Welcome to the MVP show . My intention is that you listen to the stories of these MVP guests and are inspired to become an MVP and bring value to the world through your skills . If you have not checked it out already , I do a YouTube series called how to Become an MVP . The link is in the show notes . With that , let's get on with the show .
Today's guest is from the wonderful country of Italy . Just quietly , my wife and I's favorite country in the world if we weren't living where we were would be Italy . He is currently working as a self-employed consultant , focusing on Microsoft 365 and the Power Platform . He was first awarded as MVP in 2023 . He's curious and passionate about problem solving .
I love that word , curious . He also loves traveling and meeting new people . You can find links to his bio and socials in the show notes for this episode . Welcome to the show , Angelo .
Hi , hi , Thank you for inviting me . I'm really really happy for this .
Excellent , angelo , you live in the most amazing part of the world outside of where I live , so much so that I'm coming to live in Italy for at least a month to six weeks next year with my family , just because there's so many conferences and stuff going on that I want to get involved with , and it's a long way to fly from New Zealand all the way to where
you are . So we thought , hey , why don't we make Italy our base for whatever we do across Europe for those six weeks ? But tell me about what part of Italy you're in .
So , yeah , I live in Italy . I live in a small town around 100 kilometers north of Milan , in a quiet area surrounded by nature , near the Italian Alps , so I think this location is really , really beautiful and peaceful .
Sounds amazing , like everything in Italy . Tell me food , family and fun . What do you ?
Tell us a bit about your family , what do you do , what's your favorite food and if there's any cuisine that you recommend that I should partake of next time in Italy , in Italy , and then do you do for fun , so kind of like everything that you don't do as part of your job , tell us a bit about that .
I really enjoy Italian food , of course , especially pasta and pizza topped with cheese or mushroom . I can suggest you pasta alla carbonara if you come back to Italy again , and I also have a soft spot for hamburgers . It's not Italian food , typical Italian food , but I like it .
And on the family side , I've been happily married to my wife for 11 years this year and I am a handful of two new few whom I absolutely adore . And from the fun side , I am passionate about music .
I play guitar and I'm currently trying to learn piano , but I don't have much time to spend on this activity , unfortunately , and having true is quite a challenging activity , so it's really difficult . I also love to participate as a speaker at conferences where I can share knowledge and experience and especially meet new people who inspire me .
It's a fulfilling way to combine my professional expertise with my personal interest , and then I can give you other information . I go to gym when I have time , so basically , I'm not a really supportive person . Basically , I go to gym one day a week .
Yes , this is cool . This is cool hearing your story . How big is the Power Platform community in Italy ?
We have a community in the north of Italy . We have a community in the north of Italy .
I'm also part of Power Platform Bootcamp Organizator and I love the community because we try to help each other If you have a question or problems , other if you have a question or problems and we help each other to our journaling challenges , like in in business applications right which , uh , is where I sit as well as an mvp .
One of the longest standing mvps in our community is Giorgio , and you know he's from the south of Italy . Have you met him ? Do you know who he is ?
What is his name ?
I knew you were going to ask me that . It's impressive for me that I can remember that it's Giorgio . Now you're asking me to remember his last name . Hang on , I will look it up while we talk . He's , I think , one of the longest standing MVPs in business application maybe 15 , 16 years . He owns his own company down there .
He runs a business that and he's done a lot in the community in Italy and across Europe as well . Me many times . I need to visit the south of italy , um , have a proper pizza that he reckons they make the best , best pizza in the world down there , and uh , um , yeah , so I'm looking forward . Hopefully I'll get to catch up with him next year .
Just depends on timing , because I know he does a lot of travel as well . Um , what was your journey into it ? How ? How did you decide IT was a career that you wanted to do ?
Well , I started to use my first computer when I was a child . I love programming and I'm always passionate about technologies , software developing and what all around technologies . I currently work as a self-employee consultant .
My specializing area is power platform , of course , and also SharePoint platform , of course , and also SharePoint , and I am in IT industry around 16 , 17 years . So I have 17 years in IT industry as experience and I am also Microsoft certified and trained .
And I started my current as an AspNet and SQL Server developer with NET C Sharp and then I moved my focus on SharePoint from 2010 . And I am on Power Platform from four years five years when it was available .
So who introduced you first to the Power Platform ? What was the first time in your memory that you come across the Power Platform from your perspective ?
started to develop some application to try the platform when the platform was published for the first time and I was impressed to the simplicity and the possibility to create a quick application and the possibility to quickly develop and deliver application for customer . But I love the possibility to focus on the business processes .
But how did you first hear about the Power Platform ? Can you remember the day , kind of , when you first came across it ?
I don't remember it was around , you don't remember ? No , I don't remember . It was around four years ago or five years ago .
You're freelancing right . How long have you been a freelancer ? One year .
One year in October . Why did long have you been a freelancer ? One year , one year in .
October . Why did you decide to become a freelancer ?
After I went to MVP , because I like to work for myself , because I can choose I can choose the project , project , I can choose the customer and basically I'm . I work for passion , I love my , my job , so I like to work for myself . And when I become an SMVP , I decided to change after 15 years to switch to self-employee consultant .
And so I get a lot of questions from people asking about becoming a freelancer and and and like . One of the big questions is um , how do you decide to make that first move ?
Like because people are worried , right , if you've got a mortgage and your family and things like that , the the security that you get from working for a company goes away , right , you're now you and it's only you , and you have to stand out in the world . Did you have those fears , you know , at the start , when you decided to go freelance ?
I understand the question . I was scared too , but I think that if you have a lot of competence , you should focus on the competence , and when you know what you do , I think you can't have a problem Because you have the focus , you have the knowledge from your side and when you have knowledge you can do what you want .
I like this . I like this Now . When we talked about Giorgio before , it's Giorgio Garcia Andrea is his name . And then my other good friend is Guido . Do you know Guido ?
No , I don't know .
These two guys have been two MVPs in Italy for as long as I can remember .
I am looking to the LinkedIn lincoln , but I I don't know , I don't know this guy .
Okay , georgio garcia agreda have you got him yeah ?
no , uh , I .
I see this guy for the first time he's been a , he's a , he's been a mvp for 17 years , wow , wow , like that's OG man , that's like right from the beginning . And then Guido , he's another legend . 10 years .
He's a legend , yeah .
Yeah , guido , in the program . So let's go back to freelancing , because the next big question I get constantly from folks is I don't sell . How do I sell myself Like I'm not a seller ?
Right , I'm really good at my skills , I'm really good at knowing what I know , but I don't know how to market so that people know who I am and that I'm available , and then I don't know . Then how do you ?
Yeah , so let's ask that one first of all how do you pick up new clients , how do you make them aware that you exist , that you have this specific set of skills and how you can help them ?
So it's not a simple task to serve yourself , because it's another kind of skill . It's another kind of skill because , basically , we are technical people in love with technical technologies . So from my point of view , I used to do it before , but for the company .
So it's not a big jump for me , but I know it's not simple because it's not a hard skill , it's a soft skill and you should work on your soft skill every day . I think also , to be part of a community , of a community .
If you do a lot of conferences , a lot of article , a lot of articles , blog posts on the internet , so customers see your face , see your activity , can help to sell yourself easily , in my opinion .
So let me just check this . So your customer , you've got only one customer .
No , I spent most of my time for the company of my friend Fabio Franzini . He's also a famous Italian MVP .
But I have other customers , italian MVP , but I have other customers and they met me from previous experience or from conferences and for this reason it's too simple to work for them and to find other customers , to work for them and to find other customers .
Very interesting . I noticed that you did a post recently and it was around the design kit , the Creator Kit .
sorry , oh yes , the Creator Kit . Yes , yes , I studied the Creator Kit deeply , especially before the modern controls coming , because I like Power Apps . But I know some of my customers don't like the graphical aspect of the applications .
So for this reason I found the Creator Kit and I started to do a lot of conference , a lot of speech session around the Creator Kit , because I used it for most of my application . Of course , Creator Kit is based on the same graphical aspect of Microsoft 365 . So it's too simple to show your application created .
So it's too simple to show your application created with the Creator Kit in the Microsoft 365 context . So I really like it and , to be honest , I use it also today for some of my application .
For example , I use the detail list Because I think they give me the possibility to do the same user experience of , for example , SharePoint list , Because it uses the same graphical components . So for my customer , it is too simple to use my application with the same graphical aspect of Microsoft 365 .
So do you get into using Figma at all ?
No , I don't use it . No , I know , but I don't use it .
I think , when it comes to UI , Figma is the most unbelievable compelling tool that you should have if you want to create amazing UI on Power Apps .
Wow , I should study it sooner or later .
Yeah , the reason like I had a guy on a call this morning who I did a module on ui and ux and and part of my 90 day mentoring challenge and I showed him sorry and part of what I show there is a figma drawing of an app that everybody that looks at it goes man , that's amazing . I bet you can't build that in power apps .
And then in the next screen I bring up , as I bring up , the power app . The Power App is identical to the Figma design and people are just like I didn't know Power Apps could look this good , I did not know that that is . It looks like a proper iPhone application or Android application . It doesn't look like a Power App , right and so .
But I have always used for people that really know Figma well , you've got to get really and are creative and stuff . And then what I found is that when I took those Figma designs to then my development team , my Power App development team , the first thing they were saying , oh , you can't do that .
And I'm like , give it a go , try and do everything that's in this interface and you tell me , guess what ? Not a single thing they couldn't do every so when I switch and people go oh my gosh , like I'll interact with the app .
It's like here's a fully functional app that's the figma , and they cannot believe that that is the app because it looks so identical to the design that was done on Figma .
Wow interesting . Should I try it ? Yeah , you should try it . Do try it .
I see you speak at a lot of conferences . You have a lot of events that you cover . Do you enjoy public speaking ?
Absolutely , absolutely , absolutely . I also have nine speaking sessions this year , so yeah , I'm really a bit tired , but I like it . I like to share my experience . I like to compare me with other people , share knowledge , collaborate with others . I think this is an opportunity to grow both personally and professionally , I I really like it .
yeah , do you have any kind of habit or process that you go through when preparing to do a presentation ? And I'm talking about how do you think about a topic ? How do you then break down that topic ? How do you , you know , decide ? Am I going to do a demo here ? Am I going to have an illustration of my concept here ? Am I just having text on slides ?
How do you go through that process ? How does it work for you ?
basically , I try to get idea from my job . So if I create a particular app or if I resolve a particular business case with a particular technologies or particular path , I try to extrapolate this idea and propose a speaking session .
Then , if the speaking session is accepted , I usually try to study and I'm looking for other information , other articles around this path or around this technology and then , especially if I should deliver my session in English I started to prepare it one week before because I'm not comfortable with English- so much more difficult , right when English is a second language
, and I fully respect people that are multilingual in this .
Anyhow , that's all we've got time for . Thank you so much for coming on the show . Perhaps I'll get to meet you in person when I'm in Italy . We might be able to have a pasta together or something like that , but it's been a pleasure talking to you , angelo .
Oh , also for me , let , but it's been a pleasure talking to you , angelo . Oh , also for me . Let me know when you come back to Italy .
Hey , thanks for listening . I'm your host business application MVP Mark Smith , otherwise known as the NZ365 guy . If you like the show and want to be a supporter , check out buymeacoffeecom forward slash nz365guide . Thanks again and see you next time . Thank you .