Blending Creativity and Tech - Keith Atherton's Artistic Journey through Coding, LinkedIn Learning and the Power Platform

Mark Smith: 0:37
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 United Kingdom. He works at Quorum as a senior developer. He was first awarded MVP in 2023. He is a LinkedIn Learning instructor, amazing PowerApps community super user, public speaker, blogger and mentor. He's a full-stack senior software developer and architect with over 20 years experience, mostly using the Power Platform, Azure, andNET. You can find links to his bio and social media etc. In the show notes for this episode. Anything we discuss that there's a hyperlink for we will make sure we include it there. Welcome to the show, Keith.

Keith Atherton: 1:41
Thanks, mark, it's my pleasure, thank you.

Mark Smith: 1:43
Great to have you on the show. I always like to start with getting to know you from a background perspective rather than a technology perspective. Tell us a bit about food, family and fun. What?

Keith Atherton: 1:57
they mean to you. Great questions. I think we're starting with the food. I like lots of different kinds of food. I was out last night. That was a really good meal. I like Italian food. In fact, there's so many I can't really name them. I just enjoy it, maybe a bit too much as well. I love my food. In terms of fun, I like to do drawing and painting and other creative pursuits as well. Outside it feels like a real break from the tech, apart from a few years ago I did combine it with some game development. That was a nice way of bringing the tech with the creative. That was good fun. A little known fact I have illustrated a business book which is on Amazon as well. In terms of family, I've got family in England and Scotland as well. I'm originally from England myself, hence this accent. I've moved around a bit and I've got family throughout the UK. Some are close by, some not so much I need to fly or do a seven-hour drive to see them.

Mark Smith: 2:56
Tell us a bit about that book you illustrated.

Keith Atherton: 3:00
Yeah, sure, the book is called Embrace the Space. The two authors I didn't author it, I just did the illustration. The authors are experts in their field. They do training courses for SEO and social media training. I was on one of their courses a while ago when I ran my own business. I stayed in touch with them. They actually liked the style of my artwork, which I publish on Instagram now and again. I do Inktober and a few other ventures when I get time. They approached me and said well, we'd really love this style. We're thinking of writing a book. Would you be on board in collaborating with us and providing the illustration? I was really flattered. It was a great way to spend my time. It was during the pandemic, so we couldn't really go far afield, couldn't leave the house or go too far away. It was a great way I could spend the time. I had the time available to do something like that. Yeah, it was great fun, something totally different.

Mark Smith: 3:59
Did you do the drawing, the illustrations etc on paper and then scan the moon, or did you do them straight into a tablet device and ink them there? What's your process?

Keith Atherton: 4:11
That's a great question. The work I did on Inktober and a few other things before has always been quite analog. It has actually been pen on paper or paints on paper or canvas. I did start doing that with the book, but the client even though the client was great there were a few mind changes here and there. Could we change that or change the size of this or tweak that? There was so much rework that I actually then invested in a tablet and there's an undo button. It's great. So it was really easy just to make those adjustments resize things, crop things after the picture and actually got a real really hooked on using the tablet. It was so easy to use, you could change things easily. So, yeah, it kind of converted me to using a tablet, which I use to this day.

Mark Smith: 5:00
Nice, nice. So when you say tablet, is it like a Wacom, or is that more like on an iOS tablet?

Keith Atherton: 5:09
Yeah, I actually invested in a Wacom. I did have just a graphics tablet before. There was no display on the tablet and I found there was a bit of a disconnect. It wasn't too natural for me. Again, I'm used to pen on paper, I can see where the pen goes. So I did invest in a Wacom with a display on the screen and since then I've actually acquired a surface tablet as well. So again, I bought a stylus. It's a bit more portable, so that's something I can take with me when I travel as well.

Mark Smith: 5:39
Nice, nice, interesting, very interesting. How did you get into tech?

Keith Atherton: 5:44
Yeah, good question as well. I don't have a computer science degree or an IT degree, as many others don't as well. So when I was younger and I went to college and then university in England, to be honest I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do with my career. I was still figuring things out. But I knew I like problem solving and technical questions and technical challenges. So when I went to university I decided on physics. It's something I found interesting, so lots of big challenges, lots of maths. It's quite an interesting thing you can really dig into. So I did a physics degree. Towards the end I did quite well. I was offered a PhD placement, or to consider one at least. But I knew by that stage that's not what I wanted to do for a career. And there was actually an artificial intelligence module on the degree and that involves some C++ coding and it's something that I really talked to. And it came back to that creative side of me where if I put these few commands into the script and ran it, it made the computer do stuff. It could make sounds, it could change graphics and I really got a feel for it. I thought this is so much fun. I did a bit more research into job prospects, what the industry was like and so on. Again, this was like a million years ago, but it really sounded interesting. So I managed to join a consultancy based in London for my first job, and that was a company that if I was to get a good grade in any technical subject, they would actually put me on training courses and skill me up. And they did that. They stuck to their word. It was a great start for my career and I managed to learn on the job as well as take a couple of courses through that employer to help me get started Very cool, very cool, and of course it's gone for loop because did I read correctly that you've created training on LinkedIn learning? Yes, yes, that's true. So I do have one course on there which was published last new, last November, which was Microsoft certification prep for the data platform fundamentals DP900. So I did one of four parts for that course. I'm currently recording my second LinkedIn learning course, which I think we're aiming maybe October onwards for release, but that's going really well at the moment. In fact, I was recording just before this call.

Mark Smith: 8:14
Well, is that on fabric.

Keith Atherton: 8:17
It's not on fabric, it's power platform related.

Mark Smith: 8:20
Okay, okay, just to get into the details there, because I've noticed a massive uptick since lyndacom was purchased by LinkedIn and it's gone through a journey. I started my career in IT was back in the web design days, the internet just coming out and lyndacom boomed because it taught you Photoshop, illustrator skills, everything web. Of course, linkedin learning acquired it Then. What I've particularly seen, I suppose, in the last two years, is a massive uptick of Microsoft related training courses Starting to appear on LinkedIn learning. Of course, as MVPs we get full access to all LinkedIn learning as part of our benefit package. Tell me the economics of it as in, because I've looked at creating content for your Demi, I've looked at a range of platforms and I've delivered my own e-learning courses on platform. I suppose. The other reference I have is PluralSite, which is another big training platform being around for a long time. You get paid based on watch time. Is that the same type of scenario with LinkedIn learning? Is it based on somebody completing the course, starting the course? Amount of minutes there on the course? What's their financial model for trainers?

Keith Atherton: 9:53
Yeah, it's interesting. There's so many models out there, like you say, the Skillshare, udemy, pluralsite and so on so many great platforms too. I was a fan of LinkedIn learning for a few years before becoming an instructor. It was one of those that a few years ago, the short version of this was I was looking for a new job. I thought I'll invest in LinkedIn premium and it just so happened to get me LinkedIn learning as part of the package. Then, being a lifelong learner, like many of us are in tech, I was like oh cool, I want to learn about this. You know GRPC, I want to learn about this and that and this and that kind of got hooked. And just even after doing the job search and moving on, I just kept it going because I just love learning a new thing every week and that was my goal. I was like, well, even if it's a small thing or an hour's long course people have put effort into making these courses I'll pick up a new thing. Whether I use it in the day job or as a side hustle or just never use it again, I've learned something cool. So, yeah, after a period of time, a friend of mine, gregor Sutty, who's also an MVP, actually an Azure MVP. I noticed that he published a LinkedIn learning course, so I did ask him about that, asked him about the process. He was very positive about it, as with many instructors with the platform, so I had a few introductory calls. They explained the way the monetization works there. For instructors is it's royalties based on views. Now, it's not on how long someone views the course. I think there's a period of time in it classes as a unique user has viewed the course, but whether it's a few minutes or whether they see the whole course, there is a level. I forget what it is now. There's a level of you've had a view on the course and then a royalty is calculated and then you do get statements and things to show that monetization.

Mark Smith: 12:42
And for the effort. I've worked on a model. I generally take 12 hours to produce one hour of content. You know, from a process perspective, what do you find?

Keith Atherton: 12:59
Yeah, you know that's called me out because I probably should measure it better than I do, but it feels in that ballpark of it it's somewhere eight to 10 hours, maybe more, Because, as you say, you've got the writing. That's draft one. You'll get feedback. There's tweaks, you do recording, there'll be pickups. I fluff that. I need to redo this part, I need to leave notes for the editor. This, this, this. So, yeah, you're exactly right, the amount of effort goes in. The first course I did was a learning experience to see what would I enjoy it, what I want to redo it again, and it's such a great experience and it was so good to work with that. Yeah, I took a break from it just to take a breather. Another course opportunity came up. We discussed that, you know, fell within my main core skill set power, platform related and then we went ahead, discussed it, what kind of course we were looking for, and then, yeah, we just started on this second one. But I think you're right, I should maybe record things a bit more detailed to see how worth it it is. But I think with the first course, you know you might get a long tail. You might get some consistent, you know, monthly revenue by it. Some platforms as well do provide advances on royalties as well. So I guess it depends on the platform.

Mark Smith: 14:16
In doing that learning. Do you go into a studio that is provided by LinkedIn or you know the recording because I've seen it done multiple ways. What is that process for you?

Keith Atherton: 14:30
the actual recording piece yeah, that's quite an interesting one because before the pandemic I believe that many of the instructors were actually traveling in to the studio in the sound stage based in California would do the recording there. Now I don't know if that's for worldwide instructors or maybe North America based. I'm not quite sure what the process was Because I joined during the pandemic that wasn't an option, so this won't be great radio for folks. But there's actually a remote audio recording kit I've got right here in a big flight case, so they provide the adapter, the headset and everything that you need to do the recording, with really good instructions on the process to do that recording. So for the first and the second course that I'm doing, it is using this remote process. I'll submit the files. We'll have feedback back and forth. But who knows, maybe in the future I'll get a flight to California and enjoy that sunshine again. Who knows?

Mark Smith: 15:31
Yeah, I mean it's the same. If you do work for Microsoft, you know they have full recording studio setup for that type of work. Are you on camera much or is it totally pretty much off camera? You talked about audio there, but not video.

Keith Atherton: 15:49
Yeah, that's true. So both the first course and the second course, they're all going to be audio. There's going to be screenshots with demos and a few slides as well. Good balance between the two. I won't be on camera for this one. I wasn't in the previous one as well. There will be an instructor photo just to slide. Say, hey, I'm Keith Abboton, Microsoft MVP, but no, in this course there's no, there's no actual me on the camera. But maybe in the future with the soundstage it may be a bit more personable with me on the camera. You know, and kind of a few gestures, a few screenshots like that.

Mark Smith: 16:23
This is the show me the money question Is it? Is it worth your while, like I and I I'll preface this with I talked to a lot of people at right books and and I'm talking tech books, and I don't see anybody retiring on the authoring of tech books, right, it's a massive body of work. You create a tome of of something that's obsolete in 18 months time because of the speed of change, you know and tech, and I had one friend that that wrote a book maybe 15 years ago now and when we started our careers in Microsoft business applications and for the entire history of that book and is really a book in its time. I think he was lucky if he made $15,000 ever and you know, and that was a really it was the go to book for so such a massive period of time in the dynamics 365 CRM space. What's your perception?

Keith Atherton: 17:32
I think that's a really fair comment because I've heard similar stories before, particularly with books, or some people who've gone through that process of the book has been very heavy going and said I'm glad I've done the one, but I wouldn't do one again or have them one and I'll do all this in future. But I did look into this. Maybe this is book related too, but I looked into this before. If you know, self-publishing versus going with some like you know A-Press or Pact or someone and again you know monetization may play a factor versus having the full control over the end result, you know you're the producer. Essentially, I would say with the LinkedIn Learning course it maybe depends on is the course trending? Is it the hop thing? Are you the expert in your field? Are you world renowned in that field? And I'm sure if you develop a good number of courses out there, it could maybe build up the revenue to make it really, really worth your while. But maybe that's playing the long game and having several courses. So for me right now it's not intended to replace the day job. It certainly won't anytime soon, but it's something. I've enjoyed the process and I would say the income is worth it. I would say Good.

Mark Smith: 18:47
That's a good take, as in. I've just seen a course done by a guy just on how to use LinkedIn. Right, that's like pretty straightforward how do you set up your LinkedIn profile, that type of thing. Last year he made $4 million off that course. Wow, right, that's all done in his own home studio. Just phenomenal. I suppose if you get the right topic right and the right trending because I feel like $4 million a year, you could retire on that. That's. You know. Yeah, give it a few years. Yeah, I think that could work out.

Keith Atherton: 19:26
Yeah.

Mark Smith: 19:27
I reckon. So one of the things and I'll just add a tidbit here that he does really well is in the middle of his course. He goes through writing a review process of the course and he has over 14,000 five-star reviews.

Keith Atherton: 19:47
Wow, that's impressive.

Mark Smith: 19:49
And the course costs $140. So it's not like it's expensive course, Do you know? Is this self-published.

Keith Atherton: 19:56
Oh yeah, is this based on Udemy or somewhere else? No all self-published.

Mark Smith: 20:00
Self-published, I don't think you'd make that type of coin. On Udemy, as in, udemy is such a shopping mall of. I mean, I know LinkedIn is to a degree as well, but I feel that Udemy is a next level of. You know, my concern was selling in a shopping mall. Right, let's say, I'm a jeweler. The problem is there's five other jewelers in the same shopping mall. Right, I attract the one in with my advertising and they go to the other one because the window display looked better. You know, on the day it's like that's the yeah, the trade-offs I suppose that you make. Tell me about your Power Platform journey. How did that come about?

Keith Atherton: 20:38
Yeah, that's been in recent years for me. So for most of my career it's been mostly Microsoft tech stack, but it has been varied. So my first job was actually a consultancy where we chose the tech stack depending on the customer if they had something already or we just chose the best fit. So my first job was actually Java with Oracle and I've just kind of moved around, but mostly NET and the Microsoft stack Power Platform has really been full on in the last two years. So I'd say, yeah, two years has been really consistent, week in, week out, using Power Platform, using different features, but being able to bring my pro code experience to that as well. So we need things you know in C sharp, we need plugins, we need some things that maybe have quite intense Power FX coding involved. That's where I can bring my skill set and add a bit more value. So, yeah, it's been something I've really enjoyed and really taken to as well, more than expected I would. To be honest, I think when I saw the Excel like formula language of Power FX after moving from languages with a power of you know and being able to use solid and other design patterns, I thought I don't know if I'm going to get a bit restricted here, but actually the more I've learned, the more I've been impressed and been able to use those skills. So yeah, I've really enjoyed it.

Mark Smith: 21:57
That's interesting because you know, if you look at Power FX, I think it only makes up a very small percentage of the formulas available in Excel. My understanding, and that would be my thought, is there a limitation, and it's interesting you, as a pro-code developer, have just said that it's. You're not hitting those limitations, which I find that's very positive. What's missing in your mind? What would you like to see be added to PowerFX?

Keith Atherton: 22:37
You know there's a few things that came about recently and again, as you know, as an MVP we can get access to the product teams. We can pester them for new features or complain about things that don't work quite as we'd like. That could be useful. And there are things that I really would like you know improve. Again, being a code first developer and have been for many years Improvements to that code editor you know, again I've been spoiled with Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code. You can do so much. You can build your own extensions. You've got menus with tons of options. So I really love and I'm sure this will happen that that PowerApps formula and coding studio will evolve over time. More features can we build our own extensions or plugins? Can we extend it in further ways?

Mark Smith: 23:27
It's open source, though, right.

Keith Atherton: 23:29
PowerFix is open source, isn't it? I believe the language of PowerFix is, but it's a good point. Actually, the studio experience itself, you know, within the browser, and there are some developments coming, you can move the code pane, you can maximize it, you can get more screen real estate and so on. I think one thing is just that studio experience, or whether you could use an existing IDE, that could be an option potentially.

Mark Smith: 23:54
Yeah, so you're saying access at Fire Visual Studio is such.

Keith Atherton: 23:57
That would be nice. Yeah, that would be really nice. Again, the full power, the break points, all the extra snippets and things you could do. That would be really nice. But also and this might go against the grain of PowerFix, being the type of language it is, but extending it with ProCode features. Again, I'm used to things like inheritance, polymorphism and things that I know it's not really designed to do that. But if you did have the option to be able to take it at a level, I wouldn't need to then spin up something extra using ProCode or a plugin or something to do complex work. So, again, I'm probably asking for too much there.

Mark Smith: 24:33
No, no, keep asking. Keith, it's been a pleasure to have you on the show. Before you go, we are fair. We talked about you've got a podcast going. I want to make sure we get that in the show notes. Tell us a bit about your podcast. Who's the audience, what's it called and where can they find it.

Keith Atherton: 24:49
Yeah, thanks, mark. So just fairly recently the last few months, me and a couple of friends Gregor Sotty, who's an Azure MVP, and Matt Boyd the three of us that started a podcast called On Air in the Cloud We've interviewed two people so far Mark Ducca and Lisa Hoving both happen to be MVPs and we've got plenty more guests lined up as well, and it's just great from speaking to people who use technology in interesting ways.

Mark Smith: 25:17
I love it. Where can people find it? Is it on iTunes, Spotify or the different channels? Have you ever published out there?

Keith Atherton: 25:24
Yeah, there's a website onairinthecloudcom. There's a Twitter channel as well, but yeah, I believe some of these services they're actually picking up on the feeds right now. So just recently I use Android, I've got Power Addict and it's just recently appeared in the last week or so for me, so hopefully you can find it.

Mark Smith: 25:44
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. Bye.