 Hey everybody, this is Christian Buckley doing another MVP buzz chat and I'm talking today with Kai. Hello. Hi, Chris. Nice to meet you. It's great to have you here and for folks that don't know you, who are you, where are you and what do you do? Well, so I'm a crisis author. I live in Switzerland in Zurich. I'm actually a data engineer, but also DBA is a kind of mix of it. For quite some years, I used to implement the SQL Server solutions. Also, I also have DBA tools. It's the last two years. I also have been, I also had created some conferences, like there was a co-organization of Power BI Fest that happened one-half years ago, so it was in November before the last month of November. Just last September, I also created the database, which was a conference that focuses on the German part of Europe. So it means Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. We had one track for German-speaking people. Most of those talks were actually spoken in German to people that are not so fluent in English. They could listen to it with ease, or if people don't understand any English, they just can't listen to it in German. Additionally, I also founded Azure Data User Group, Data DGIF here in Switzerland, which is an online community in which anybody can actually attend for free just with your Microsoft teams. So that's what I would say in short about me. Are things kind of getting back to normal? Are you seeing more, doing more in-person things? Are you still kind of hybrid and still doing more digital? I lost your voice somehow. I can't hear you anymore. Let me check. How about now? Are you hearing me yet? I don't hear you anymore for some reason. Let me hang on. Let me pause this. All right. I'll ask the question again. So are you doing more in-person? Are you seeing more events popping up? Are you still doing a lot of hybrid or digital? Sometimes hybrid. I work for an insurance in Switzerland. Here we work basically both based on the office and also working from home. This is quite a hybrid working environment here. So for events and stuff, are they starting to, user groups, are they all digital now or are you starting to get back in person? Exactly. So also database was a digital only. So the idea actually came up with the pandemic when everybody had to stay at home. I thought data usually group, for example, for data, DGIF, which is for really for the data, DGIF, which I thank God for this Friday, so that we also could connect together, hang out together, especially through people that are alone in the office. Because back then there was in this small consultancy company that we didn't have much colleagues, but also were a bit kind of disconnected with other people, with the community. So I felt like I should create a platform, which we actually can connect with each other, at least online. And this was not possible during the pandemic when there was a shutdown as well in Switzerland. Yeah, I know that we're having the whole discussion. I'm sure you're having the same thing with our user group of like we have a physical location from one of our sponsors, but most people are just dialing in. They don't want to deal with, we just got accustomed to not having to drive across town and deal with traffic and family issues and organizing. Let's just dial that in. So while events are actually starting to pick up, at least here in the US, and so the numbers are growing again. But I think user groups, it sounds like it's pretty consistent around the world that a lot of groups have just made the decision, digital works for us. Let's just stay digital. Exactly. This is also why I plan to remain digital this way, because Switzerland is fairly small. We have a lot of mountains in between our places. So if you wanted to travel to another city, that would be fairly close in the United States. But it's still like two hours drive for a meeting like this. This is not really something people look forward to. So it's more easy to connect. And also decided to have it in English. So people from Switzerland also can connect to it because we have actually four languages in Switzerland. So we have German, we have French, we have Italian, and they have very much small. It's also a language, but it's not so anonymous. It's only spoken by about 100,000 people. Because English is really the link of Franco of the IT. It's more easy to communicate that way. And along that we also get of course people from around the world, like from the United States. We had people from South Africa, from the UK, Germany, of course, Switzerland, of course, too, France, India. Once in a while we had it from Singapore, which is actually quite some time difference here. That's always I always love those meetings where there's somebody they're like, you know, I'm here baits in the US. I'm talking with somebody who's, you know, up really late Europe. And then I've got some people on from Singapore, Australia. Exactly. Yeah, it's, it's rough. There is no time that works for all for that. There's somebody that's always losing sleep. Yeah. Well, so what are you, what are you passionate about right now? What are the kind of your big topics that you are writing about speaking about? So my specialty is actually a secret cell model. So it's what I do is also to try to help people to use a secret cell to Azure. So, for example, also have a session in which I explain people how to create a little machine on Azure. And I created this code actually before, by step, it was a thing. So it was actually, it was back then was still an alpha or beta status. So if partial under other people in the DBA space, no partial. So I think this is something that is quite feasible also for smaller companies for smaller solutions. This is something that is pretty easy to understand and to show this in the session, how to deploy SQL Server VM to Azure. So for example, you just have something in code so you actually also can delete the VM if you don't need it anymore. You can now use the code again, of course. So you have a bit quickly, like a bit more than half an hour, maybe 455 minutes, you have the whole set up again, including a safe connection to the VM or with Azure Bastion. So this is also getting deployed. You also get installed the software you need on the VM. So anything you want. And also you have a network drive on it. So you also can install the backups you maybe have directly on your instance. What is it like to remind people that I was starting, I got my MVP initially in SharePoint. And a lot of it became a real phenomenon doing like the SharePoint Saturday events. But that whole model, it was already a big event series in the SQL world. That's where it came from. The SQL Saturday model was we modeled our events after. And I think those are still up and going. I've seen a few, not to the level of course with pandemic, but they're starting to pick back up again. One thing I was like, so you're still a relatively new MVP. I always like to ask, because I'm sure people are reaching out to you asking questions. Well, people that want to learn about an MVP or potentially what do I need to do to become an MVP? What's your guidance? What do you tell people? Well, actually, I don't think you really can become an MVP or you can really plan for it. I didn't really plan for it. I just did what I had fun with to do something that I like. So it's something I'm really passionate about. Because I think if you want to become an MVP, then that should be not really a direct goal or let's put it that way. If you really have the fun, you can do it. If you are not really enjoying it, then in the long run, you won't be able to do it all because it's really a lot of work. So for example, if you do the conference, last year, for example, for a database, almost every second week, we had meetings to organize the conference for more than a half year. So if you really want to do something, you have to stick to it. I didn't expect to become an MVP actually. So it just happened basically. So of course, it's nice to have it and to be part of the community. I'm really proud of this community as well. But I don't think you really can plan for it. It's something that you really have to be passionate about. If you don't do this, then it's impossible. I completely agree with that. It's why you hear from so many MVPs. I say again and again that even if I didn't have the MVP, I'd be doing the same stuff because it's my hobby. It's what I'm passionate about and sharing what I learn and going and digging in and answering questions for people and connecting people. So if you're already doing those things, the only thing I would add is, because I agree, there are people who have stated that it's my goal to become an MVP and they follow that for years and aren't successful in doing that. I always tell people it's like, well, just do it. Get it and do this. Don't do it because you're trying to become an MVP. Do it for the right reason. And if it happens, it happens. If it doesn't happen for you, you'll still have all the benefits of networking, of making friends, of helping people and learning. So what's the harm in that? Exactly. The point I also see is if you are dreaming just to become an MVP, I think it's much more likely you will fail. It's something you really have to like to do. I also like to connect with people, to interact with people. Why I created those events in the first place is also to just have the connection to people across the world. Whether it is from the United States, in Asia, in Africa, that's really great. I'm also really proud of this community. So that you actually really are able to communicate from the United States to Singapore, to Japan, to South Africa, and it's just something I really, really like to see. Yeah, I agree. I was trying to explain this to my wife, too, about some friends that I have that was on some late night phone calls in their early morning. Exactly. And I was like, Hey, look, I've got friends around the world, so it's making time to talk with people and stay in touch. And I mean, it's important because sometimes they help. Sometimes I need help with things and reaching out. It's great to have kind of follow the sun friends that you know, at any time day or night, hey, there's somebody I can reach out to to help solve a problem that I'm struggling with. Yeah, exactly. Well, Kai, I really appreciate your time for folks that want to reach out, connect with you. Like, what are the best ways to reach you? There are basically two ways. I have a LinkedIn profile that you can contact me. The PM is open here. And I also have a community address which you can contact me. It's just k8kontator.com. So it's another possibility. I also have a milestone account and also Twitter. Great. And I will provide all the links. Of course, you can find that out on my blog and on BuckethePlanet and on YouTube. So I'll post it all there so you can reach out to Kai. So really appreciate your time. It's great talking to you. Thank you. Same to you.