Content:
• The first app (Sums app, easy start)
• Tic tac toe/Nought and crosses
• Homework ( planets app)
• The most recent app ( connect 4)
4 apps to show a learning journey for a 9 year old. Could an adult new to the platform do the same?
Below are the questions and answers from the October 2021 Meetup Session.
Q. Tell us a bit about yourself? – City, family, hobbies, job title
A. I live in Milton Keynes in the United Kingdom. I’ve been married for 16 years and I have 2 boys. I coach both their football teams. I also enjoy playing korfball? Korfball is a Dutch sport that is often described as a mix between basketball and netball. The special thing is that it is the only true mixed sport in the world.
Q.Tell us something about yourself that not many people know about you?
A. I used to play draughts and won the Dutch junior championships with our team when I was 17 years old
Q. What does a typical workday look like for you?
A. I work at a company call HybrIT Services in the UK. Typical working days don’t really exist for me. I respond to a lot of question on my blog. Since, I’ve opened the chat on SharePains.com I’ve had a chat with nearly 2000 people. That is in less than 18 months. On top of all of that I deliver project work related to any of the technologies that I work with.
Q. 1st job out of college
A. My first proper job was at OSM in the UK. I looked after the helpdesk solving people’s problems with their Unix systems.
Q. Your 1st version of SharePoint that you experienced and what year
A. SharePoint 2007 was the first version that I used. Then being completely new to SharePoint, I followed a 5 day course on how to install SharePoint and how to look after SharePoint. 14 years later, that course seemed to have been a very good investment.
Q. Last challenging project and why? (this should relate to your demo)
A. Fileshare to SharePoint migration. With the infrastructure about to be thrown away, it first had to be upgraded to make a migration possible.
Q. What is the biggest mistake that your feel holds back your clients from the results they want (this should relate to your demo)
A. Power Platform licensing. So often clients buy Microsoft 365 licenses and think that all is included. Standard Power Automate and Power Apps may be there but premium features are not available to them. Then as clients start to implement the Power Platform they find out their real requirements and they will miss the ability to connect into for example SQL or Dataverse.
Q. Describe a SharePoint train wreck project, and what did you learn?
A. The earlier mentioned fileshare project is a good one to mention. When clients want to migrate away from old hardware don’t expect to find decent hardware.
Q. Your favorite M365 feature/tool and why
A. If you are asking strictly about a tool then SharePoint Migration Tool and SharePoint Migration Manager could be the answer, but if you read my blog you will know that Power Automate and Power Apps are my favourite tools to write about.
Q. Where do you think Microsoft is going with M365.. Be totally honest
A. There are so many new things that arrive all the time. If I compare 16 years ago, where SharePoint updates would arrive hardly ever, with now. Updates seem to arrive on a daily basis. In recent years, I’ve been focusing on the Power Platform, SharePoint, Dynamics, Azure, Teams and anything related. In other words, I’ve not focused at all, as it becomes almost impossible to focus on one without using the others. I would expect Microsoft to make the integrations between their technologies better and make it even more important for people to do all rather than just one.
Q. What was your first job out of hire school
A. Helpdesk at OSM
Q. What's your biggest nightmare project you have worked on … And what did you learn from this experience
A. It must be a very long time ago.
Q. What’s the best and worst tech advice you’ve been given
A. You would have to ask my clients that question.
Q. What are you working on to become a developer/consultant / CTO
A. Everything and far too much. I’ve never really set myself targets. Being free from targets makes me exceed the targets others would set for themselves every day.
Q. Where do you want to be in 5 years?
A. In a world without Covid
Q. What's your blind spot in your Microsoft knowledge? Pitfalls
A. Not sure, but I might work on that tomorrow.
Q. Where do you source your knowledge? - Twitter- who do you follow, site urls
A. Google and my own blog, sharepains.com. It’s got over 800 posts and more than 1,000,000 visitors a year.
Q. In your mind, if there was 1 song that could describe Sharepoint, what would it be? - David Bowie - Heroes
A. Another brick in the wall by Pink Floyd. SharePoint itself doesn’t do much, unless you use some of the many bricks available. But the bricks keep changing all the time.
Q. Where can people find you?
A. On SharePains.com. The chat is always open and I will respond when I can. Or twitter @PieterVeenstra
