 Hey everybody, it is Krish Muckley doing another MVP Buzz Chat. I'm talking today with Bjorn. Hello. Hello. Nice to see you. Good to be here. It's great to see you too and I love the background. So for folks that don't know you, who are you? Where are you currently and figuratively? And what do you do? Yeah. Hi. My name is Bjorn. I, well, most of the time I spell next to my computer, but as of exactly right now, I'm in the middle of the forest walking like dog. So I live a bit outside of Stockholm, Sweden, right next door to a big old forest and absolutely love it. That's very nice. When I don't do that, I, like I said, spend my days next to my computer doing consultancy for a company called Advanja, where I sort of do DevOps-y stuff. I often say that I'm one of the like two people in the world who actually enjoys writing YAML, which yeah. So yeah, I spend most of my days doing that and kind of realize that I really enjoyed it and like to talk about it as well. And here we are. So it's very cool. Well, I'm glad that you joined the series and it's, you know, I love getting to know other MVPs and especially I admire the opportunity to get out into nature as well. I'm trying to do that now that weather is finally warming back up and going on longer and longer walks with my dog as well. So, well, that's awesome. Well, so your focus, your MVP is in developer technologies and you kind of mentioned, I like the way you described it, DevOps-y. Like that's a, cause I always liked some of the folks that aren't familiar with what happens within each of the MVP categories. It's always interesting to find out like what specifically people focus on. So kind of what are the core things that you write about, talk about, speak about? Yeah. So, so like you said, I'm in the developer technologies category, which well, I guess it means most of what when I've been looking through most of the colleagues I have there, they're mostly developers. Now, I am absolutely not a developer. I just sort of, well, I started doing PowerShell many, many years ago with like PowerShell version one and then I joined a company that needed a PowerShell developer. They had a product that ran like 50% PowerShell and they needed a PowerShell person. So I started working with the developers there and ended up sort of owning the release processes and like everything around that. So, so I'm still not, I mean, I kind of learned to read a bit of C sharp and I've written my fair share of JavaScript, although I don't like it, but I'm definitely not a developer in that sense, but I am the ops half of that sort of DevOps life cycle thing. I actually, I really liked, I found myself really enjoying you know, finding what people do, finding out what they do and how I can improve their life, not just doing my own stuff, but actually finding out where stuff fits together and how we can tie everyone in the entire department together. So when, you know, when the DevOps movement sort of started, I was right into it. I immediately fell in love with it. Unfortunately, we ended up with a movement that kind of a lot just meant that people throw admin rights to developers, which is sort of where I come in that like you need some, some knowledge of the ops half as well. It's that's how it is. But yeah, so that's sort of how I ended up where I am today. So I mostly work with development teams, but like I said, I do not consider myself a developer by that means by those things. Well, you know, my experience going back into the 90s with what is now the DevOps space was that was certainly true with most of the people that I worked with and I worked in that space as well in the late 90s, early 2000s with actually management of the code in the process, the code review process and kind of everything on the back end. So it was in support of the engineering teams in support of the developers, but it was making sure that hey, there's things that are checked in checked out. Here's what's happening working with product management on what was developed there and then all the other like project management tools and other kind of information management systems around engineering. That was my entry into I'm in the collaboration technology space, but that's where I came from. I came through again. It wasn't called DevOps and in 2002, you know, it's a newer label, but it's that same world that we would refer to it as you know, SCM software code management, software configuration management, but it was all within that operations. And so a lot of the people that were DevOps, they came up through like more of the desktop support ranks. They were that kind of networking people and you know, loading laptops or preparing desktop PCs for new employees and then just kind of took over those tools. Yeah, and then that's kind of also the same. Why did I like I said, I work in I mean, I started in ops normal ops teams probably the same journey like most people in my in our position is I think is well like 25 odd years ago. I started in like first line and then second line and then third line and ended up doing server management and then, you know, going on from there and I think that that absolutely helps, you know, right now my current company we focus mostly on Azure stuff. So it's like enterprise scale deployments, although I am not really I'm not the architect. I don't design that stuff. I just implement it but but having a background in ops and actually knowing what hardware is and how it works and how networks behave and, you know, having that background actually makes it a lot easier to understand everything and and helping out development teams to know what they need, you know, because it's it's it's a skill that many developers lack even though they get their admin rights as they still have to know what they need. Right. Oh, yeah, I really enjoy it. Well, again, it's one of those things where you can go read a lot of things but usually when you're learning technical skills, you're learning about a language or a platform or a specific technology and a lot of what you're talking about it just it's it almost it's that comes through experience. I mean, most most of the people I mean, again, I go back to like why some of the people I think some of the best in that space in the DevOps space came up through that, you know, a couple of my friends that are in that space one who's a VP now at a major public company, but was a music major and started doing desktop support and building helping build out network, you know, pulling cables back in the day, you know, but you know, when everything was on-prem and wired, but just learning rebuilding, you know, machines building workstations for people and kind of learning from the ground up about all of those things and then ending up owning all of the management the operations the permissions management of all the various systems making sure that they were integrated working together again that a lot of it's it's harder I think to get that experience just out of school generally just there's not classes around that per se. It's more of you through osmosis over time of having experience in each of those areas. Experience is hard to get, but very important naturally like doesn't matter how well you learn. I do some some training as well and I've had I don't know the English word people from school coming up and doing their sort of practitioner work with me. So I've had like people working next to me for a couple months and it's always interesting because I always find that they are actually really really good in many places in many things. They are way ahead of me knowledge-wise, but just sort of having that experience of how to handle people and how to understand the processes around this is that's something yet like you said it's just experience. That's what it is. But look for for being I'm self taught a lot of technology, but I've always been of the belief that you find people that you know self teach their their passion about something they go and learn like we can go learn new tools, new technology, we can go and do that formal education, but the wisdom that comes through experience like you can't go add that in a you know, you know, semester class. You know, it's it just takes time. Well, I'm interested to know like, you know, what was your path to becoming an MVP? Like, how did you hear about getting to the program? Yeah, so I think I first sort of heard about the MVP program. I mean, that must have been 10, 12 years ago, something. It was actually I used to work at a university. It was really, really fun and really well speaking of learning and technology. They're like, you know, I worked with people who helped invent stuff like Kerberos, which is kind of cool. You learn quite a lot from those people, but I learned about the MVP program from from the local user group that I started joining into the PowerShell user group and we have one of the MVPs there, Simon Wollin. They're sort of, yeah, I sort of just heard what it was. Now, I never imagined I would actually join it, but it was like, I just had a discussion with someone from work and was like, yeah, you know, it would be cool to sort of reach something like that instead of just being one who uses tools or follows people, just being one of those in the front. I always enjoyed doing stage work. I mean, I'm a musician since birth or since I always loved being on stage, so that part. So I started sort of doing smaller presentations and stuff like that started writing, blogging, whatever tried all kinds of stuff, change work to that development place, mostly because I felt like I needed a place where management actually bought into doing all of this as well. Yeah. And I don't know, I sort of just went from there. I never really imagined being an MVP. I just tried to be like the MVPs. I know like the people I wanted to, I like my heroes and I tried to be open and humble about what I learned and learn more and eventually I just ended up sort of where I am today. I started joining bigger conferences, not more than a couple of years ago as a speaker. Took quite a bit of courage to work up to doing those. Well, so do you get nervous on stage in front of a big, is that something that or did your music background kind of? So I was the lead singer of a rock band many years ago. I always tell people that it's like, you know, you seem very calm up on stage. I'm like, yeah, actually I just kind of, I got over it being in a band. I always say, I usually say that musicians and stage people, everyone up there has a sort of split personality because you sort of get dressed into another person. I'm not the same person sitting at home as I am on stage and it takes, you know, everyone has their warm up sort of set up like, how do you behave before and everything? You know, it took some time to learn this. What is my way of warming up? I kind of realized, you know, many people, they just go up and they do their thing. I realized that one of the most important thing for me is the like 15 minute turnover before. So I always sort of go up on stage. You know, when you have a turnover, you switch scenes, switch stages with the one before. I always go up on stage and sort of start to greet and talk to the people joining in and the people coming in and I always do this. And that's part of my sort of getting dressed into that stage personality, getting down to instead of me on stage versus them looking at me, it's just us talking suddenly and it gets way easier. Yeah, but the sort of big hurdle to work over for me was actually just sending in replies to core papers or like suggestions because I mean the big, the biggest conference, the big conference for me, the one that I've been I've been listening to the S.C.P.U. since it started and most of my community heroes speak there and they're like the finding a topic that the inventors are there. Like what can I do? I know nothing next to these people. Yeah. So it took a bit of courage to just get over the hurdle of sending it in. But once there, it was just an amazing time and I don't have any trouble going on stage. I think I think I find kind of easy actually. It's just that you need the sort of the warm up and the setup before it. I agree. That's that's kind of my technique as well as because you have conversations, you know, you're humanizing yourself to the audience as well, but it's also a great opportunity to to ask people like, okay, what they're interested in like what kind of what questions they might have and whether you're going to cover that material or not. And because I think it's a great way. Again, if it's if there's that artificial wall of you versus the audience that's out there, then in some ways they're going to feel you're going to feel like you're just kind of talking over their heads, presenting over their heads and you know, and it's yeah, I don't enjoy that kind of stuff. I love it when it's a more of a conversation, whether it's in that interaction. Yeah. But the sort of road to MVP. It was like the biggest changes was when I stopped caring actually like. Yeah. So like I said, I started blogging. I don't know how many years I've been writing different blogs right now. And I always, you know, spend some time setting it up doing like all these, you know, so you can send your post your messages to it and you had all kinds of fancy stuff on this, but I just ended up spending more time actually creating the blog than writing on it. And and I, you know, was so nervous about writing anything is like so eventually I just, you know, I took the simplest and most ugliest static page generator is basically just one Java JavaScript file that's just renders markdown. It's nothing fancy. I don't and I removed everything from it. So I've no like no cookies, no reply functionality, no nothing. I just write and I ended up like writing so much more because I stopped caring about, you know, I don't even care that if anyone reads it, I do it because I enjoy it. Yeah, which made it so much more easy and I think it sort of was that hurdle to get over like. And so I mean, like I said, I of course I wanted to be an MVP. I never just never really expected it until it was at a party some a couple of months ago, like the beginning of the year when someone asked like, aren't you supposed to be an MVP by now? And I'm like, yeah, but someone has to send in a recommendation hint hint. Yeah. And like a week later is like, I sent it in. Okay, here we go. And yeah, the rest is where we are. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, I like your perspective on it. So my my philosophy is the exact same thing. It's like whether like I'll I'll I'll write articles. I'll do blog posts that, you know, maybe a dozen people read and others where which like I wrote an article in so it's almost almost three years now ago and it still is in the top five every month on my blog. It's just been amazing on that and it and I've thought about going and looking at all the SEO and finding target, you know, content that would align with what those most successful and write more about that. But that's not why I write. It's it's it's more about, you know, sharing what I'm learning and the journey, the things that I'm thinking about in my mind and if some of them catch great. If others don't, I'm okay with that too. And and that's sort of where I most of the stuff I write is just, you know, like I said, I do consultancy and sort of the reason I ended up in this category is probably because I spend most of my days in Azure DevOps or to a somewhat lesser extent GitHub. So most of the stuff I write is how to deploy stuff. Yeah. And it's just, you know, I find this cool. I did something that I found interesting. So I need to write it down before I forget it or it's just stuff that I sort of go think about and wonder, can I do this? It's this doable. I, you know, try it out. And that's what I write about mostly. No, well, I think that again, that's that's the best kind of content. I was just a part of a group, a cohort where we advise people that want to become MVPs and RDS. We just had our monthly call this morning and we talked about that. I say this all the time. It's about, you know, finding, you know, one developing like personal habits, the things that you enjoy doing. If you don't enjoy writing, but you love doing video content, well, then don't waste your time writing, create video content. If, if you're more about, you know, you want to be in the background, but answer questions up on various discussion boards is like, we'll then do that. Focus on that. But if you're find yourself struggling sharing information and creating content, then this is not the path for you. You know, it does come with involvement in the community. You're finding your niche, finding your voice and, and making it, you know, just your, your hobby. And I think that's also the key key to it all is, is you're like, find what you enjoy doing. Because I, like I said, it wasn't until I stopped caring about what everyone else thought what I was supposed to do that I actually sort of just started doing stuff because again, find what you enjoy doing. And I think the whole MVP, I mean, it's amazing. It's fantastic. And I really, I'm really, really super happy. But it was so unexpected because I, like I said, there was some 10, 12 years ago since I sort of started thinking that maybe eventually, but you know, it was always just, you know, yeah, sure, eventually some type. Maybe I will do that. Yeah. And then it just happened because I sort of did what I wanted. Yep. I, it just brought up an image of, you know, Luke Skywalker turning off the machine and just, you know, letting the force guide him and then blow stuff up. Yep. Well, you're really appreciate your time and, you know, great to, to meet you virtually on this for, for folks that want to find out more about you or reach out and connect with you. Where are you most active? How can they best find you? Um, so, so currently I mostly on master on master on dot nu and you slash, uh, beyond pen, but generally beyond pen everywhere. So on GitHub on whatever, uh, my, uh, Twitter account has been more or less inactive since a while back. It's still there, but and if I do a reply to private messages, nothing more. Otherwise there we have beyond pen dot com and we have github.com slash beyond pen and so on and so forth. Of course, we'll have all those links. So you can find it out on the blog post out of buck the planet.com as well as out on YouTube. And, uh, so make sure that, uh, Lincoln, I think I've got your masted on on the, uh, on the artwork on the front of it as well, all ready to go. So of course, all of them are on my MVP profile, which was updated right away. Yes. Excellent. Um, no, in fact, Hey, by the way, so it looks like a number of those, those are all private. Still, you need to go make those public. So that I think you've got those turned Microsoft only. Oh, yeah. I should go update your profile with that. Good point. Good. That's a good reminder for any new MVPs. Yeah, you gotta still learning. Yeah, you got to make sure like you add all that stuff in. You got to make sure that you make it visible to everyone, not just Microsoft. So, so excellent. Well, Bjorn, really thanks for your time. Enjoy the rest of your evening walk and we'll talk to you soon. Thank you. And yeah. Wow.