Anna Jhaveri on The MVP Show

[mark]: 1:50
my guest is from india she is a managing partner of soho dragon she was first awarded her v p and twenty twenty one she's a power platform super user who helps businesses make the most of nology she has over twelve years experience on various microsophtechnologies you can find links to her bio her socials et cetera in the show dotes for this episode but with that and a welcome to the show

[anna_jhaveri]: 2:16
hi mark

[mark]: 2:18
good to meet you and you're one of the new new mvps obviously in the program um tell me before we we get into understanding your journey to becoming an n p n journey in an it based career with you know a focus on microsopt tell me a bit about where you are located in the world what do you do for fun tell us about out family and what are best things to eat in your region

[anna_jhaveri]: 2:45
of course like i'm from west of the india there is a state called budratan city god called an so i've been born and brought up here and settled here and like what i like to do apart from work is i like to paint and it's ovid times also like my hands on cooking chest kind of caught my interest so like yeah cooking and painting is what i aboutrowork and recently we moved into a new form to life bosexonhave been we got it to setting up our new home our life has been great since

[mark]: 3:30
nice when you say you paint are you are you more into landscapes or more into portraits what's what's your area focus

[anna_jhaveri]: 3:38
landscape i'm really bad at portraits but i do love landscapes i feel really connected with nature i love the green and blue sky

[mark]: 3:54
i like it i like it so how did you how did you start your idea career what made you out of all the careers available in the world what took you in this direction

[anna_jhaveri]: 4:06
so it's kind of like typical following my brother's ppostepsso my brother used to study during my elder he used this study it and that kind of like inspired my journey and i also graduate in you should get i started my career working with hair point

[mark]: 4:32
well okay okay so were you and were you working for a company that put you on a share point project or how did share point become the tool that you started using

[anna_jhaveri]: 4:44
so it was a company that put me on a share point project so like we do have an internthip which is like the last year of our graduation and during that in sharon project and then that really caught my interest working on share that time it was like more seven yeah so then i continued my career working on the

[mark]: 5:11
got you got so if we if we fast forward up to what you're doing today do you have your own company is that right

[anna_jhaveri]: 5:20
yes

[mark]: 5:21
okay tell us a bit about that and tell us a bit about starting a company because that's that's a pretty incredible thing to do

[anna_jhaveri]: 5:28
yes like i want at all k company in amdabat for around seven to eight years and then i just want to shift gears with my career take a break from it for a few months and then i got bored taking that break so i started my own consulting work can ward like doing projects a base micosoft and sharebord that's how i met founder founder who s based in new york peter like i did some consulting for concerting work for him and and then we figured out that now the work is going and i need a team around me to do that work yeah i am alone not able to handle the that is getting to me that's how i got team of couple of people around me to help me with it the work and it's being five seven years since then and no great joy

[mark]: 6:38
so coming from a share point background i take it you did a lot with info path is that right

[anna_jhaveri]: 6:44
info path workflows web parts and then branding

[mark]: 6:51
so when you saw you know power as power or to make come along what was your take on that from you know you would have worked with windows work flow foundation back there from an automation point of view um you had a way that share point ran you know in vo path was often nest for four more data capture what was your transition what was your exposure to poweraps and if you're like what was your awakening around this new thing microsoff was doing

[anna_jhaveri]: 7:17
of course so my initial like careers like seven to eight years i was a or develop or so i used to do lot of programming and then artitecting tions but then as i started into getting into managing the company and managing my team i lost the programming oh like i didn't i didn't use to do much of programming and that's where i came across our platform oh i like i found far platform to be at for my skill because like i do have to ram in the bacgroum so i understand those formula than the expressions really well and also i was such great programmer by then because things change a lot in programming world so i had lost the touch of doing all the great going stuff so far platform was for me to like aritectsolutions and making solutions for our customers because it's kind of a low solution and like if you if i compare with upon designer flow in parts like pootmapaap is way more mature than as compared to one design even the flow and in that came off and ready is really matter then what it's to be the ring

[mark]: 8:42
so good what what's your core type of focus nowadays is it around just apse or just automation or do you find you a range of those have you got into things like power pages formally power hurdles what's your kind of your you know what are the tools set do you use the most o your team is using the most nowadays

[anna_jhaveri]: 9:03
yeah so like my team does lot like programming as well as using the power platform they also work on are but the projects that i end up managing are most based on power and the power of me because we are kind of getting customers who are migrating from one line and they would have law forms which are mild design custom work which they want to move and ship line which i think power ap and power automat is the best solution for them rebuilt their pot and the wall flows so like we've been getting those kind of projects a lot since last two or three years that has been the course of course

[mark]: 9:58

what's your what's your your favorite tool to work with if you could only mikrosoffsaid you can only choose one from now on which is the one tool that would be your go to to what microsoftoffer

[anna_jhaveri]: 10:13
i would say our automat because kind of i've also got really good hold of how the tool works and ye have a lot of inept knowledge on our auto it also helps with personal productivity do use it for my personal like managing emails and those kind of stuff personal automation stuff off and i've seen it has has worked really nice work for customers like building up like since since i started my career i have both law and work it's like flows has been like creator focus area for me far out mate has been i one of the favorite tools i've been in the micro we

[mark]: 11:02
you raise an interesting thing around personal productivity and automating things in your personal life and often have a lot of people reach out to me and they will say you know my company is not using power so how do i get started or my company is not using power as to how i get started and always say fine projects in your own personal life because then you will be the product owner you will be your own q n

[anna_jhaveri]: 11:25
exactly

[mark]: 11:25
you will be own you will know whether it meets your needs and does it is the effort that you put in making you more productive or is it more of a limited for you so when you look at personal productivity you talked about em then what else have you that use personally when you use the tool sets

[anna_jhaveri]: 11:44
i have also started exploring for our autmatthat stopped for organizing files on my computer sometimes like i end uptaining everything on my day stop and then ah that like old old habit that i have still got with me and then my escape is a mess and i try to like i want i'm in process of doing that using for to organendemtis keep my nest

[mark]: 12:15
is is that transition from cloud flows to to desk top flows are you finding is it easy to pick up pa are you finding it straight forward to use the desk top tool and the designer or

[anna_jhaveri]: 12:29
hm i'm still getting used to it like i have been using the cloud product in like three to four years now so i have got to use it yeah i'm still getting used to the hat stuff

[mark]: 12:44
after you have automated your desk top so that it no longer becomes a graveyard of files and projects and things

[anna_jhaveri]: 12:50
exactly

[mark]: 12:50
like that what's your what's your next personal automation project you're thinking of

[anna_jhaveri]: 12:57
not having thought of yet but like the emails and the top has been big headed for me because i kind of like i get so many mails lose track of it sometimes i need even reminders of my evil that i haven't kind of looked at because like there is a graveyard of evils that i get in the the ones i need to focus the customer base sometimes little more i can do i bring my attention to the s which i need i can't

[mark]: 13:36
focus it's good tell me about how you became an m v p what was the process what was your knowledge of the m v p program before you became an v p and and what's your journey to becoming m v p

[anna_jhaveri]: 13:49
so kind of the i wouldn't say like i was thinking of becoming a v but like when i started my career i mentioned i was working on sharon and then i had like slow like during an ear you have like high lows in your work sometimes the work is low sometimes the work is high but when the work used to be like low like during the initial days of my career i used to like explore the developer for the sharon develop perform where i used to also get being a state i used to get lots of help from the from the people by asking my questions once i started asking my questions i thought it was really helpful and then i also came across some questions for which i had knowledge and i could help people i also started kind of like answering answering the questions and then helping people and that kind of really motivated me to learn more about because on projects you want my learn about the things that of course the score of that part but don't get to learn everything of that too that form was really helping me to know more about shefford but then career happened and then kind of like work on projects you lose track of it i did it for a year or two and then i lost track of it but then after i started my consulting work and we came across products which required migration from from ontrmtoonline i needed help on power platform from the forms that's where i visited my interest of helping people on forms and that that's kind of like like gain productivity for me that okay that makes me really like energetic and enthusiastic like okay i help this people i also learned something out of it i know i win situation for me so that's how like i became a super user on the community and then we used they do like a community call once a month and that's where they were having this consation and that's how i got my nomination from one of the one of the like super user the player fower comedian and i wasn't expecting i thought like i'm not doing enough because i've seen people organize events like speak a lot of lot of events i try to speak and a lot of events but then like contriverting managing work and home and all kind of yet sometimes but still like it was really surprising and exciting to have have got it in like so i'm still like new bend and to try to navigate through this

[mark]: 16:53
what was since you've become an mvp and that's such a good story be what i like there is that a lot of people think they need to become public speakers and they've got to attend events and do do all that type of thing the beauty is you found the area that as you said it's like caffeine to you know you get a lot of personal enjoyment from it and that was in the forums and i think that's fan tastic that you have identified what works for you and also in the community contribution that you make as part of it so that that i think is really worth high lighting for people thing is that you don't have to do everything right you just need to find what what works well for you and that you can share your knowledge since becoming an n v p what what what have you found out about the v p program or what benefits have you found a really amazing that has been well worth becoming an n v p for you

[anna_jhaveri]: 17:50
so like our recipient in the region really good they do like monthly called that's how i get to other ties from other areas for example if my team is looking for help and like some specific questions i get to get help of other mvps like some some very technical things on which i need help of at least have a community of people i know that where i can reach out to get get some help like for it's not like would provide me solutions but pointers are also really helpful so that that's one of the benefits and also the p d i alls it helps to know what's coming in the coming product like what are the outcoming features and carrying close to the product team and one of them things that i'm looking forward is the summit to i get to meet like the fellow and so i'm not sure when that going to happen in person but i hope it does happen when i'm still in an mvp