August 5, 2024 • 58 mins
Welcome to Power Time! In this exciting episode, hosts Scott from Microsoft and Matt from NCS delve into the remarkable journey of Lisa Crosbie. From her beginnings as a librarian to becoming a tech influencer and influential YouTube content creator, Lisa shares her inspiring story and career highlights.
Discover how Lisa turned the challenges of the pandemic into opportunities, creating a successful YouTube channel with over 58,000 subscribers and 5 million views. Learn about her unique ability to simplify complex tech concepts and her contributions to the Microsoft community.
Lisa also discusses her recent experiences speaking at major conferences in Europe, her collaborative projects, and the rewarding impact her work has had on people's careers. Don't miss this episode filled with inspiration, insights, and practical advice for anyone looking to make a mark in the tech industry.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hey everyone, welcome to Power Time. Let's have a listen to what's on today's show.
Really awkward now that you've made it sound like I asked for a standing ovation.
...dozen subscribers. It clocked over 5 million views last week,
which is just a staggering number that I can't even process.
(00:23):
Honestly, one of the best experiences of my life, You know, to aspire to do
something and then have it come to reality and then have high expectations and
it be even better than that is just mind-blowing.
Well, if you talk to anyone at Microsoft, it's about inserting the chip,
the Microsoft chip, or drinking the Kool-Aid, as we talk about in the industry.
(00:46):
Let's get into it.
Innovation strategy leading the way power time is here to stay Hi everyone,
welcome back to Power Time. My name is Scott Beddings. I work for Microsoft
and I'm joined here with Matt Noble from NCS.
(01:06):
Matt, what's been happening? Been a big week. Lots of happening,
both my work and personal life as well, as you know.
So a little incident to the emergency room, but I'm all good now and back on track, which is good.
But I'm going to cover myself in bubble wrap, I think, for the rest of the year to stay out of trouble.
But you've obviously had a busy week as well. Well, we just recently got back
from the States and I've been eagerly awaiting to hear all about it.
(01:29):
So you went on an event called MCAPS, yeah? So you want to tell our listeners,
I guess, what that is and I guess really what you can share because,
yeah, I know some of it might be confidential. So, yeah.
Yeah, Microsoft love a good acronym, Microsoft Customer and Partner Solutions.
Yeah. So that is the umbrella kind of sales team in Microsoft.
(01:49):
It spans across anyone that has anything to do with enterprise sales is in that
team rolling up to Judson ultimately.
So, yeah, so MCAP Start is our sales kickoff internal, of course, for the year.
And, look, I think we kind of landed in Seattle last Saturday or Saturday before.
And, you know, with a whole bunch of excitement firsts, real kind of kickoff in four years in person.
(02:17):
Great to meet everyone and looking forward to meet everyone wanting the product
team and catching up with Justin and Ray and these guys again.
So we kicked off on the Sunday, catch up with Ray, having a bit of a chat.
Thank him for doing the podcast a couple episodes back.
And booking meetings for the Friday. So the event actually goes for three days,
and on the Monday was kind of an internal event for us and what we call the
(02:41):
STEW, which is the technical unit that I'm a part of in Australia.
So the idea, I guess, is to give us direction for FY25,
really lean into what our four kind of priorities are for the year,
and we get to hear from, you know, Satya, Brad, Charles,
everyone, all of the all of the slt and
(03:03):
what a fantastic week i have to say the standout
presentation which could easily be a
ted talk was uh brad smith brad smith's presentation was next level what was
that about what topics have sort of covered and what was the key message well
if you talk to anyone at microsoft it's about inserting the chip the microsoft
(03:23):
chip or drinking the kool-aid as we We talk about the industry for all of us,
and it definitely inserted the Microsoft chip into the CPU.
I'm not assuming it'll be funny this week, Scott, the chip in you or something
like that. I was a bit worried about you, but now I know why.
Yeah, the chip has been firmly inserted and the Kool-Aid has been drunk.
So he really spoke about some really impactful things with AI,
(03:47):
and he related AI back to electricity.
And I'm never going to do this justice because this was a kind of a one-hour
or 45-minute pitch, but he spoke
a lot about electricity and when that was founded 150 years ago and how...
That most countries who didn't put electricity in were really disadvantaged over the years.
(04:11):
And he spoke a lot about the tech waves and then he kind of fast-forwarded 150
years later and go, there's still a lot of people that don't have access to power today.
And if you look at GDP growth, you know, and you look at those countries that
don't have access to power today, they're really disadvantaged when it comes
to a whole bunch of social problems.
So, and the way he really framed up
(04:33):
artificial intelligence is it really is the next wave so
we think about we move from on-prem to cloud cloud
to sas sas to ai and you and i have spoken about this like i i remember a couple
years ago not knowing a time when we would ever replace sas it was the final
frontier you know what what can you do other than sas right and here we are
(04:54):
two years later and ai is just It's blitzing it.
And so there was a lot of talk about this is the next wave. This is the next tech wave.
And we have a fundamental right to be able to get that to every person on the planet.
And that was kind of the fundamental reason why there's such a huge investment
in data centres all over the world in a whole bunch of different places,
(05:18):
including Kenya and things like this, and all these announcements.
Because as a company, we believe this is going to be is impactful as power was
back 150 years ago and that everyone should have access to these GPUs and the benefits of AI.
And, you know, it was really impactful. And then throughout the week,
we heard a lot of stories around how Copilot's really transformed accessibility.
(05:42):
It's really transforming the way people work. It's helping people do different jobs.
So, you know, just amazing stats. Here's a stat that really stuck in my head.
So we've now rolled out enough InfiniBand cable in our data centers that we
could wrap that cable around the earth five times. That is mind-boggling.
(06:04):
We have 100,000 people building data centers.
Almost the biggest yeah we've spoken about this and
i can put you dirty yeah like gpu is going to be stuck for precious commodity
moving forward yeah like it's insane yeah to now
yeah yeah to run all this kind of stuff so all
those savvy investors out there you know you might have to look at exploring
some of this stuff as well i know i have been having a bit of a look at myself
(06:26):
so yeah well the thing is it's not just the gpus too like nvidia has a proprietary
operating system it's cuda i think it's um so that you know you've got you know
they've got the operating system to kind trying to make use of the technology as well.
And when we say GPU, like it's a rack, it's a big thing. It's quite expensive.
So that was really interesting. 60% of the corporate companies now have penetrated with Copilot.
(06:49):
That was another really interesting. 60%?
Yeah. And another interesting stat was, and I probably can't share too much.
Charles is calling me. So you've got to give me one too much.
Over 10,000 customers taking up Fabric in the first 12 months.
I thought that's a pretty good stat. Yeah, that is. That is quite good.
I think Fabric will grow as well.
I still become more aware of the benefits. So that's really interesting.
(07:12):
Anything else to say? What did Charles talk about at the presentation that you can share?
I guess this is power time. We want to know what, I guess, the leader of that
particular business unit is talking about. What did he kind of share?
For those who are not aware, we talk about Charles all the time.
Charles will kind of heads up the engineering side for BizApps.
He announced a reorg. It's now called Business Industry Copilots.
(07:34):
Copilot's what's called business applications so a
bit of a change there from BAP to BIC another acronym
I think now so quite
you can see the companies leaning in behind Copilot so
in every direction you look and you
know now we know why and fundamentally you know
this is going to drive a whole new economy it's
(07:57):
going to drive new GDP it's going to drive the whole
the way we work it's going to drive a lot of jobs
it's going to be really impactful so you know i
guess my takeaway for the week really was that we are
living in a very exciting time a transformative time and
one that two three years ago i really struggled to see i like i said sas was
(08:18):
the final frontier where we had cloud what comes next and what's coming next
is is going to be really exciting but there was satya was presenting i was right
at the front of the stage as well so like Like everyone back home could see me on the screen.
The VIP. You kind of drag the other managers down to the front.
So Sartre's sort of right in front of us and he's talking about,
(08:40):
you know, what Sam Holtman talks about around, you know, Moore's Law versus,
you know, what we're seeing now, which is our exponential growth.
And it was kind of predictable for the last 30 years. You know,
Moore's Law, every 18 months, 12 to 18 months, double transistor, double innovation.
And we're all in this motion of, yeah, every 18 months, right?
Like roadmaps grow, technology comes.
(09:01):
That's a really predictable, easy way to predict.
And you know he showed gdp growth and stuff
like this in relation to mores yeah no and that and
you could see them trending together right like you could see it and and
then he said well but ai doesn't work like
that we see a 10x increase every six months and so
it's completely different so you factor that out and we will be in a few years
(09:24):
and it's just huge and and and where we see the growth so yeah that generated
a lot of excitement as well and it really cemented home to me that you know
that this technology is going to do amazing stuff in our careers which.
You know we don't often see yeah i agree yeah that's kind
of the roundup on mcapsar was was a fantastic event i must admit i jet lagged
(09:45):
you did you told me about this yeah yeah really bad first few days i think i
called you you're driving around and yeah you said you weren't feeling too good
so no we all we all got hit with it this time around coming back was fine i was fine i was
at work monday morning pulling monday morning so no issue
but yeah and and of
(10:06):
course caught up with justin on friday which was great yeah nice
nice he was on our last podcast which is good but yeah
one of my uh things that i found this week i'm a bit of a linkedin you
know i used to scroll instagram and all that kind of stuff deleted all my socials yeah
because i wanted to focus a bit more on you know things that
are good basically so i had a
look at this video from marie myer she's an mvp and the way
(10:28):
that she described co-pilot i found was really interesting she put like
a golf analogy on it like the way that co-pilot is used is like your caddy
yeah you can ask a question to derive that and stuff like that and the
british open is on now and i think that analogy is really good it's almost like
your personal caddy that can help guide and fake you and make these decisions
for you and stuff like that so i guess for those listening out there that's
a really good analogy of the way of thinking about what it can do moving forward
(10:50):
again so i thought that was pretty cool and a good way to i guess explain it to people that
may not understand what it can be and how they can put it into a particular context. So, yeah.
And I was also super excited chatting about the future of Power Apps and how that relates to AI.
It's probably all I can say, but just watch your space over the next 12 months.
I think we're going to see some amazing stuff.
(11:12):
Yeah, well, I'm going to catch up with Ryan, hopefully, and Charles,
hopefully, in September. So hopefully I'll have some good insights when I come
back from PPC, and I will share.
So, yeah, that would be good, and that would be really exciting.
Now, we do have probably one of our most special guests that we're going to get on this week.
So a bit of a celebrity in the Power Platform space, Scott, and you would agree.
(11:35):
We do have Lisa Crosby, who we're going to join soon for a chat.
And I guess Lisa is someone that is obviously very highly known.
I think she put a video up of telling a video up on
linkedin post and I left had a look at it there's like a thousand likes already
on it so she's very very well known
in the community at least as someone that you know from another partner perspective
this ultimately made me want to step up my game for my organization as well
(11:58):
because you understand that that's the competition as well so definitely a mutual
respect there uh as part of it she's definitely someone that I've looked at
and admired from afar so really looking we had a really great chat with
her about her career journey and all that kind of stuff.
But Scott, you've known Lisa for a number of years now. So, yeah,
talk to me a bit about that.
Yeah, yeah, I've known Lisa for a while now. And Lisa was, you know,
(12:20):
her background wasn't tech.
She was a librarian, actually, so she'll talk about that. And just an amazing person.
Way of being able to take the complex and make it simple so people can understand it.
And she's helped a lot of people. She's helped a lot of people get certifications done.
She's very well-known globally and, you know, just a super talent across the platform.
(12:44):
And she made it popular in a time when, you know, Office 365 was really rocking and rolling.
I love that. She made the power platform cool and in and stuff like that and easy to consume.
That's a really good way of putting it yeah yeah
and this is at a time when you gotta think when lisa
started you know like mvps were deeply technical
(13:05):
the content that was coming on onto youtube and stuff
was deeply technical and and she just seen this
gap of being able to translate it into things
that people can understand which looking back so logical right
because it's a business platform it's designed for end users to
be able to configure so and you know she's
just done an incredible job and and now looking
(13:26):
you look back at her history well she'll go through it but
i'm just happy that we're able to get her on the podcast and have
a bit of a chat about her career and i hope that it inspires many people to
join biz apps i always say that when it comes to diversity inclusion the biz
apps platform is is right up there we have really strong day and i right across
(13:47):
the platform and people from all different backgrounds.
And not just diverse in the country they come from or perhaps whether they're
male or female, but also diverse in their skills.
You know, like you've got Nathan. He was out at Nathan Backers,
was out at Telstra digging pits. You've got Lisa, a librarian.
You know, the list goes on, like career-changing diversity as well,
(14:10):
which, you know, you don't see that in this industry a lot. So, yeah.
So maybe it's time we bring her on. I've spoken enough about her,
but Matt, let's bring her on to the show and hear from the listeners.
Music.
(14:33):
Hey, welcome back everyone to Power Time. I'm very happy today to be joined
with a superstar called Lisa Crosby.
For those listening who don't know Lisa, her journey has been simply amazing,
from the librarian to the tech superstar guru, probably the person,
probably the most famous person we've had on this podcast, Matt.
(14:55):
So I can't wait to have a nice conversation with Lisa and how she got there.
Probably even trumps Nathan Backer's story, I think, by a long way.
You just did that to Nathan.
Yeah, yeah. So Lisa has requested that she gets the Justin Graham cheering.
So let me just hit it and then we'll bring her in.
Yep. Yep. There it is. Well, let it drag out. Maybe another 10 seconds. Yeah.
(15:17):
Music.
I don't know how that goes. We'll let Steven go. Then he's out.
Awesome. All right. That's it. Lisa, welcome to the show Welcome to Power Time
We're very happy to have you here It's really awkward now that you've made it
sound like I asked for a standing ovation.
(15:39):
I thought I'd make it as awkward as possible when we got started But let the
record show I think we should all get a round of applause for doing our jobs
and is a good way to start or finish any working day and there should be more of it So there you go,
Yeah, no, that's awesome. And look, I think, you know, for those that don't know Lisa,
you know, in all truthness, she has had a stellar career working in and around
(16:05):
Microsoft in our partner community and contributed to probably thousands of
hours of content over the last few years and helped many, many, many people.
And when she's out on the street walking around at our events,
a lot of people approach her and say just thank you for the help that she's been able to give them.
There was a couple of really cool stories over the AI tool.
(16:29):
So maybe just share in your words your journey and how you got here and any
tips for anyone looking to aspire to kind of the level that you're at.
Yeah, it's funny because I've always started my story with, oh,
I'm relatively new to this and I'm a career changer.
And it occurs to me that I'm eight years in now and that's probably not true anymore.
(16:52):
I turned around and suddenly this is an established thing.
So, yeah, you said earlier, I mean, on paper, I'm a librarian.
That was my first career. My substantial career beyond that,
I worked in book publishing, educational book publishing for a lot of years,
and then made the leap eight years ago into working with Dynamics 365,
(17:15):
which then turned into a whole bunch of opportunities for Power Platform.
I can talk through that journey, but where I got to with the stuff I do now
is that I, you know, having come out of a communications career,
effectively into tech, I actually love doing public speaking events,
communicating, helping people understand things, and I've
(17:37):
To be honest, it got a little bit out of control, the YouTube thing, and now I can't not do it.
But it's sort of like we talk a lot, Matt and I talk a lot about this podcast
about transferable skills and coming from one industry or the other.
I think Nathan in one of our first podcasts really spoke a lot about when he
was at Telstra and then came across to the team.
(17:57):
And was there a lot of transferable skills that you had, you know,
from before to now that you're able to kind of bring through?
So when I actually made the change, and the way I was able to make the change
is that when I worked in book publishing, I was actually a head of sales and marketing.
I always had my finger in the pie of the CRM project, and so I worked with our consultant there.
So there was actually a sort of a path there of having been in an industry where nobody is technical,
(18:23):
being the technically minded sales and marketing manager into then an industry
where very few people are communication oriented and being the communications
professional in the tech industry. So it sort of goes both ways. days.
When I was making that transition, I spent a lot of hours, and I've actually
still got a journal that I go back to sometimes, trying to work out what were
(18:47):
my transferable skills.
And two years in, when I explained to someone what I had done,
and they said, oh, you came from the customer side, I went, oh, there it is.
I didn't know that because I I had worked with dynamics, but I had no idea that
expression, that language, that value.
(19:08):
So as much as you can sit down and try and work out transferable skills,
and there are some, you don't really know what they are until you're in it,
and perhaps if I'd had more experience.
Contacts in the tech industry because I had very few I might have
been able to have better conversations and figure that out but actually
and I wish I could remember where I read this it was in a book somewhere where
(19:28):
I actually think it's the unique combination of unusual skills more than transferable
skills with hindsight there's a story I read somewhere around the guy who writes
the Dilbert cartoons do we remember is Dilbert still still still a thing we
remember Remember Dilbert?
Yeah, right. I gave you a Dilbert joke today. So the concept there is to say
(19:50):
that guy had a unique combination of like he's not the funniest,
he's not the best cartoonist,
but nobody else was doing workplace cut.
Like he's good enough at the drawing and he's good enough at the funny and he had a unique take on it.
And that unique combination of
(20:10):
skills makes him stand out over and above someone who's good at one thing.
And I think this is how I've done this with hindsight, is that there is a unique combination of skills.
So there are people certainly more technical than me, but I bring this communication
skill and this passion for education and all of these other things that I wouldn't
have necessarily thought were transferable,
(20:31):
but the unique combination of that and then finding a place for me in the tech
industry that isn't the same as other people where my background isn't the same as other people.
I think there's a path there in what is your unique combination of skills that
makes you different rather than being better at one particular thing.
(20:52):
So I think it's not necessarily as simple as transferable skills with the benefit
of hindsight after eight years.
Makes sense. Makes sense. I think Dr. Gervais kind of talks a little bit about
this in his mindfulness around...
You don't need to be in the top 1% of what you do.
You just need to be in the top 10% on quite a few things and that'll get you
(21:14):
into the top 1%, right? Yeah.
And we saw Stephen Barlett recently. It was all about skill stacking and really
trying to level up and stuff like that.
And I think definitely having that past experience as well is probably why you've
had a lot of success when it comes to your YouTube platform and all of that kind of stuff.
And I think anyone that hasn't watched the Lisa Cosby video that is in the Power
Platform space is either lying or, again, lying as well.
(21:37):
I think you've been someone that
I've really respected from afar and your videos are really phenomenal.
Thank you. My question for you is really how did it get started and why did
you go, hey, I need to launch YouTube and why did you want to sort of share
a lot of this to the community because you have how many followers now?
You'd be probably one of the biggest sort of superstars on YouTube at the moment.
So, yeah. Well, here's a little exercise.
(21:59):
What did I type? I'll show it, Matt. I typed into Google the other day.
It's a high-ranking Office 365 person or something going to come up. No way. And I went, what?
Are you testing me now? What? Yeah. I just went, check this out. That's like something.
I've done a pretty good job on my SEO there, haven't I? Yeah,
(22:19):
it was right at the top. Wow.
That's funny. So it's hit. I've actually got a little ticker that I have as
a sort of a motivator sitting on the desk beside me here, 58.5.
Right now, 1,000 subscribers. It clocked over 5 million views last week,
which is just a staggering number that I can't even process.
Honestly, I got started with this because this is the lemonade I made out of
(22:43):
the lemon of the pandemic.
By nature, I'm an extroverted, put me on the stage, I want to do presentations and public speaking.
I've always been that person. And I had in 2019, my very, no,
not 2019, 2020, February, 2020, my first speaking spot at a Microsoft conference,
(23:04):
Ignite the Tour in Sydney.
And I had an obscure topic in a Friday afternoon slot up in the top room,
up multiple staircases in a room that held 300.
And there were 30 people there and five of them were my colleagues coming to support me.
And I love them for that. But still, I stood at a Microsoft podium at a Microsoft
event and I went, this is, this is something thing I aspire to and something I want to do.
(23:26):
And then we all know what happened after that. So I'm in Melbourne.
We were locked down for the best part of two years.
And at the start of 2021, I had a moment of going,
I spent all of 2020 doing virtual events and trying to kid myself that talking
down the barrel of an empty camera to 10 people on mute with their cameras off was somehow impactful,
(23:51):
satisfying, rewarding, or anything.
And I ended up, and at all hours of the day, because of course I'm like,
woohoo, I'm doing a virtual event in California. Now I'm in Chicago.
And it's like, it's not the same. And I ended up just really almost burnt out
from trying to do something to replicate the thing that I was missing. Yeah.
So at the start of 2021, I was like, who knows how long, like we should stop
(24:15):
kidding ourselves now, who knows how long this will go on for.
And also my ambition to speak at big events might never be realised.
Like at that stage, that might never come back.
And I remembered I was lucky enough to go to the first BizApps,
the big event in Atlanta in 2019.
And I remember going along to see Shane Young, who at the time was really the
(24:36):
only prominent YouTuber in that space. And he had a 200-seater room that was
standing room only and people queuing up afterwards to talk to him.
And I thought, if this ever does come back, then having an audience is a way to get a speaking spot.
So it was an entirely, honestly, for my own mental health and ambition,
(24:57):
I need to do something that I can control no matter how long I'm sitting in
this tiny room in my house in Melbourne.
And if I'm going to stare down the barrel of an empty camera,
maybe I could reach 1,000 people or 2,000 people instead of 10 people.
And so this is something I can control and that will progress somehow.
So completely just circumstances.
And I said at the start, I was like, I had 400 subscribers from having done
(25:21):
a couple of videos in 2020 that were just, oh, I talk about this all the time.
Maybe I should record it. I'm too scared to leave comments on
because one of the videos was about licensing and I didn't want people
to ask me all the licensing questions and you know
by now I am over that fear but I had 400 subscribers and I thought what if I
(25:47):
like what if I tried what I've got 400 subscribers from not trying and there's
a guy called Kevin Stratford who at the time used to work for Microsoft.
He does more Office 365 stuff, probably should be coming up at the top of the list rather than me.
He's got like 2 million subscribers or something now, but I looked at his videos.
And I thought, I could do that. And it wasn't a sort of, you know,
(26:08):
hands on hips, like, oh, I could do that.
It was more like the only difference here is that he's doing it and I haven't.
Like, I can explain things like that.
I can, you know, there's no reason that I can't do that style of content.
And so what if I tried? And so then I tried.
And then, as I said, it's got a little bit out of control since then.
(26:30):
And I'm actually now seriously thinking that 100,000 subscriber play button
is a realistic goal, and I never thought.
I was aiming for like 2,000. Could I get 3,000 subscribers?
It's an amazing story, and, you know, it's something I always tell a lot of
people. You know, the difference between high-performing people and people that
(26:51):
are successful usually is that they're just doing it.
Like that's a big chunk of it just to go out and do it, and that's what you see.
And it's amazing. amazing the execution piece is so
hard it's amazing how many people really struggle with that first step
on i'm trying and the other thing i want to
sort of say to people which surprises them is that
video is an entirely learned skill for me i am a i am completely naturally comfortable
(27:16):
and always have been public speaking in front of people on a stage or in front
of a room i've never had any fear of that i've always been incredibly comfortable
with that but video my past self is going, you did what?
That was entirely, that was, I was not comfortable in front of a camera.
I was not comfortable in front of a video.
2020, my whole job, my day job is doing presentations and demonstrations.
(27:40):
And suddenly there is no choice.
My job is I'm on a camera every day. And that is how I have to,
I have to learn that skill.
And then there's a level of comfort with it and going, all right,
well, and then the more you do it, the better you get at it.
But that's an entirely learned skill for me.
I can completely relate. It's running a webinar with no feedback in the audience
and you can't see people's expressions like, hey, are they believing or are
(28:03):
they understanding what I'm saying and stuff like that. It's a completely unique
skill. That's part of it.
I want to drill down on your sort of journey when it comes to video content creation.
Do you ever look back on your first YouTube videos that you brought out of there
and the lessons learned to sort of go from here to here?
I think this is something that when we bumped into each other a couple of months
ago because we were talking about watching the podcast and we were saying,
(28:23):
oh, it's a different experience. but interested to see your journey on reflecting
about your past concepts and where it is now yes and the temptation Lisa to re-record.
So I think re-recording it might be completely different so when I when I very
first started doing this I reached out to a couple of people I reached out to
(28:46):
Shane Young and I didn't know him but I sort of went hey would you I'm thinking
of doing this could you you know someone else in the community,
could you give me some advice? And he said, go watch my first video.
And so this is the advice that I pass on to anybody else.
Don't compare, you know, don't look at what I do now.
And in fact, my starting point isn't even really a fair starting point because
(29:09):
I had all of 2020, my job is talking to people. I was on a camera every day.
So even my starting point isn't really my starting point, but always go look
at someone's first video if you're thinking of doing this.
Yes I cringe a little but if
I didn't there would be something very wrong that I'm
not better at this after having done it pretty much every week for
(29:30):
three and a half years now I should be better than I
was a year ago and this is also a thing about you
know I want to improve something each time there is nothing harsher ever than
the metrics on a YouTube video to tell you when people People don't care or
have lost interest and watching yourself back in the editing as a way of improving.
(29:53):
Oh, that's hard. Oh, yeah. So I've been through that journey.
You know, I've been not only am I like video is not my natural thing,
but I've sat myself down and watched back every single thing that I've recorded myself.
And improved how fast I speak. I overcorrected that.
You go back again, getting rid of all of the filler words, nothing better than
watching yourself to get rid of the filler words.
(30:14):
Then, oh, well, here are the other kind of punctuation words that I overuse.
There's a whole bunch of things that you learn and, oh, I didn't really explain
that well, or that went well and what works and what doesn't.
I think everything about my presentation skills has improved from the the process
of watching myself back and being I'm my own harshest critic except for YouTube
(30:35):
metrics which are very harsh.
I've got a really interesting story about that Lisa because it was,
2020 I think just before COVID had
kind of just kicked off I think I was having a conversation with you
you had like 10 trips booked in that year yeah and then
they all got cancelled so we're having this really heartfelt conversation
(30:56):
about how bad that was and we couldn't do
these speaking slots and things and our marketing
team at microsoft came to us that easter and said hey can
you just record some videos and we're going to send that out everyone's going
to watch you know enablement on dynamics so i did it and a few others did it
and it was painful right we spent three days over the easter period recording
(31:17):
kind of looking it was all edited and then the video just went everywhere i
got so many linkedin requests off the back of that,
And it was really, really difficult. And then off the back of that,
that's where Power Hour came from because we said we don't want to do pre-recorded
videos. We want to do live.
And now that's one of the most successful kind of slots that we've done at Microsoft
(31:38):
in marketing for Australia, which is excellent.
And then also off the back of that came the introduction of the Hearts and Minds
team, which is what we've spoken about as a V team at Microsoft where people
create content, give that to customers.
We've used actually your content in that as well, Lisa, from time to time.
So, I think you've got to do those really gnarly, if that's the right word,
experiences, you know, to kind of lean into this stuff and then realise.
(32:02):
Yeah, it's hard, it's hard and it's embarrassing.
And you only get good at doing it by doing it. I mean, it's the same with anything, right?
I mean, we all have certain natural skills and for me,
the ability to just talk is, you know,
I've learnt video but I did actually have someone ask me once,
well what teleprompter are you using because that's amazing and
(32:23):
I'm like yeah let's just talk let's do
a teleprompter so yeah so I come to it
with that because that's a public speaking skill that I've
always fostered and grown and and that comes
quite naturally to me the video is a learning skill
so you know you you bring you bring certain skills to
the table but everything is you get
better at it by doing it even the stuff you start out with some natural
(32:46):
ability with you refine over of a time and you don't you
know i i do find a lot of people are like how do i do this
but you just have to do it and do
it a lot and improve a little
bit every time it's not it's the same as
how do i get good at anything really it's just do the work it's pretty boring
but yeah i remember listening to my first power time that me and scott did and
(33:09):
i was cringing the whole time so similar to you learning about why did i say
that i should have said this you know all of that kind of stuff But I remember
I said, it's just got to send it out.
But I listen to all of them now and I want to be my biggest self-critic and
improve and all that kind of stuff.
And that's the only way you get better. So I completely agree and resonate with
everything that you're saying. So, yeah.
So, Lisa, you just got back from speaking of speaking, the speaking circuit.
(33:34):
My LinkedIn was blowing up. Two weeks in Europe. Gallivanting everywhere.
Yeah, two weeks in Europe, gallivanting around the globe, presenting at events.
You know, rock starring.
How was it? Biggest takeaways over the last couple of weeks?
So, honestly, as a strategy to say here's a thing I can do that might get me
where I want to be, that was a good plan. Thank you, past Lisa.
(33:56):
That was a good choice.
It was honestly one of the best experiences of my life.
Like, you know, to aspire to do something and then have it come to reality and
then have high expectations and it be even better than that is just mind blowing.
So I went to Dynamics Mines in Slovenia, spoke at the Resco conference in Vienna
(34:17):
and then the European Power Platform conference in Brussels.
So these are three countries I've never been to before. I didn't travel much
as a young person. And so the fact that this thing has now given me the opportunity
to go see different parts of the world that I would never have even thought to go to is incredible.
Being around that European community, I've actually got quite a lot of friends
(34:39):
there in the sort of the UK and European community.
So I had a sort of experience of some conference days, some tourist days on
my own, then some conference days.
And so then I'm sort of catching up with almost like traveling with friends
and then traveling on my own and traveling with friends because throughout all
of this, I've actually made a lot of really good friends in the community where
(35:00):
we have plenty in common, even outside.
We help each other with the tech, but these are friendships that go well beyond just talking tech.
Like these are my kind of people and we just have a great time and a great lot
of experiences together.
I absolutely loved it. I did about nine different presentations because,
of course, I didn't just do the same thing over and over again.
High degree of difficulty of you know multiple presentations at
(35:22):
each conference on different styles and different topics I did three different
collaborations with people I've never done collaborations with
before and a workshop and so you know didn't didn't exactly cruise through it
but I've just been in my head since then just still just reliving in my head
how great that whole experience was so I'm sure everyone around me is sick of
(35:43):
me talking but I had an incredible I was jealous being from amazing,
I'm jealous of myself,
maybe I need to go over there next year so yeah I,
I'm slightly jealous because I'm looking at Lisa's background.
She's got the DeLorean and Ghostbusters. My Lego game is good.
(36:05):
That typewriter, the typewriter on the other side is Lego as well.
It looks like an old-fashioned typewriter. Oh, is it? That's really interesting.
But it's a Lego typewriter.
I tell you what, we might have to take a screenshot at some point and put that
on our LinkedIn because our LinkedIn is looking pretty boring.
I guess one of the highlights of your trip, Lisa, and some of the learnings
you can share being around that community. Yeah.
(36:27):
I think highlights, let me think.
I mean, there are some social highlights in there where just being around some
of the local people and having them say, oh, let's do this thing or go to this place.
So we had one incredible night in Vienna with one of the local Microsoft partners
there who acted as an incredible tour guide and took us around places and,
(36:48):
you know, just knew all the places to go.
And you're suddenly out with friends, with a local person who can show you around
and tell you some of the stories of the place.
Dynamics Minds is very known for its parties by the beach. So there was one
night there where they brought in a local band and you just got to think,
you know, 80s pop god vibes coming from the stage.
(37:11):
And, you know, there's 1,000 people on this by the sea and this outdoor party
and this guy just like bringing out all of these sing-along pop tunes of the 80s.
And suddenly there were people from 47 countries there and everyone knows the
words to these songs and we're all just singing and dancing together at the
top of our lungs by the beach.
Like that's pretty hard to be that was a
(37:33):
that was a pretty that was a pretty amazing night yeah and then in terms of
the presentations it's interesting because I I this is something I hadn't really
ever set out to do but I found myself now doing more collaborative pieces so
I did a live podcast with Nick Dolman in Vienna I did a.
A piece on sort of content creation with a woman called Iva from Croatia in Slovenia.
(37:58):
I'd never met her before. We sort of got matched up by the conference as having
something in common. So that was a really interesting collaboration and piece of learning.
And then in Brussels, I did two presentations on Power Apps with Louise Safries, who's from Germany.
And she and I were on opposite sides of the world. We'd met a couple of times
at the Power Platform conferences in Orlando and Vegas. but,
(38:20):
you know, incidental conversation saying, hey, we should do something together.
And then we got on a call and we put in a proposal together.
We got on a call and figured out our content plan.
But I stood on the stage with her thinking, I don't really know this person
that well and we haven't worked together,
but I completely know and trust that she's got
this and that she's bringing the same amount of energy to it
(38:42):
and the same amount of knowledge to it that I am
and that she trusts me we had honestly
that was such a good time and it was such a good experience and
I had a similar experience with Shane Young at the Power Platform Conference last year
of like we're doing content together and we haven't spent a lot of time together
but there's that trust of we've got this and then you get this great chemistry
(39:03):
of having two people with different experiences and perspectives who bring that
knowledge together and it's so much fun when and it just clicks like that.
And then I've made another new friend.
So that stuff is an absolute highlight for me of getting those new friendships
and collaborations and just it's very, it's actually quite a thrill.
I enjoy the thrill of standing on a stage with 700 people, but standing on a
(39:26):
stage to co-present with someone I don't know that well and I've never presented
with before and knowing that we're going to nail it. Next level.
Next level.
Yeah, yeah. And, look, it takes a certain time, but she's like that too,
and we're just like, yeah, we've got this. and it was great.
It's an amazing story, I think. What about if we take it, we ask all our guests to come on the show.
(39:48):
You know, what's that number one career highlight that you've had up to date?
Is that the last two weeks or do you think, is there something else that you
want to share with everyone that you think is kind of that?
I think, I mean, at the moment I'm riding very high on that experience,
but I actually think the first Power Platform Conference in Orlando,
which was end of 2022, yeah, 2022, August, October 2022, that was the very first one.
(40:11):
And I went from the story I've told of being in lockdown and doing my YouTube
channel and hoping that would get me somewhere to the first time that the Power
Platform Conference is established. And I got a workshop spot and a speaking spot.
And I did a session on model driven apps, intro to model driven apps.
And I walked into a room, it was a 500 seat room.
(40:32):
Now, remembering that the previous public presentation I'd done before that
was the one I described with the 30 people in the 300 seat room at the top floor.
And I walked into this room that was 500 seats I
reckon it was three quarters full and I stepped up onto
that you know the two steps up onto that little
stage and I just went I could not be less nervous and
(40:53):
more excited like just that that transition from going from I spoke to 30 people
and then I did a thing and now I'm speaking to nearly 500 people and I made
this a reality that first moment of making that jump because I didn't work up
through smaller rooms to the big rooms.
I kind of came out and locked out into a big room.
(41:16):
And I just, I've never felt, no, I actually, because I wasn't sure what would happen after two years.
And I stepped up on that and I just went, I am so comfortable.
I'm so happy to be doing this. I'm God. But, yeah, but just like that feeling
of excitement and that feeling of this is real.
And there were genuinely moments where I'm sure we all thought,
It's like this might never come back.
(41:37):
This is an ambition I've had and it might never be possible.
So I think that first moment of it being actually possible and actually happening
was pretty special for me. That's amazing.
It's amazing. I think, you know, COVID's been a really interesting because we
look back at COVID for that last couple of years and I think no one really understands until now,
(42:00):
like the true impact on culture, events, public speakers, like not just you,
Lisa, there's probably been oodles of public speakers right now that have probably
gone through and maybe couldn't come back or maybe had to go and change careers.
And I remember talking to an event organising company and they kind of had to
shut up shop because they couldn't do it.
(42:21):
So huge impact over that time.
But you're like this shining star that kind of just reinvented yourself and
came out at the other end. Honestly, I just had to do something.
It really just genuinely came from that place of I have to do something. I can't just sit here.
I have to. I mean, I still had my job. I was very fortunate that I worked all the way through.
(42:43):
But there was this thing of like I just have to I have
to progress this part of me somehow and
this is the thing I can control my motivation for doing it now is entirely different
because I've sort of got what I wanted out of it and now people come up to me
and talk about the impact that that content has had on them and I am staggered
and and humbled over and over again yeah you know I've had people People say things like,
(43:08):
I owe my career to you because I was made redundant and I found your content
and now I work in Power Platform or I was an immigrant and I was out of work
for four years and other people's content I couldn't understand and then I found you. That's amazing.
These things genuinely hit, yeah, like from what was like.
(43:31):
Honestly, completely self-centered, I have to further my own ambition and take
control of something to keep myself sane turns into I changed someone's life.
Like that's, I didn't think that would ever be possible.
And that's quite, that's incredibly, that the motivation for,
and I do all this on my weekend time.
Like this is not my job. This is my free time. This is my weekends.
(43:54):
And sometimes the energy is a little bit lacking and I'm like sometimes Sometimes
that's the thing now that keeps me going.
And early on in the sort of community contributions, back to the sort of there
are people more technical than me and that feeling of, well,
I'm not technical enough.
Can I, am I, is my content, if I do anything, is it going to be worthwhile?
(44:16):
Hitting a, well, actually the thing that I can bring to this is that I can speak
to non-technical people because I used to be a non-technical person and I have
that communications background.
Background that's providing an entryway into people to
find that content and then they'll go on to the more technical stuff
so there's different roles for all of us to play in that it we don't all have
(44:37):
to be contributed it's better if we're contributing something different so I
think with anything though you start somewhere and it leads to something you
didn't expect and this has taken me on a journey of many many things that I
could never have predicted and And hand on heart,
if I had not been forced to sit in front of a camera in 2020,
there's no way I would have woken up one morning and said, I'm going to be a YouTuber.
(44:58):
I just can't see that I ever would have done it. And I'm very glad that I did.
It's amazing, amazing, the story. I think your superpower, everyone has a superpower,
but I think you have this fantastic ability to take the complex and turn it
into the simple so people can understand it without ordering down the basic
(45:22):
fundamentals of what we're trying to do.
And it's just, it's incredible. And I think that's what you put in your videos
is that content. It's like, oh, you know, I now understand why,
And Microsoft is the opposite, right? Microsoft has this amazing ability to take the simple,
and make it really, really complex, turn it around 10 times and then deliver
it back and go, yeah, why don't you know how to sell that? Or why don't you know what this does?
(45:46):
And it's like, I'm still stuck, you know, from 10 minutes ago.
Yeah, I'm not short on ideas. I can tell you that.
So you're going to have a career in this. And every time there's a new announcement,
I'm like, well, there's another six months of explaining what that means.
Yeah yeah it's like the decoder for
all of this stuff so but but matt at least it
(46:08):
must be an inspiration for you and your team as
well and across other partners it's interesting because obviously you
guys work for different competing companies and at times and
you know you must also like see
lisa's journey and see that as a way i think
what lisa spoke to them before that was resonating is i think this is
the purpose of the power platform you know i mean having this
(46:30):
loco code tool that anyone can come in and
build an application or or forge a career and
all that kind of stuff i think that's the beauty of what the
power platform is and people coming up to you going hey
i have this new job and all this kind of stuff based off your youtube videos that's
the purpose of the power platform having these makers of
all levels coming in and building applications so i think
(46:51):
that's just a fantastic story to summarize you know what we've seen
in low code application development but for sure like i said
before at least it's someone that i've really respected from afar and
i think the power platform community is quite small it is growing
obviously in australia but i think everyone kind of
knows everyone in this industry and i think there's no egos and
all that kind of stuff we all want each other to be successful i think that's
a big part of it and that's why this community is so special yeah there's so
(47:14):
many members that sort of know each other from afar and all that kind of stuff
but yeah definitely my team also watch uh lisa's videos i encourage them to
watch lisa's videos i also watch lisa's videos when it comes to you know,
top 10 yield announcements and all of this kind of stuff if I'm scrambling through meetings.
So, Lisa, I have to thank you for that. You definitely decipher a lot of that
stuff for me from being in another partner, so thank you.
(47:36):
That but yeah there's definitely some of my favorite videos to do actually.
My my team work for microsoft and they also
watch lisa's videos and share them around so but on the community side yeah
i know we have an epc coming up this one i kind of you're obviously going to
be presenting i've seen the the recent announcements we're not going to have
(47:57):
a face on what you're going to be presenting and how people can potentially
register for the conference or your workshop and and all that kind of stuff we'll give you the time.
A shameless plug. A shameless plug right now.
Lisa also divulged something earlier. It's a bombshell.
I haven't talked about anything today. So, yeah.
(48:21):
Yeah, yeah. It was off mic. I can, you know. I'll drop that now if you're right, Lisa.
Lisa said, and I reckon, Matt, you can fix this. Lisa said she's never met Charles face-to-face.
I reckon you can fix that, Matt, because Matt does have a bit of sneaky time with Charles and PPC.
So, yeah, maybe we can do something. I will take you up on that offer if we
(48:43):
can talk about PPC so we can say something else. So there we go.
Yeah, yeah. What happens in Vegas? Yeah, that's a real shame. Let's go.
Oh, yes. It is now. It is this year. It is the PPCC, the Power Platform Community
Conference. We've got a new acronym.
Okay. In Vegas in September, middle of September.
(49:06):
So I am running a workshop there on the day sort of earlier in the week on the
Monday, which is going to be practical AI skills for business applications.
So what I mean to do with that is to say, do you know what? There's a lot to
keep up with and a lot going on and a lot of co-pilots and a lot of new skills.
And in a way, this idea of sort of what I do of let's help you all keep across
(49:29):
things is to go, let's go through all of these things and what do you need to know?
Where is the value in each thing? What are the skills you need to learn to use
it? So you come out at the end of the day with that full picture and some hands-on.
Practice with the things that I can give people hands on of like,
you know, what does it mean? What does a copilot mean for low code development?
What does it mean if I'm a CRM person or a sales person? What does it mean to
(49:53):
build a custom copilot? And how do I get started with that?
So I'm doing a fairly ambitious, like, let's just cover the whole,
the whole range of copilot, like a bit of everything,
because I think that's where people are really stuck is just,
there's so many announcements and so many things and like,
spend the day with me and you're going to get knowledge of all
of them and some hands-on experience with many of them and then
that complete picture of the landscape so I'm actually really
(50:15):
excited about that something quite different and I think I
think it'll be quite fun to get some Q&A and some interaction and stuff in there
and then I'm doing a session on the Wednesday on the main track with Daniel
Christian who this is another collaboration this is someone I actually know
better than that as a starting point because I've spent some time with him at
different conferences along the way so he's He's another YouTuber,
(50:36):
and he does a lot of stuff in the Copilot Studio space.
So we are doing a session on, I think we've called it the Ultimate Copilot Studio
Tutorial, 10 lessons in an hour or something like that.
So as someone else who does a lot of content that helps people get into the
platform, so we're going to get our heads together and do that session.
So I'm really looking forward to that as well.
(50:57):
And then Crosby100, discount code. We'll get you $100 off.
Crosby100, everyone. And we'll put a bit of a link up. I've got my own discount
code. When you get your own discount code, you've made it. You've made it. That's it.
That's the secret thing. And when we get Noble, Noble 100, then we know. We know.
(51:22):
I'm open to collaborations with you people. Look at that.
Yeah, yeah, look at that. The room might be big enough for thousands of idiots. My staff, sir.
So just off topic a little bit, and probably just about running out of time,
(51:46):
but a lot of partners don't see the value in the MVP program.
Because of the time that it takes and the commitment that it takes to be an MVP.
So they don't carve out the time for their people to kind of go after that.
Obviously, Barhead is a company you work for, Lisa, and they've been very,
very supportive in that.
(52:07):
Maybe have you got like 20 seconds on the MVP program and why people should be a part of it?
Yeah, it's a tricky one because it's an individual award and not a company award,
and it has to be things that you don't do in your day job.
If you are smart about it, though, everyone can benefit.
Benefit and so I can't take a demonstration that I've done in my day job and
(52:30):
say wow you know like the MVP award is a an award for technical community leadership
it has to be things you do for the community over and above your day job and
a lot of people come to me with oh how can I be an MVP,
and and when I explain to them well you're going to need to spend your nights
and weekends doing additional thing for the benefit of the community and it's
not how smart you are in your day job and you can kind of see their poor faces
(52:52):
drop to the floor and there's only ever been one or two people who've pursued
that and most people kind of you can see them backing away slightly because
it's absolutely not for everyone.
You need to be doing it for its own reward.
I mean, for me, my main contribution now is the YouTube content,
but I can't not do that. Even if there wasn't an MVP award.
(53:13):
Associated with that, I would be doing it because I get so much reward out of doing that.
So you need to be doing something that you find, you give your time to a community,
you get so much more back.
So, you know, now I've got an incredible network of, you know,
not just network of people who know stuff, but of friends and friends will help each other out.
And if we're working on something new, I can phone a friend and get the best
(53:36):
in the world helping me with what I'm doing.
Does that help me in my day job of course it does so if
you're smart about it every everyone wins but you
do have to be willing to dedicate your personal
time to doing it for reasons that are more like honestly the benefits that come
with the little blue badge are not the main benefits the benefits are you put
(53:58):
in something and you you get something back that's personally satisfying you
have to do it for your own reasons yeah no it's a fantastic summary i think and um Look,
I really like the program and it's a really nice community.
So I guess the takeaway is don't go after the award, go after the,
you know, the community and the benefits to do with that. That's pretty much it.
(54:18):
And people who chase it just for the award will tend to get it once and not
because, of course, once you get it, then you have to keep doing that every year in the play.
You have to be renewed. Renewals are coming up next week.
You have to be contributing every single year and documenting your contributions every single year.
It's not a one-time thing. so if you're only in it for the award the first thing
(54:38):
that happens when you get the award is that
you get more opportunities to do more community work so you really have to want
to do it it's it's not it's not for people who are like i want that you get
the trophy but the people who don't stay in the program that you don't tend
to stay in it if you're not in it for intrinsic,
motivation or reward i think we've got time for maybe one quick question matt
(55:00):
if before we wrap up any closing comments or any questions ask my mates yeah,
No, look, I just wanted to say a big thank you, Lisa, for coming on our show
and supporting us on Power Time.
Your journey is just an amazing journey, and I hope the listeners that are listening
in today have had, you know, a lot of inspiration to go on and do something
(55:21):
similar, and I think that's the whole purpose, right, at the end of the day,
is to inspire people to go and do different things.
And whether it's, you know, a journey into tech like you've done and presenting
things, or whether it's, you know, going and doing something else.
Maybe it's jet skiing on the weekend.
It could be anything, right? But the key takeaway is go and do something different
and you never know where that journey is going to take you.
(55:42):
And you and I have known each other for a long time now and I've just seen that journey. It's amazing.
It's been an absolute pleasure and hopefully somebody listening to this,
you know, gets some inspiration and does a thing, I would be delighted if that happened.
Well, yeah, maybe we'll get everyone to post on something or maybe LinkedIn
or something to us if they've been inspired by Lisa. Yeah.
(56:07):
Use me to help promote your podcast.
Lisa, come on. I would never do that. We're not doing that. We don't play that game. Come on.
Awesome. Have a lovely day and no doubt we'll catch up in the next few weeks
(56:28):
or so. It's been great. Thank you. Awesome.
Music.
Hey, everyone. I'd just like to say a big thank you for listening into our podcast today.
(56:48):
Just a quick note, everything that we talk about today is the point of view
of Scott and Matt and not the point of view of Microsoft or NCS.
And also, if you get some time, please click follow on this podcast and also
go ahead and follow our LinkedIn page and sign up for our newsletter and we'll
send out some some interesting news over the next six months.
(57:08):
But again, thank you for your time and listening to our podcast.
We really appreciate it.
Music.
Hey everyone, welcome to Power Time. Let's have a listen to what's on today's show.
Really awkward now that you've made it sound like I asked for a standing ovation.
...dozen subscribers. It clocked over 5 million views last week,
which is just a staggering number that I can't even process.
(00:23):
Honestly, one of the best experiences of my life, You know, to aspire to do
something and then have it come to reality and then have high expectations and
it be even better than that is just mind-blowing.
Well, if you talk to anyone at Microsoft, it's about inserting the chip,
the Microsoft chip, or drinking the Kool-Aid, as we talk about in the industry.
(00:46):
Let's get into it.
Innovation strategy leading the way power time is here to stay Hi everyone,
welcome back to Power Time. My name is Scott Beddings. I work for Microsoft
and I'm joined here with Matt Noble from NCS.
(01:06):
Matt, what's been happening? Been a big week. Lots of happening,
both my work and personal life as well, as you know.
So a little incident to the emergency room, but I'm all good now and back on track, which is good.
But I'm going to cover myself in bubble wrap, I think, for the rest of the year to stay out of trouble.
But you've obviously had a busy week as well. Well, we just recently got back
from the States and I've been eagerly awaiting to hear all about it.
(01:29):
So you went on an event called MCAPS, yeah? So you want to tell our listeners,
I guess, what that is and I guess really what you can share because,
yeah, I know some of it might be confidential. So, yeah.
Yeah, Microsoft love a good acronym, Microsoft Customer and Partner Solutions.
Yeah. So that is the umbrella kind of sales team in Microsoft.
(01:49):
It spans across anyone that has anything to do with enterprise sales is in that
team rolling up to Judson ultimately.
So, yeah, so MCAP Start is our sales kickoff internal, of course, for the year.
And, look, I think we kind of landed in Seattle last Saturday or Saturday before.
And, you know, with a whole bunch of excitement firsts, real kind of kickoff in four years in person.
(02:17):
Great to meet everyone and looking forward to meet everyone wanting the product
team and catching up with Justin and Ray and these guys again.
So we kicked off on the Sunday, catch up with Ray, having a bit of a chat.
Thank him for doing the podcast a couple episodes back.
And booking meetings for the Friday. So the event actually goes for three days,
and on the Monday was kind of an internal event for us and what we call the
(02:41):
STEW, which is the technical unit that I'm a part of in Australia.
So the idea, I guess, is to give us direction for FY25,
really lean into what our four kind of priorities are for the year,
and we get to hear from, you know, Satya, Brad, Charles,
everyone, all of the all of the slt and
(03:03):
what a fantastic week i have to say the standout
presentation which could easily be a
ted talk was uh brad smith brad smith's presentation was next level what was
that about what topics have sort of covered and what was the key message well
if you talk to anyone at microsoft it's about inserting the chip the microsoft
(03:23):
chip or drinking the kool-aid as we We talk about the industry for all of us,
and it definitely inserted the Microsoft chip into the CPU.
I'm not assuming it'll be funny this week, Scott, the chip in you or something
like that. I was a bit worried about you, but now I know why.
Yeah, the chip has been firmly inserted and the Kool-Aid has been drunk.
So he really spoke about some really impactful things with AI,
(03:47):
and he related AI back to electricity.
And I'm never going to do this justice because this was a kind of a one-hour
or 45-minute pitch, but he spoke
a lot about electricity and when that was founded 150 years ago and how...
That most countries who didn't put electricity in were really disadvantaged over the years.
(04:11):
And he spoke a lot about the tech waves and then he kind of fast-forwarded 150
years later and go, there's still a lot of people that don't have access to power today.
And if you look at GDP growth, you know, and you look at those countries that
don't have access to power today, they're really disadvantaged when it comes
to a whole bunch of social problems.
So, and the way he really framed up
(04:33):
artificial intelligence is it really is the next wave so
we think about we move from on-prem to cloud cloud
to sas sas to ai and you and i have spoken about this like i i remember a couple
years ago not knowing a time when we would ever replace sas it was the final
frontier you know what what can you do other than sas right and here we are
(04:54):
two years later and ai is just It's blitzing it.
And so there was a lot of talk about this is the next wave. This is the next tech wave.
And we have a fundamental right to be able to get that to every person on the planet.
And that was kind of the fundamental reason why there's such a huge investment
in data centres all over the world in a whole bunch of different places,
(05:18):
including Kenya and things like this, and all these announcements.
Because as a company, we believe this is going to be is impactful as power was
back 150 years ago and that everyone should have access to these GPUs and the benefits of AI.
And, you know, it was really impactful. And then throughout the week,
we heard a lot of stories around how Copilot's really transformed accessibility.
(05:42):
It's really transforming the way people work. It's helping people do different jobs.
So, you know, just amazing stats. Here's a stat that really stuck in my head.
So we've now rolled out enough InfiniBand cable in our data centers that we
could wrap that cable around the earth five times. That is mind-boggling.
(06:04):
We have 100,000 people building data centers.
Almost the biggest yeah we've spoken about this and
i can put you dirty yeah like gpu is going to be stuck for precious commodity
moving forward yeah like it's insane yeah to now
yeah yeah to run all this kind of stuff so all
those savvy investors out there you know you might have to look at exploring
some of this stuff as well i know i have been having a bit of a look at myself
(06:26):
so yeah well the thing is it's not just the gpus too like nvidia has a proprietary
operating system it's cuda i think it's um so that you know you've got you know
they've got the operating system to kind trying to make use of the technology as well.
And when we say GPU, like it's a rack, it's a big thing. It's quite expensive.
So that was really interesting. 60% of the corporate companies now have penetrated with Copilot.
(06:49):
That was another really interesting. 60%?
Yeah. And another interesting stat was, and I probably can't share too much.
Charles is calling me. So you've got to give me one too much.
Over 10,000 customers taking up Fabric in the first 12 months.
I thought that's a pretty good stat. Yeah, that is. That is quite good.
I think Fabric will grow as well.
I still become more aware of the benefits. So that's really interesting.
(07:12):
Anything else to say? What did Charles talk about at the presentation that you can share?
I guess this is power time. We want to know what, I guess, the leader of that
particular business unit is talking about. What did he kind of share?
For those who are not aware, we talk about Charles all the time.
Charles will kind of heads up the engineering side for BizApps.
He announced a reorg. It's now called Business Industry Copilots.
(07:34):
Copilot's what's called business applications so a
bit of a change there from BAP to BIC another acronym
I think now so quite
you can see the companies leaning in behind Copilot so
in every direction you look and you
know now we know why and fundamentally you know
this is going to drive a whole new economy it's
(07:57):
going to drive new GDP it's going to drive the whole
the way we work it's going to drive a lot of jobs
it's going to be really impactful so you know i
guess my takeaway for the week really was that we are
living in a very exciting time a transformative time and
one that two three years ago i really struggled to see i like i said sas was
(08:18):
the final frontier where we had cloud what comes next and what's coming next
is is going to be really exciting but there was satya was presenting i was right
at the front of the stage as well so like Like everyone back home could see me on the screen.
The VIP. You kind of drag the other managers down to the front.
So Sartre's sort of right in front of us and he's talking about,
(08:40):
you know, what Sam Holtman talks about around, you know, Moore's Law versus,
you know, what we're seeing now, which is our exponential growth.
And it was kind of predictable for the last 30 years. You know,
Moore's Law, every 18 months, 12 to 18 months, double transistor, double innovation.
And we're all in this motion of, yeah, every 18 months, right?
Like roadmaps grow, technology comes.
(09:01):
That's a really predictable, easy way to predict.
And you know he showed gdp growth and stuff
like this in relation to mores yeah no and that and
you could see them trending together right like you could see it and and
then he said well but ai doesn't work like
that we see a 10x increase every six months and so
it's completely different so you factor that out and we will be in a few years
(09:24):
and it's just huge and and and where we see the growth so yeah that generated
a lot of excitement as well and it really cemented home to me that you know
that this technology is going to do amazing stuff in our careers which.
You know we don't often see yeah i agree yeah that's kind
of the roundup on mcapsar was was a fantastic event i must admit i jet lagged
(09:45):
you did you told me about this yeah yeah really bad first few days i think i
called you you're driving around and yeah you said you weren't feeling too good
so no we all we all got hit with it this time around coming back was fine i was fine i was
at work monday morning pulling monday morning so no issue
but yeah and and of
(10:06):
course caught up with justin on friday which was great yeah nice
nice he was on our last podcast which is good but yeah
one of my uh things that i found this week i'm a bit of a linkedin you
know i used to scroll instagram and all that kind of stuff deleted all my socials yeah
because i wanted to focus a bit more on you know things that
are good basically so i had a
look at this video from marie myer she's an mvp and the way
(10:28):
that she described co-pilot i found was really interesting she put like
a golf analogy on it like the way that co-pilot is used is like your caddy
yeah you can ask a question to derive that and stuff like that and the
british open is on now and i think that analogy is really good it's almost like
your personal caddy that can help guide and fake you and make these decisions
for you and stuff like that so i guess for those listening out there that's
a really good analogy of the way of thinking about what it can do moving forward
(10:50):
again so i thought that was pretty cool and a good way to i guess explain it to people that
may not understand what it can be and how they can put it into a particular context. So, yeah.
And I was also super excited chatting about the future of Power Apps and how that relates to AI.
It's probably all I can say, but just watch your space over the next 12 months.
I think we're going to see some amazing stuff.
(11:12):
Yeah, well, I'm going to catch up with Ryan, hopefully, and Charles,
hopefully, in September. So hopefully I'll have some good insights when I come
back from PPC, and I will share.
So, yeah, that would be good, and that would be really exciting.
Now, we do have probably one of our most special guests that we're going to get on this week.
So a bit of a celebrity in the Power Platform space, Scott, and you would agree.
(11:35):
We do have Lisa Crosby, who we're going to join soon for a chat.
And I guess Lisa is someone that is obviously very highly known.
I think she put a video up of telling a video up on
linkedin post and I left had a look at it there's like a thousand likes already
on it so she's very very well known
in the community at least as someone that you know from another partner perspective
this ultimately made me want to step up my game for my organization as well
(11:58):
because you understand that that's the competition as well so definitely a mutual
respect there uh as part of it she's definitely someone that I've looked at
and admired from afar so really looking we had a really great chat with
her about her career journey and all that kind of stuff.
But Scott, you've known Lisa for a number of years now. So, yeah,
talk to me a bit about that.
Yeah, yeah, I've known Lisa for a while now. And Lisa was, you know,
(12:20):
her background wasn't tech.
She was a librarian, actually, so she'll talk about that. And just an amazing person.
Way of being able to take the complex and make it simple so people can understand it.
And she's helped a lot of people. She's helped a lot of people get certifications done.
She's very well-known globally and, you know, just a super talent across the platform.
(12:44):
And she made it popular in a time when, you know, Office 365 was really rocking and rolling.
I love that. She made the power platform cool and in and stuff like that and easy to consume.
That's a really good way of putting it yeah yeah
and this is at a time when you gotta think when lisa
started you know like mvps were deeply technical
(13:05):
the content that was coming on onto youtube and stuff
was deeply technical and and she just seen this
gap of being able to translate it into things
that people can understand which looking back so logical right
because it's a business platform it's designed for end users to
be able to configure so and you know she's
just done an incredible job and and now looking
(13:26):
you look back at her history well she'll go through it but
i'm just happy that we're able to get her on the podcast and have
a bit of a chat about her career and i hope that it inspires many people to
join biz apps i always say that when it comes to diversity inclusion the biz
apps platform is is right up there we have really strong day and i right across
(13:47):
the platform and people from all different backgrounds.
And not just diverse in the country they come from or perhaps whether they're
male or female, but also diverse in their skills.
You know, like you've got Nathan. He was out at Nathan Backers,
was out at Telstra digging pits. You've got Lisa, a librarian.
You know, the list goes on, like career-changing diversity as well,
(14:10):
which, you know, you don't see that in this industry a lot. So, yeah.
So maybe it's time we bring her on. I've spoken enough about her,
but Matt, let's bring her on to the show and hear from the listeners.
Music.
(14:33):
Hey, welcome back everyone to Power Time. I'm very happy today to be joined
with a superstar called Lisa Crosby.
For those listening who don't know Lisa, her journey has been simply amazing,
from the librarian to the tech superstar guru, probably the person,
probably the most famous person we've had on this podcast, Matt.
(14:55):
So I can't wait to have a nice conversation with Lisa and how she got there.
Probably even trumps Nathan Backer's story, I think, by a long way.
You just did that to Nathan.
Yeah, yeah. So Lisa has requested that she gets the Justin Graham cheering.
So let me just hit it and then we'll bring her in.
Yep. Yep. There it is. Well, let it drag out. Maybe another 10 seconds. Yeah.
(15:17):
Music.
I don't know how that goes. We'll let Steven go. Then he's out.
Awesome. All right. That's it. Lisa, welcome to the show Welcome to Power Time
We're very happy to have you here It's really awkward now that you've made it
sound like I asked for a standing ovation.
(15:39):
I thought I'd make it as awkward as possible when we got started But let the
record show I think we should all get a round of applause for doing our jobs
and is a good way to start or finish any working day and there should be more of it So there you go,
Yeah, no, that's awesome. And look, I think, you know, for those that don't know Lisa,
you know, in all truthness, she has had a stellar career working in and around
(16:05):
Microsoft in our partner community and contributed to probably thousands of
hours of content over the last few years and helped many, many, many people.
And when she's out on the street walking around at our events,
a lot of people approach her and say just thank you for the help that she's been able to give them.
There was a couple of really cool stories over the AI tool.
(16:29):
So maybe just share in your words your journey and how you got here and any
tips for anyone looking to aspire to kind of the level that you're at.
Yeah, it's funny because I've always started my story with, oh,
I'm relatively new to this and I'm a career changer.
And it occurs to me that I'm eight years in now and that's probably not true anymore.
(16:52):
I turned around and suddenly this is an established thing.
So, yeah, you said earlier, I mean, on paper, I'm a librarian.
That was my first career. My substantial career beyond that,
I worked in book publishing, educational book publishing for a lot of years,
and then made the leap eight years ago into working with Dynamics 365,
(17:15):
which then turned into a whole bunch of opportunities for Power Platform.
I can talk through that journey, but where I got to with the stuff I do now
is that I, you know, having come out of a communications career,
effectively into tech, I actually love doing public speaking events,
communicating, helping people understand things, and I've
(17:37):
To be honest, it got a little bit out of control, the YouTube thing, and now I can't not do it.
But it's sort of like we talk a lot, Matt and I talk a lot about this podcast
about transferable skills and coming from one industry or the other.
I think Nathan in one of our first podcasts really spoke a lot about when he
was at Telstra and then came across to the team.
(17:57):
And was there a lot of transferable skills that you had, you know,
from before to now that you're able to kind of bring through?
So when I actually made the change, and the way I was able to make the change
is that when I worked in book publishing, I was actually a head of sales and marketing.
I always had my finger in the pie of the CRM project, and so I worked with our consultant there.
So there was actually a sort of a path there of having been in an industry where nobody is technical,
(18:23):
being the technically minded sales and marketing manager into then an industry
where very few people are communication oriented and being the communications
professional in the tech industry. So it sort of goes both ways. days.
When I was making that transition, I spent a lot of hours, and I've actually
still got a journal that I go back to sometimes, trying to work out what were
(18:47):
my transferable skills.
And two years in, when I explained to someone what I had done,
and they said, oh, you came from the customer side, I went, oh, there it is.
I didn't know that because I I had worked with dynamics, but I had no idea that
expression, that language, that value.
(19:08):
So as much as you can sit down and try and work out transferable skills,
and there are some, you don't really know what they are until you're in it,
and perhaps if I'd had more experience.
Contacts in the tech industry because I had very few I might have
been able to have better conversations and figure that out but actually
and I wish I could remember where I read this it was in a book somewhere where
(19:28):
I actually think it's the unique combination of unusual skills more than transferable
skills with hindsight there's a story I read somewhere around the guy who writes
the Dilbert cartoons do we remember is Dilbert still still still a thing we
remember Remember Dilbert?
Yeah, right. I gave you a Dilbert joke today. So the concept there is to say
(19:50):
that guy had a unique combination of like he's not the funniest,
he's not the best cartoonist,
but nobody else was doing workplace cut.
Like he's good enough at the drawing and he's good enough at the funny and he had a unique take on it.
And that unique combination of
(20:10):
skills makes him stand out over and above someone who's good at one thing.
And I think this is how I've done this with hindsight, is that there is a unique combination of skills.
So there are people certainly more technical than me, but I bring this communication
skill and this passion for education and all of these other things that I wouldn't
have necessarily thought were transferable,
(20:31):
but the unique combination of that and then finding a place for me in the tech
industry that isn't the same as other people where my background isn't the same as other people.
I think there's a path there in what is your unique combination of skills that
makes you different rather than being better at one particular thing.
(20:52):
So I think it's not necessarily as simple as transferable skills with the benefit
of hindsight after eight years.
Makes sense. Makes sense. I think Dr. Gervais kind of talks a little bit about
this in his mindfulness around...
You don't need to be in the top 1% of what you do.
You just need to be in the top 10% on quite a few things and that'll get you
(21:14):
into the top 1%, right? Yeah.
And we saw Stephen Barlett recently. It was all about skill stacking and really
trying to level up and stuff like that.
And I think definitely having that past experience as well is probably why you've
had a lot of success when it comes to your YouTube platform and all of that kind of stuff.
And I think anyone that hasn't watched the Lisa Cosby video that is in the Power
Platform space is either lying or, again, lying as well.
(21:37):
I think you've been someone that
I've really respected from afar and your videos are really phenomenal.
Thank you. My question for you is really how did it get started and why did
you go, hey, I need to launch YouTube and why did you want to sort of share
a lot of this to the community because you have how many followers now?
You'd be probably one of the biggest sort of superstars on YouTube at the moment.
So, yeah. Well, here's a little exercise.
(21:59):
What did I type? I'll show it, Matt. I typed into Google the other day.
It's a high-ranking Office 365 person or something going to come up. No way. And I went, what?
Are you testing me now? What? Yeah. I just went, check this out. That's like something.
I've done a pretty good job on my SEO there, haven't I? Yeah,
(22:19):
it was right at the top. Wow.
That's funny. So it's hit. I've actually got a little ticker that I have as
a sort of a motivator sitting on the desk beside me here, 58.5.
Right now, 1,000 subscribers. It clocked over 5 million views last week,
which is just a staggering number that I can't even process.
Honestly, I got started with this because this is the lemonade I made out of
(22:43):
the lemon of the pandemic.
By nature, I'm an extroverted, put me on the stage, I want to do presentations and public speaking.
I've always been that person. And I had in 2019, my very, no,
not 2019, 2020, February, 2020, my first speaking spot at a Microsoft conference,
(23:04):
Ignite the Tour in Sydney.
And I had an obscure topic in a Friday afternoon slot up in the top room,
up multiple staircases in a room that held 300.
And there were 30 people there and five of them were my colleagues coming to support me.
And I love them for that. But still, I stood at a Microsoft podium at a Microsoft
event and I went, this is, this is something thing I aspire to and something I want to do.
(23:26):
And then we all know what happened after that. So I'm in Melbourne.
We were locked down for the best part of two years.
And at the start of 2021, I had a moment of going,
I spent all of 2020 doing virtual events and trying to kid myself that talking
down the barrel of an empty camera to 10 people on mute with their cameras off was somehow impactful,
(23:51):
satisfying, rewarding, or anything.
And I ended up, and at all hours of the day, because of course I'm like,
woohoo, I'm doing a virtual event in California. Now I'm in Chicago.
And it's like, it's not the same. And I ended up just really almost burnt out
from trying to do something to replicate the thing that I was missing. Yeah.
So at the start of 2021, I was like, who knows how long, like we should stop
(24:15):
kidding ourselves now, who knows how long this will go on for.
And also my ambition to speak at big events might never be realised.
Like at that stage, that might never come back.
And I remembered I was lucky enough to go to the first BizApps,
the big event in Atlanta in 2019.
And I remember going along to see Shane Young, who at the time was really the
(24:36):
only prominent YouTuber in that space. And he had a 200-seater room that was
standing room only and people queuing up afterwards to talk to him.
And I thought, if this ever does come back, then having an audience is a way to get a speaking spot.
So it was an entirely, honestly, for my own mental health and ambition,
(24:57):
I need to do something that I can control no matter how long I'm sitting in
this tiny room in my house in Melbourne.
And if I'm going to stare down the barrel of an empty camera,
maybe I could reach 1,000 people or 2,000 people instead of 10 people.
And so this is something I can control and that will progress somehow.
So completely just circumstances.
And I said at the start, I was like, I had 400 subscribers from having done
(25:21):
a couple of videos in 2020 that were just, oh, I talk about this all the time.
Maybe I should record it. I'm too scared to leave comments on
because one of the videos was about licensing and I didn't want people
to ask me all the licensing questions and you know
by now I am over that fear but I had 400 subscribers and I thought what if I
(25:47):
like what if I tried what I've got 400 subscribers from not trying and there's
a guy called Kevin Stratford who at the time used to work for Microsoft.
He does more Office 365 stuff, probably should be coming up at the top of the list rather than me.
He's got like 2 million subscribers or something now, but I looked at his videos.
And I thought, I could do that. And it wasn't a sort of, you know,
(26:08):
hands on hips, like, oh, I could do that.
It was more like the only difference here is that he's doing it and I haven't.
Like, I can explain things like that.
I can, you know, there's no reason that I can't do that style of content.
And so what if I tried? And so then I tried.
And then, as I said, it's got a little bit out of control since then.
(26:30):
And I'm actually now seriously thinking that 100,000 subscriber play button
is a realistic goal, and I never thought.
I was aiming for like 2,000. Could I get 3,000 subscribers?
It's an amazing story, and, you know, it's something I always tell a lot of
people. You know, the difference between high-performing people and people that
(26:51):
are successful usually is that they're just doing it.
Like that's a big chunk of it just to go out and do it, and that's what you see.
And it's amazing. amazing the execution piece is so
hard it's amazing how many people really struggle with that first step
on i'm trying and the other thing i want to
sort of say to people which surprises them is that
video is an entirely learned skill for me i am a i am completely naturally comfortable
(27:16):
and always have been public speaking in front of people on a stage or in front
of a room i've never had any fear of that i've always been incredibly comfortable
with that but video my past self is going, you did what?
That was entirely, that was, I was not comfortable in front of a camera.
I was not comfortable in front of a video.
2020, my whole job, my day job is doing presentations and demonstrations.
(27:40):
And suddenly there is no choice.
My job is I'm on a camera every day. And that is how I have to,
I have to learn that skill.
And then there's a level of comfort with it and going, all right,
well, and then the more you do it, the better you get at it.
But that's an entirely learned skill for me.
I can completely relate. It's running a webinar with no feedback in the audience
and you can't see people's expressions like, hey, are they believing or are
(28:03):
they understanding what I'm saying and stuff like that. It's a completely unique
skill. That's part of it.
I want to drill down on your sort of journey when it comes to video content creation.
Do you ever look back on your first YouTube videos that you brought out of there
and the lessons learned to sort of go from here to here?
I think this is something that when we bumped into each other a couple of months
ago because we were talking about watching the podcast and we were saying,
(28:23):
oh, it's a different experience. but interested to see your journey on reflecting
about your past concepts and where it is now yes and the temptation Lisa to re-record.
So I think re-recording it might be completely different so when I when I very
first started doing this I reached out to a couple of people I reached out to
(28:46):
Shane Young and I didn't know him but I sort of went hey would you I'm thinking
of doing this could you you know someone else in the community,
could you give me some advice? And he said, go watch my first video.
And so this is the advice that I pass on to anybody else.
Don't compare, you know, don't look at what I do now.
And in fact, my starting point isn't even really a fair starting point because
(29:09):
I had all of 2020, my job is talking to people. I was on a camera every day.
So even my starting point isn't really my starting point, but always go look
at someone's first video if you're thinking of doing this.
Yes I cringe a little but if
I didn't there would be something very wrong that I'm
not better at this after having done it pretty much every week for
(29:30):
three and a half years now I should be better than I
was a year ago and this is also a thing about you
know I want to improve something each time there is nothing harsher ever than
the metrics on a YouTube video to tell you when people People don't care or
have lost interest and watching yourself back in the editing as a way of improving.
(29:53):
Oh, that's hard. Oh, yeah. So I've been through that journey.
You know, I've been not only am I like video is not my natural thing,
but I've sat myself down and watched back every single thing that I've recorded myself.
And improved how fast I speak. I overcorrected that.
You go back again, getting rid of all of the filler words, nothing better than
watching yourself to get rid of the filler words.
(30:14):
Then, oh, well, here are the other kind of punctuation words that I overuse.
There's a whole bunch of things that you learn and, oh, I didn't really explain
that well, or that went well and what works and what doesn't.
I think everything about my presentation skills has improved from the the process
of watching myself back and being I'm my own harshest critic except for YouTube
(30:35):
metrics which are very harsh.
I've got a really interesting story about that Lisa because it was,
2020 I think just before COVID had
kind of just kicked off I think I was having a conversation with you
you had like 10 trips booked in that year yeah and then
they all got cancelled so we're having this really heartfelt conversation
(30:56):
about how bad that was and we couldn't do
these speaking slots and things and our marketing
team at microsoft came to us that easter and said hey can
you just record some videos and we're going to send that out everyone's going
to watch you know enablement on dynamics so i did it and a few others did it
and it was painful right we spent three days over the easter period recording
(31:17):
kind of looking it was all edited and then the video just went everywhere i
got so many linkedin requests off the back of that,
And it was really, really difficult. And then off the back of that,
that's where Power Hour came from because we said we don't want to do pre-recorded
videos. We want to do live.
And now that's one of the most successful kind of slots that we've done at Microsoft
(31:38):
in marketing for Australia, which is excellent.
And then also off the back of that came the introduction of the Hearts and Minds
team, which is what we've spoken about as a V team at Microsoft where people
create content, give that to customers.
We've used actually your content in that as well, Lisa, from time to time.
So, I think you've got to do those really gnarly, if that's the right word,
experiences, you know, to kind of lean into this stuff and then realise.
(32:02):
Yeah, it's hard, it's hard and it's embarrassing.
And you only get good at doing it by doing it. I mean, it's the same with anything, right?
I mean, we all have certain natural skills and for me,
the ability to just talk is, you know,
I've learnt video but I did actually have someone ask me once,
well what teleprompter are you using because that's amazing and
(32:23):
I'm like yeah let's just talk let's do
a teleprompter so yeah so I come to it
with that because that's a public speaking skill that I've
always fostered and grown and and that comes
quite naturally to me the video is a learning skill
so you know you you bring you bring certain skills to
the table but everything is you get
better at it by doing it even the stuff you start out with some natural
(32:46):
ability with you refine over of a time and you don't you
know i i do find a lot of people are like how do i do this
but you just have to do it and do
it a lot and improve a little
bit every time it's not it's the same as
how do i get good at anything really it's just do the work it's pretty boring
but yeah i remember listening to my first power time that me and scott did and
(33:09):
i was cringing the whole time so similar to you learning about why did i say
that i should have said this you know all of that kind of stuff But I remember
I said, it's just got to send it out.
But I listen to all of them now and I want to be my biggest self-critic and
improve and all that kind of stuff.
And that's the only way you get better. So I completely agree and resonate with
everything that you're saying. So, yeah.
So, Lisa, you just got back from speaking of speaking, the speaking circuit.
(33:34):
My LinkedIn was blowing up. Two weeks in Europe. Gallivanting everywhere.
Yeah, two weeks in Europe, gallivanting around the globe, presenting at events.
You know, rock starring.
How was it? Biggest takeaways over the last couple of weeks?
So, honestly, as a strategy to say here's a thing I can do that might get me
where I want to be, that was a good plan. Thank you, past Lisa.
(33:56):
That was a good choice.
It was honestly one of the best experiences of my life.
Like, you know, to aspire to do something and then have it come to reality and
then have high expectations and it be even better than that is just mind blowing.
So I went to Dynamics Mines in Slovenia, spoke at the Resco conference in Vienna
(34:17):
and then the European Power Platform conference in Brussels.
So these are three countries I've never been to before. I didn't travel much
as a young person. And so the fact that this thing has now given me the opportunity
to go see different parts of the world that I would never have even thought to go to is incredible.
Being around that European community, I've actually got quite a lot of friends
(34:39):
there in the sort of the UK and European community.
So I had a sort of experience of some conference days, some tourist days on
my own, then some conference days.
And so then I'm sort of catching up with almost like traveling with friends
and then traveling on my own and traveling with friends because throughout all
of this, I've actually made a lot of really good friends in the community where
(35:00):
we have plenty in common, even outside.
We help each other with the tech, but these are friendships that go well beyond just talking tech.
Like these are my kind of people and we just have a great time and a great lot
of experiences together.
I absolutely loved it. I did about nine different presentations because,
of course, I didn't just do the same thing over and over again.
High degree of difficulty of you know multiple presentations at
(35:22):
each conference on different styles and different topics I did three different
collaborations with people I've never done collaborations with
before and a workshop and so you know didn't didn't exactly cruise through it
but I've just been in my head since then just still just reliving in my head
how great that whole experience was so I'm sure everyone around me is sick of
(35:43):
me talking but I had an incredible I was jealous being from amazing,
I'm jealous of myself,
maybe I need to go over there next year so yeah I,
I'm slightly jealous because I'm looking at Lisa's background.
She's got the DeLorean and Ghostbusters. My Lego game is good.
(36:05):
That typewriter, the typewriter on the other side is Lego as well.
It looks like an old-fashioned typewriter. Oh, is it? That's really interesting.
But it's a Lego typewriter.
I tell you what, we might have to take a screenshot at some point and put that
on our LinkedIn because our LinkedIn is looking pretty boring.
I guess one of the highlights of your trip, Lisa, and some of the learnings
you can share being around that community. Yeah.
(36:27):
I think highlights, let me think.
I mean, there are some social highlights in there where just being around some
of the local people and having them say, oh, let's do this thing or go to this place.
So we had one incredible night in Vienna with one of the local Microsoft partners
there who acted as an incredible tour guide and took us around places and,
(36:48):
you know, just knew all the places to go.
And you're suddenly out with friends, with a local person who can show you around
and tell you some of the stories of the place.
Dynamics Minds is very known for its parties by the beach. So there was one
night there where they brought in a local band and you just got to think,
you know, 80s pop god vibes coming from the stage.
(37:11):
And, you know, there's 1,000 people on this by the sea and this outdoor party
and this guy just like bringing out all of these sing-along pop tunes of the 80s.
And suddenly there were people from 47 countries there and everyone knows the
words to these songs and we're all just singing and dancing together at the
top of our lungs by the beach.
Like that's pretty hard to be that was a
(37:33):
that was a pretty that was a pretty amazing night yeah and then in terms of
the presentations it's interesting because I I this is something I hadn't really
ever set out to do but I found myself now doing more collaborative pieces so
I did a live podcast with Nick Dolman in Vienna I did a.
A piece on sort of content creation with a woman called Iva from Croatia in Slovenia.
(37:58):
I'd never met her before. We sort of got matched up by the conference as having
something in common. So that was a really interesting collaboration and piece of learning.
And then in Brussels, I did two presentations on Power Apps with Louise Safries, who's from Germany.
And she and I were on opposite sides of the world. We'd met a couple of times
at the Power Platform conferences in Orlando and Vegas. but,
(38:20):
you know, incidental conversation saying, hey, we should do something together.
And then we got on a call and we put in a proposal together.
We got on a call and figured out our content plan.
But I stood on the stage with her thinking, I don't really know this person
that well and we haven't worked together,
but I completely know and trust that she's got
this and that she's bringing the same amount of energy to it
(38:42):
and the same amount of knowledge to it that I am
and that she trusts me we had honestly
that was such a good time and it was such a good experience and
I had a similar experience with Shane Young at the Power Platform Conference last year
of like we're doing content together and we haven't spent a lot of time together
but there's that trust of we've got this and then you get this great chemistry
(39:03):
of having two people with different experiences and perspectives who bring that
knowledge together and it's so much fun when and it just clicks like that.
And then I've made another new friend.
So that stuff is an absolute highlight for me of getting those new friendships
and collaborations and just it's very, it's actually quite a thrill.
I enjoy the thrill of standing on a stage with 700 people, but standing on a
(39:26):
stage to co-present with someone I don't know that well and I've never presented
with before and knowing that we're going to nail it. Next level.
Next level.
Yeah, yeah. And, look, it takes a certain time, but she's like that too,
and we're just like, yeah, we've got this. and it was great.
It's an amazing story, I think. What about if we take it, we ask all our guests to come on the show.
(39:48):
You know, what's that number one career highlight that you've had up to date?
Is that the last two weeks or do you think, is there something else that you
want to share with everyone that you think is kind of that?
I think, I mean, at the moment I'm riding very high on that experience,
but I actually think the first Power Platform Conference in Orlando,
which was end of 2022, yeah, 2022, August, October 2022, that was the very first one.
(40:11):
And I went from the story I've told of being in lockdown and doing my YouTube
channel and hoping that would get me somewhere to the first time that the Power
Platform Conference is established. And I got a workshop spot and a speaking spot.
And I did a session on model driven apps, intro to model driven apps.
And I walked into a room, it was a 500 seat room.
(40:32):
Now, remembering that the previous public presentation I'd done before that
was the one I described with the 30 people in the 300 seat room at the top floor.
And I walked into this room that was 500 seats I
reckon it was three quarters full and I stepped up onto
that you know the two steps up onto that little
stage and I just went I could not be less nervous and
(40:53):
more excited like just that that transition from going from I spoke to 30 people
and then I did a thing and now I'm speaking to nearly 500 people and I made
this a reality that first moment of making that jump because I didn't work up
through smaller rooms to the big rooms.
I kind of came out and locked out into a big room.
(41:16):
And I just, I've never felt, no, I actually, because I wasn't sure what would happen after two years.
And I stepped up on that and I just went, I am so comfortable.
I'm so happy to be doing this. I'm God. But, yeah, but just like that feeling
of excitement and that feeling of this is real.
And there were genuinely moments where I'm sure we all thought,
It's like this might never come back.
(41:37):
This is an ambition I've had and it might never be possible.
So I think that first moment of it being actually possible and actually happening
was pretty special for me. That's amazing.
It's amazing. I think, you know, COVID's been a really interesting because we
look back at COVID for that last couple of years and I think no one really understands until now,
(42:00):
like the true impact on culture, events, public speakers, like not just you,
Lisa, there's probably been oodles of public speakers right now that have probably
gone through and maybe couldn't come back or maybe had to go and change careers.
And I remember talking to an event organising company and they kind of had to
shut up shop because they couldn't do it.
(42:21):
So huge impact over that time.
But you're like this shining star that kind of just reinvented yourself and
came out at the other end. Honestly, I just had to do something.
It really just genuinely came from that place of I have to do something. I can't just sit here.
I have to. I mean, I still had my job. I was very fortunate that I worked all the way through.
(42:43):
But there was this thing of like I just have to I have
to progress this part of me somehow and
this is the thing I can control my motivation for doing it now is entirely different
because I've sort of got what I wanted out of it and now people come up to me
and talk about the impact that that content has had on them and I am staggered
and and humbled over and over again yeah you know I've had people People say things like,
(43:08):
I owe my career to you because I was made redundant and I found your content
and now I work in Power Platform or I was an immigrant and I was out of work
for four years and other people's content I couldn't understand and then I found you. That's amazing.
These things genuinely hit, yeah, like from what was like.
(43:31):
Honestly, completely self-centered, I have to further my own ambition and take
control of something to keep myself sane turns into I changed someone's life.
Like that's, I didn't think that would ever be possible.
And that's quite, that's incredibly, that the motivation for,
and I do all this on my weekend time.
Like this is not my job. This is my free time. This is my weekends.
(43:54):
And sometimes the energy is a little bit lacking and I'm like sometimes Sometimes
that's the thing now that keeps me going.
And early on in the sort of community contributions, back to the sort of there
are people more technical than me and that feeling of, well,
I'm not technical enough.
Can I, am I, is my content, if I do anything, is it going to be worthwhile?
(44:16):
Hitting a, well, actually the thing that I can bring to this is that I can speak
to non-technical people because I used to be a non-technical person and I have
that communications background.
Background that's providing an entryway into people to
find that content and then they'll go on to the more technical stuff
so there's different roles for all of us to play in that it we don't all have
(44:37):
to be contributed it's better if we're contributing something different so I
think with anything though you start somewhere and it leads to something you
didn't expect and this has taken me on a journey of many many things that I
could never have predicted and And hand on heart,
if I had not been forced to sit in front of a camera in 2020,
there's no way I would have woken up one morning and said, I'm going to be a YouTuber.
(44:58):
I just can't see that I ever would have done it. And I'm very glad that I did.
It's amazing, amazing, the story. I think your superpower, everyone has a superpower,
but I think you have this fantastic ability to take the complex and turn it
into the simple so people can understand it without ordering down the basic
(45:22):
fundamentals of what we're trying to do.
And it's just, it's incredible. And I think that's what you put in your videos
is that content. It's like, oh, you know, I now understand why,
And Microsoft is the opposite, right? Microsoft has this amazing ability to take the simple,
and make it really, really complex, turn it around 10 times and then deliver
it back and go, yeah, why don't you know how to sell that? Or why don't you know what this does?
(45:46):
And it's like, I'm still stuck, you know, from 10 minutes ago.
Yeah, I'm not short on ideas. I can tell you that.
So you're going to have a career in this. And every time there's a new announcement,
I'm like, well, there's another six months of explaining what that means.
Yeah yeah it's like the decoder for
all of this stuff so but but matt at least it
(46:08):
must be an inspiration for you and your team as
well and across other partners it's interesting because obviously you
guys work for different competing companies and at times and
you know you must also like see
lisa's journey and see that as a way i think
what lisa spoke to them before that was resonating is i think this is
the purpose of the power platform you know i mean having this
(46:30):
loco code tool that anyone can come in and
build an application or or forge a career and
all that kind of stuff i think that's the beauty of what the
power platform is and people coming up to you going hey
i have this new job and all this kind of stuff based off your youtube videos that's
the purpose of the power platform having these makers of
all levels coming in and building applications so i think
(46:51):
that's just a fantastic story to summarize you know what we've seen
in low code application development but for sure like i said
before at least it's someone that i've really respected from afar and
i think the power platform community is quite small it is growing
obviously in australia but i think everyone kind of
knows everyone in this industry and i think there's no egos and
all that kind of stuff we all want each other to be successful i think that's
a big part of it and that's why this community is so special yeah there's so
(47:14):
many members that sort of know each other from afar and all that kind of stuff
but yeah definitely my team also watch uh lisa's videos i encourage them to
watch lisa's videos i also watch lisa's videos when it comes to you know,
top 10 yield announcements and all of this kind of stuff if I'm scrambling through meetings.
So, Lisa, I have to thank you for that. You definitely decipher a lot of that
stuff for me from being in another partner, so thank you.
(47:36):
That but yeah there's definitely some of my favorite videos to do actually.
My my team work for microsoft and they also
watch lisa's videos and share them around so but on the community side yeah
i know we have an epc coming up this one i kind of you're obviously going to
be presenting i've seen the the recent announcements we're not going to have
(47:57):
a face on what you're going to be presenting and how people can potentially
register for the conference or your workshop and and all that kind of stuff we'll give you the time.
A shameless plug. A shameless plug right now.
Lisa also divulged something earlier. It's a bombshell.
I haven't talked about anything today. So, yeah.
(48:21):
Yeah, yeah. It was off mic. I can, you know. I'll drop that now if you're right, Lisa.
Lisa said, and I reckon, Matt, you can fix this. Lisa said she's never met Charles face-to-face.
I reckon you can fix that, Matt, because Matt does have a bit of sneaky time with Charles and PPC.
So, yeah, maybe we can do something. I will take you up on that offer if we
(48:43):
can talk about PPC so we can say something else. So there we go.
Yeah, yeah. What happens in Vegas? Yeah, that's a real shame. Let's go.
Oh, yes. It is now. It is this year. It is the PPCC, the Power Platform Community
Conference. We've got a new acronym.
Okay. In Vegas in September, middle of September.
(49:06):
So I am running a workshop there on the day sort of earlier in the week on the
Monday, which is going to be practical AI skills for business applications.
So what I mean to do with that is to say, do you know what? There's a lot to
keep up with and a lot going on and a lot of co-pilots and a lot of new skills.
And in a way, this idea of sort of what I do of let's help you all keep across
(49:29):
things is to go, let's go through all of these things and what do you need to know?
Where is the value in each thing? What are the skills you need to learn to use
it? So you come out at the end of the day with that full picture and some hands-on.
Practice with the things that I can give people hands on of like,
you know, what does it mean? What does a copilot mean for low code development?
What does it mean if I'm a CRM person or a sales person? What does it mean to
(49:53):
build a custom copilot? And how do I get started with that?
So I'm doing a fairly ambitious, like, let's just cover the whole,
the whole range of copilot, like a bit of everything,
because I think that's where people are really stuck is just,
there's so many announcements and so many things and like,
spend the day with me and you're going to get knowledge of all
of them and some hands-on experience with many of them and then
that complete picture of the landscape so I'm actually really
(50:15):
excited about that something quite different and I think I
think it'll be quite fun to get some Q&A and some interaction and stuff in there
and then I'm doing a session on the Wednesday on the main track with Daniel
Christian who this is another collaboration this is someone I actually know
better than that as a starting point because I've spent some time with him at
different conferences along the way so he's He's another YouTuber,
(50:36):
and he does a lot of stuff in the Copilot Studio space.
So we are doing a session on, I think we've called it the Ultimate Copilot Studio
Tutorial, 10 lessons in an hour or something like that.
So as someone else who does a lot of content that helps people get into the
platform, so we're going to get our heads together and do that session.
So I'm really looking forward to that as well.
(50:57):
And then Crosby100, discount code. We'll get you $100 off.
Crosby100, everyone. And we'll put a bit of a link up. I've got my own discount
code. When you get your own discount code, you've made it. You've made it. That's it.
That's the secret thing. And when we get Noble, Noble 100, then we know. We know.
(51:22):
I'm open to collaborations with you people. Look at that.
Yeah, yeah, look at that. The room might be big enough for thousands of idiots. My staff, sir.
So just off topic a little bit, and probably just about running out of time,
(51:46):
but a lot of partners don't see the value in the MVP program.
Because of the time that it takes and the commitment that it takes to be an MVP.
So they don't carve out the time for their people to kind of go after that.
Obviously, Barhead is a company you work for, Lisa, and they've been very,
very supportive in that.
(52:07):
Maybe have you got like 20 seconds on the MVP program and why people should be a part of it?
Yeah, it's a tricky one because it's an individual award and not a company award,
and it has to be things that you don't do in your day job.
If you are smart about it, though, everyone can benefit.
Benefit and so I can't take a demonstration that I've done in my day job and
(52:30):
say wow you know like the MVP award is a an award for technical community leadership
it has to be things you do for the community over and above your day job and
a lot of people come to me with oh how can I be an MVP,
and and when I explain to them well you're going to need to spend your nights
and weekends doing additional thing for the benefit of the community and it's
not how smart you are in your day job and you can kind of see their poor faces
(52:52):
drop to the floor and there's only ever been one or two people who've pursued
that and most people kind of you can see them backing away slightly because
it's absolutely not for everyone.
You need to be doing it for its own reward.
I mean, for me, my main contribution now is the YouTube content,
but I can't not do that. Even if there wasn't an MVP award.
(53:13):
Associated with that, I would be doing it because I get so much reward out of doing that.
So you need to be doing something that you find, you give your time to a community,
you get so much more back.
So, you know, now I've got an incredible network of, you know,
not just network of people who know stuff, but of friends and friends will help each other out.
And if we're working on something new, I can phone a friend and get the best
(53:36):
in the world helping me with what I'm doing.
Does that help me in my day job of course it does so if
you're smart about it every everyone wins but you
do have to be willing to dedicate your personal
time to doing it for reasons that are more like honestly the benefits that come
with the little blue badge are not the main benefits the benefits are you put
(53:58):
in something and you you get something back that's personally satisfying you
have to do it for your own reasons yeah no it's a fantastic summary i think and um Look,
I really like the program and it's a really nice community.
So I guess the takeaway is don't go after the award, go after the,
you know, the community and the benefits to do with that. That's pretty much it.
(54:18):
And people who chase it just for the award will tend to get it once and not
because, of course, once you get it, then you have to keep doing that every year in the play.
You have to be renewed. Renewals are coming up next week.
You have to be contributing every single year and documenting your contributions every single year.
It's not a one-time thing. so if you're only in it for the award the first thing
(54:38):
that happens when you get the award is that
you get more opportunities to do more community work so you really have to want
to do it it's it's not it's not for people who are like i want that you get
the trophy but the people who don't stay in the program that you don't tend
to stay in it if you're not in it for intrinsic,
motivation or reward i think we've got time for maybe one quick question matt
(55:00):
if before we wrap up any closing comments or any questions ask my mates yeah,
No, look, I just wanted to say a big thank you, Lisa, for coming on our show
and supporting us on Power Time.
Your journey is just an amazing journey, and I hope the listeners that are listening
in today have had, you know, a lot of inspiration to go on and do something
(55:21):
similar, and I think that's the whole purpose, right, at the end of the day,
is to inspire people to go and do different things.
And whether it's, you know, a journey into tech like you've done and presenting
things, or whether it's, you know, going and doing something else.
Maybe it's jet skiing on the weekend.
It could be anything, right? But the key takeaway is go and do something different
and you never know where that journey is going to take you.
(55:42):
And you and I have known each other for a long time now and I've just seen that journey. It's amazing.
It's been an absolute pleasure and hopefully somebody listening to this,
you know, gets some inspiration and does a thing, I would be delighted if that happened.
Well, yeah, maybe we'll get everyone to post on something or maybe LinkedIn
or something to us if they've been inspired by Lisa. Yeah.
(56:07):
Use me to help promote your podcast.
Lisa, come on. I would never do that. We're not doing that. We don't play that game. Come on.
Awesome. Have a lovely day and no doubt we'll catch up in the next few weeks
(56:28):
or so. It's been great. Thank you. Awesome.
Music.
Hey, everyone. I'd just like to say a big thank you for listening into our podcast today.
(56:48):
Just a quick note, everything that we talk about today is the point of view
of Scott and Matt and not the point of view of Microsoft or NCS.
And also, if you get some time, please click follow on this podcast and also
go ahead and follow our LinkedIn page and sign up for our newsletter and we'll
send out some some interesting news over the next six months.
(57:08):
But again, thank you for your time and listening to our podcast.
We really appreciate it.
Music.
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