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 Ireland . He works at Avernard as a senior consultant , modern workplace and software engineer . He has first awarded MVP in 2022 . He is a Microsoft 365 Power Platform SharePoint consultant developer , working with Microsoft Technologies since 2008 . He combined links to his bio and social media etc . In the show notes for this episode .
Welcome to the show , Michelle .
Thank you , mark , it's great to be here .
Good to have you on the show . You're from Ireland , but that name doesn't sound like an Irish name to me . Tell me a bit about where you're from .
Exactly , I live in Ireland , but I'm not from Ireland . I am from Brazil . I was born in Brazil . I worked with Microsoft Technologies for a long time , since 2008 . Then I moved to Ireland in 2018 , in the beginning of the year I was hired by an Irish company , did all my interviews online , applied for a visa . Then it was successful . I moved to Ireland .
The funny thing is that now I am MVP in Office apps and Business apps as well . When I moved to Ireland , I moved to Ireland to work only with SharePoints . I started working with the Power platform in my SharePoint job . Then , as soon as time passed , I was more involved with BizApps . Now I fully work only with BizApps , not SharePoint anymore .
What a transition . Does that mean you're no longer building with SharePoint as a back-end or using Dataverse for everything , or are you still using SharePoint as your ?
Now , currently the project I am working with is PowerPages based on Dataverse only . There are the few SharePoint integrations , but the core of it is just Dataverse .
Tell me a bit about living in Ireland . What part of Ireland do you live ? Is your family with you ? What do you do for fun ?
Dublin . I moved to Ireland by myself . I was single at that time . It was a good point in my life to leave everything behind and move . What I like to do for fun ? I like to meet friends and maybe go out for drinks , go to the gym that's pretty convenient . How can I say Not convenient ? Traditional stuff , nothing special . I like to go to rock concerts .
That's one thing I'd like to highlight about myself . I'm a big fan of metal concerts and rock concerts here in Dublin .
It was good for me because I could go to a lot of rock gigs here which I couldn't go to the city , in the city I lived in Brazil , because most of the best bands they used to go only to Sao Paulo and Rio and not to the city I lived .
It was a good opportunity here as well to me To go to rock concerts and also to travel around Europe , which is something I really love to do when I'm on holidays .
So all of those concerts , are they in Dublin or , as you say , across Europe ? It's just so easy to jump on Ryanair and be in some other place quickly .
I went to one concert outside of Ireland only . All of the other concerts I usually go there in Dublin . There's a lot of good concerts in Dublin . Have you done the electric picnics ? I've never been to electric picnics . Do you believe that ?
Wow , I've been to the electric picnics .
There's lots of big bands like Metallica , Slipknot .
They all come to Dublin .
They all come to Dublin .
Now you say you get out and like to have a drink , you wouldn't be able to be hard pressed to find a good place to drink in Dublin , wouldn't it ?
It's really hard to find , it's really hard to choose one actually .
Which one do you choose ? Where do you go to ? There's just so much choice , right ?
Yeah , anywhere around Temple Bar yeah . Yeah but there's a . There's a pub that I like a lot here . It's called the porterhouse . Like I'm doing free merchandising for the food because this it's a . It's a local , local Irish pub and they do their craft beers . It's my favorite one , you know .
Yeah , yeah . No , it's a great city . I do love it . My wife used to go there for a lot of her job . Well , we were living in London , and so I just tag along , just so as you can say you go drinking Temple Bar , and I'd always make sure our hotel was in Temple Bar . So yeah , good times .
Yeah , and it's good because I live close to the city center so you know easy to go and come to Forbes . Yeah do you use the loose much , lou , as you mean the trim . Yeah sometimes , yeah , sometimes .
When I worked at Microsoft there , I always found I would always take that out to the Microsoft campus from town .
You worked in Ireland from Microsoft , or do you work in the UK , and you used to , on Thailand ?
No , I was actually when I did some work for Microsoft in Ireland . I was actually working in Australia and they paid for me to fly up to Dublin for a week and train a whole bunch of Microsoft partners in in Ireland around .
Back then it was Dynamics 365 architecture of my training courses on for a week and then , and yeah , so I stayed in in the right in the center of town and would go out on the loose each day to To Microsoft .
Yeah , I think that's the easiest way to go to the Microsoft office here . Yeah , I can easily go from the place I live to Microsoft's office by getting the Lewis . Yeah , it's the quickest , quickest .
So back in Brazil . How did you get into it ? Oh Sorry , one thing , one question what's the best drink ? What's the best Brazilian drink to drink ?
That's Brazilian drink to drink , I would say I'm not . To be honest , myself I'm not a fan of that . But I would recommend you try Kipirinha because everyone likes it . I Like . I just like beer . Honestly . I would like Brazilian beer but , to be honest , I'm not a big fan of Brazilian beers . To be honest , it's a hard to recommend .
Yeah , kipirinha's , you can't go past those . I always carry all the ingredients . I can make one anytime in my bar . But do you like it ? Do you like your Guinness ?
I like Guinness . Yeah , I Like Guinness , and the Irish people are gonna complain about me because I love Heineken as well , so I like Guinness . I think my favorites are Guinness and Heineken . It's totally different . But if you mean that about the main stream beers , you know yeah , well , I was there , a member guy told me a joke .
He said what's a seven course Irish dinner ? And it was a six pack of , yeah , seven pork course Irish dinner is a six pack of Guinness and the bowl of potatoes . I , it was an Irishman that told me that joke . So , yeah , yeah , I do remember it . Do remember it . Tell me what was your . How did you get into IT and M365 , sharepoint , that type of thing ?
What was that journey for you ?
To be honest , my story is a bit awkward , because when I started studying for college I wasn't sure of what I would like to do , but I really liked to play with computer software and things like that . I did computer science . I studied computer science . At that point I didn't enjoy too much my college , but I was . You know . I didn't know what to do .
I didn't know what to do , so I had to do a college course . I prefer to do that course than to do nothing , and it was on a federal university in Brazil , so I didn't have to pay to study . But at the end of the day , I think I learned a lot during my course and then I got a job in a Microsoft partner .
I never touched anything Microsoft during my college course . So , like in my college course , I learned a little bit of HTML , js , css . I used to play with PHP . I learned how to program in Java . I never worked with any of those tech , but then I moved to that company and they hired me in a process that was a trainee process .
So they basically hired people with no experience and they trained them in Microsoft for Microsoft technologies for two or three months or so , and then I joined that company as aNET developer . I worked for one year and a half or so as aNET developer and then SharePoint started to be trendy and they needed developers to work with SharePoint .
So they kind of picked up the guys that . I think that they seem to be persons that were willing to learn a new technology , and then they moved to the I forgot the name of the department , but it was like SharePoint team or something like that . Then I started to work as a SharePoint developer slash consultant . That was working like that until 2017 .
And even in 2017 , I had started with some contacts with Power Platform , but really few projects that I touched . I used a bit of Power BI . I developed some Power Automate flows , some small things in Power Apps , but really basic . And then that was the move that I moved to Ireland .
Then I started to be more focused like divide , my focus between M2.65 and Power Platform In that company in Brazil I forgot to mention it . I started working .
Obviously , at that point it was only SharePoint on premises , and then I believe it was around 2015 , 2016 that everybody started migrating to SharePoint online and then that was the door to start working with Power Platform , because the easiest way to customize SharePoint at that point would be by creating workflows .
If you mean low-code customizations would be by using Power Platform , and I always had the approach . I was a developer , but I knew how to do things using low-code as well , so it was like a mix and match . Whatever I couldn't do with low-code approach , I would do pro-code stuff to achieve what I needed .
That's why I consider myself still a developer and consultant . I go a mix of both approaches .
What was that move like for you , going from Brazil to Ireland ? What made you think that , hey , you were going to move countries and what was the process of when I said the process , what was the technical , what was involved in actually relocating , getting a visa , all that kind of things , and going to a totally different country ?
I would like to mention one thing before I explain the whole process , because I think I didn't do the decision out of nowhere . I already had spent some time on holidays in Ireland , so I liked Dublin , I liked the city and I started thinking , hey , I could find a job here in Ireland .
Then I started applying to a few jobs online and at some point I was successfully known and the story is that company that hired me basically they asked for some paperships , some references to contact . Your references like probably you know , validative , what you're saying is true in the interviews , and all of that .
But after I sent the information to the guys , they basically filled the paperwork in the Irish government and I have to do some bits by myself , so it's like a link to the form to continue providing information . So I filled it , the HR guy submitted it and then I kept contact with him over email .
One month after that he notified me that the visa was approved . Like it's not the visa itself , it's a work permit , so it's a paper you prove that you had the job offered . Then it was approved . You can use that to enter Ireland . When you land in Ireland you have to then get that paper and apply for a visa .
Then you get like an ID card to work in Ireland . And then when I moved I kind of had to schedule the appointments with the government , as everybody has to do , get my paper , then exchange not exchange but use my paper to get my permit to live in Ireland .
And I had to move , find a house to live here , which is a bit complicated sometimes because there's not much houses to live . At that point it was okay for me because I shared a house , but it's not something I enjoy too much because that was a rough move in the beginning . Because I had my own apartment in Brazil .
I used to rent it by myself and then in Ireland , as you don't find things easily , you have to live , sometimes sharing with other people . You have to adapt a little bit , but it was in the past .
Was the reason for moving because you loved Dublin and Ireland so much , or were you wanting to get out of Brazil ?
No , I didn't have any reasons specifically to get out of Brazil . I had a good life there . It was just in terms of I wanted a different experience , living in a different country and working and living in English , and that's actually it was tough to me because when I moved I actually I learned English when I was a teenager , so I was a bit rusty Right .
I used to read a lot , watch a lot of videos . But as I joined a consultancy company , I had to ramp up really quickly to improve my English to a level that I could really work well in English and not only be a peer developer . That was initial struggle .
Have you traveled to Portugal since you've been there ?
I traveled to Portugal two times , yeah .
Yeah , do you like Portugal ?
Yeah , I loved it yeah .
I could see myself living in Porto Portugal .
I never been to Porto . I went to Lisbon and to Albufeira , which is in a region called Algarve , the beautiful beaches right .
Yes , yes , I've stayed for a week down there on the beach here . Very nice , very nice , very cool , very cool . How did you become an MVP ?
During COVID I had a friend who was already an MVP , david from Alho , and he became an MVP because of blogging Right and he kind of I forgot the exact expression but he tried to motivate me to become more active with blogging and contributing to some community samples . There is a community called the Microsoft 365 P&P . Have you heard of it ?
They publish power platform samples or SharePoint code samples and things like that . I started to become more active with my blog and contributing to that community , so I think that was the main reason that made me become an MVP . I spoke in a few conferences as well .
I'm always very active on LinkedIn and Twitter , but I believe the main reason was my blogging and online support to people , maybe answering questions on my blog on LinkedIn and all of that .
Nice . Of the suite of tools and the power platform , what's your favorite ?
Favorite , I'd say Power Apps , power Pages . It's not only one part of our pages in Power Automate .
Power Automate . Yeah , that's where you're mainly working , ms Des .
Yeah , that's my main focus now . Currently it's mainly Power Pages based on Dataverse , a bit of model-driven apps as well .
But yeah , I'm working on a project that's related to Power Pages but is heavily customized with custom JS , a lot of liquid codes in the pages as well , some integrations , which is nice for me , because I really like that pro-code set of things . I like to use Power Platform but also to be customizing real advanced development technologies or techniques .
That's it .
What advice would you give for others that want to become an MVP ?
I think , at least from what I could see , what I spoke to people when I became an MVP , from what I see to from others that became an MVP as well , is to try to make your contributions meaningful . For example , in my case , I focus on blogging because that's what I find more comfortable to do .
I think it's what I can write or produce that's more useful for the community . When I write , I write because I already have some content that I think that's useful for others . I'm not writing just because of writing . Some people I think they try to write or produce a lot of content just to get a high volume , but maybe it's not impactful .
It's nice to see , if I follow my blog , the people making comments or the views or people finding my content from Google . It's really nice that you see the reach you have with your small piece of content . I really try to focus on things you are more comfortable with and you are more passionate about .
In my case , I solve problems , write about the problems I solved or some tips . It's pretty much what I try to focus .
I notice that you have a lot of followers on LinkedIn . You've got over 11,000 followers . How have you built up that audience ?
Man . I write a lot of content for LinkedIn as well and my blog . Some of the posts , I see that , depending on the way I write , I actually try to write them very well written in a way that it's useful for people as well . I'm not only copying and pasting content , so I summarize them in a very useful way .
I just feel like sometimes LinkedIn is a platform that helps your posts to increase a higher reach . So , depending on the post I write or I publish after I post something that has a lot of likes , I see a lot of people following me and adding me as connection .
It simply grows by itself and I have the account since 10 years ago , I'd say , but I think since I became an MVP I think before I became an MVP , I had less than 3K followers yeah , and especially when I post individual , my own written content , I think it has higher reach .
It's definitely good to see that your audience is being developed because of the great content that you're producing , and I think it's a great tip there to aspiring MVPs that your stuff should be good enough that people want to read and engage with it and learn from it .
Because it actually touches the point I was mentioning about not repeating or just posting by posting . So I have my own blog posts . That's one point , and the LinkedIn content that I post I try to focus on , even on news or tips that I find relevant .
So it's just not some people for example , they have Power Automate posts that automatically post content that they find without even reviewing it . So I don't do it . I follow a lot of people then if I find something interesting , I save it , check it later , do some . I shorten the content a little bit to put what's more relevant and that's it .
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 NZ365 guy . Thanks again and see you next time