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 all the way from New Zealand . In fact , he's just down the road from me , so to speak . Well , at the other end of the Island of Mon , he works at Theta as a principal architect . He was first awarded as MVP in 2023 , so he's brand new into the program .
He loves playing guitar and currently taking violin lessons very unique with a seven-year-old daughter . He's author of the book Microsoft 365 and SharePoint Online Cookbook . Check that out . We probably will talk about that . You can find links to his bio , any of his social media assets , etc . In the show notes for this episode . Welcome to the show ,Sudeep .
Thanks , Mark . Thanks for having me here . Good to talk to Kiwi on the other side of the screen .
It's interesting because most of my calls are always to the northern hemisphere . It's a little less to the southern hemisphere , so good to speak to somebody in the same country . I was on the private meeting where you got welcomed into the MVP program that we run locally , which is great to see .
Tell me a bit about when you're not doing MVP stuff , when you're not doing work . Tell me a bit about food , family and fun . What do they mean to you ?
Yeah , so I'll first talk about my family . So I live here with my wife and two kids . My parents and my brother are in India , in a state called West Bengal . And what I do in the free time ? Well , like you already mentioned , I love music . So I sing , play guitar and play violin to some extent , so it's more like a creative outlet for me .
And my other keen interest is in astronomy , and it's because it's a culmination of all the knowledge that we have acquired and it's like the last frontier and all these mundane things like our egos , our material achievements they just like vanish when you look at this night sky .
So I listen to lectures by Neil deGrasse , tyson , lawrence Cross , brian Green and all those guys . So those are my key interests , if so to say .
And so that comes on . What under the heading of astrophysics ? Is it Astrophysics ? That's great . Yeah , nice , nice .
Neil deGrasse , and man , a legend , man , that guy , the stuff that he comes out with , and it does you know , because some of his shows , when you listen to it , you realize how much of a spec you are on the landscape of the universe , right as an individual .
And the good thing about his how he makes it sound so easy . Like you can't get your head around some of these concepts in astrophysics , but he makes them appear so easy , so that's what I like about them .
Yeah , so true . Tell us about your book .
Yeah . So I wrote this book along with one of my colleagues ex-colleagues who I used to work with and we were being approached by a publisher . He asked us if he would like to work on this book .
It was a big challenge to begin with , because my son was born in the same year and I was handling multiple things , but in my mind I just thought that I should give it a try . I don't know if I'll be able to write another book in my life , so why not give it one go ?
So eventually , that book did well , and now I'm working on the second edition of the book , which is due to be published later this year .
So why are you working at Theda ? Surely you should be retired by now with all those royalties from your book .
No , no , I love the work that I do . It just keeps that creative thing in you burning . That's the reason I love . I don't know if there are many people who love what they do , but I certainly do . Yeah , I enjoy my work .
Love it . Perfect , I was actually . I was joking there about how writing a book makes you rich because it doesn't right . You don't earn a lot of money off your book writing .
No , and you end up paying more taxes , that's all .
Yeah , yeah . Do you have more people download the Kindle version or more people get the paperback ?
When I last looked at the report , the Kindle versions were sold more than the paperbacks .
Yeah , yeah , and that makes sense , right ? People , particularly from I , want to search . I want to jump into a particular recipe that you created in that book . You want to be able to do it quickly or search it up rather than , you know , thumb through and I mean and having those books on your bookshelf .
You know I had to get rid of my like those big type of cookbooks a long time ago because they take up so much space . Yeah , okay , that's cool . That's cool and I think you know it's an admirable . You know honor to get a . You know the title of author . Get that out there .
I see you've had 224 ratings , a 4.4 out of five stars , so the book's obviously done very well , yeah , yeah , and that's prompted me to write the second one . So that's yeah , that's it Is it going to be an extension of this one , or are you going to lean heavily into Power Automate ?
It is going to be . There would be some recipes that will be obviously updated based on the new stuff that has been released . Covers some aspects of AI . It is going to have chapters on Viva , which wasn't there back then . So there's some additions to the book , yes , but some of the content would be the same .
It's just an updated version of that last book .
In this book you covered Power Automate formerly Microsoft Flow , power Apps , power BI , power Virtual Agents . Do you go deeper on any of those more than something like Office Delve ? Is Office Delve still a thing , that people still use that functionality ?
No , so Delve is going to be in the appendix in this book .
Yeah .
Like Power Automate , power Apps , they deserve a book of their own . So it's not possible to cover all the aspects in just one chapter . So it is going to be what I've tried to do . There is , try to cover the main aspects of these applications but at the same time add some insights that comes from the experience that you have gained working on this .
So giving them some tips that , if you're trying to do this , probably try this way , not that way , that sort of thing .
Yeah , so are we going to see a dedicated chapter to co-pilot .
Not a dedicated chapter , probably a mention , because it's evolving , so not that much . We are at the stage where we're trying to limit . That was another challenge with this book that this Office 365 space is so rapidly emerging that it's very hard to keep up with it when you're writing a book .
Yeah , All of Eva products . Yesterday at Ignite , they announced , of course , the co-pilot for Office 365 , which is another add-on skew which is going to impact a lot of those traditional products like Excel and PowerPoint and Word , which I think is awesome because they need to upgrade .
There's so much more that you can do now with these large language models and applying them with the technology . I think your book is definitely robust , I see , as in the broadness of topics that it covers In the Power Platform space . What's your go-to tool ? Do you do more Power BI stuff ? Do you do more Power Automate stuff ? What's your deep skill area ?
Is it one or two of those products ? How do you describe it for yourself ?
Yeah , it's primarily Power Automate . Obviously , with Power Automate comes Power Apps . I would say Power Apps and Power Automate . That's my core skill .
In your career have you worked much with Nintex ?
Yes , I have .
K2 , those type of products .
I haven't used K2 as much , but I have worked with Nintex quite a bit .
Are they all irrelevant now that we have the power platform ? Power automate forms over data using power apps .
You know I often think that question like it might be very hard for the Nintex sales team to make a sales pitch now with power automate being there and and I mean back when I used Nintex , licensing was one of the key concerns and this when they brought the subscription model , it was getting even harder for me to Push Nintex to a customer when I'm talking to
them . But with power automate , there are these connectors , available connectors , and and obviously licensing is again another aspect when it comes to premium license and not this is an all , but I haven't Felt the need to move away from power automate at this stage . I think it's a pretty good platform at the moment .
Yeah , I totally agree . And and when it comes to licensing , being the licensing is so reasonable when you do a true ROI calculation On it , the benefits far outweigh the cost and the value that you get . How did you become an MVP ?
Yeah , so I mean I have been actively Participating in the community since 2019 . I used to run a user group as your user group as well in Christchurch and I would blog about teams , sql , power , bi and etc . And I got nominated back then , but my nomination was unsuccessful . I was told that I am all over the place .
I have to pick one dedicated area for contributions , and so I directed all my focus to the power platform and Eventually , my contributions got noted . I received my first MVP this year and hopefully continues .
Nice , nice . And I just realized at the start , when I introduce you , I said you're at the other end of my island , but I'm in the North Island and you're in the South Island , right in Christchurch . That's great . Yeah , how long you've lived in Christchurch .
I I have lived over 10 years now . I arrived here in 2012 .
Wow , so you've seen a lot of rough times then , and then did you come after the earthquake or before ? I ?
came just after , right after the earthquake . So I was been asked this question that are you making a good decision to move to New Zealand now that , yeah ? Yeah , I'm sure yeah , but I think I made the right decision . I love this place and I Love I wouldn't move away from Christchurch . I don't want to move anywhere else at the moment .
Yes , yes , beautiful city , beautiful city . Just just a shame . All that , the tragedy it's had and in , really , the last 12 , 13 years combined , tell me you win you . Were you surprised at anything when you joined ? You know , you became an MVP . Is anything been a surprise to you now that you're , you know , part of the club ?
No , I wouldn't say that it's still overwhelming . There's so many invitations that I receive like on different about these teams , invites for PGI events and all . So it's it's . I'm still getting my head around . What are the things I should be participating in ? What is I should be staying away from ? So how to use my time in a better way .
Yeah , yeah . What's the needs talking about ? There are .
As an MVP , you get access to the Microsoft product teams of various product groups and you get to have live sessions with them as part of being an MVP , give them feedback and inside about the product before it's released all of another NDA , but , of course , very insightful and Very helpful to one's career and where you spend your time or where you spend your
focus , based on what you see happening , as , as you've got , you know , moved into this role . What do you see as the greatest Contributor to you receiving the MVP ? Was it the book ? Was it your contributions in the forums ? Was it blogging videos ? What was it for you ?
For me it was primarily my book and the contributions in the Power Automate forums . So I've been on the leaderboard for quite some time and Probably I think that's the primary reason why I got my MVP . I see my MVP this year .
Yeah , yeah , totally makes sense . It's interesting that you said and I'll in , it just came back to me . You said before that you were all over the place when it was , you know , came to your submission . One of the things I've highlighted is that if you want to become an MVP for the first time , you need to Choose a lane and stick in the lane .
In other words , you need to . If it's gonna be a zoo , go all in on Azure . If it's gonna be m365 , go well one . And that . If it's gonna be power platform or dynamics , go all in on that .
You can't afford to be a little bit here , a little bit there across all those technologies because when , when Microsoft come to making the decision about choosing , it's very difficult to them to go okay , who chooses there ? Is this enough for that category ? And if you're spread thinly , you don't get enough Compared to everybody else performing .
So now , once you're in , that changes . Once you're in , you can start to diversify , and so it doesn't mean you have to .
You know , if you're a , if you love Whole bunch of stuff around , mixed reality and as well as power platform or something else , doesn't mean you can't continue to explore that , just when it comes to your contribution , commitments at the start , it's really important to be focused on the one one area . So who nominated you ?
I was nominated by Nate . He's also an MVP , he's in the States and he's writing this book with me .
Oh , very good . So the second book you're writing , he's , it's it's three of us me , nate and Gaurav .
Ah , gotcha , gotcha .
Very good , very well .
It's easier when you're splitting the workload right across three Third of the book each yes , yes , and , and we wanted to everyone to focus on one particular area so that we can cover everything , in that we can be across everything that's going on in that space .
I like it . I like it very smart , very smart . I , how deep are you personally getting into the area of AI ?
Not much . I'm still exploring . I would say I'm in the exploratory phase . I'm just trying to come up with use cases real use cases that we could have for AI . I look at all the case studies that people are doing with AI . Some of that is scary but at the same time some of that is quite innovative . I'm just exploring the area .
I haven't done much on that as yet .
I'm talking about personally here rather than in business . Are you using it in any part of your day-to-day life ? Or perhaps you are using it in business , but I'm not talking about as part of a piece of power , automate or something else . Are you practically using it to make your life more productive yourself ?
Yes , certainly with chat GPT . It's so much easier to use it . I've been using chat GPT when I'm doing SPFX component . I'm not a good developer , I would say , but now , as long as you can explain what you're trying to do , you can get it to do that for you . I think it's a very good enabler .
It helps you as long as if you know in your head what you're trying to do , you can get it done with things like this .