Michael Roth on Power Platform Governance and Hands-on Tech Innovation

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 Germany. He works at Avanade as a manager of Experience Tech. He was first awarded as MVP in 2021. His mission is to inspire people with a tech background to start their own journey into the tech world, and he focuses on the power platform governance. He just delivered a great session on this topic at Dynamics Minds, where we were together last week, so I'm quite excited to have him on the show. You can find links to his bio, social media, et cetera, in the show notes for this episode. Welcome to the show, Michael. Thanks for having me and hello. Good to have you on, sir. Good to have you on and after. I think this was our first time meeting face-to-face.

Michael Roth: 1:13
That was the first real meeting. Yes, like with touching and everything.

Mark Smith: 1:18
Exactly exactly so good and so good to connect with you. Finally, because you're a bit of a legend around the world with all your skills. You know your public speaking, et cetera, what you do around the whole enablement of organizations and really getting their governance down correctly. We won't dwell on that. I think we did another episode in the past on that exact topic Q&I. So those that want to listen to that, jump into the go-to podcast at nz365guycom and search for Michael and you'll see his other episodes. Now tell me what I'd like to discuss with you. Michael is a bit of your journey. How did you get into tech to start with?

Michael Roth: 2:02
That's a good question actually, because I don't have a tech background, so I didn't go to university and study like computer science or something. I come from the educational science part and worked as a change manager for organizational development and things like that. So basically team trainings, talk to managers and explain them how to communicate properly, something like this. And at some point there was an IT-ish project that I joined and this was about information classification and basically the question was we need someone to translate between the business user and the IT user. I followed around with IT a little bit for a long time, so then I thought, yeah, I can do this, I can translate and in the end I'm a consultant, so if I can't do it right now, I will learn it within a couple of days. And then that was my first contact with it and uh, that was an interesting project basically, uh, classified data of a global enterprise business. That was a couple of years, basically just classifying data, just seeing what is in what, what do we have, how do we classify it, and how do we have, how do we classify it and how do we teach the business user what does this classification mean? So that was a really interesting process. But that kind of got me going in the IT. And then, well, I'm lazy, like most people working in the IT.

Michael Roth: 3:39
In the end I discovered the Power Platform and built my first highly impressive flow.

Michael Roth: 3:47
It was a tea timer to remind me to get the tea bag out of the cup, so press a button and then get a notification three minutes later. So it's not really rocket science, but that started it all. So then I dived deeper into the whole Power Platform thing and I worked a lot with chatbots and with apps and after a while I realized I'm kind of okay-ish with developing, that it works, but other people are way faster and way better than I am, so I thought maybe leave that to them. And I realized that I'm really comfortable on the platform side basically and the whole governance, administration, security thing. That is not really on the end user or maker side, but more on the platform side, and that's where I'm really comfortable basically talking with organizations and thinking about strategies and visions and how to implement the platform. That also benefits to my former background change management, because usually if you implement the Power Platform, you should or you have the chance to change a few things, and that's how I ended up basically in a short version.

Mark Smith: 4:54
What tools do you use to run your workshops with those people? Are you using any design thinking type process? Do you use anything if you're not in a non-traditional environment, in other words, in a boardroom or or a training room? Do you use any digital whiteboard type scenarios, as in klaxon mirror mural, any of those type of things?

Michael Roth: 5:16
no, um, back then um, that was way before pandemic we used those things called pen and paper. Sometimes, like you, like flip charts and stuff like that no digital things whatsoever. Basically, this was real old school pen and paper talking. Sometimes we used the whole workshop room to get up and demonstrate things by standing ourselves over here and over there and using the chairs and the tables and things like this. I've never run such a workshop with a digital whiteboard or something like that and up to this day I'm not really comfortable using these. I do like feeling the energy in the room, like being in the same room with people. That really helps. If you really think about those strategies and plans. I think that helps you to focus on the topic and really helps all the participants to really stay present.

Mark Smith: 6:17
Yeah, 100%, 100%. Looking over your career, what's kind of been the biggest career highlights for you? If you point back at them and you go, you know what that was a pivotal point for me, or I had a particular person that helped me, or are there any kind of inflection points, decisions that you made that really impacted your career?

Michael Roth: 6:38
Yes, Well, I do have a person and I think that was back 2015 or something have a person and I think that was back 2015 or something that was a freelancer, working for the same information classification project I was mentioning earlier and he had an IT background, kind of IT background what we would say now would be a modern workplace, so a lot about the office suite and things like that. And with him I worked on this information classification program and we used basically Excel as a database, so to say, to just classify all this information, because I didn't know better, I didn't even know what a database is basically or was back then, and then we used Excel and then we reached the maximum capacity of an excel sheet and that was kind of impressive for me because I didn't realize that it was possible, basically so, but then we, we, uh, just yeah, we, we reached out, uh, the excel capacities, and then we thought about about how to solve this. And this guy really guided me through what possibilities we have, why we have limitations, and showed me a little bit the way of. He showed me kind of the challenges you face or you can face in IT and how to solve them, how to think around and that's kind of stuck with me. I still think about him a lot, Never met him again after this project.

Michael Roth: 8:10
I think he was from South America or something. Yeah, he's a South American guy and I think his parents are from Portugal and Spain, so it's an interesting Latin mix kind of. Yeah, but he really made the whole IT working in IT really fun actually and educational for me, so I could learn a lot from him. That was nice. And the other part and that was really an interesting part that is when I started to blog already. That must have been 2020 or something like that.

Michael Roth: 8:47
Because if you start working in IT and you reach out to the community and to see all those people you read those blogs, you see those YouTube videos you think, like there are so many people out there who know their stuff. They know a lot of things and you are constantly learning and that is super impressive. And at some point I started to blog, mostly because I used my blog as a learning document or learning yeah, a learning thing for myself, because I tend to forget things. But if I thought, maybe, hey, I solved this challenge before. Maybe let's check. So I put it in a blog to make it just public, so everyone maybe can correct me if I'm wrong, something like this this was my idea.

Michael Roth: 9:27
And there was one guy on Twitter and he was like, oh, I found this blog and it helped me to solve my problem. And I was like what? I could hardly believe it. Basically because I didn't saw myself as any kind of an expert, especially in tech. Because for a long time I had this mantra almost to say I'm not a tech guy, I'm just playing around, I'm just trying things out. Some people told me at some point you should stop talking like that to yourself and believe in yourself and then someone came along. I used your blog post and it helped my problem. Thank you a lot. That was helpful and I was like, wow, that was definitely a point where started to change or how to how to see myself or to perceive myself yeah, that's amazing.

Mark Smith: 10:14
That's amazing. I loved the concept of you wrote it down, because you forget things, and I remember earlier my career blogging as well and searching up how to do something and finding my own blog post that I'd written on it and was like, wow, oh, I can top that.

Michael Roth: 10:29
I had that last week or a couple of weeks ago where I was asking co-pilot the Bing co-pilot in Edge to sum up something around Power Platform Governance basically, and what are the tasks of a Power Platform Administrator. I needed something, didn't want to think of it myself, so I put the question in there and then I got an answer. It was quite a good answer. And then the co-pilot makes his reference where they got the information from. This was my blog, Perfect, so co-pilot quoted me yeah, interesting, interesting.

Mark Smith: 11:03
I'm seeing that a lot more as an even in chat, gpt in the last I don't know three or four weeks, say now, are going out searching and putting that reference in and, of course, for those that are worried about hallucinations, it's giving a lot much more grounded, more grounded approach to its answer. That's so cool. That's so cool. You appeared in the algo. Your content that is epic. Tell me what's top of mind for you right now? What's your focus in the coming months? What excites you? I know you've just come off Dynamics Minds. You had probably, like me, a lot of conversations with some really smart people. What's it got you thinking about between now and the end of the year?

Michael Roth: 12:14
Let's say, before Dynamics Mines, I had the plan to invest more into security, into the security side of Power Platform. That means classic IT security, and I really need to learn a bit more about this. Right now I'm working on a security project with a customer, which is really nice, so the cybersecurity department basically hired me to help their Power Platform team and right now we are conducting a security audit for Power Platform. So this is really interesting. But it's also kind of scary when you see that Power Platform per default is not too safe. So you have to do a lot basically on your own. But when you hear the marketing around Power Platform it's easy, everyone can do that, it's easy peasy, just clicking around, and that just implies the idea that everything else is already covered. But it's easy, everyone can do that. It's easy peasy, just clicking around, and that just implies the idea that everything else is already covered, but it's not apps and to see and to demonstrate how hackers would actually use Power Platform or local platforms to get into your company and into your accounts.

Michael Roth: 13:34
This is the one thing, and the other thing is actually more around AI and Copilot. Not only Copilot, not only the Microsoft product, but AI in general, how it works right now and how do you deal with it? Because it's the latest thing right now and everyone wants it and right now, and how do you deal with it? Because it's it's the latest thing right now and everyone wants it and has it and it starts to implement in the, implemented in their, their organization. Um, hardly into the organizational strategy, uh, surprisingly, but anyway.

Michael Roth: 14:03
Um, I want to, I'm trying to how to break it down, how to come up with a good governance concept and approach around AI, because AI is scaling up everything, like data that you have, it usage, like development of apps.

Michael Roth: 14:25
Everything will be more and faster and bigger and shinier. Everything will be more and faster and bigger and shinier. So I think it's more important than ever that we really have a good grip on our data and how we handle data, and I do have the feeling that not enough organizations already thought about that properly. So I think I want to come up with a good idea how to make it not too complicated and kind of appealing, because, let's face it, when I say governance, most people are like please not, please don't. So, yeah, I want to think about that. So governance for AI and security, basically, are my next big points, starting after EPPC, because in a couple of, so next week already, the European power platform conference is starting, and this is the first conference where I'm conducting a workshop together with a friend eight hours. When I'm done with that, then I start with the security and the copilot.

Mark Smith: 15:23
I love this. I think that your security and copilot conversations are very interlinked as well, because I think, as organizations you know start, you know, buying m365 co-pilot and they start turning it on, all of a sudden, all their data sets that you know have been always been accessible now becomes available to the Microsoft Graph, now becomes part of the grounded model, and the risk I feel is that the data has been available and it's not been because people have tried to hack the data, but it's data that not everybody's eyes should have inside an organization. So, based on your role, you should have certain access. If you don't have the roles level security, you shouldn't have the access, and I think what Copilot does is exposes all those vulnerabilities at a phenomenal scale, and that's why I think that you know a lot of what has been built on the Power Platform has been built in SharePoint backends you mentioned Excel before Any number of backends and if those data sets are now all of a sudden available to the Microsoft Graph, I think, therefore, any Joe blogs in the organization that has their copilot license can all of a sudden query out queries that they could never have done programmatically because they just didn't have the skills, but with a voice command.

Mark Smith: 16:49
Well, who can't ask a question right, who can't make a query when it's just their voice? And I think the risk is, you know, and that's why I think your journey of security plus co-pilot is actually potentially tightly intertwined in that journey.

Michael Roth: 17:05
Yeah, actually there is a joke in the IT or IT security area where the customer says, or someone working in an organization says I'm not really afraid about IT security because my data is so unstructured I even can't find anything. So who even can? And that is a problem now when we have like a really powerful search engine, basically with a co-pilot yeah, this can, yeah, this can.

Mark Smith: 17:31
Yeah, it can find it exactly If we look at 24 months ahead. Where will you be If we had a podcast in 24 months' time? What would have you completed and achieved by that point?

Michael Roth: 17:44
Oh, that's a tricky, tricky question. So, ideally, I became rich and famous and wouldn't have to work anymore and you would find me somewhere deep in the woods to go camping 24-7. No, but I think this won't happen. I think by then I will have this great security series published around security and Power Platform, starting at the platform level and then working through each and every service Power Automate, power Apps, power Pages and so on and so on, so that I for myself have a good overview over security challenges in the Power Platform and the services and that other people who want to read my blog do have the same overview. That is something that would be nice. If I could do this in a year, um yeah, we will see I like it.

Mark Smith: 18:42
I like it. You talked about going into the woods there and it reminded me of one of my favorite gins, which is called Monkey 47. Have you ever heard of Monkey 47? It's a German gin, right? Yeah, it's a German one from the Black Forest, and it was from the forest. That's what made me yeah. And I tell you what, if anyone's not seen that bottle, you've got to get the bottle, because you will see the finest level of craftsman, right down to the cork and the top and the band and the engraving. It's the attention to detail of Monkey 47. I first came across it when I was in Hong Kong and I tell you what it is. You know, a gin everybody should have in their liquor cabinet if you're into having the odd drop.

Michael Roth: 19:21
Absolutely. Yeah, it's a good one.

Mark Smith: 19:24
Well, michael, it's been great talking to you. I look forward to seeing you. Probably what?

Michael Roth: 19:31
are you going to Vegas for the conference? No, I'm not traveling to the US this year. I've been three times in the US for conferences and events last year and then I realized it's a long flight. Tell me about it, I can't. And then I was really. The events I've been to the M365 company and the Microsoft Power Platform conference are huge. There are so many people and I found them a little bit from too many people that I really go that long of a journey, especially when I consider my ecological footprint. Then I realized maybe I do a little bit small events in the European neighborhood I can reach by train something like that and boy a, what a market you have there.

Mark Smith: 20:33
Final question I have for you, and you can finish with this dynamics minds. What's your? If people are saying should I go next year, in 2025, what would you tell them?

Michael Roth: 20:46
I would tell them absolutely yes, go the whole team, the Doccentric team, who run this event. They suddenly appeared last year, so this was the second year of the whole conference. Last year was the first year, so they somehow appeared in 2023 and came up with one of the best conferences ever. They spent so much thought and effort into details. The whole venue is decorated with stickers and stand-ups and roll-ups and everything, and this whole theme. They have this wizarding theme. It looks a little bit like Nightmare Before Christmas, tim Burton style, something like that.

Michael Roth: 21:28
I really like that. But they put in a lot of effort into this event and it's in Slovenia, which is an incredibly nice country as well. It's super beautiful. So they put this event into the beginning of the week, so you don't have to consider leaving your family at the weekends, so you can really conduct this or do this as a working event, and which is it is a great working event because there are so many areas coming together from everything the dynamics area and the Power Platform family and this is by far one of my most favorite events that I have throughout the year.

Mark Smith: 22:05
Totally agree. It was like the most professionally run conference, but also a festival at the same time, right with the entertainment. I like Andrew Welch put it as it's Burning man meets Davos.

Mark Smith: 22:20
And it very much was that Absolute, impeccable detail to. Every part of putting on something like this was outstanding. Every part of putting on something like this was outstanding, but it had this whole carnival friendly buoyant. You know it's, you know, as part of it. It was just, yeah, outstanding. Michael, it's been a pleasure to have you on the show. Thanks so much. Thank you, 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.