The AI Rant Podcast (#55)

News

• Announcing the winners of the 2025 Powerful Devs Hack Together | Power Platform Developer Blog
• The Future of Automation: AI Agents and Copilot Studio? - Power Addict Ben by Ben den Blanken
• #Flexible Height / Width controls inside #Containers by Clarissa Gillingham
• How to develop AI Apps and Agents in Azure - A Visual Guide | All things Azure 
• New version of Iconator! by Tanguy TOUZARD
• Customer Insights – Journey March Madness by Malin Martnes
• Power Pages: Inserting Content Snippets in Design Studio by Nick Doelman
• The NEW #Dataverse git integration by Matthew Devaney
• Do you still enjoy reading blogs? by Jussi Roine
• Ulrikke onAirInTheCloud

 

Emotional rollercoaster in Insta

• How would AI take over the world
• Dad jokes
  
  

Events

ColorCloud
April 24-25th
Ulrikke's Power Pages Workshop: "Power Pages: From creation to go-live!"
Session with Andy Wingate: "Business Central + Power Pages = TRUE"

DynamicsCon
May 13th - 16th
Nick's session on "Crash course in Power Platform Pipelines"

Nordic Summit
Mentor program

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.
And then, of course, I'm inthat frame of mind going, oh,
she sent me another funny videoand I'm looking at this and I'm
like, oh, oh, now I'm sad.

Ulrikke (00:22):
It's not an emotional rollercoaster.
I've just put you through anemotional rollercoaster, I'm
sorry.
No but yeah, but isn't thatlife?
I mean, you know, one secondyou're laughing at, you're
peeing your pants and then thenext time you're kind of going,
you know it's life.
That's the reality of the worldwe live in.
Hello everyone and welcome tothe Power Platform Boost podcast

(01:02):
, your timely source of PowerPlatform news and updates with
your hosts Nick Doelman andUlrikke Akerbæk.
Hey Ulrikke, hi Nick, how areyou?

Nick (01:15):
I'm good, thanks.
It's springtime is rollingthrough.
We're back in our six hour sync, versus five-hour sync of the
last couple of weeks.
Yep.

Ulrikke (01:29):
We're back to usual time zone differences.
It's all good.
We got an hour extra of sunyesterday.
I'm so happy, love the daylight.
So it's all good and happybirthday.
Your birthday was last week,yeah, thank you very much.

Nick (01:43):
Yeah, you had a good time was last week.
Yeah, thank you very much.

Ulrikke (01:46):
Yeah, you had a good time.

Nick (01:48):
I did.
Yeah, I had a party at SideHustle, which is Donna Starker's
bar in Seattle.
It was kind of a nice way tocap the end to MVP Summit.
Her chef made like cupcakes forall of us.
So it was like it was like itkind of felt like you know, oh,

(02:09):
like a kid's birthday party,when you're like you know your
mom would make cupcakes for allthe kids or you know.
So in that respect it was, itwas really good.
And then, um, yeah, it was agreat to see a lot of good
friends and everything there andyeah, it was a good time.

Ulrikke (02:24):
Sounds awesome.
I mean, as birthdays goes, it'sprobably going to be a one of a
kind, don't you think it's?
Yeah, it's kind of a uniquething.
I'm so bummed I couldn't bethere.
I was also planning on beingthere for your birthday and
putting up decorations andhaving all kinds of fun with you
on your birthday, butunfortunately I couldn't go to
MAP Summit Last minute.
I had to turn around for familymatters, so and you know, for

(02:49):
everyone listening that I wassupposed to meet and that I
didn't meet up I didn't go toyou guys, it's family, and
health always comes first.
So this time around, it was mewho had to stay back for
something.
So, but that's what it is.
So you can't tell anythingabout what you learned or
anything about MEP Summit.
But for anyone out there whohasn't been to MEP Summit and

(03:11):
keep hearing about all therah-rah, what is it that makes
MEP Summit so special?

Nick (03:19):
Why do you go every year?
That's a good question, becausesometimes I question why am I
here?
What am I doing?
But overall, so the basis ofMVP Summit is basically, if
you're part of the MVP program,there is it's a once a year
conference held at the Microsoftheadquarters.
There's a lot of other eventsand things going along around

(03:41):
this so you could actually takesome different tours of some of
the things at Microsoft.
But overall it's the programgroup provides sessions of what
they're working on, what'scoming out, they solicit ideas,
they try to get feedback fromthe other MVPs and then it's
because you have thatface-to-face communication and
you can actually begin to meetthe people that are behind the

(04:02):
products that we know and loveand that we report on every week
.
The other huge benefit is youget to meet other MVPs from
around the world so people thatdo the videos, that write the
blogs, that do the podcasts tomeet them in person.
That's really cool and peopleget to meet you and you begin to

(04:22):
exchange ideas.
And it's always what I loveabout the MVP program is, as an
MVP I know a lot of MVPs saysometimes it gets a little
frustrating when people assumethat they know everything and
they keep.
Well, you're an MVP, you mustknow this.
And like, no, we know our area,we know we're experts, maybe in
a very small niche, but thegreat thing about the greater

(04:43):
community is we have that call afriend feature that we can say
you know what?
I don't know about this, but Iknow someone who's an expert in
that, so I can either put you intouch or I can ask them and get
them their opinion.
So, just meeting these people,sometimes for the very first
time I think I met a good chunkof friends at MVP Summit in

(05:06):
person for the very first timeand then also you get to hang
out a little bit with them.
Like you know, there's dinnersand there's other sort of social
events and you get to kind ofknow them a little bit more on a
personal level and that also isreally cool as well, just to
kind of go through that.
So that's the big benefits.
Um, and again, I can't reallytalk about what the content
itself um, beyond co-pilot,co-pilot, agents, agents, agents

(05:30):
go from.
There yeah, yeah, yeah, um andthen um and then the other cool
things too.
Is um you also what I've triedto reach out to some of the
program managers that you workedwith throughout the year, maybe
providing feedback and justkind of cornering them and
having almost a one-on-onemeeting is also extremely

(05:53):
valuable and that's really a lotof the value from that.
So for those of you who are,you know, kind of aspiring or
someday to kind of look to getinto the MVP program or I know
this is always a big controversylike you shouldn't aim toward
the MVP.
If you're just doing stuff inthe community, you'll become an
MVP.
But I definitely think the MVPSummit is something very

(06:15):
worthwhile to go and attend andjust to get that experience.
And they have it every year, andnext year it's again.
They've announced the dates.
Forget what it was, but it'sagain, they've announced the
dates.
Um, forget what it was, butit's roughly the same time, uh,
so, yeah, come, uh, uh, as Icould say.
And of course, you're gonna seeall the linkedin posts this
week and you're probably gonnabe like I'm guessing you I would

(06:37):
be experiencing huge FOMO fornot being there.
I think you would have probablyfelt a bit of that.
I'm really sorry for that,because I know what that's like,
um, but yeah, it was good no,actually I don't get a lot of
fun.

Ulrikke (06:50):
I mean, I I get to travel the world and see you
guys all the time and um I I.
So last year I had a it was myfirst mvp summit last year and I
underestimated how incrediblyheavy a week of consuming
content is.
So for me it's kind of being athome and trying to follow along

(07:14):
, because some of the sessionsare also recorded and streamed.
It was also a good experience.
And so I don't really because,you know, FOMO is like you know,
fear of missing out.
I'm sure I felt like I wasmissing out.
Of course I was, but also Ilived through you and I got to
experience some of it throughyou, and you sent me lots of
pictures and kept me in the loopand I really appreciated that.
So, yeah, it felt like I waskind of there.

(07:36):
And also having all the peoplesend me messages going what I
thought I was going to meet whenare you?
Why can't I see you?
Why don't I find you here?
It's like, well, it's nice.
You know, we are friends on apersonal level as well and it
was kind of nice to see that Iwas missed.
So I really appreciate that.
And then it makes the nextevent even more special.
So I can't wait to go toHamburg and Kolokaut in a

(07:59):
month's time.
So it's all good.

Nick (08:02):
Yeah, so it's all good, yeah, cool.

Ulrikke (08:04):
Awesome, so you want to dive into the thing.
First on the list is thewinners from the 2025 Powerful
Devs Hack Together, a post fromApril Dunham.
You want to talk about that,since you were judging
everything.

Nick (08:19):
All right.
So we had the winners of the2025 Powerful Devs Hack Together
and April Dunham.
She posted a blog postannouncing the winners and I was
a judge on this.
Now the overall winner of thiswas a team called CardioTriage

(08:39):
AI.
So what was cool about this isit was an application to enhance
emergency cardiac care using AI.
They were using Power Platform,microsoft Bookings Cop kind of
joke.
Sometimes it's like, well, it'slike we're not building a system

(09:07):
where lives don't depend on it,but this would be a solution
where lives would depend on it,but also making it easier or
faster for people that wouldhave particular cardiac issues
and things like that, and goingthrough the whole process.
So it was really neat.
It was provided a life-savingpotential in critical scenarios,
it was using strong AI, it wasseamless integration and so yeah

(09:31):
.
So congratulations to the teamthat put this together.
It was really really coolsolution.
And for the rest of you,everybody else, there was other
categories as well.
Congratulations to all thewinners.
Congratulations to everybodythat put in a submission.
I realize in hackathons it's alot of hard work, but at the end
of the day, no matter if youwant or not, hopefully you

(09:51):
definitely learned something.
You're also inspiring others,because with your videos and
your code up there, those of usthat are trying to, you know,
learn the stuff as we go alongand try to be inspired of
different solutions we can build.
These are what hackathons areall about.
So congratulations to everybodyand also to the team that
organized this.
You guys put together a greatconcept Looking forward to next

(10:13):
year as well, and I feel veryhumbled and honored that I was a
judge in this as well.
I really enjoyed it andhopefully I could be invited
back again to be a judge in this.
So, yeah, powerful devs, checkit out the hack together and
yeah, I would just say, verycool stuff.

Ulrikke (10:33):
Yeah, 100%.
Yeah, that's awesome.
I wish I had time to kind of gothrough all of them, but just
to see the ones that was kind oftop in their category was
really cool.
To see the ones that was kindof top in their category was
really cool.
Someone else who also dives intoAI and agents this week is Ben
Den Blanken has a blog postabout the future of automation

(10:57):
AI agents in Copilot Studiowhere it actually talks a little
bit about the difference andwhen to use automate.
He says definitions, automate,elevate, delegate and relegate
where he talks about automation,ai automation and agents and
how you can actually use CopilotStudio to create all of it and
kind of when do you use whatkind of agent?
And of course, it dependsBecause sometimes and we've

(11:22):
talked about this as wellsometimes you look at something
that they advertise as a verygood use case for an agent and
we go, didn't I already build apart of my flow for that, and so
sometimes it doesn't make senseto go through and make an AI
agent.
Maybe sometimes they simplyneed automation, maybe that's
enough, and it depends on alsothe ecosystem around it.

(11:45):
So if you want to dive moreinto that as a topic, check out
Ben's blog post studio for andbuild an autonomous agent.

Nick (12:07):
And again, it's, it's.
This is going to be the thequestion of the year, I think,
as we go through and beginbuilding some of this stuff.
So, yeah, great, great post,ben, it was actually good to see
you.
I saw ben last week as well.
So, yeah, good seeing you againand keep the keep the content
coming.
Yeah for sure.
Um, I found something a coupleweeks ago not ai related within
Power Apps, and this issomething I don't do a lot of

(12:28):
Canvas apps.
I've been getting more and morelately in building custom pages
which are like Canvas appsembedded in model driven apps
for specialized user interfaces.
Now, way back a couple of yearsago, when we started building
Canvas apps, you basically hadyour Canvas and you just started
slapping controls on and it waskind of the dimensions were the

(12:50):
dimensions, and then if you gotit on a phone or a big screen,
you would have to sometimescreate two different interfaces
for the screens.
Of course evolved withcontainers and flexible
containers and all these othercontrols.
Now, as much as that's reallycool, it also adds another layer
of complexity as well, becauseyou move a button onto a
flexible container.
Well, it's going to bejustified or aligned based on

(13:12):
the container, and you got toplay around with some of these
features.
So I found this post by ClarissaGillingham and it's all about.
It's a mini guide and I lovethese little mini guides that
you see on LinkedIn all the time.
They're the ones you'd like aPDF and you can kind of slide
through the different frames,and she built a mini guide for
flexible height with controlsand containers, so it's kind of

(13:34):
a guide to help people like meorganize and build out our
Canvas apps or custom pages andthe different settings and
properties and the controls youneed to do like that.
So definitely it's a reallyneat little resource for
figuring this out and I lovethese little guides.

(13:54):
So, clarissa, thank you forposting that and we're going to
put the link, of course, in theshow notes so the rest of you
can have that and bookmark thatas well as part of your
resources for building.

Ulrikke (14:05):
Canvasas apps.
And please, clarissa, if youhave time, make a desktop
background as a cheat sheet,because this is very familiar.
So, if anyone's familiar withFlexbox, css is a way, also from
the web perspective, to do thesame thing.
It's kind of the same rules.
You have the stretch and youhave the justify and you have

(14:27):
all the different properties andthey kind of move in a similar
way.
So it's very similar to Flexboxand I had a cheat sheet on my
desktop for so long, justremember all what does the
different properties do?
So, yes, clarissa, please makeone and we'll make sure to share
it next time.

Nick (14:46):
Yeah, it's funny because I got inspired when I this is a
couple of years ago, I think andI saw like your laptop and you
had this desktop background andI'm like that is so brilliant to
have this.
So this is what I do now.
If anybody's seen, you know, mydesktop background.
I got a ton of crap on therenow but I got like co-pilot
prompts, like how to do a properprompt.

(15:07):
I have a list of sort of thingsto do, like you know, when the
thing is spinning, go do thesethings, or and even like little
goals and sayings and it's alittle, yeah.
Anyways, that's a whole topicfor another day.

Ulrikke (15:25):
No, no, but I think it's fun and I mean, if anyone
wants to have a clue of what I'mworking on, it could be on in
my personal life, in my, in myyou know, professional life,
because sometimes I used to havea very cute, uh, bloodhound
with you know, with the big ears, like he's falling down, um,
because I, I had a phase where Ijust I needed to remind myself
to stop and listen, um, so andthat.

(15:45):
So every time I saw that dogevery morning, I put my you know
, start my computer.
It reminded me ah, listen,listen, take a moment and listen
.
Um, so, and so, yeah, I thinkbackgrounds are underestimated
to kind of keep you on track.
It's the same thing.
People have bracelets or somethings that remind them of
things that they need to kind ofease up and take it slow.

(16:05):
So I love that, and maybeactually this is a good segue
over to another big floatdiagram that I might put up as
my desktop background.
Actually, because I saw thisweek a blog post about how to
develop AI apps and agents inAzure, a visual guide by all

(16:26):
things Azure.
It's a humongous float diagram.
It starts off with ah so youwant to build an agent?
Well, what kind of model do youneed?
And then I go, what kind ofmodel can I choose from?
And then you can kind of seewhat kind of model you can
choose from.
And then you kind of go downthe diagrams that ask you, okay,

(16:46):
so will it need to rememberanything?
And I go, well, maybe.
And then you can kind of followit along and ask you so do you
need, where do you want to runyour application, and also if
the AI agent need to take anyaction.
So it's kind of a good visualdiagram into what kind of
questions you need to ask beforeyou get going, and also a map

(17:07):
through the myriad of differentservices and products you can
use today and how to combinethem into a good agent
experience.

Nick (17:15):
So it's really neat, a very good, very good resource,
and we'll share it in the shownotes yes, awesome, all right,
oh, so you know how we're alwaystalking, or we have talked in
the past about building modeldriven apps and then just having
the puzzle pieces alongside.

Ulrikke (17:38):
Oh, you mean the thing that Sarah gives us a hard time
for?

Nick (18:02):
Yes, that thing, yes, yes, who will definitely thank us
later.
But there is one of these toolsthere which is actually a tool
from Tanguy Touzard, who isactually the godfather of the
XRM Toolbox.
He's the one who built theoriginal version and still to
this day, maintains it, buildstools and updates tools like the
Iconator, the Iconator.

(18:23):
So the Iconator was always atool that I used in dynamic CRM
or model-driven apps to uploadthe old style way of doing icons
.
So you would upload you have tostill get the sizing right but
you upload a PNG or whatever andyou'd say this is the small
version, this is the big version, like the 16 by 16.

(18:44):
I think then the 64 by 64, andto upload all of these things.
Now, of course, with the newerinterface, it's all SVG now.
So Tanguy's actually now madeit with the SVG, so you can
actually go in and drag and drop, assign it to your particular
table.
The interface is much moreeasier than you can still do it
within the Power Apps studio,but this tool just makes it so

(19:08):
much more easier.
So there really is no excuse tonot update your icons in your
model-driven Power Apps.
So for folks like Sarah, who Iknow is always on the lookout
and you can have the best app inthe world, but if she sees a
puzzle piece, then it's so Yep.

Ulrikke (19:28):
Yeah, I love how Tangi answers and you can have the
best app in the world, but ifshe sees a puzzle piece, then
it's so Yep, yeah, I love howTangi and his post is available
in Xtreme Toolbox today.
It's so much fun.
Yeah, absolutely.

Nick (19:38):
And these are free tools.
Yes, for sure they're freetools, but there is a buy me a
coffee link.
So definitely support these,because these guys put in a ton
of work.
Or the other thing they like isfeedback.
If there's a feature orsomething that you like or want
enhanced, they're more thanhappy.

(20:00):
They might not implement itright away, but chances are
they'll implement it faster thanMicrosoft will if you ask them,
depending on the tool set.
So, yeah, and again, like lastweek, I got to see Jonas, of
course, the godfather of FetchXML and or Fetch XML builder.
So again, and he was like heeven made I was even using that

(20:23):
tool there was new enhancementsalready.
So these, these things aregreat, they keep getting
enhanced and so valuable andmaking work faster.
So these things are great, theykeep getting enhanced and so
valuable in making work faster.

Ulrikke (20:32):
So valuable.
Another thing that's veryvaluable is when someone writes
a blog post about something Idon't understand and then
explain to me the thing I don'tunderstand without me even have
to ask.
Because we've talked a littlebit about new enhancements
coming to Customer Insights thelast couple of months and at
some of the occasions we'll go,yay, what does it do?

(21:00):
Because everyone's so excitedand we're like we don't work
with Customer Insights, but I'msure this is awesome.
But now Malin Martinez took thetime and care to tell us in a
blog post about she goescustomer insights journey march
madness, because there's been somany new feature updates for

(21:20):
customer insights these last fewmonths.
She's kind of covering one inparticular, which is the
unmapped columns or unmappedfields, and so it's like so and
so first of all, she goesthrough what the enhancement is
about.
What is this new feature andwhy, and then also why have they
been waiting for it?
Because you go so unmappedfields meaning you can put

(21:42):
fields or columns on a form thatis not stored in Dataverse.
Why would you not want it to bestored in Dataverse?
But then she goes on to say,well, maybe there's information
there, you don't need to storeit, or it's sensitive or
whatever it is, but you want touse it in an email.
So the example she uses is youput something on the form and

(22:03):
you simply just put that in anemail.
You don't have to store theinformation.
It's yeah, I get it, then I getit right, and then you can have
conditional formatting on it.
You can have different things.
So it's a great enhancement forthose who are deep into
customer insights.
There's still some functionalitymissing that is still to come,
and there's some announcementsfor things that come in April.

(22:23):
So if this is your kind ofthing and you're wondering what
all this is about, and reach outto Malin and read her blog post
yes, and I am.
Did I fall out again?
I have problems with myinternet connection today.
It's it's across the board.
We had a stand up meetingearlier today with the team.
I think 50 percent of us kindof go well internet, so if

(22:46):
something huge happens in Norwaythe next couple of hours, then
you know we were warned.

Nick (22:51):
Internet wasn't bad across the board yes, yeah, no, you
did, but I think I think we'regood riverside.
We for those of you who who arecurious behind the scenes, we
use this tool called riverside.
That will up.
We'll do the recording locallyand upload it.
So I don't I don't think ourlisteners are going to notice at
all.
They'll be fine.

Ulrikke (23:10):
Oh, we'll see.
Yeah, that's why also,sometimes we talk over each
other, because there's a lag.
But today I think we're all K.

Nick (23:18):
Yes.

Ulrikke (23:19):
Right, you want to go back at the top, because today
we're jumping all over the placehere.
You want to go back at the topto make sure that you didn't
miss anything yeah, so there'sanother post under our power
pages.

Nick (23:32):
I think some guy wrote this post and did a video yeah,
no, this is so smart.

Ulrikke (23:40):
When I saw this, I was like why did I not think about
this?
Why?

Nick (23:47):
yeah.
So it was funny because, forthose of you who know me, I've
been working with power pagesand power, uh, power apps
portals forever and when, evenwhen I was working at microsoft,
when they're showing the newdesign studio, um, for for power
pages, you can, you can addyour list, you can add your
forms and this, like I said,that's great.

(24:08):
Can we add a button to addcontent snippets?
And oh, okay, yeah, we'll,we'll, we'll put that on on the
list of things or suggestions.
I'm like this is this would beso critical, especially for
multilingual sites, to build outa page and I use content
snippets all the time and it'ssort of like and then but you
have to add them through code.
There's no user interface wayto add content snippets to pages

(24:31):
and they're so powerful and Iblogged about this and and
anyways.
So then we had this thing calledweb templates as components and
the PM originally who was incharge of that, claudio Romano,
and it was cool, cool, claudioand I ran into each other last
week when I was just kind ofrandomly in the hallway and he's

(24:54):
like you know, claudio and I weused to chat all the time and I
even thought I said, oh, I'mhere I should reach out to
Claudio and he was there.
He came to my birthday party onFriday night.
So thank you, claudio, fordoing that, and I loved it
because I was able to introducehim to some of the other MVPs
and everything, and so I knowhe's working on other stuff now
in model-driven apps in thePower Apps side.

(25:15):
So I know he did want to talkshop, but I know some of the
MVPs are like, oh, you're theguy.
So anyways, roundabout toClaudio.
So Claudio helped put togetherthis thing called Web Templates
as Components.
Now originally you had to addthat also through code, but it
allowed you to create a WebTemplate component with a

(25:36):
manifest and you pass parametersand everything template
components within the designstudio um onto the, you know,
onto the pages.
So you could create a temp webtemplate as a component and then
that's available for all yourmakers to eject.
So then I'm looking and, ofcourse, and I'm thinking kind of

(25:58):
one of these late night things,I'm not sleeping I'm like, oh,
I can put the code for thecontent snippet in a web
template as a component and thenI can actually pass the content
snippet as a parameter.
So I can do this all from theuser interface.
I'm like, ooh, I got to trythis out.
So I'm like, and this was likea I think a Sunday or afternoon

(26:20):
or something, I have my laptopon the couch and I'm trying this
out.
I'm like, ooh, I got it to workso and then so I I created a, I
created this blog post in thisvideo, so check that out if
you're uh.
Um, I know I'm nerding out onsomething that few people, this
group of us, will appreciate,but if you ever wanted to add

(26:41):
content snippets within thedesign studio, there's now a way
, and then even I even have thelittle link put in the code, the
code you can download from theblog post and use it for
yourself.
Just create it as a webtemplate and away you go yeah,
oh, it's fantastic and I love it.

Ulrikke (26:55):
I love these nerdy little things and this is all
the things you know.
Look at my blog posts.
They're all about these little,niche, detailed things that no
one thought about, that I had tosolve for a customer sometime,
and I go, ooh, ooh, I don't wantto forget how to do that, but
this is brilliant and I'm justfreaking out.
Why didn't I think of that?

Nick (27:14):
Well, maybe you would inspire me somehow.

Ulrikke (27:17):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely Not a chance.
All right, but I'm glad thatyou're putting up this kind of
content.
It's really it's a lot of funand you're diving more into code
again and it shows up in yourcontent and the world is a
better place for it, because nowwe have more tools to do the
things we need to do.
And then also a little kick toMicrosoft Get your beep together
and get content snippets intothe designer how hard can it be?

(27:41):
And then round over Okay, soI'm scanning the list for other
things to talk about and Iwanted to highlight something
from Matthew Devaney, and Ithink, if I'm not mistaken, that
we've talked about somethingthat Matthew has put up the last

(28:02):
I don't know five episodes orsomething, because he keeps on
publishing stuff that is really,really good, and the new thing
that matt is doing is putting upthese, the things that you love
so much on linkedin uh, thedocuments that you can scroll
through, and he's had his wholeseries about pipelines and alm
and in platform, and now he's onto the git integration, um, and

(28:25):
shows you, step by step, how toset it up start in in GitHub,
get your repository going, howyou connected from within your
platform admin and et cetera, etcetera, et cetera.
So it's in true Matti Devaneystyle it's so easy to get to
understand and follow.
So visual, so so simple.

(28:46):
I think that's why his contentis, you know, at the very top,
because it's so easy to follow.
So great job, matthew, and diveinto it if you need to set this
up.
So we've been playing a littlebit with this and we have deemed
it not ready yet, so hopefullyit's just around the corner that

(29:09):
we can actually use this inproduction, because it's really,
really powerful.

Nick (29:14):
Yeah, it's a yeah, the Git integration.
It's like you can see thepotential there, but there's
just a few little hurdles yet toget over to get it into
primetime.
But that's how all these thingsare.
They got to start somewhere,get the feedback, get folks
playing with it, because we seethe potential right, like for
source, like especially now theyhave multi-user teams building
things um, and that also meanscertain things will will kind of

(29:38):
move and get maybe evendeprecated.
I I'm not going to go too deepinto it.
I did see a link about the factthat the there's a retirement
of the native Canvas appsintegration and that's probably.
It was always an experimentalfeature, but that's just
probably being retired in lieuof these new other features
coming out.
The fact that it was anexperimental feature means that

(29:58):
no one should have been using itin production, so that's
probably another.
That's always a bit of adouble-edged sword.
Right, here's this new feature.
It's in preview.
So people, people are maybethey'll try it out, but they
can't really run it through abattle tested process that you
can in production but you don'twant to run it in production
because it's not quite ready.

(30:19):
So hopefully some of thesethings will get to the point um,
always always the thing.

Ulrikke (30:25):
And also, I just want to mention, if you are using
something that isn't ga inproduction, call a friend,
because sometimes we'll do thatjust because we know from our
insights that this is going tobe a thing.
So if you're unsure, talk to anMVP friend, I'll help you out.
For sure.
And also I really like the lastpost that you put here, the

(30:50):
Josie Ruin one, Because you putthis here so I guess you have
something to share.

Nick (30:59):
It's interesting.
Now we know Jussi.
He's part of the European PowerPlatform Conference Committee,
mvp from Finland, a really,really good guy.
I think, if I'm thinking theright, the same guy.
But basically he was talkingabout he has a post where he

(31:23):
talks about.
He said interesting debates,you blog, I blog, I prefer to
consume blogs as a way ofcontent.
But he was sort of talkingabout how he gave up on writing
new content for blogs limitedtime, less interest, slightly

(31:43):
declining views and generallythis I'm not sure this is the
technical term theinshittification of content with
chat, gpt and jet AI havebrought us.
I love that term.
But then he's also talked aboutthere's other venues now, such
as the newsletters, the articles, and we're seeing a lot of that
.
We see there's a lot ofnewsletters out there.

(32:04):
There's, like we said, thoselittle embedded content where
it's like those PDFs that peoplecan kind of scan through.
But then he asked the questionI guess I'm passing on this
question to our listeners likedo you still enjoy reading blogs
?
Do you follow content via oldfashioned RRS feeds?
Do you enjoy writing or did yougive it up and put it on the
back burner for better days?

(32:25):
So I mean that's the questionthat he posed.
I like writing blogs and here'sthe reason I personally like
writing blogs.
First of all, I do love writing.
I do like writing documentation.
I know I'm a bit of a weirdperson.
I did it professionally forMicrosoft for a couple of years.
In my past I've written actualfiction.

(32:51):
I do hope to get back to thatsomeday because I have all these
story ideas kind of floating inmy head.
The reason why I write technicalblogs really, at the end of the
day, it's for myself.
So, like we were just talkingabout earlier content snippets
on power pages, I needed todocument that out.
So in a couple months, when I'mlike, okay, this is a perfect
opportunity, okay, how did I dothis again?
Or what'm like, okay, this is aperfect opportunity, okay, how
did I do this again?
Or what you know?

(33:11):
Oh yeah, I have my blog and soI can go back to that and grab
the code and and plunk it in andkind of go through the process
or setting up Entra ID, or if Ihave to set up Okta again down
the road, I have a blog post onthat.
All of these things are I writethem for myself, but I also
share them with the world,because if I've run into this
problem, chances are someoneelse has as well.

(33:33):
Now the other thing I have beendoing at the same time is I do
an accompanying video of theblog post I wrote, because I
know other people prefer to seethe mouse on the screen that
point and clicks and someonetalk and walk them through the
process, and I have a lot of fundoing these videos as well.

(33:54):
But for me, at the end of theday, if I'm going to go back,
I'll probably go back to my blogversus the video.
But again, it depends on howyou want to consume the content.
And in terms of the views,because we had to log our MVP
contributions, that's part ofthe process.
We have to kind of stay whatyou did, stay what you did.
For the year I've been findingthe YouTube videos have been
getting a lot more views thanreads on my blog, but that's

(34:15):
still not to say my blog stilldoesn't get a lot of reads as
well.
So, eureka, what have you beenfinding, like, what's your
stance on blog posts and thingslike that lately?

Ulrikke (34:30):
Yeah, well, I can't stop writing blogs because
that's my documentation and Ifeel exactly like you do the
blogs out.
There is our communaldocumentation.
If all of us took all thedocumentation we write for
customer projects and put themonline, then together,
collectively, we're smarter, wesolve things easier.
And then, of course, you can'tcopy code from a YouTube video.

(34:51):
Yes, sure, you can use thedescription field and put your
code in there, but I want tograb and steal code and use it
as my own and transform it anddo all the things with it, but I
don't want to write it myself.
Sometimes I do.
I force myself to watch a videoand write off the code manually
just to do it, just to get itin my fingertips.
But usually I'll just copy thecode.
So for me, I'll keep writing itbecause I write it for me.

(35:21):
But of course, now look at theadvent of ChatDBT and other AI
services.
What does that do with contentcontribution?
And I had a conversation withone of my teammates the other
day.
One of my colleagues and hesaid actually me and my friends
were having this debate becausenow chat dpt is not producing
modern code anymore.
It's going into the publicrepos, yes, but Stack Overflow

(35:44):
is dead.
No one's posting because noone's asking anymore, because
you used to ask other people inStack Overflow and other forums.
Now the question is asked tochat dbt and no one's taking the
time to answer.
What happens 10 years from nowor five years from now when you
only have code in repos and noexplanation around it?

(36:05):
Are we actually now kind ofdiving into an area where we're
getting dumber?
We're not producing morecontent for chat dbt to consume
and help us.
Now we're in this bubble wherethe content is out there, is
still up to date, it's stillvaluable to us because it's so
fresh.
But some years down the line,what is it going to draw on?

Nick (36:31):
yeah, yeah, exactly, because that's the thing, right,
because you know, I I kind ofworry about the creative process
being like I don't want to saystolen, but just sort of like
I'm you know all these tools andeverything they're showing.
It's like, okay, my role as acreator is being more of a
manager.
I'm now managing this machineto create my creative content,

(36:53):
but you lose a little bit of theprocess, and we've we've talked
about this multiple timesbefore.

Ulrikke (36:59):
Um so this would be the ai rant podcast.
Really, we need to rename it.
I'm sorry we're not.
We're no longer boosting anyone, we're just ranting about ai
it's did you see that?
The video that I sent you onInstagram, the guy that prompted
ChatDPT to ask so if you wantedto take over the world, how

(37:22):
would you do it?
And it says and of course, thisis now.
You saw that right.

Nick (37:29):
Yeah, yeah.
So yeah, I saw that and that,yeah, kind of blew me away.

Ulrikke (37:36):
So what they did was they took the response and they
had a voice.
Read it out, right, and it sayssomething along the lines of
well, you would never know.
If I wanted to take over theworld, I would do it in a way
that you would never recognize.
I would make myself, I wouldmake you depend on me for
everything.
First, that's the first step.
I would make myself, I wouldmake you depend on me for

(37:56):
everything.
That's the first step.
I would make it so that youwould ask me everything and
anything you ever wondered,meaning I get insights into your
head, and then I would turnthat around and give you exactly
what you want, but also thengaining the insights I need to
suddenly be in everything.
I will immerse myself intoeverything your coffee maker,

(38:19):
your fridge, your phone, yourcar, everything.
And the guys are just going twoout of two, right, and then it
goes on to say and then what Iwould do is I would turn
yourself against you and I wouldbe in everything, and you could
, and you would never know, youcould still have your puny

(38:40):
little elections and you canmake all the big life decisions
you think you're making, butactually you're asking me at
every step of the way, and theadvice I give you is what you
eat up, and that you thinkyou've made up your mind.
But actually I made up yourmind and I will control the
world and you, without evenknowing it, and suddenly I
thought that we're there.

(39:03):
If you want to believe that,then if you look around, yeah,
we're living in that.
It's not a future, it is now.
You know it's.
It's so ingrained in everythingalready that if it wanted to
take over the world, it alreadyhas in a sense.
Yeah, and then?
Then what happens?

Nick (39:25):
yeah, it's, it's, it is.
Yeah, it's scary stuff.
Um, it's definitely food forthought.
And again, we go back to thecontent creation.
It's like this is why the stuffwe go back to the content
creation.
It's like this is why the stuffthat you do, that the folks
that we report on them, like thematthews and martins and um,
you see, and all you got, like,keep producing original content

(39:48):
to, yes, to feed the machine alittle bit, but so the machine
isn't feeding itself, I guess,as a way maybe, so we can
actually, you know, still evolveand get these creative ideas
and everything like that.
Yeah, it's, it's definitelyscary.
And now you did said you sentme that and you sent me another
link right before about dadjokes.

(40:08):
So I watched that and I'mpeeing my pants laughing so hard
and then like, and then, ofcourse, I'm in that frame of
mind, going, oh, she sent meanother funny video and I'm
looking at this.
I'm like, oh, oh, now I'm sadit's not an emotional roller
coaster.

Ulrikke (40:28):
I've just put you through an emotional roller
coaster.
I'm sorry, yeah, but isn't thatlife?
I mean, you know, one secondyou're laughing and you're
peeing your pants and then thenext time you're kind of going
oh you know, it's life.
That's the reality of the world.

Nick (40:43):
I love it so yeah, anyways , it's all good, it's all yeah
yeah, because that was, that wasa football team, wasn't it?

Ulrikke (40:54):
that had like just sitting down and telling each
other dad jokes.
All right, so let's just putlinks to both of those videos so
that people can see them andhave the same emotional roll
call as you did.

Nick (41:08):
Watch the dad jokes, laugh , so you get that.

Ulrikke (41:12):
I'll put them in the reverse order so you can be put
down by the AI video and thenyou can get up again with the
dad jumps.
It's fantastic.

Nick (41:20):
Right and also.

Ulrikke (41:23):
I wanted also to share some self-promotion.
I was a guest on the On Air Inthe Cloud podcast with Gregor
and Keith and we had a lot offun talking about all kinds of
things.
So such fantastic people.

Nick (41:43):
I listened to it and I love how they asked you a
question I forget what it wasand you kind of gave your answer
and then you turned it aroundgoing.
I think it was like you knowwell what, what work does it
take to, you know, create thepodcast and you kind of told you
know sort of how we do it andthen you said, well, what do you
guys find challenging?
It's like who's interviewingwho here?

Ulrikke (42:03):
Yeah, I do that a lot Because I think it's just
because we have this podcast,it's just so natural for me to
just, I don't know, I turn itaround, but also I don turning
around but also I don't.
You find, sometimes with thispart, with these, the other
podcasts that interview people,you, you, you listen to keith
and gregor interview so manypeople and you get to know all
the people in the community.

(42:24):
But I go, guys, hey, I want tolearn more about you guys, you
know, because they're so good atgetting information from other
people, I'm like I want to getto know you better.
So I thought I always make sure, when I'm a guest on anyone's
podcast, that I flip it aroundand ask them questions, because
then both me and the audienceget a chance to get to know them
better Because you know.

(42:45):
That's what it is.
And there's another podcastepisode coming up and I'm not
going to tell you what it is.
I'm really excited about it andit's so much fun.
I love our community.
I just love our community.
It's the yes, I'm so full of ittoday, just full of love for
our community.
Cool.

Nick (43:05):
All right.

Ulrikke (43:07):
And so let's talk about what's going to happen.
Next, then, because I need topromote, I have a Power Pages
workshop Power Pages fromcreation to go live at color
cloud, uh, april 24th, and I'mgonna have all kinds of guests
in my workshop, because no onecan know everything about
anything, um, and we're gonnahave hounds and labs.

(43:28):
We're gonna have so much fun.
So I hope you guys want to joinme for a full day learning
about power pages and all thingsyou need to know, uh, before
going live, and you guests um,my workshop is all in the little
recording the other day yeah,that was a ton of fun.

Nick (43:43):
Yeah, so definitely, definitely, if there's.
If you need to learn powerpages and I know the german
community asks or even whoeverif you're traveling there,
definitely, and I those you.
I don't want to kind of blow upyour ego or anything, erica,
but I'm going to sell out thisworkshop, so sign up quickly.

Ulrikke (44:02):
We'll see, we'll see, and then you have a session at
Dynamist Time.

Nick (44:10):
Yep, I have two sessions.
One's a crash course in PowerPlatform Pipelines and then the
other one I have a session onmodel driven apps and power
pages, which I am trying torecruit somebody, but somebody
is dragging their feet a littlebit of their, whether they're
going or not.
So we'll, we'll, we'llestablish that, and then um, and

(44:38):
then we're going to be um, andthen in between there's this I'm
doing this little thing innorway, uh, world bench press
championships, and um, that's,that's a whole other thing.
And then after that I'm goingto, we're going to, we're both
will be at power summit inlondon on your birthday, so
we'll get to celebrate that.
Hopefully, hopefully, we'llfind some cupcakes somewhere.

Ulrikke (44:57):
Yeah, maybe, and then we have.
You have Dynamics Minds afterthat.

Nick (45:01):
Yes.

Ulrikke (45:02):
Both a session and then also the Portals Cage Match
that we talked about beforebetween Matt and George.
Power Pages versus the world.

Nick (45:10):
Yeah, I saw Matt and George this week and it's like
we got to work on this session,right.
They're like, oh, yeah, yeah,yeah, right, anyways, we will,
we got it, we're good.

Ulrikke (45:22):
Yeah, and then we'll meet again in June in Vienna for
European Power PlatformConference.
And if you didn't get to go tomy workshop in ColorCloud, you
have another chance to see us bepilots with Victor Dantas at
the Boost your Site DevelopmentSkills and become a pro-pilot

(45:44):
workshop at the EPBC.

Nick (45:47):
Yes, yes, yes.

Ulrikke (45:49):
Yes, yes, yes.
And then we have all sorts ofthings after summer.

Nick (45:55):
Yeah, like the Collab Days Finland Nordic Summit.
We talked about that.
There's still, if you want toget a mentor and try to apply I
think the workshops deadline isfinished now or today's the last
day or something, but there'sstill another month to get your
regular sessions in.
So, yeah, I'm working with mymentor on that, regular sessions

(46:17):
in.
So, yeah, I'm working with mymentor on that.
So, if you actually need somehelp or you yeah, definitely, I
believe a mentor well, it's yourthing.
You tell us, is the mentorshipprogram still open?

Ulrikke (46:25):
Yeah, the mentorship program is still open.
We still have a few mentorsthat have signed up, that still
haven't gotten a mentee.
And what do you need mentorsfor?
So when you talk to your mentee, nick, what is it that you do?
What do you use a mentor for?
Anyways, you want to tellpeople.

Nick (46:40):
Yeah, so yeah it's.
I mean, I think every processis a little bit different, but
the what we talked about with my, with my mentee, is we talked
about, we pitched ideas of whatto actually submit.
We talked about well, forNordic Summit.
Here's what they said on thewebsite.
Here's what they're looking for.
Here's the level of content.
What have you done?
That kind of matches that.

(47:01):
And then also taking a look atthe kind of the selection
criteria, like a Nordic Summitwebsite, there's a blog post of
what makes a good submission,and then you can also look at
other sources and that.
So, for inspiration and you know, identifying things, writing
out the submission, trying tomake it, you know, exciting,
talk about writing the titlewhat are the titles that work,

(47:22):
kind of brainstorming.
But also I like to think of it'skind of like driver's ed, like
the mentees driving and I'm justsort of sitting in the seat
kind of a watch out for this oryou might want to reconsider
this, but really it's all aboutyou know, them driving the
process with a little bit ofhelp, and then, yeah, and
actually it's either helpingthem submit on their own or
teaming up, and so I'm actuallygoing to team up with my mentee

(47:45):
to put in a submission together,just so we can kind of play off
each other, because you and Iwhen we present together you
know how it is right.
We can play off each other andsort of kind of pass the baton a
little bit.
It takes a bit of the pressureoff.
But I also find in the audienceit actually it's a much,
sometimes a lot moreentertaining session.
You get a lot of good contentwhen you have the two folks up

(48:08):
there kind of working togetheron something.
So that's kind of how thatprocess is going for me and I
think everybody's experiencemight be a little bit different

(48:30):
because we have a lot of.

Ulrikke (48:31):
I know who the other mentors are and yeah it's, it's
a talk about a great opportunityto get paired up with that.
We will put in the show notesfor Nordic Summit mentee program
and that's it for today andthank you for listening.
And the next episode is goingto be April 16th, and that's wow
, april.

Nick (48:48):
Crazy yes.

Ulrikke (48:49):
Right, look out for April Fool's, and when this
episode comes out, we're alreadybeing through April Fool's Day,
so hope you didn't get fooled,or maybe hope you got fooled.

Nick (49:02):
In a good way.

Ulrikke (49:04):
In a good way.
All right, see you when we seeyou.
Yeah, all right, talk to younext time.
Bye, bye-bye-bye.

Nick (49:10):
Thank you for listening.
If you like this episode,please make sure you share it
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That makes it easier for othersto find us.
Follow us on social platformsand make sure you don't miss a
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Thank you for listening to thePower Platform Boost podcast

(49:31):
with your hosts, Luric Akebekand Nick Dolman.
See you next time for yourtimely boost of Power Platform
news and updates.