 Hey everybody, this is Christian Buckley doing another MVP buzz chat and I'm talking today with Ami. Hello. Hi, Christian. How are you? I'm doing well. So, um, so yesterday, yes, so it's been one whole day. So what have you done? Have you traveled the world? Have you picked up any new languages? I mean, what's happened since now becoming an MVP actually, I just wanted to sleep and maybe, uh, understand what it means and, you know, cause it's, it's a new experience. It's joining a new team and to understand what are all of the benefits of it. Yeah. And. Well, very, very cool. Well, happy to jump in and talk some of that, maybe answer some of your questions, but I always like to understand the journey, but for folks that don't know you, who are you? Where are you? And what do you do? Okay. My name is Ami Diamond. I live in Israel and I have, uh, two daughters and a wife and a dog and I've been working for 15 years already in SharePoint and in IT, maybe 20 years in IT. I started from, um, uh, SAP project as a immigration, then I moved to BI, uh, reporting services. And then, uh, I worked for the last 15 years in Siemens, which was a, which is a global company where there I, uh, was introduced with the SharePoint, the collaboration and the web content management. And then I, I started from a end user to a key user, to a regional, uh, service manager and then a global service management. And now actually I work in a small company, a boutique company that's called Deepplan and I work in a customer, a governmental customer, which is called Israel Antiquity Authorities. They're responsible for all of their, you know, Israel has 5,000 years of, uh, history. So there's lots of things that they find, but they work like with a pen and, and, and paper. So we need to computerize everything. So yeah. And, and of course I have, I started a year ago, my SharePoint wizard, uh, YouTube channel, which was, I just started just as a, as a place where I can store things and to go back there and amazingly it increased and I reached almost, uh, 350, uh, views and almost 300 videos and, uh, 2,500 subscribers, subscribes. So that, that's impressive. Yeah. And for everybody too, so I've known on me since like the beginning of that, that process. So, and we've talked about that and, uh, you know, a fan of, I mean, so much of the content that you push out there of what you're learning and it's a great example of like somebody, I don't think you were doing it to try to become an MVP. You were like going out there building and sharing and that kind of stuff. It was just, just sharing is caring, you know, uh, I found something and I wanted to share it and just like I would expect somebody to, to find something and I would read. So that, that was the whole point, uh, MVP was just that somebody, uh, offered me his name is Norm Young, he probably know him from very well Norm young was the person that nominated me and for the first year, uh, we didn't even get any feedback. So we know he re-nominated me this year and luckily it was accepted and, uh, but I, I, he's the person that reached out to me and said, Amy, I see what you're doing. What would you like to, to be MVP? So I said, well, you know, and I think the most important thing is the MVP is not the goal, the journey, the MVP, I think it's just the bonus, just the title, a pat in the back. But yeah, well, that's what it is. It's, it's, it's an award. It's a recognition. It's not a, you know, and you don't have to do anything. Um, once you have that is like to Microsoft, there's, there's no payback of that. We're not employees of, you know, and so, I mean, obviously to maintain it, to retain your MVP, you got to keep doing stuff that you're, you're doing already, but it's not about Microsoft. It's about the community. Definitely. It's, it's, I also created, besides my YouTube channel, uh, something like eight WhatsApp groups, each one has like 800 members. So that's, that's, there's not many of those. I mean, in America, they don't use WhatsApp, but in, in Europe and India, wow. And each one is in a different subject. One is a teams and SharePoint. One is Power Platform. One is PowerShell. Each one, and it's, it's, it's very successful. So I, but it takes lots of effort, uh, because you need to moderate it. You need to nurture it, you know, if people point people to it kind of exactly, but it's fun. Yeah. No, it's, I, you know, it's interesting talking to people that might be very active in one form or another. Cause I know that there are people that are heavily active and Microsoft loves it of people out on Microsoft tech community. And I don't do a whole lot out there. It's like there are discord servers. There are like the WhatsApp that you talked about. There's Facebook groups. Um, the LinkedIn communities, there's not as much activity out there. Um, but some of the LinkedIn groups, there, there are some Microsoft tech related LinkedIn groups that have 80 to 100,000 people. Yes. Yes. Definitely. Oh, sorry. Facebook groups. Yeah. It's just, it's crazy. Yeah. Also, also, also LinkedIn, there's one, there are as well correct. Yeah. Um, the, the, the good thing about LinkedIn Facebook that you don't have a limitation of users, you know, and, and WhatsApp or other things you, you have a limitation, uh, but then you need to create another group, uh, but, uh, definitely, uh, it was, yeah, by coincidence. And to, to be honest, after I was already, uh, I gave up, I said, you know, I'm not going to get it because, uh, it depends really on a country and how many people you have. And, you know, a small country which maybe has a seven million then there's currently there was only one, uh, MVP for, for SharePoint or, uh, and so it's, it's probably very, uh, not easy. And actually the, who's responsible for, for the MVP sits in Spain before it was, uh, the regional, you know, community and before it was in India. So no one talked to me. It's very strange, the process. It, it, and it changes all the time as Microsoft internally shifts things around and, and ownership of different areas move around. Yeah. There were a few years back, I think it was before my time. I mean, there was even, I think talking inside of Microsoft about ending the program and somebody else, another executive stepped up and said, we'll, you know, take over and, and, uh, we can't let this just die on the vine and, uh, which, which is great. But it's, I mean, it's constantly evolving and changing. But so let me, so here you're, you've been for just over 24 hours at MVP. Do you have any questions, like anything that's like burning questions about the program? Well, actually I have a person that I can reach out for, for technical problems or other things. I mean, uh, I understand that I can join, uh, some teams groups, uh, to choose, uh, selectively and not, uh, to be boomed with, uh, lots of information. But, uh, and there's all kinds of, I, I understand I can maybe create my, my own environments or get some, uh, you know, all kinds of access to all kinds of things. I know also there's, uh, uh, non-enclojured, uh, you know, that you cannot, uh, reveal, uh, confidential things. Yes. There's a lot of NDA discussions. NDA. So, and there's calls. I read it, yeah, but it, it sounds interesting. And actually I'm thinking already if it's possible to somehow get to, to meet the product team, you know, and, and to raise, because up until now we would just complain. This, now maybe there's a possibility to, to talk to them internally and say, you know, uh, this is the things I found and, and I think, uh, it can be improved, especially because I work in Israel. So we, uh, use Hebrew and right to, right to left is not that, doesn't work as it is, uh, left to right. Uh, so some things should be improved there because, uh, but I think if, if it's talked internally, then maybe it can help, uh, you know, and not shouting out for, uh, and saying, well, opening tickets or things like that. Well, that's the, that is the benefit of, I will say a couple of things. Cause I know a lot of people that watching this that are not MVPs that are saying, well, hey, unfair advantage for MVPs to have access to Microsoft. It's like, well, let me, let me explain it this way. It's like, so certainly there'll be, uh, you know, there's NDA phone calls that you'll be invited into the product team. So you'll get to know as they present on different topics. Oh, that's the person, that's the team that owns that feature set or that product I need to reach out with them. And so there's a lot of that going on. However, there's an ongoing frustration of MVPs that we feel like we're not listened to as much as you would think, uh, Microsoft teams. And so I think a lot of times if you are with a partner or you are representing or work for a customer and you flag an issue or log something in through various channels, like going and writing about it, like feedback on the roadmap site, um, uh, writing about it, sharing your feedback out on, uh, um, Microsoft tech community, um, that you have as much or more weight than MVPs. And Microsoft different people listen to different signals coming in. But I would say, you know, for those that are not MVPs, um, Microsoft tech community is probably your number one destination for going and finding people and providing feedback of experiences that you're having requirements gaps in feature sets that you need to see and why, um, and just be clear on your business impact, your customer or user impact, the, the, if you can put that impact into a cost and something just very simple is be like, okay, what's the average employee cost? How many employees are impacted and how many hours a month are they impacted by that? You add that up and there's a financial cost to that issue month over month, Microsoft responds to that kind of feedback. And of course we can provide that as an MVP as well. Um, but yeah, I, I just don't want people to think that there's not, uh, you know, they're not being heard. Yeah. Maybe it's, it's, it's a miss or something. Well, the one thing I would say is that probably the least productive route, um, is unless you're representing a huge customer base, a huge sale to Microsoft, going through the traditional support routes are probably the least effective ways of getting change to happen, which is a sad thing to say, but yeah, I actually heard truth. I actually heard that MVPs, you know, sometimes they get the features before, but they get them so late that it's almost a public preview. So, so the gap between a person that is a non MVP and a person that, which is just like a targeted release or something is not that big. Sometimes maybe they get it a couple of weeks before. Okay. But well, here, here, but here's the difference on me. It's like, if you're, you guys, something you're very passionate case in point, uh, Darrell Webster has been at the forefront of loop content because he went after that, that direction. So he built relationship with the product team. So he, he's getting stuff before just about everybody that's out there. So if you want to be included in private previews, months in advance, you know, of things and to be that, that contact, you have a better chance as an MVP to get your foot in the door there. Yeah. Sometimes listen, I find a bug and, you know, I can open a service ticket, but sometimes I would just, uh, if it's Microsoft List or SharePoint, I would tag a Mark Cashman or somebody like that. And he would say, we'll take it, we'll check it. And, you know, with just, uh, it's, it's amazing sometimes. And with all of the changing that changes that are happening in, in this M365, it's amazing, really hard to follow it. But, but yet if you compare it to our on-premise, uh, environment where everything is doesn't move, then it's, it's really, uh, improve, uh, improvement. And you always, if you don't learn, you, you stay back because it's, it's moving and, and what, one of the things I do actually is adoption besides, uh, implementation is, is adoption and training. And, and that's, that's very interesting because a product can be good. Sometimes the technology is not the problem is if people are using the technology and if they know how to use it, because to task management, you can use and list, you can, in teams, in planner, just to know what, what to use, where is even for, for people, experience can be, uh, a challenge, uh, but yeah, but adoption is important, I think. And that's what I like. I always use the example of like, um, having, you know, risen up through the intranet, uh, world and, uh, you can have a beautifully designed and implemented intranet. If users don't use it, then it's a failure. Your executive team, it doesn't matter how beautiful it is, how architecturally well built it is, irrelevant if users aren't there. We actually, one of my customers pushed the intranet to be open as a policy as they open the Chrome. Now we thought that would help people to, to use the site. The problem was that the site was static. People were, the responsible people didn't want to update it and nothing. So they see each time they open the browser, but looks exactly the same. And you know, they, well, they maybe use the links or things like that. So they need to see the benefit and it needs to be live and interesting and maybe relevant to, to the people specifically. Yeah. And so that's actually, yeah, that's another reason to, to be up to speed and, and follow along as best as you can of all the new developments because I mean, a lot of like the announcements that, uh, Microsoft just made around, uh, um, you know, uh, around SharePoint. Mm hmm. There are a lot of it was just incremental. It was, there wasn't anything huge and dramatic. There are a few things that were interesting. Um, you know, the brand center, for example, is going to be, uh, you know, very important to a lot of organizations, but just a lot of kind of the, the fluid motion between features and, and slight evolution of the way that, uh, the UI is laid out. Uh, that's the kind of stuff that again helps with adoption. It, it makes things more sticky. It, it removes a lot of the kind of the rough edges. Um, it's, it's more in a line with, uh, you know, aligned with what people expect in their applications, you know, elsewhere out in the web. Yeah. Um, and so, you know, but, but yeah, there needs to be a strategy. Sorry. It didn't mean to go sideways. I'm talking about intranets. It's, it's okay. I'm, I'm actually, I'm excited to the co-pilot and the AI, which will be integrated because it's, it's amazing what's going to come. I think that that's going to be, there's a lot, but, but that's why you have to be vigilant. You have to constantly be looking, saying what is, what is out there and introducing new to your team. So that, that's actually what I do. I, I checked the message center, the Microsoft roadmap. I checked just, uh, in, uh, uh, sandbox, uh, tenants and, and try to, to see what's new and, and I like to share it on my SharePoint wizard, uh, YouTube. And, uh, I, I actually tried to do it very short to the point. I'm not that good with, you know, uh, designs and things. I think people, if it's too long or if it's, you know, too beautiful, they want to, what's the point? What's the benefit? How do I do it? And that's it. And I, this is the method I do. And, uh, I think it's, it's working. Yeah. I, I have the same philosophy. I mean, like, I, I realized people have tried to come and say, is like, have you checked out these video post-production tools and doing things? It's like, you know, I've got templates. I do the same thing. It's more about the, the message and the content. I don't worry about, it looks nice. It looks fine as acceptable. Um, but I'm not spending, you know, for, for a five minute video. I'm not spending five hours in post-production. Um, so it's, uh, I think my, my, my time is more valuable than that. I've got to go do other things, but I want to share content and get it out there, but in a presentable way. By the way, I'm amazed at the challenge that you, you gave to something like one post a day or one. Still going, it's going, I have three more months for those that don't know. Yeah. I, so a good friend, uh, Tracy Vander Schiff down in South Africa. So she did a blog post a day for two years. So I took on the challenge. I'm going to do it for two years and one week so that I can, you know, show up Tracy, I have, I have three months to go. Wow. And, and you have time for that? Oh, you know, no, I don't, I make time, unless, unless you do a couple of days and then you just post them up, uh, that, that's maybe a better way. You know, you, you take one hour and you do five, if you can, and then you post them the whole week and then maybe. Well, so this is advice for, for folks that are, if you're interested in becoming an MVP or just want to create content, my recommendation is create a template. So I have a number of different things that I do and you kind of do this with your SharePoint wizard stuff is you've got a template for how you do them. But by having a template, it means that I can go and create content, do an interview, do a productivity tip, something like that. And I have the, I know the outline of the pieces that I need. And then post production goes much more quickly. So I could quickly post it and get it out. It's still a lot of work. I'll do like a five to 10 minute interview and they're still probably, you know, anywhere from 45 minutes to 90 minutes of post production around that can be, um, and then, you know, writing an article. Sometimes you can write an article and 20 minutes and you're done. And other times it's a 10 to 12 hour effort. Yeah. Yeah, you need to think. Yeah, definitely. And, you know, it's my hobby. It's that. So I think you did the same way. It's my hobby. So like on Saturdays, I'll probably do four or five tomorrow. And then I'll put them in the queue ready to go. Well, once I would write down what I wanted to say, uh, and, and then when I tried to do it, it was too, you know, like reading the news. And I said, just make bullet points and just talk, you know, and whatever comes out comes out. And it might in the beginning be a bit stuttered, but afterwards, if you know what you're talking about, you'll just do it. Actually, my English is not my first, well, it's one of my mother thanks because I speak also Hebrew. But, um, uh, I hope it's clear enough for the audience to understand. Maybe I have some accent or something. But, uh, in general, when, I think if you know what you're talking about and you just, um, Demonstrate it, I think it's, it's better than reading from, from paper because people will even see you're doing it. And, and the, yeah, so, yeah, I agreed. It's, look, there, there's a time for that. But I think most, uh, like if you're going to be doing something for your company and you need to follow a specific script, I'm not good at memorizing. I just, I just can't do it. I'm much more of a from the cuff speaker. But like you, I like the bullet items. So I know that I'm following the, the flow, what I need to cover and kind of a reminder of those things. And then I just kind of speak from the heart. Mm hmm. I actually did a post of, uh, recommended things to, to do how to create. So maybe you start with thinking of the content, then you prepare the environment, uh, that you want to demonstrate. And then you do testing before it and see that you get to the, what you wanted to do. And then you record it and then you edit it. And, uh, but yeah, listen, I've been doing this, this sharing of content, nothing to do with MVP. And this, this thing is, this came as a surprise. And, you know, I'll take it day by day and see how, how things are. Because it might, it might take even more effort now because, but I think I'd, but if I just continue doing what I'm doing, I think it's, it's good enough because I've, I'm posting a lot and doing. I think that is that you've nailed it on the head that you, you need to keep doing what you've been doing while there's going to be more opportunities. What I would, my advice was, is to be careful not to bite off more that you can chew because they're going to, I get all of these invites to all these things, all good things. And I decline most of them. I, I'm, so I'm very careful about what I select and what I go and get involved in like I'm in these, so you're an M365 apps and services MVP like I am. So those monthly calls, that's a, you know, priority to participate in one. Occasionally I attend both the morning and evening and be the middle of your night. But, but yeah, I do that just so I can participate with different crowds because I, my role, my day job with Rencore, I work with Asia Pacific as well as North America. So I like to see and, and, you know, and talk with friends that are over in an Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Japan and elsewhere. So just be careful not to take too much and don't feel obligated that you have to do all those things. That's the battle that you'll fight now if you start up. Cause you'll, again, lot, it's not just our call to M365 apps and services. There's the teams calls. There's occasionally there's like a syntax call. There's Viva calls. There's all those kind of stuff that you can do as an MVP, you know, that it's out there. So just be selective and you can also there's occasions or conferences that you can attend and you can be a speaker. I know you also some kind of a regional or regional. It's the RD program, which is a whole different program as well. Yeah. And, and I also you actually invited me also to the eight point champion team. So that's another thing that they, they like come contributions and you can meet other people there. And I wanted to congratulate you on your new position because I saw actually you there's also a platform where people upload videos or blogs. Is it techie techie also on the board for techie gurus? And so it's another, can you give a word about it? I'm sorry. Can you, can you explain a bit about that platform? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's a, it's a site out there. I mean, there's a number of competitive sites that are out there, but with all things Microsoft ecosystem. So it's just, it's a site. You go there and it's, there's no cost to find and read content. And it's, so it's new. It's, it's, you know, venture backed and slowly growing. And so we're always looking for authors, but we have so a lot of MVPs. There's Microsoft people writing for it. It's growing. It's, it's all paid content, but we're also looking for anybody that's watching that is not yet published anywhere. If you write good content, you can always submit an abstract. And so if you, if you go to techie, so T E K K I gurus, G U R U S dot com and slash author or authors, I think both, um, that'll get you to the front page where you could submit abstracts and ideas for content and potentially get them picked up. So yeah. So folks are welcome to submit to that. Have you, have you written anything for techie yet? Not, not yet, not yet. I got you, you sent me some, some link, but, uh, I just was interested to hear more about it because I saw you even write yourself or some, I do, I do write logs in addition. I'll just point out, I write for my company and for techie gurus in addition to the stuff that I do for those daily blog posts. You're amazing guy. You're tired. How many hours do you sleep? Not, not a lot. That's another problem, but you like it. You, I can see that you have passion to it and that's what's, uh, it's my hobby. It is fun. Like, like you, I like learning about things and then I like to share what I learned. Mm hmm. That's, that's perfect. That's, uh, yeah, I hope also maybe the MVP can help me professionally, you know, find other opportunities, you know, I don't, I don't expect that, but you know, that's a big part of it. It's a big part of it as well. It can, yeah, it's, it's good to have maybe put it on the CV, maybe on the profile of the LinkedIn and then from there things can, can go whenever, whatever opportunities come. There's an old video, like early in the MVP program. So it may have been like in the mid nineties, late nineties there. It's, it's kind of a jokey, uh, a video that Microsoft put out, like, uh, we're a guy who just became an MVP. And, uh, and so he's just, you know, very just, just loud and he, he finds, uh, he finds love in the hallway of his office. Like, I just became an MVP. I will now go do conquer the world. And it's pretty funny, uh, but there's a lot of truth into that as well. So a lot of opportunities that'll open. So well, I mean, really appreciate the time. Congratulations again. Thank you. Thank you for the award. And, uh, yeah, just keep doing what you're doing. Um, I would say you don't need, like you specifically don't need to change what you're doing. Like it's the right. Okay, okay. Thank you. It got you the recognition. You keep doing that. You just, and I'm sure you'll maintain that. So. Okay. Thank you. So I mean, for always that last question for folks that want to get in touch with you, what are the best ways to reach you? Where are you the most active in social? Well, uh, LinkedIn, um, maybe you can add it in the show notes and Twitter's and Twitter and my YouTube channel, SharePoint wizard. Uh, yeah, you'll find me there probably. I'll have all the links out on the Buckley Planet blog as well. And, uh, thanks so much for your time on me. Okay. Have a nice weekend.