Building Community and Expertise in Global Consulting with Tomas Riha

Mark Smith: 0:06
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 Prague, in the Czech Republic. He is a freelance business process automation consultant, both for the Power Platform and M365. He was first awarded as MVP in 2021, and he's been working with Microsoft Technologies for over 10 years in various roles, including analyst, developer, architect, team lead and project manager. In his spare time, you can find him rolling on a BJJ mat, which I've got to understand what that is practicing his. Is it Bacata?

Tomas Riha: 1:07
No, it's Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

Mark Smith: 1:11
And salsa dancing. This is amazing. Of course, links to his bio, social media et cetera will be in the show notes for this episode. Tom, welcome to the show.

Tomas Riha: 1:20
Thank you, mark, happy to be here.

Mark Smith: 1:23
Tell me about this baccarat and salsa dancing that you're into.

Tomas Riha: 1:27
Salsa dancing is something I started only about a year ago, so right now my dancing is on the conversational level, so it doesn't impress anybody, but it shouldn't offend anybody either. So that's my latest hobby that I picked up to get like to extend my social bubble, because, being a guy in the IT and being a guy doing Brazilian jiu-jitsu as the second hobby, you don't meet many girls. So I was like, yeah, let's go out there, learn something new, let's start and think.

Mark Smith: 1:59
That's a great idea. I like it. I like it. So tell me a bit about food, family and fun. What do they mean to you in the Czech Republic? Food.

Tomas Riha: 2:10
Well, I'm not really a foodie. For me, food often is just I have to eat something, because, well, you should eat something. So, but otherwise, yeah, fun in Czech Republic Now. Dancing, dancing almost every day. Lots of parties in Prague. You can go somewhere every night. Sometimes I feel like I already felt burned out from all the dancing that I did, so I had to reduce it a bit. If you go out four or five nights a week, then when you are over 30, it might be a bit too much.

Mark Smith: 2:47
Yeah, yeah. What about Brazilian jiu-jitsu? That sounds exciting.

Tomas Riha: 2:52
Yeah, that's a hobby I picked up like five years ago when I thought my life is too comfortable, that, like I am good at everything I do, but most of the time I spend sitting in front of the computer. So let's pick up some physical activities, some martial art, because that's what I wanted to do since the 20s but I never found the will to do it. And then one day I was like, yeah, let's do it, let's pick something where nobody will kick me or punch me. And Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is one of those martial arts when you just choke and lock joints, and it's much more comfortable for me than being punched in the face.

Mark Smith: 3:39
Yes, my three-and-a-half-year-old will turn four later this year and I'll be enrolling her in jiu-jitsu because it's just about a kilometer down the road is a guy teaches children, starts at four years old teaching Brazilian jiu-jitsu, so I'm looking forward to her joining that.

Tomas Riha: 4:00
Yeah, I think that's a great martial art, like my favorite one, so totally recommend it. If he starts at four then it will be great. It's much better than after your 30s when there are all these young 18-year-old guys and all you do is stop multiple times every training.

Mark Smith: 4:20
Is that? Wow, wow, wow. So how did you get into technology?

Tomas Riha: 4:27
Yeah, so my favorite technology, as you mentioned, is Power Automate. It's something I liked from the start or when I learned that this technology exists, because it's something I've been doing my whole career. Like right after the college, I got to SharePoint and Nintex. Back then it was SharePoint 2010 and on-premise Nintex it was, but I still think when it was on-premise it was. It had the most possibilities and you could do so much more than you can now with the cloud technologies. But basically what I've been doing for the last 12 years is it now is automating stuff.

Tomas Riha: 5:08
It's this. When I'm thinking about it, it's the same problems in the companies that I am not solving anything new, that most of the problems I solve are processes in the companies that are unorganized, unmapped, nobody Nobody really knows how it works. One guy does it this way, another guy does it another way, and it's still the same 12 years and the companies didn't move much. The only thing that changed was the technology. So it was Nintex, it was SharePoint Designer back then. Then, when we moved to cloud and Microsoft shut down SharePoint Designer flows, then we had to migrate the flows somehow, at least those flows that existed back then, and since we were in the Microsoft stack. So we moved to Power Automate. And that's how I got to Power Automate, because there was the necessity to move to SharePoint designer flows.

Mark Smith: 6:01
Tell me a bit about your process that you go through when you get bought in to automate a task and I'm thinking you know something much more complex than just an approval flow or something like that when you're bought in to do, you know, a complex automation of some business type activity. What's your process? That you go through to one architect? You know how it's going to be, how that layout's going to work and how do you validate your ideas before you actually start building your automations?

Tomas Riha: 6:36
Yes, when you get in the company, they often have the problem. Sometimes you come there you just know about the problem, something that they feel that should be fixed. That's not ideal. Often it's yeah, we have this idea, audit or audit found that this is not how we should be doing it. Sometimes they already thought about it. They push their like this is exactly how we want to do it, this process, so they are trying to push you into it.

Tomas Riha: 7:05
But anyway, always it is about lots of discussion at the beginning to really find out, to formalize the process, because often the processes are okay, I think it should be this way and I've been doing it this way for years. And then some other guy says, yeah, but I've been doing it other way and yeah, it's the same result, but there are different steps that we take. So it always starts with the discussion with the customer to really formalize okay, what should happen, how does it start, what are the steps that are necessary, what is the outcome, what? And then, as you get deeper and deeper and you have a bit of experience with the processes, then you can see maybe all the connections that are around it. It's not that straightforward.

Tomas Riha: 7:51
Then we have to connect over here, get some data from that source, then you have to get over there. Then you maybe need to get about permissions, something that customers often forget permissions. So it's about lots of discussion really formalize the process, make sure, okay, this is how it should work in the most ideal case and this is what we are about to implement. And, of course, before I commit, I need to make sure that what I promise is doable. So there are some proof of concepts during the discussions, like, okay, let's try to call this service, let's try to connect over there, let's try to gather this data, to do this data transformation. And after we go through this process, I would say it's quite standard to any IT project that you develop.

Mark Smith: 8:45
First of all, when did you go freelance? How long have you been freelancing?

Tomas Riha: 8:48
I've been freelancing for four years now. I mean six years.

Mark Smith: 8:52
Okay, wow, wow. So what made you go? What made you take that step to go freelancing?

Tomas Riha: 8:58
Yeah, I was employed only once for six years, right after the college, and I didn't like the like the employment very much because of those. Okay, you have to work eight hours, you have those this time that we allocated for you and you have to fill it fit. Some work and sometimes they were like blank spots. Like you, you finished your work in four hours but you say, okay, but I still have to get my eight hours in. So it would be much better if I didn't have to, if I had more control over my time, if I decided that, okay, it's Wednesday, it's nice weather, so today I will not work, I will just go sit in a coffee and enjoy the day. So that was basically my motivation sit in a coffee and enjoy the day. So that was basically my motivation to get more free time and also to expand my reach.

Tomas Riha: 9:51
Because when you are in one company, then you don't see much. You see how it works in that one company, then you get quite blind about the processes because you are used to the environment, you know how it works and you lose this out-of-the-box thinking when you look on it because you are inside. So it being freelance, it's also much better because I can work for multiple companies, I can see how it works in each of them, then I can give them help them much better. Because I can work for multiple companies, I can see how it works in each of them, then I can give them help them much more because I know, okay, this can work, this can work. I can combine all this experience from those companies and I think that also adds value for me because the work is like there is various work, various environments and it adds more value also to my customers because I can I can see more out of the books so how do your customers find you?

Mark Smith: 10:49
how do you pick up new work? How do you grow? Because you know often if you're freelancing, you're working, working, working and you're not thinking about how you pick up the next project and how how do you balance work with also getting yourself out there as your blog, the main way that people find you and then contract you to work, to work for them?

Tomas Riha: 11:12
yeah, like I work in a way that I have like one big customer that I work about half the time of the week, so that's my main customer and I know they will have work for me every time. And this is, for me, the safe space. Even if I don't find any customers, if I get totally lazy, I can still just work half a week for this one customer and be totally fine, have a happy life, and then for the rest of the customers. Right now it's a lot about recommendation, since I've been in the business for some time, and then it's occasional projects from people that know me right now. I mean, they know me through my blog, through the work I'm doing for the community, which is like a great help. If you want to freelance, then you have to market yourself somehow, and my way of marketing is my blog dedicated to Power Automate, so that's where it comes from.

Mark Smith: 12:16
And are you picking up jobs now worldwide? Are you getting invited to work on projects outside of where you live?

Tomas Riha: 12:25
Yeah, I do. I have some companies that I work with that are located in the US, like the US seems to be the. It seems to be the main market for Power Automate, or at least from my perspective. Maybe it's because, well, I guess, it's more popular in America. I worked also with some companies in Europe, but not so much lately, and then I worked with lots of companies in Czechia. But yeah, I try not to limit myself only to Czechia, but I would like to get more to the project abroad because I need to practice my English. I can't speak only Czech every day, all day long.

Mark Smith: 13:09
Yes, yes, and your US customers? I take it. You just do everything remote. You do your requirements, gathering over Teams, for example and how do you handle and this is like a deep technical thing, as in like a business thing how do you handle um, receiving money and say, or basically receiving money, because I assume people are paying you in usd and you are operating in euros. Is that right?

Tomas Riha: 13:42
Well, I operate in any currency, like in this. I'm quite flexible, like my currency is Czech round, because when you are doing taxes in Czechia, you have to do everything in the Czech rounds. You can't do really taxes in euros, so we have to convert everything.

Mark Smith: 13:58
I didn't realize you weren't on the euro.

Tomas Riha: 13:59
Yeah, we are not. Yeah, Not yet.

Mark Smith: 14:02
So how do you receive? Do you have a us bank account? And that's how you receive us dollars. How do you get it to you?

Tomas Riha: 14:08
uh, I have euro and us bank accounts. Some customers pay by paypal because that seems to be the easiest way for the people located in the us, and they can can pay by credit card. That seems to be easy, easiest way. Last time one customer even sent me a check, which surprised me a bit. But I received a piece of paper. I brought it to local bank. I was like, okay, I've never seen this. Can I, can you like transfer the money to my bank account? And they were like, okay, I have. We have also never seen it, so we have to discuss it with other colleagues.

Mark Smith: 14:41
Wow, yeah, that's, that's interesting. It surprises me with us businesses that they still operate in paper-based checks and in in many situations. I assume it's going away, but I'm I'm still shocked when, when I uh offered to be paid via check because I'm just like I've never seen one in 10 years, so it's yeah, it's quite different. How did you become an MVP?

Tomas Riha: 15:09
Oh, I got nominated. Microsoft decided I am worth it and I got MVP.

Mark Smith: 15:16
Do you know who nominated you?

Tomas Riha: 15:18
Chuck Sterling nominated me.

Mark Smith: 15:21
Oh, is that right? Yes, yes, yes. Yes, he's no longer there, but okay.

Tomas Riha: 15:25
It was before he retired, a few weeks. I mean a few months, probably not weeks, but it started. I think it started during COVID, when I got a bit bored because COVID in Czechia it was really lockdown. We couldn't even travel through the whole country. We had to stay at one place. Everything was closed. I had lots of free time so I went to Microsoft Community Forum and I started helping people and replying to the questions and yeah, that's how I got in the supervisor program Gotcha gotcha.

Mark Smith: 16:06
So it didn't start with blogging. You were doing more the forums-type support in the forums and that's how you got recognized. Is that the case?

Tomas Riha: 16:15
I would say it started at a similar time, because when I get on the forum, or even when I search on the forum, then sometimes I didn't like the answers that I found there. Or when you get to a problem, you see, okay, it's the same problem, and then you have three, four pages of responses and you try one, two, three of them and they don't work. So it's like, okay, so let's make it easier for myself, maybe for the people in the future when they have the same problem. So I will try the solution, the one that works, and let's write a blog post about it. So next time when somebody has the problem, they just go there, they find it and I find it and I know it works because I was the one who wrote it, did it, tested it and I don't have to rely on some random nickname on the forum. That's the right answer.

Mark Smith: 17:11
Yeah yeah. That's so good. That's so good. Final question I have for you Is there any recommendations you would have to people wanting to become an MVP, that they want to make that part of their career plan? What would your advice to them be?

Tomas Riha: 17:28
My advice would be that MVP shouldn't be the goal or that was at least in my experience. Like MVP was never the goal, that okay, now I have to do something because I want to be MVP. For me, the MVP is just a nice badge from Microsoft, like a recognition Okay, you are doing good work for the community, you know what you are talking about and we appreciate it. So here you have the MVP badge.

Tomas Riha: 17:57
I don't think that going directly for MVP will work because it is a lot of work to get there. You have to really spend a lot of time doing something for the community and you won't last if you are doing it just for the badge. It has to be something that you like doing, that you want to do, that you will do repeatedly, no matter if you get the MVP badge or you don't get the MVP badge. It's just the type of work you like to do, the life you want to live, and part of it will be okay. I want to be somehow beneficial to the community, to help other people, to have the good feeling in myself that I am sharing my knowledge, that I've been doing something that can help other people, and then you might get nominated, you might get MVP, but I don't think the goal should be okay. I want to be MVP. What should I do? And then doing it by force.

Mark Smith: 18:59
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. Thank you.