 Hey everybody, it's Christian Buckley doing another MVP buzz chat and I'm talking today with Tanya. Hello. Hello. How are you? It's I'm good. And this is a, I think you are the first fellow MVP that I've interviewed in our own state. Oh wow. I think I don't remember. I ought to go back down through the catalog and figure out if I have interviewed any other Utah people, but for Tanya, for folks that don't know you, who are you? Well, we've already said Utah, but specifically where are you and then what do you do? I am in Park City, Utah and I am the owner of Test Team and what Test Team is is a service organization. So we help other partners and we kind of go in with those partners and help them with their implementation. So we do a lot of Power BI, Power Automate, all of the BC space, just pretty much everything in that particular realm is what we do. You see such a mix of MVPs that are Power Platform related. So you have your business applications MVP, there's M365 MVPs like myself. It was M365 apps and services. It's now just M365. So I don't know if we're all just being shoved in together. And then you have like data platform MVPs that talk extensively about Power Platform. So yeah, so what was kind of your path to becoming an MVP? What was it? What was your focus? What were you doing, building, creating content and other things to earn the MVP? So well, I started in GP, so I started in the Dynamics GP space 23 plus years ago. So, you know, like yesterday, back when it was even more exciting. Yes, exactly. When we're on, you know, on site for every implementation. And so I kind of felt like, you know, GP was going to be, you know, fun setting soon because of BC coming out in the space. So I really, and now going on seven years ago, decided to hop over to the BC space. I got called out, got being told I was on going to the dark side, right? So I definitely went to the dark side. And because they were not accepting any more GP MVP, so I went down the business central route for the MVP. Yeah. So that was, you know, just basically sitting on the couch every night with an iPad and a computer and just kind of learning it because seven years ago, it was a different world than it is today in the BC space, in my opinion. You know, folks that don't know what we're talking about too, great planes. I think I'm trying to remember the year when the acquisition happened. When I was in, yeah, 2000, yeah. So I just know that, so I joined Microsoft in 2006 and there were still different teams that I was on, a lot of interactions and parts of my team. I actually sent some of my direct reports out on one project out to North Dakota to interact with those teams and do some projects. But it's, I mean, technically, all of that is under the dynamics space. And I mean, I guess, technically, I mean, that's where all the power platform stuff came was under the dynamic space as well. Yeah. So, yeah, I went to the first power platform conference in Orlando. And that was for me, I just, I was in awe. And I met you this year at the power platform conference in Vegas. But I think I was the only other person I knew there was Belinda Allen, who came from, you know, the space that I was in. But honestly, I did not know a single other person at that conference, which is pretty cool because now, like I said, I think I met 15 people that year. And last time I met another 15 people. So now I'm like, whoa, I know 30 people in the power platform world. So, yeah, it's kind of cool, though, that we're all starting to come together and it's just such a huge, huge, you know, environment for all of us to play in. You know, when you go to those those events, so this last one, I ended up spending, I was in the expo hall most of the time. That was I had I'm a channel guy. So that's that's what I was there for, not the sessions of the content. However, the the last day I spent most of my time up in the community section. Each time I tried to leave groups of people, waves of people that have not seen, you know, in in years, some of them pre COVID, you know, like showing up at that place. That's one of the again for folks that have not attended one of the conferences, like the whether it's the M365 conference or the power platform conference or one of the 365 edu-cons or whatever. It's content is fantastic, but it's so important to engage with the community, meet people, get acquainted because my first conference that I did after leaving Microsoft was the 2009 SharePoint conference and I had been to the others as an employee. But that event, I met people, became friends with people instantly that I still talk to on a regular basis. Yeah, I built my friend network at those events. Yes. And that was exactly the way I felt with meeting people at that conference. And when I went to another conference this October, you know, I actually sat in the power platform booth, you know, medic desk kind of helping out and that even more power platform people who've been in the space for a while. And it's just I just like that I've been in the ERP space for so long that I just kind of wanted to branch out. And that's what I've told a lot of people coming from the GP space because it was an ERP and we kind of stayed in that ERP world. You brought in, you know, power BI and things like that. But now it's just like with all of the other applications that are out there, it's just limitless, I feel like. Yeah. One failure of the MVP program, I would say, is there needs to be some kind of geographic awareness. Like, like, have you met any other MVPs besides me in Utah? I have not. You know, I think there's five or six of us. I need to go and check because, unfortunately, the site, you can't. There's no there's no required, you know, profile info to be able to go and do a search and to find all the MVPs in Utah, unless one of us put the word Utah in our profile. Right. Oh, I didn't realize that. Yeah, it makes it tricky. But yeah, so you have to do kind of sleuthing, you know, to look around social media, find people talking about that. But would love to. We used to have, you know, regional calls and all the MVPs and RDS from the Mountain States, Colorado, Arizona, Idaho, Nevada here, we would jump on calls like once a quarter. And they haven't happened in a couple of years. So yeah. Yeah. Anyway, we have so many of those other calls that we're on. I know. It's not like we need more calls. Yeah. Yeah. I said on the Learn one last night that was actually coming out of Australia. So yeah, it's kind of cool to have those opportunities to be able to, you know, listen to that. It was not an NDA one, but it was still definitely a great great thing to listen to. So what are your primary contribution types, would you say? So my contribution types are doing videos, which I haven't done in a while, so I have to get back on that. But doing videos, a lot of GP to BC videos also, because I've been in that space. I do write blogs. I do. I also work on a lot of committees. So I'm on the Directions Committee, the Dynamics Con Live and and those particular conferences. And then I have spoken out. I just spoke at Amiya this year over in Lyon and got to do Hamburg last year in Sylvania. So I do a lot of, I guess I would say forward facing stuff. Some of the stuff that I do, I would say for less related to my industry is I run a charity. So we do a charity. It's called Test Team Cares, where we do it for around, I think it's a December 9th. So we go to the homeless and we go help a women's shelter. So we pull a whole thing together, get donations, buy all the goods for that. So that's a big one I do for my community stuff. That's great. Well, there's there's I know when you and I are talking about speaking of events around the world and doing that, you know, when when I know that it can be very intimidating for people that are looking to kind of get started. What is your advice to somebody that is interested in maybe becoming an MVP or not even maybe they don't aspire that to that. They just are interested in getting more involved in the community. What do you tell people? Just do it. Yeah, I do. I mean, you really have to get up and speak. And I tell all of my staff, I just tell them that, you know, everybody's scared to get up and speak in front of people, right? Well, except for you, of course, right? He's like, no, it doesn't bother me. No, it doesn't bother me at all. Yeah, it used to, but it doesn't. Yeah, it doesn't bother me any longer. Sometimes I'm a little bit nervous, depending on the topic. I just spoke on fabric, which is so new to everybody. That was a little scary. And I had Kenny sitting in the front row. So that was terrifying. So I just tell people to, you know, find an MVP that, you know, knows what you know. I had a call this morning from somebody else who isn't an MVP yet and said, hey, can you help me with fabric? You know, they said it was like literally at seven a.m. And I said, yep, I'll call you in just a few minutes and call them and gave them all the information. So just reach out to those people and, you know, and speak with them. I do that a lot. I would rather co-present with people. Just because then you can kind of bounce things off of each other. You're not standing. Less work. It is less work for very, I don't know if it's less work because now I'm having to collaborate with somebody else and make sure we combine our stuff. It depends on who's asking for the help. I mean, if they're, but honestly, I mean, that is it. You're right. I mean, that is a big difference. I love it when somebody comes to me. Well, even somebody in my company, my team, they'll say, hey, we have a webinar we want to do on this date. Would you be able to do this? And I'm like, are you asking me to create all of the content based off of your abstract? Or do you have all the content? You need me to personalize it, customize it, and then do the session. And it's been both. And there's one is much less time commitment. They want to leverage, you know, my MVP, my brand, you know, like to do that, you know, clearly then the other times, they're like, no, we really want this content. I'm like, yeah, I'm going to need more time. You know, here's what I what I've got going on. But that's a great example. If someone approached me, I present on governance and somebody said, hey, I'd love to do a governance topic jointly with you. I mean, like, let's let's do it. As long as there's not a business conflict between us, our two companies, I would love to do that if I'm available. Yeah. Yeah. And that's and also, I mean, some of the people from Microsoft are also if they can will be willing to speak with you, too. You know, I spoke with Kenny after I did the fabric because he kind of chimed in a lot because, like I said, he knows so much that's his that's his world. Is that reporting world? And, you know, I looked at him and I said, hey, next year, let's submit this session together because I would love to have both of us up here presenting on this. No, that's great. Yeah. That's a great point, too. If you are wondering, like I was going down and doing a session on internal communications and I reached out to Microsoft people, Dan and Michael that were over on the Viva engage team and said, hey, do you have any materials, latest logos, any videos, things that they use? And they actually Dan shared with me some video snippets that in slides that were from his keynote presentation at the M365 conference. So that's another reason for attending the events and getting to know especially the product marketing team at Microsoft around the products that you want to talk about, build those relationships so that you can reach out and say, hey, what assets are out there? What help could I get? Yes. And people ask me, they're like, why do you go to conferences in Europe? Right. They're like, do you really get business from Europe? And I said, well, I may not get business from Europe. But what I get is that, like you said, that kind of recognition of getting to sit down with all of the Microsoft people there, like Amia is awesome for that, right? Power platform is great for that because you're getting to go to, I call it the home of BC. I don't know if anybody will agree with that, but, you know, it really kind of is, you know, sitting down with the, you know, Jesper's and the, you know, Yonix and all of those people, you have absolute access to them and you can go up and talk to them, you know, at the community booth or the Microsoft booth. And the reality, too, is that a lot of times that we're, I mean, everybody's so busy, but we set aside events like this to do that kind of sort, that interaction with the community. And so that's why, I mean, I always say, I'm sure you say the same thing. It's like, don't be shy, come up and say, hello, talk to me. You know, the worst that will happen is I'll say, look, I'm about to go give my session. Can we talk after this? But I mean, that's why we're there is for that kind of interaction. Yep. Or here's my business card. Here's my contact information. Just give me a call. I'm happy to talk to you about whatever you need. Except I'm finding I'm the only one carrying business cards anymore. Like, are you actually carrying business cards? I do actually carry business cards with me, but not. I'm not religious about it. Yeah, I'll be like, Oh, do I have one somewhere? Yeah. Yeah, I guess it's easy just to, hey, point to my LinkedIn profile. But yeah, but sometimes it's a it's nice to have that. I am one of those those business nerds always has cards on me. Well, now you've got the iPhone. What is it? Is it 17 iOS? You could just bump the bump the end of it and the contact gets created. He's like, oh, I've heard about that. Are you an I are you an Android person? I am not. OK, I'm going to update your phone. So I so I'm aware of that. Yeah, yeah, the the bumping doesn't. It's not always working the way that it should be. But yeah, we we just played on this in the last trip. So I try to get that work. So very cool. Well, very cool. Well, any other projects, anything else that you're working on, you want people to know about any other content you want to point people to? No, your lacks. You've been lacks on your blogging. I've been lacks on my blogging and my video. But that is changing because I had to move offices. So that was super fun. As you know, you got to rebuild your background right and make it look like you want it to look. So yeah, I finally got all that put together, got all the video back together. So I'm back up and running now. Very cool. So well, we'll definitely have to. And did you by the way, did you end up submitting? I was just going to say, well, there is a product. There is something a collab days, right? Yes, collab days, Utah and March 1st. Did you end up submitting? We're actually I did. OK, I did four sessions, actually. Awesome. You told me to spend a whole bunch. I did. I did. We just we haven't had the gathering yet because of the holidays here in the US. So we'll be getting together in early December and sending out those first notices to speakers, acceptances in early December. So yeah, we'll we'll get that up and running. So for folks that are interested, coming to Utah, we've got quite a few folks coming in, some internationals as well for that. They like to ski while they're here. Yeah. So yeah, I will say that it was funny because Freddy from Microsoft, right? He is a big skier and we went to Vancouver last year. So as soon as we left a Mia, I got an email that said, I'm happy to do a BC and ski in Park City, Utah. So yeah, they kind of like that. Maybe I'll tell them about that event and we can get them over here for that the same time. Yeah, I was saying the same with my my team and we're headquartered in Germany and we were talking about rotating like a quarterly all hands and having it one time over here during conveniently during ski season. Ski season. Yeah. Yeah. Well, so for folks that want to connect with you, reach out to you, what are the best ways to reach you? Where are you most social? I am probably most social on, I would say, LinkedIn on Twitter. I'm trying to think of what all of that stuff is on YouTube also. So I do, like I said, I do have a YouTube channel and you didn't tell me to get all of that information together for you. Oh, yeah, I'm just I guess this is for the audio and the video. And yeah, I'll have all the links. Of course, it's in the blog at a buck the planet dot com. So you can find Tonya Henderson. You can find all that info, all the links, all your info will be there. So thanks so much for your time. And and I'm sure we'll see each other soon. If not soon, March 1st, for sure, right? Yes, absolutely. OK. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for having me.