Ferran Chopo on The MVP Show

[mark]: 1:37
today's guest is from spain one of my favorite countries in the world s a solution expert for the power platform at plan b he was first awarded as MVP in twenty twenty two so really recent he's a proud ember of the share point music group in barcelona you can find links to his bio social show notes et cetera in the show notes for this episode welcome with the show ferret

[ferran_chopo]: 2:00
thank you thank you very much mark it's a pleasure to be here

[mark]: 2:04
it's good to have you here so you're based on barsalon and now i take it

[ferran_chopo]: 2:09
they based in pasolona you know nice city we have sunny weather and night food as it as well

[mark]: 2:18
great food great food tell us about what you do when you're not when you're not involved in no microsoft in the technology space what do you do for you know when it comes to family what do you do socially like what do you do do you have hobbies or anything like that and what's the best food that you recommend you eat in barcelona

[ferran_chopo]: 2:40
it was okay well i like to join my family and have a kid he's two years and a half actually he was born when we were locked down here in spain we were locked down on a saturday evening and he was born on tuesday so we were alone in the hospital you know it was different um i like to have freedom with my family and i also enjoy running and playing basketball play basket with some other colleagues on every en at night it's a way to free our minds and yeah relax our bodies so i like to do this kind of thing and i would recommend in basalona you know we have on let totatepatats we said that in cateran tra and some beat with tomato yeah that's that kind of foot it's the most i love most last one

[mark]: 3:53
in your mind what's what's barcello the most famous for

[ferran_chopo]: 4:00
good question i guess because of the weather the food and it's a very open citiumin uh i'm just thinking but loalythatyeah open city but different cultures different people around the world from the olympic it's been like yeah thirty years but it changed the city a lot and yeah i would say that that it's a very different in of cultures and people living around place to to visit on an police as well

[mark]: 4:44
yeah very nice so how did you get into technology

[ferran_chopo]: 4:52
well when i was very young i had like some colic hut in a spectrum computer and i said oh this is i was on so my my father bought me hit beat from sonny and computer so start playing video games with that a computer i'm from now from there i said oh i want to be able to build not only games but maybe some day applications or from very young i had a clear view of what i wanted to do so here so that's that's it so about me did this kind of computer and then i had to six you know what one memory of one no one megaviteof memory well sixty sixty six and forty five forty forilalits and yeah meglites had this and yeah so we started in technology from very early stage very early like i was fourteen i think or years old so yeah study university computer science start working always on mike so microsolicro system microsopproducts

[mark]: 6:25
did you how did you end up you know in your current role i take it you're doing things with their power platform and power raps and things like that how did you end up being here

[ferran_chopo]: 6:41
okay it's been a long journey i started working as said with microsoftechnologies in nineteen ninety eight so started working with pico basic um squilserva then a project came up with shirt on server twenty two thousand and three so then i discovered i found at shirtpin and i started working with shirt from that version from there working all during all these years when the poor platform i an i was really amazed with paul to mate i thought this is a great deal great product even with outporaps as well but i fell in a lot i would say with potomac so i started blogging posting on getting involved in the poleiuternate community so here again i'm member of the super user group in the prooltimate community posting answers to questions from users on and yeah i started working with a platform it's really i would say it's it has a gross relation with microsophpvty five with shirt point but now with teams and all the other products so started working with the port platform i guess two or three years ago three years ago i would say

[mark]: 8:16
so we're fully in love with power automat and creating flows there any flows that you have created for your personal life as an outside of doing for customers

[ferran_chopo]: 8:31
that's interesting i started work well i started i created a word flow for myself but just to learn so i used proto make to get as i said i i love basketball so where there were the finals in spain basketball finals i created a bull to make water flow to get some high stacks and then send sentiment analysis from those twits and those rash sticks to port in create some dashfort and this was amazing because i like basketball and it was i was really interesting but apart from that i've done nothing personally there's a new device called not new there's a device called click baron or lake i think they would like to to use it for some personal worth but said as i said i did nothing apart from that ye

[mark]: 9:35
and have you used it you know what's the most yeah when you when you think of power automate and let's say you take the other office productivity sweet so whether it be word excel outlook power point have you written any flows that touch any of these type of applications or are they more all in relation to share point dat verse and other systems

[ferran_chopo]: 10:05
no no i also thought as you said yeah you mentioned like war flows where you for instance one of the last i were sayin nvolved it was interesting it was about reading when you receive an email reading the signature in outlook being the signature on trying extract information from that signature and create a contact in your other book so that's how did we get the the contact information using some models in ida so that was really cool i had to train a wilder model but it's working on just creating the contact in your address book from from that senator information that's that's really cool and interesting as well

[mark]: 11:06
nice when when we look at power automat you know there's a lot of use cases where organizations use it to audomate a business process of some sort and so i see that is like you know enterprise a company wide automation and it might you know as i say carry out business rules and automation what about on the personal productivities are you seeing many people use power automate to make them more productive in their day to day work activities

[ferran_chopo]: 11:36
that's a good question because i've seen a scenario or business case where they use it mainly for it's a business case for a team but not for personal productivity but i guess that may be in the future when they realize they have to slide to do microshave to do or instead of using planner for for the task of the thing for the personal staff that are like using to do or even microsop teams and sending educations to themselves when something occurs that would be interesting but honestly i haven't seen i haven't seen many from that personal activity perspective yes

[mark]: 12:20
yeah tell us about the most you know in your mind what your kind of how how would i say this automation that you've created that you i know your reference back in your mind you're like yeah that was really cool what i did there or you know that was really powerful whether it was a discovery you made or something that was quite complex a kind of what comes to mind

[ferran_chopo]: 12:49
testing question many world flows the well the most charging one have been working with the church sharping last i worked with one that i had to get some data and up date some big sharpin list and when i say big i it was like a hundred columns hundred and twenty columns i think oh does he really exist yes why i don't know they have short list with a hundred and twenty columns so we had to up date some items using paltomate and it was yeah it was hallenging this is the most challenging one i recall because in the end i ended up using shirponrest a p i yes because using the common actions that we have it was not working very smoothly i would say

[mark]: 14:01
yeah interesting so you become an MVP what was that journey for you how did you become an v p

[ferran_chopo]: 14:11
yeah that's that's been really an exciting journey i remember in twenty seven thing there was a short saturday in madrid i said okay i'm going to send just to deliver session i've never done that before about porltomate it was it was called microsofflow and it was really a real new product so yeah then there i i my first session on from there i start working with different user groups but the main user group in inbarsalona as so dot car it's sharon user group catalonia um then we have different events like her satabasalona now is called coludays so tart being involved in community events just organizing or delivering some sessions and even uhcovorating i also write some articles in magazine spanish magazine called compartinos de sea charpin so started writing blocking working in these different communities and yes i was awarded this this year on january is this year so with b like five years for and a half i've been i was rejected a couple of times i think a couple or three times before being awarded so it's i would say that in my case it was it was really hard to get but this i'm very proud for this then because reject t i mean i always say the same to other people that want to be an MVP you have to enjoy the journey on it tuan be a target mean you super enjoy it and if it comes that's fine if it doesn't come no problem and you have to enjoy yeah the living the decision or sharing your knowledge with community the thing i like most is is that if i'm able to help any worry in his job her job or shows that knowledge to some of the people and they well they are able to get a better job or better knowledge that's that's okay for me that's the idea

[mark]: 16:51
yeah i like it i like it did anything surprise you once you became an MVP you know wanting it for that long did once you became an MVP and you got access to vary resources did anything you know was everything what you expected or was it different

[ferran_chopo]: 17:11
honestly i'm surprised because then you have a close relationship with microsofhonestly i did the i didn't think it was so close and they probably with a lot of fumeration actually you get a lot of information and you have to have to focus on what you're interested in as a lot of information depends on that that honestly surprised me

[mark]: 17:43
yeah yeah and so have you have you found it was worth it

[ferran_chopo]: 17:50
at this moment yes i would love to go to seattle when they have the zambpsummit but i don't know with this pandemic and restrictions at this time of the year we don't know if we are going to it to go there but for sure i think that i could enjoy going there for me it's i think i guess that's the most valuable price be awarded to go there and meet people in person and meet other mbpcoliues around the world the be amazing

[mark]: 18:32
yeah maybe in twenty twenty four because i'd be surprised if it's going to happen in twenty twenty three yeah

[ferran_chopo]: 18:40
yeah you're right

[mark]: 18:42
yeah i think it must be so hard for so many MVPs you know that have become an MVP while covid has been happening or just before covid and to experience that part because yeah it's definitely the best feature of the program so yeah so hopefully i'll get to you there one day but thank you Ferran so much for coming on the show

[ferran_chopo]: 19:07
thank you thank you very much it's been an honor i really appreciate your invitation and thank you