 Hey everybody, this is Christian Buckley doing another MVP buzz chat. I'm talking today with Dustin. Hello. Hello, Christian. How are you? I'm doing well, just surviving here with the hot weather. But Dustin, for folks that don't know you, who are you? Where are you? And what do you do? All right. Yeah. So I'm Dustin Wellard. I'm an MVP, obviously, or I wouldn't be on this in the M365 apps and services area. And I, I work for Slalom consulting. I am senior delivery principal in the solution area, the global lead for the East for, for Slalom. I mostly focus on these days, modern work and especially the areas of SharePoint teams, OneDrive, all the original OG, modern work stuff, but now I've really gotten into Microsoft syntax and Microsoft Viva. Interesting. So what, what are kind of the topics you, what are you writing about talking about these days? Those latest things or? Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. It's transitioned over that actually more Microsoft syntax than anything. We, for, for people at Slalom, including myself, we're writing the first Microsoft syntax book. We are a contract with a major publisher. We're about 50% of the way through working in collaboration with Microsoft on it. And that has been a whirlwind. And that's mostly what I've been going to talk about at various conferences and so on and at our user groups. Well, bless you for the good work of writing the books. Like I'm not looking to sign up for that process right now. It's amazing too. And you have the waves and new stuff. I get, you know, as an MVP, maybe a lot of us, you know, have this experience, but you get the various publishers that will reach out about being an author, a co-author, an editor of those. And I'm just, I'm just like, say no, I'm just like, I can't, I've just got so much going on. And somebody said to me that it is the least amount of money for the most amount of work you'll ever see in your life. That's right. And you're looking for that leaderboard of, of most amount of work, least amount of return on that work. Right. It's up there. Yeah. And especially with the shifting tides of how the syntax product is growing and now it's more of a family versus just like document processing and document and understanding and so on. It now is its own suite of products and we're like working on the market. There's always a shifting goal post. That's a, that's a real problem for your book content. I know there's still a lot of people to buy the books. There's some authors that have moved away from doing anything printed, maybe print on demand just towards the digital asset. And there's a couple of authors that I know that they regularly, I think quarterly push out updates because of so many changes and rebrandings and things around that. That's a good point about this book. We have the ability to do multiple editions and continue growing the content and it will be digital too. So with this publisher, so we, we actually do plan to do that because there are going to be new features like e-signatures that finally do roll out that we can add to the book and, and really show it. We could talk about it today, but showing it as believe, or seeing it as believing it, right? Well, Dylan, I always like to ask like, what was your origin story? Like I know you've been in the space for a long time and we've talked previously to this, this run. Like what, like what, what, how did it all come together? How'd you become the MVP? Yeah, it's crazy. Starting out my early career, I, it's a very unique story. I was planning to go to law school at a fluoride scholarship to law school. Went through that. My, I had family health issues, ended up leaving that, getting to work for a major pharmacy benefit manager called Express Scripts, which is in the Fortune 500. And I was, I took a really telemarketing style job, you know, just trying to move on, trying to figure out, well, my family was dealing with it. And I got a call from a patient saying that they were going to die in the hospital if they did not get this injection. And I was like, oh crap, I just got out of law school. We're going to get sued. And so ultimately I built and designed a system after talking to my manager in leadership to, I seen this thing called SharePoint 2003. And I was like, I think I could probably build something. I'm pretty good with technology. I built a series of HTML pages, locked it under locking key with the permission structure and kind of used it more as a database structure so people at the HTML site. And what, from what I understand, still 800 people are using that to do their jobs today. I got a vacuum machine for doing all of that. And it was outside of my role. So, you know. I was going to point out just a saying too, as I often say, SharePoint is not a database. Right. Unless it is. Yep, it was. It was. But you're correct. It definitely was not. We weren't using it for metadata. We weren't using it for anything. But I thought I was the SharePoint expert, you know, like I know SharePoint because I built this. I had no idea and, you know, continue down that path that journey and started building my own farms and did that for a big company out of Chicago. Got into consulting and consulting became my passion. Actually working with people, building enterprise content management solutions, you know, I mean, I mean, all of us in this space can really agree. You could build this terrific IA, but then it always ended up failing around metadata because people get busy. They don't improve the metadata. It's or they don't have a CIO or somebody in leadership to say, yes, we're going to require this or you don't upload content. You never get that. Almost 80% of those implementations would fail. Now with the advent of Microsoft syntax, it's really what Jeff Keeper promised when he first rolled out SharePoint. You can now use AI to tag your content, have it searchable and findable and secured and have retention all with just with AI. And it's pretty amazing how that came to be. And so when I saw a tool like syntax because of my history building these really, really complex IA architectures, I was like, this is it. This is the moment. This is the time. And honestly, I believe this is the time for all people who are in information management, document management. Like this is our Nirvana time. This is the time where we're in a really shape organizations. Yeah, I have to say that, you know, so I started my career as a business analyst and, and then got an information management system, knowledge management systems, and then got in a project and portfolio management. Like those two sides, like you can build a career on becoming an expert in information architecture or the project management technology. Those two areas, there's so much room for people to come in to learn that, build solutions, become experts in that. And even feel like I'm sure you do, I do too, where sometimes I'm just scratching the surface on the surface and I'm writing about speaking about working on. There's just so much that's there. So there's a lot of room for people that are interested in getting into the space and certainly becoming MVP. What, but I mean, what was your, like, you know, so I know that there are solemn. There's other MVPs. Did you have friends in the local community? Like who actually submitted your name in the process? Steve Paselec, which is a global black belt for Microsoft. It's been helping contribute to our book. I have been, so since I started Islam, I really built a great relationship with the global black belts across the event syntax. And they became friends of mine. And I even bought one of them an actual black belt with, and then I got all of them little headbands that are ninja headbands. And like, we just all became friends really quick. And I was at the aim conference when I got to meet them. And it was right after post pandemic. I just, I guess it was, it was amazing conference actually. I got to meet everyone, build these fantastic relationships and bring them into slalom. And slalom didn't have a traditionally solid relationship with these product teams or, or, and GBBs. And so I was able to translate that into actual work for Microsoft, but also benefit for Microsoft. And it became a real symbiotic relationship between all of us. And then further, I became really close friends with a lot of people in the product teams, like, and product marketing teams, like Chris McNulty, who would meet with our team and with Erica Talley and, and even people on the Azure AI side. And we just built this camaraderie. And then I started going to all of these speaking spots and, and speaking like at aim, we were one of the keynotes this year, which was pretty awesome around syntax and got great feedback. So I would guess that was how that all came together. And then honestly, I'm, I, I want to say this for everyone else. There's a lot of, a lot of value in networking, networking, getting your name out there, going out, shaking people's hand and saying, hey, I'm Dustin, and I, I'm not an MVP, but I want to be an MVP. How do I do it? I've been doing this and letting people know your value and what you're contributing to the community is honestly, I'm going to say that's more what I did than, you know, like Todd Clint's old, or things about all the releases coming in the CUs and, and that whole page, like that was a lot of work. And something I really appreciated and valued, you know, back in those days and your work, but really getting out there in the community and evangelizing it has been my, my, my fourth day. Well, that's, that's so hard for so many people of, it's, it's kind of funny. I mean, I remember past job, you know, 15 plus years ago, having managers say like, you're doing all this great stuff. Like in, and the higher ups are not seeing it. And my response was who cares? You're my manager. You know what I'm doing and I'm doing the work that needs to be done. I don't care. And some people might be surprised to hear me say that. Like I, I wasn't out ringing my own bell about doing this stuff. I just was doing, doing the work. And, and the managers just like, there's like, no, we need to find a way to surface that to elevate that. So that because it, it, it makes a difference when it comes to, you know, the, the managers being able to defend raises for their teams and justify if nobody has any idea of what these, not that I'm classifying myself as a superhero, superhero employee, but I've had, but I did that. I fought those battles for my direct reports to get them, win them as many rewards as possible for their excellent work. And it was always easier when everybody was visible, what they did. So what do you do? I mean, I know what I do these days, I talk about it all the time. What do you do to help surface? What did you change to help raise awareness and networking, talking to people? That's fantastic. How did you actually surface and share out what you're doing? That, that's, that's a great question. Honestly, my major thing has been speaking at, at conferences that that is something I've been regularly doing. Also helping rebuild with Jim Wilcox who's a current MVP, the granite user group here in New Hampshire. I presented a couple of times to that. Yep. Yeah. And so it's finally back. We're up and running. I did the first inaugural event and that went really well. We had like 30 some people in the tenants, which we were all surprised and that was amazing. And then just really, I've been going to every conference I can, and I've built a following for a group of close friends that have really, you know, championed me. I championed them and it's become a really, really solid way to get our names out, get talking to people. And the more conferences I've done, the more I've settled in, the more I've been able to drive attendance and ultimately getting keynotes and things like that has been tremendous. And what I play, you know, I, I think the book us actually writing that first book is really, you know, and that's going to help a lot. I mean, down the road. And I know that like when I was, but when I did my first book, it was independent. I was working for a big company. I had my own, you know, software company startup that my co-founder and I wrote a book. We leveraged that if we were small, I mean, we were, we were, you know, incorporated small companies, a software startup. But my co-founder was doing independent consulting and I started doing that. It was a huge tool for consulting, going to write the books that the, you know, but just to, to get people to, I mean, it can be a struggle to write for different websites that are out there that you read a lot in these different portals. Like somebody just reaching out with an article idea, rarely turn gets that response like, Hey, we're interested in that. It's, it can be difficult to get started with them if they don't know who you are. So writing that book instantly gives you that expertise. And not that you have to go folks, write a book every time you can, you know, I tell people, there's so many opportunities to submit abstracts and ideas to speak at user groups all over the place to just record, create a webinar for yourself, like your own content. In fact, I always tell people like that are speaking regularly. You've got those presentations that you're giving it a bunch of, you know, collab days and community days, SharePoint Saturdays, sequel Saturday events, those kinds of stuff. When it's getting towards the end of that, when you've moved on to other topics, make sure that you go and do just a record and have it out on your YouTube page, your company's YouTube page. Like don't let that content just fade away, you know, create it and, and then do some marketing around that. It's another way to leverage that, all that hard work that you did. I totally agree with that 100%. I mean, the what, and honestly, just to take away from, for me is I always tell myself before I go to any event or anything, you've done all this, you've been successful, you have delivered probably, you know, hundreds and hundreds of projects successfully. You know this stuff. And a lot of people in our industry have imposter syndrome and they can't get over it. And I can think of some of the giants in the industry who still have imposter syndrome and you have to tell yourself that, yes, I'm going to go do this. And like, I'm going to get out of my comfort zone. I'm not going to be, it's not going to be so fun. And then you find a way to make it fun, right? Like I'm not naturally a person who goes up and says, hi, I'm Dustin, the people and start building these things. I have to force myself. And I played the Eminem song, lose yourself before I go out every time, which is like you have one shot and one opportunity when you captured or let it slip. And me and other Microsoft folks were talking and they all have their song too. And it's funny how that works. And it's just, you got to make a decision. And I decided intentionally I wanted to be an MVP. I was going to be an MVP. And I just networked my way through and thank you. I'm very thankful for everyone who helped me along that way. That's great. Well, congratulations again on that. I mean, it's a, it is a big deal. It's, it's a, and one of the things I would say to folks out there is it just kind of follow on to your comment about imposter syndrome is, is that there are, there are some people almost look at it as, it's unhealthy to not have some degree of that when, when you have some people and we all know somebody that's like that, that has that level of arrogance that they know everything about it. Like that's when I'm telling you their, their community career is in decline. Once you, if you, if you were that, that way, you need to have some level of humility. Like I don't know everything about it. One of the things that I, it's one of the reasons why I love doing the AMA style panels, I bring in other experts and I know a little bit about something. I logically approach problem solving with community questions, but I learn stuff every single time. I do one of those recordings. And so you've got to humble yourself, add to what is already good that's out there, help surface and elevate the works. I mean, talk about networking. This is another strategy is, is promote the good work of other people. If you enjoy reading about something, make sure you're commenting on that, sharing in social, talking about how it helped you, what you liked about it, reach out and connect to those people. And I tell you, there's something that to be said about having, not just empty praise, like you just, you're the best, you know, and then nothing around those substance rather, but when somebody that you've read that you follow that you've seen MVP or not, you know, make sure that you make a point of reaching out, let them know how it helped and to thank them for that and keep in contact. That's a great networking skill. I try to do that. I try to practice that after it's not natural for me either. You know, we all have to work at doing that kind of stuff. Yeah, but I mean, if you seem value in it, you should do that. That's the right thing to do as a member of the community and as a person, like you would want the same feedback from others. If you delivered something great, or if, and you should do the same for others for sure. And then you build lifelong friends. I've actually made some lifelong friends just out of something similar to that. So it can happen. Yep. No, there's people that I talked to on a weekly basis that I became friends with through the community. Back in 2009. I don't talk with Todd Clint that often, but I consider him a good friend and love my interactions with them. They're always funny. Mostly when I make fun of his haircut. There's nothing wrong with his haircut people. It's just one of those things. I'm like that, you know, that older brother teasing, you know, the younger sibling, it's that kind of thing. But anyway, well, Dustin, really congratulations again on your MVP. Thanks so much for your time. And for folks that want to get in touch with you, weren't you most active in the social circles? Definitely on LinkedIn. My following, maybe that's part of it. I have 18,000 followers on LinkedIn growing, which is crazy. I don't know how that exactly happened, but it happened. And that's, that's really where I'm most active. I'm not the biggest social guy, but if you see me out, especially in the, in a social setting, a real social setting, I'll be more than happy to come talk to you, but definitely LinkedIn. I'll tell you how that happened, Dustin, is because you never turned down a connection request. Pretty much. It seems fake. Yeah, I mean, look, I'm, I'm very selective with that. If there's, if it doesn't look like, if they're not somebody that's actually within the community, it's just like the generic and somebody selling something. And I say no to the vast majority of those. Yeah, but I get a two week waiting period in most cases though. And if, if it's still sitting there after two weeks, Oh, then I'll look at them. But yeah, no, for sure. It's a good one. All right. Hey, Dustin, well, thanks so much for your time. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. And so humbled to be a part of the community.