 for power platform and dynamics to five CRM. So I'm working on writing series of blogs in those, uh, about the wave one release features. That's something I'm going now. And, uh, second thing is I'm working with a local user group leader to conduct the global power platform, uh, bootcamp in Auckland. And I'm also working with the other user group leaders who were required helps, uh, in terms of organizing the global platform bootcamp, uh, since I'm a part of the global organizing community, so they didn't, they will have lots of doubts and implications and assistance regarding sponsorships and then how to run the events and format and those stuff. So I connect with them often and then try to help wherever it's possible. That's what keeping me busy at the moment for this month and, uh, for next month as well. Yeah. That's very exciting. Well, it's very, very cool. What else is anything else at like the community? How so remind me, how long have you been in Auckland now? Did you say it's just seven months now? Seven months. I mean, there's a lot of MVPs, the lot of great people that are in, of course, my side, again, on the collaboration stack, you have, uh, Daryl Webster and Debbie Ireland. And there's a great event that's happening in March down there. I think the annual event is going to be happening. That's around the collaboration technology. Right. Okay. There's a lot going on in the space. Uh, that's good to know. The reason is, uh, I, I haven't met, uh, most of them, uh, I only had a chance to meet a few, uh, in our last MVP catch up. So we had this, uh, MVP catch up in the last December, uh, just before the year in close. And, uh, I had a chance to meet a few great MEPs from data platform and then, uh, from business applications as well. Uh, and, but yeah, I really haven't, uh, chance to meet all of them, but I hope in the coming days, I will have a chance to, uh, meet them. And then, uh, if possible, just present the session in the event. Yeah. It's good to know, but I, I'll, uh, research something on that. Yeah. Well, there's, I know it's seven months that I'm sure time flies by, especially when you're, when you're busy working and, and having just moved relocated. Um, but it's, uh, yeah, it's one of my favorite destinations. I love New Zealand. Um, have you been to Hobbiton yet? Not yet, not yet, but this, this summer they say it's, uh, so we had somewhere in New Zealand because it's been raining and there have been like few flood warning, including the one that is going tomorrow. Yeah. So it's, it's been a weird, uh, summer and like most of our clients, which we had, uh, have been spoiled because of the, uh, bad weather and hopefully things gets better. And then I need to plan certain, uh, places like especially Hobbiton and then a few attractions. No, it's, I mean, it's beautiful. Like I've spent, I think I've traveled more on the South Island than the North Island, but, um, I mean, it's just, it's beautiful getting down to folks that've never been down there. Like I went down and did a trip road trip and we did the Milford sound, which was just incredible. And you know, driving around from Christ church and, uh, we went all the way down to Invercargill and we have people that were from Australia that are like, why are you going to Invercargill? It's the southern most city down on the coast of the bottom of the country. And there's no offense to anybody that's from there, but there's no reason to ever go there. I think there's like military base or something that's down there like an observatory for birdwatching or something. But no, it's gorgeous. But well, very cool. Well, I'm glad we're able to connect and hopefully I'll see you at one of these, uh, these MVP events. And once we get back to doing in person on a regular basis again, like we're looking forward to meet you and other MVPs as well. Let's see how things go. So I think that's because as I said, well, for folks that want to find out more about you or reach out to you, what are the best ways to find you online? So I'm quite active in LinkedIn and in Twitter as well. So in LinkedIn, if you search by my name, G-Verajan Kumar, you can find me and then also in Twitter, I go with the same name G-Verajan Kumar. And of course, you'll have all that his contact information out on YouTube as well as on my blog, blog at buckthloplanet.com. And so, uh, really, uh, you really appreciate your time and thanks for waking up early on a Saturday morning to talk to me. It's not early. It's nine thirty. Yeah, but Saturday, you're supposed to sleep in. Come on. That's what happened, actually. Yeah. And thanks for the opportunity anyways, because I really appreciate it. You know, like I can thank it's been a pleasure. It's a pleasure to have you have me in this event. Yeah. Well, thanks a lot.