 Hey everybody, this is Christian Buckley doing another MVP buzz chat and I'm talking today with Olivier. Hello. Hi. So, for folks that don't know you, who are you, where are you, and what do you do? Well, first of all, thanks for having me. Having me, my name is Olivier Van Steyland. I'm located in Belgium. I work for a Belgium company in retail. I'm a data warehousing and reporting team lead on my day-to-day job. I'm still, well, working with more traditional data warehousing solutions. That's part of my past life. I'm always happy to find people from that world. I was a technical PM for about a decade. I was working doing data center migrations and consolidations. I spent my time traveling to different data center locations, working with multiple clients. I miss aspects of that life, like going up in the raised floors, especially in really hot weather to go inside those beautifully temperature-controlled server rooms. Great. That's great. And also, you are a brand spanking new MVP, so congratulations again for that. Thank you. Yeah, I was a bit surprised to be fair, but yeah. Oh, well, so we need to jump right into that. I mean, let's talk about your origin story. How did you become an MVP? How did you hear about it? Did you pursue it? Is it something you more fell into? What's your story? Well, I didn't really pursue it. Let's say I started working data for about 10 years ago, a bit more than a decade ago. When I was first working with open source technologies for first two and a half years, and back then I didn't know anything about it. So first things first, what did I do? I went to back then, I'm not very sure if it already was meetup, but I went to a local community. So I just went to several evening sessions and I learned quite a lot in quite a short amount of time. And I really was thinking, well, if I ever can do something for the community, there should be something like this. So I wasn't really planning, but that point in time I didn't even know what MPPs were. I wasn't even involved in the Microsoft technology at that point in time as well. And then I actually changed jobs, and I started to work with SQL server, analysis services, reporting services, all the traditional data processing stuff from the Microsoft stack. And during that time, I ran into a couple of consultants as well, who were part of a local Microsoft data community in Belgium. And so I ran into them, and I was just talking about stuff. And well, I just attended my first ever evening session with data mines, which is the Belgian data community, focusing on the Microsoft data platform. And then I just went to a couple events. And all of a sudden couple of years later, I joined data mines. Now, for example, I'm co-organizing evening sessions and co-organizing Data Mines Connect, which is our annual event. And then in the meanwhile, somewhere out there, one of my co-workers was reaching out and saying, well, wouldn't be speaking, would that be something for you? And I was like, well, not really. I'm more relaxed in that kind of way to work behind the scenes, to do some preparing, some preparations, but not really tapping into the spotlight. And I was like, well, no, not for now. I will see. And then actually, out of the sudden, I was starting to think about speaking as well. And I was like, well, I actually don't know if I have anything to share with people. So I was like, no, I don't have anything interesting, so we won't do it. And then it was, well, a couple of years ago. Well, you know what, maybe I should submit a session just about something we're running into on my day-to-day job. And that's what got me started with speaking and blogging as well. So I delivered my first session at Data Grill community event in Germany. And I was talking about, well, the stuff where I was running into on my day-to-day job. So really stuff where I was really feeling comfortable about. And from that point, I actually took a serious right. And I've been speaking, well, like, count right in the last year. I've been speaking more or less 14 or 15 times. Wow. Well, that's a lot. That's awesome. Yeah, that is a lot. Well, and I don't want to scare anybody that's thinking like following along with your path. I think like it is you, that's like the poster child, like the ideal. I love hearing about that ideal scenario for people start by attending. Like if you just don't know, you're finding things out. But at the very least, attend the user group sessions. I mean, I did that for years, you know, participated at that level and helped when I could ask questions, help answer questions when I could, but just there as a participant. And then a lot of user groups, maybe I don't know if you had this scenario. A lot of user groups and we certainly do this with my local group where we have like our main speaker, but we try to leave like a beginning, like 10, 15 minutes for somebody, hopefully from the immediate community to share something. And we even, we don't even call it a formal presentation. It's more like share something that you learn, share something that you're working on and that to kind of help people dip their toes into speaking. And we've helped, that's helped us develop kind of your next step was then to become one of the organizers of the community group. And we're, that's another thing like every, every community org out there is looking for help, but they want people that are consistently there. So if all you're doing first is showing up, show up for six months for a year, you know, on a pretty regular basis, realize stuff happens in our schedules. Sometimes we can't make it to a monthly meeting, but you know, try to participate, be there so that they know they can count on you and then volunteer. And that's, I think the vast majority of the MVPs, it's thought they followed that exact path. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and then actually, for me, upright, done my first session, I started to write everything down. I really was thinking from now on everything when I'm running into I'm just going to write down. And in my case, it was in small book posts, which I'm doing quite frequently, I'm not sure more in the autumn or winter or spring, but I actually am writing quite a lot of stuff as well, and really to get people started. So I'm, I'm actually first writing things like, well, I've been running into this scenario. I didn't know the answer, but I managed to execute these particular steps. And this was the final solution, which I reached success. If I can't remember it in a couple of years, I can just reach out to my own blog post. Yep, I've already done it. So it is really useful. No, that's, that's a, I mean, I figured this out. So I mean, I write a lot. I read a lot of write a lot. I learned early on, thankfully I had a couple of teachers. It was in middle school where I just learned that my style of learning. I learned more when I read about things, had conversations, but then wrote about it, put it in my own perspective, gave examples. And I found that I could retain it just by going through that process. If I was just listening to a lecture or even following along with examples, it didn't retain as much as writing it down. And I do the exact same thing where I always talk about this all the time where I, everything I write, I put in one note. And when I publish a blog post, so not every, but almost every blog post, every article I've ever written. I, I take the published link, the URL, I put it in the one note on that page. And then I have an archive folder. And so I archive it to move it out of the way. But one of the best resources when I'm going and researching on a topic. And I'll go in and search within one note, like, what have I written on this topic in the past? And I'll find dozens of examples of whatever the topic is. I've thought about it, I've written about it. The other thing is, let me ask your thoughts too on, like, generally, how long are your blog posts? Word count. I mean, are they, when you're walking through something in detail, obviously it could be, you know, two, three thousand words. But what's your average blog post? Well, it will be in the thousand to two thousand range, actually. Yeah, it's still pretty long. Okay. I'm really trying to get into or trying to write no entry blog post to make sure that everyone was just starting with a certain topic really can take the topic, go through the blog post and really can go from step to step to the next step. That's great. Yeah, that's awesome. I'm really focusing on getting started. Well, again, and I'm trying to, for those that are, you know, they say I'm not really big into writing or trying to figure out, like, because I write long pieces as well, but I'm trying to intentionally write shorter pieces, because, you know, for like SEO purposes, all those kinds of things. Honestly, I don't think much about SEO when I'm writing for my personal site. Like I, I write as long as it takes for that idea to get out at the end, you know, but I tried to encourage as I mentor other people that are right starting to write is take that really long piece, think about what you're trying to do and break it into its logical components. Sometimes a 3000 word article might be better position is four or five blog posts as a series. Yeah, exactly. That's what I've been doing as well. So I, for example, my very first series that I've been writing was about getting started with database projects and Azure DevOps. And I really was breaking it down. Well, first we're going to create the organization in Azure DevOps, then we're going to create our database project, get our first database in. Then I'm already at two or three articles. Then how do we start development? How do I execute development with database projects and Azure DevOps and so on. So yeah, really break it down to more pieces. Yep. And just fit them all together in one blog post series. Well, and this is another thing and I don't know if you thought about this too, but I mean one of the benefits of thinking that way. I mean one, it allows you to have an outline. And then if you get two thirds of the way through and realize, you know, there's another really important thing and you can more easily insert that in. If it were all one giant long article, you go back and you're revising that. But the other side of that is that you can look and see where people have the most comments, the more engagement around each of those. You can also at the end of that. So you can do a 10 blog post series. You can always then go and package it up as an ebook, give it away for free, but compile it all into one. Add some additional graphics. If your company supports you in this, maybe get their help for the design of that. And then you have yet another thing where people are really passionate about that topic. Go and find it all in one, in one downloadable asset. I'm a big fan of, and I will always say, never put that behind a paywall, never, never require registrations. Just let people, as a marketer, you get so much more value out of a broader reach than you do the limitations that have. You have fewer people that will read your content if it's behind a paywall or behind a registration wall. Exactly. For the same reason, I'm always focusing on speaking, for example, at user groups. So until now or until November, I won't have done any paid speaking event. Well, I'm not paid, but this year in November, I'm going to pass on it. I'm going to speak there. But that's the very first event where I'm going to speak where people need to pay to get in. Yeah. I've always been looking at data Saturdays, SQL Saturdays, user groups. And I mean, the reality is it's good to have a mix of theirs. It's funny. I don't understand it, but how a lot of organizations or people will look at an event, and if there's no charge of the free community driven event, they automatically devalue that event. It's like, oh, it's not going to be as valuable as if I go to this paid conference. And I mean, the reality is you and I know it's a lot of times we're speaking at events that are paid events. We're doing the same content or similar content at the community events. Exactly. Yeah. And plus, you tend to have a better opportunity for networking at the community events than you do. Not always. There's some events, paid events that do a good job at the community building aspect of that. But, well, so what are your kind of hot topics right now? What are you writing about? What are you passionate about right now? Well, I'm actually in full transition or a wasn't full transition of migrating my current employer from SQL server reporting services to probably a paginated reports. So that's something where I'm currently writing about speaking about. Yeah. That's what I'm currently doing and really focusing on. Yep. Who knows what new projects there will be in a couple of weeks or a couple of months. Well, of course. Well, there's so much that's changing in this space. Like, how is AI impacting your world? That's a great question. For me, personally at work, not too much at this point in time. At work, we, for example, are trying to get some videos online with, in my case, since I'm working for a retailer organization who are selling bathrooms. They are trying to get a product videos online with technical information, which is spoken by AI. And so they're trying out things with AI, but it doesn't really impact my day-to-day job at this point in time. I think of it, I think you're right. And what I've seen, you know, the demos of Microsoft has had some really slick demos around co-pilot and from like a reporting analysis side of things to be able to go in and just ask, you know, like query the co-pilot to figure out, you know, like personal nuanced patterns or summaries of data that otherwise I'd have to go to the reporting team. I'd have to go to IT to request to build a visualization route, to be able to go in to use co-pilot to create. I mean, I am just fascinated by that possibility and getting to that point. So it's, I mean, we're all waiting for stuff to be generally available so that we can start experimenting with. But yeah, I think that's going to fundamentally change the reporting side of things, certainly. So it's, yeah, I know it's, you know, talking with a number of people that are in the data science side of the world where they're, again, they're anxiously awaiting, you know, products to be in a place where they can get in and start experimenting. Because they, they're optimistic about the benefits out of it, but they just don't know. Like, I don't know what questions to ask about what it can and can't do, you know, until we get our hands on the tools. Exactly. Yeah, I'm pretty excited to start to experiment with co-pilot, for example. Yeah, it's going to be a busy end of the year. So I think we're, I think we're, there should be some releases happening this month. I think they were still saying September. I've not heard, but we'll, I guess we'll find out later this month and all of the MVP, the NDA calls kind of where things are. It's another benefit to be in MVPs. We get to, we hear a little bit in advance some of the dates of when things are going to be released and it's great to hear from the other MVPs the types of questions that they're asking as some of them are on some of the private previews around things. But yeah, we're going to start, I think that's what I'm looking for. For end of years, we start to see some real world, some MVP input on their, you know, early adoption of co-pilot and what their actual experiences are versus the Microsoft marketing. It's always going to be interesting. Yeah, absolutely. Julia, really, really, thank you for your time and for meeting you and I'm sure we'll see each other at one of these events coming up as travel is rapidly expanding and travels are increasing. For folks that want to contact you or connect with you, what are the best ways to reach you? Where are you most active in the social channels? Well, on social channels, I'm a bit over everywhere, but the most easy way to reach out is via LinkedIn. That's where I'm really active on a day-to-day basis, checking out other posts, answering some questions that I receive, just connecting with other people as well. Yeah, LinkedIn really is a place where you can, well, ask anything, reach out. Yeah. Well, excellent. And as always, you'll find his contact information in the blog, out on YouTube and out on the podcast when those go live. So thanks a lot for your time and have a great evening. Thanks for everything.