 Hey everybody, this is Christian Buckley doing another MVP buzz chat and I'm talking today with Andrew. Andrew, people don't know you, so welcome. Hey, thanks Christian because thanks for having me. This is fun. Yeah. So it's great. I was saying that there's, it's always great to have a mix of brand new MVPs and folks like yourself that have been around for a long time, but for the three or four people that don't know who you are, oh, I know, I got more gray than you. People that don't know who you are, who are you, where are you and what do you do besides play with Legos? Yeah, exactly. There you go. I'm Andrew Connell. I'm in Jacksonville or St. Augustine, Florida, which is northeast Florida in the U.S. Man, I've been doing, I've been doing a SharePoint development, I guess, going way, way, but almost actually it's been 20 years. This year was 20 years, but I've been an MVP since 2005. I was one of the, I was one of the few, I think there was five of us total when I got in for doing content management server back in 2005. And then from there, from just Microsoft doing the reorgs and all that kind of stuff is that I just kind of moved into like the Microsoft 365 development pattern through the SharePoint space. So I consider you like one of the, the first wave SharePoint MVPs. I know that when I, I don't remember, you know, because my, it was my team. I was at Microsoft when you, you know, I joined Microsoft just after you became an MVP, but we, my team hosted a lot of like the Ranger trainings and we had a lot of the MCM people coming through and so a lot of those crowds. So I probably ran across you in those early days, but I know when I became an MVP in 2012, I consider myself like a second wave SharePoint MVP. Yeah. I was one of the, so there was two or three before me or maybe four, but I was one of the first content management server MVPs. And then when content management server got absorbed by SharePoint, I got moved over into the SharePoint MVP space. And I remember we, there was 25 or 26 of us. A lot of us aren't, a lot of them aren't there anymore, but it's, I just kind of, I stuck into it. I kind of, you know, I kind of rage quit SharePoint back in 2013 to just try something new, if doing the same thing for 10 years. And the way my background is and the way that they kind of went with the SharePoint framework back in 20 or with SharePoint back in 2017, I just saw another opportunity and I was like, well, now I'm like, what am I going to do when I grow up again? So I found the company with co-founded a company with another guy. I got tired of it. And then after, after four years and then for a couple of years, I was like, what am I going to do next? And I tried a couple of different things and never really settled on anything. And when SharePoint framework came out, I was like, this is what essentially is the tech that I've been doing for the last five years. And it's going to be such a crazy Ivan on all the existing guys that I was like, I just take advantage of this. It just kind of came back, it's kept doing it. So I'm mostly though, like people know me as like the SharePoint framework guy or the SharePoint developer guy. I mostly live in the just a web development space. So it was a buzz, it was a buzzword term for a while until I mean, if it starts showing up on Indeed and Monster job descriptions, I guess it's a real term. But full stack developer where you primarily focus on building web apps and then any cloud technologies you would use to facilitate those web apps. That's essentially what I really do. So I'm mostly in the the client side and then anything server side that can facilitate the client side implementation of a web app, which is why like I live in the team space. I live in the SharePoint framework space. That's you can name drop your company name. It's it's all it's all good here, too. So I founded a company in 2017 called Voitanos. It's really just a brand for my name. I kind of have regrets to that at some point, but it's like I should just put everything under my name. But I am where I am now and I focus primarily on the education space. So I build like on demand training video courses for SharePoint developers and teams developers. I do a lot of content generation for like hands on labs, hero demos for Microsoft at conferences, a lot of Microsoft learning stuff as well teaching really just the Microsoft 365 development stack. But I'm targeting I mostly target the full the full stack developers. So not nothing like power platform, nothing against power platform, but nothing about like citizens slash no codes slash low code developer. I mostly like I don't like the term code first only the term pro developer. It's more like full stack developers, I think is the best description of it. So that's mostly where I live. You made a comment. It's interesting. I know that I've had I've heard questions that people have asked about the MVP program about what happens if I start as a SharePoint MVP and then my my what I'm working on changes and evolves. How does that work? How does that work? How do you remain an MVP when your focus has shifted? So I mean, I think I'm still referred to as like, I think it's now called like Microsoft 365 development. But a lot of times you just kind of I don't I don't focus on doing something to be able to try and keep a label. It's like, I'm going to do this thing. And if I still fit in this model, then cool. But like I think I've held like from content management server to SharePoint development to just SharePoint to SharePoint development to Office 365 developer to Microsoft 365 developer. I mean, it's kind of like the names of just kind of I don't want to say they they are following what I'm doing, but it's like, I just keep doing what I'm doing. And then Microsoft just changes the label and say, yeah, you still fit in this bucket. So I don't I've I've tried to pursue getting into being considered like a both a 365 developer and an Azure developer. But they I get every time I every time I kind of nominate or kind of ask how that's done, they still just say, you're a 365 developer and there's no Azure side of it. It's such a black box because you have people that are dual and now even some triple MVPs in different categories. And I look at somebody like yourself that's working those characters like how are you not also an Azure MVP? I don't know. I ask I ask people that I see them show that label for a new person that gets nominated and they get to be an MVP. And they're like, they show up as like two different things. But how'd you do that in a hundred percent of time? I get this. I don't know. That's just what they gave me. And I'm like, yeah, I how do I talk to you to do that? I even talk to the Microsoft people and make the decisions. I know who have you pissed off, Andrew? That's a lot of people. I know it's a lot of people. Well, that's that sometimes, too. Look, there is the political aspect of it. It's like there are. I mean, we both know that there are there are people. I always use like because a good friend, but like Rackley. Yeah. Mark Rackley, who's fantastic, works for Avanade. He's been he's now been for a few years in MVP. But but he upset some people. And most of it was like his sense of humor. Yeah. And he could go a little dark sometimes. But he just kind of rubbed some people the wrong way. And for a few years, there was like, there's, you know, until those people left Microsoft, you know, he was not going to become an MVP. Well, I don't think it was that bad. But there were some people that were exactly like that. And as soon as those people left Microsoft, these other people became MVPs and I won't name those. But no, I get that. And, you know, I think with him, he's a great example, because I think that with him, he did. He was doing something that was like he does. His model is a lot like what I don't say model, but what he did is path is a lot like my path. He saw a need. He saw a gap in something. He filled that gap. And frankly, the gap that he filled in the way of how do you customize SharePoint sites using jQuery and using a bunch of the plugins for jQuery. When he was doing that, Microsoft was trying to push a different way to extend and customize SharePoint. And frankly, his model of pushing that stuff was so popular because it was solving a need that customers had that Microsoft wasn't addressing that caused Microsoft to go back to the drawing board and look at a bunch of like, what's that? What are people using? They found that we're using the content editor web part that drove people. And by using that, they were they were able to do things like create jQuery based solutions that Mark was showing them how to do. There was this huge demand for it. And that's that was really the crux or the the linchpin that caused Microsoft to say, we need to make this a first class model. And that's where the SharePoint framework came from. And I think that part of it was there was I think there was some resistance at Microsoft to be like, we don't want people doing things this way. So we don't want to not so much reward him, but we don't want to like give like a stage to or look like we're endorsing this model because it doesn't fit what we're trying to get people to do. And when you finally saw them go, no, this is what we really need people to do. That's what they're doing. So we need to find a way to make it work for for us and for them. And then that's about the time you saw him get his MVP. So like, I like the model because for the grief that he got for some of that stuff was like, dude, this is pure validation on what you were on what you were doing was the right thing because I'm not saying that you're the sole reason for it. But the model that you pushed is the model that is like the first class version of that is the SharePoint framework, which is the way that we customize SharePoint today. We customize Viva connections that way. There's a story for customizing or creating teams apps using that same model. So I mean, you could point that point to him saying like, he's a good reason why all this stuff has kind of come to be where it is. Well, it's another it just as you said, it's like you need to do your own thing. Do what's like most of us that we work for companies that we're not independence. I mean, we need to do what's right for our companies and do that path. And it doesn't always fit in just like you. It's like, I'm going to do what I do, regardless of the status of an MVP or an RDI. It's just what I'm passionate about as a technologist. If it falls out of favor, if I lose my MVP because of that, I'm still going to be doing these things. I'm not going to go and look at changing what I'm excited about till it's why fit into the program. It just it has that alignment right now is the same. So the same feedback I get these days, which is when people will tell me, like, why aren't you doing more stuff with like power apps or power platform or whatever? And I'm like, it's it's nothing against the platform. It's just that I mean, I've got some I've got opinions about it. I'm good and bad stuff. But it's nothing about power platform. It's just that I know the people that are doing that stuff. I know the audience that that's trying to serve. And that's not the people that I that I speak to. Like, I like to speak to developers, building solutions. I mean, don't get me wrong. I love the fact that I don't have to build another like, you know, approval form because you can do it with a power out. I mean, I've built a million of those things. So I like to speak to my audience. And if that means that, like, if one day, like Microsoft 365 said, there is no web development inside 365, I'm like going to change who I am and who I like to speak to because Microsoft isn't doing that. I'm like, I'm going to focus on what I want to focus on. And if there's a if there's a program around that, they're like, cool. I mean, I was I was when I was before the SharePoint framework, I was doing a lot of work with Google in there. Like, would you be interested in being a Google developer expert and a GDE? And I was like, sure, sounds good to me. Like, well, there's some challenges with, you know, this and that and NDAs between the two companies. I'm like, I don't play politics, man. I'm just like, I'm going to do like I serve a certain audience and a certain customer and that's where my passion is. That's where my where I get my energy from. And if there's some label that goes along with that, cool. If there's not, okay. I mean, I'm still going to I don't I don't work for Microsoft. They don't pay me. I don't work for Google. They don't pay me. My customers pay me. So that's who I'm that's who I want to work for. Well, there's something to be said too. There's a if you're familiar with Seth Godin. I was talking to the marketing guy about that authenticity is such an important part of marketing. And and people see that they can see when somebody is clearly being a shill for one product or company and they're saying things. Look, I'm sure you recognize this too. I see some MVPs that use the overly flowery speech around like bad decisions, bad features, you know, problems out there. Like you have to be like there's a wrong way as an MVP, especially. And there is, you know, there's a way to to interact within the system that you be thoughtful. You be constructive in your feedback. Yeah, there are some there's a couple of MVPs. There's not a lot of them left who are very. Certainly in their responses with with Microsoft, but they've kind of like earned that spot in that respect because of the body of work. But for the majority of us, like we don't have that kind of relationship to be able to provide that, but they want honest and open feedback. They're I don't they're not looking for suck ups that will just get out there and just repeat the marketing lines. There's a fine line to being entitled and knowing your place. And I see that as a big problem in this and the MVP space. There are I mean, look, I'm one too, but I'm a type A personality. And there's a lot of type A personalities in that MVP space. There's also a lot of people that I think don't respect or understand their place and they feel very entitled and that you should listen to me because of blah, blah, blah. And it's more like, look, I'll give you my feedback, but I understand you're a company that makes a billion to that's a trillion dollar company. I'm a stockholder. I like it. And clearly you're doing something right. You don't have to listen to my opinion. If you ask my feedback and you're going to listen to me, I'll share it with you. But it doesn't mean that you have to do what I have that I say. If you can if you ask for feedback multiple times and you ignore the feedback, well, I mean, then I've got to learn my lesson and be like, you don't really care. Like if I've been asked the same question by the same team five times over two years, I'm not going to engage me. It's a waste of my time. It's just lip service. But I mean, if you generally want feedback on something, I want to work with you. I want to talk to you about this kind of stuff, but it's it's feedback. It's not like you make product decisions. People that they're going to make their product decisions based on what multimillion dollar, billion dollar companies are going to tell them because they're the ones that are spending the money. I'm spending the money, but I'm only spending like a hundred or so dollars on Microsoft 365 licenses a month. So it doesn't, you know, you got to know your place. Right. Well, it's it's I would say that, you know, just to wrap this up, I would say I've always appreciated like your feedback, your voice within the community. It's it's you're part of the crowd that it makes me excited to get back to like the annual, the MVP summit, because again, it's not just absorbing the the information as we were saying before recorded. I'm more interested to hear the questions, the perspectives that are coming in from the other voices in the room than what Microsoft is sharing. It's true at a conference. I'm not going to hear what Microsoft marketing message is as much as I am. What are the questions? What are the real world, the practitioner experiences that are being brought in? So you've always been a very loud voice in the the SharePoint development space. So I've always appreciated that. Well, I've had my hot head years, too. So I mean, I miss some of the hot head years. Some of the most the best MVP summits were when I was I could have sworn like a fistfight was going to start, you know, because some of the most entertaining, you know, I just had to have the popcorn bowl and just sit there eating at those MVP summits. But I totally respect that. And there's there's when that is one of the best parts about getting together in person for some of these different events. I mean, there's one person that comes to mind with me, but it's like whenever he raises his hand and he starts asking a question or giving feedback, I'm going to be quiet. And the only time I'm going to get loud and interrupt them. If it's somebody else to start interrupting, I'm like, Oh, and you need to shut up and listen. If this guy's talking, you need to shut up and listen because he's he's well thought out, well spoken. He's not just going to say something off the cuff and he's got a lot of experience. So just shut up and listen. You don't learn anything when you're talking. There's quite a few people that are like that. Yeah, so. But Andrew, I really appreciate your time. Great to catch up. But I'm sure I'll see you at the next one. And whenever that the I don't know that as we roll into the next year. Yeah, the next one, I'll see you in Dallas. We'll see the MVP summit. Yep. Yep. They'll see you in Dallas. So that sounds good, man. Hey, thanks for having me. I appreciate Christian. It was fun.