Ben den Blanken on The MVP Show

[Mark Smith]: 1:18
Today's guest is from the Netherlands.He works at Dynamic People as a Power Platform Lead. He was first awarded as MVP in 2022. He has a power addict and developer.He learned that creating teams with the same goal and empowering them is the biggest factor for success. You can find links to his bio, social media, et cetera, in the show notes for this episode. Welcome to the show, Ben.

[Ben den Blanken]: 1:42
Thank you Mark, happy to be here and you got it all correct.

[Mark Smith]: 1:47
Excellent, excellent. Well to get started, I always like to find out a bit about my guests personal lives.So what they do outside of you know, the power platform dynamics and what they do work wise. So tell us a bit about the Netherlands.Tell us about the best food to eat in the Netherlands, your favorites anyhow.What do you do for fun and a bit about your family?

[Ben den Blanken]: 2:10
All right, I will start with my family because that's to me the most important part of my life, apart from of course being an MVP, no I kid.I have a lovely wife or we're technically not married, but it's weird to say girlfriend but you have three kids together. I have a daughter six years old and twin boys four years old. So our life has been really focused on either work and kids.

[Mark Smith]: 2:41
I bet, I bet. I mean, did you say twins then?

[Ben den Blanken]: 2:45
Yeah, twins. Yeah. Yeah.

[Mark Smith]: 2:47
That'd be a handful.

[Ben den Blanken]: 2:48
That was a handful, especially during lockdowns. Yeah, I have to take a small break from work even to get that going.

[Mark Smith]: 2:55
Yeah I bet, I bet. So what part of the Netherlands do you live in?

[Ben den Blanken]: 2:58
I live in the center in a village near in between Utrecht, Amersfoort and Amsterdam. So pretty central. Yeah.

[Mark Smith]: 3:06
Nice, nice. Is there a lot of horticulture around that area?

[Ben den Blanken]: 3:11
What kind of culture, sorry.

[Mark Smith]: 3:12
Horticulture, you know flowers and or other growing products.

[Ben den Blanken]: 3:19
No, mostly it's an urban area with a few cattle farms in between.

[Mark Smith]: 3:29
Very good. Very good.And you didn't mention food.

[Ben den Blanken]: 3:34
No, I didn't mention food.My favorite foods, I don't have any. I just like all of them.I'm not really a food enthusiastic per se. I like greasy foods, maybe something sweet. I love sweets. My favorite sweets are sitting next to me as well, M&M's.Probably should not put it too close to me because then I will eat it all, but yeah.

[Mark Smith]: 4:01
I love it, I love it. So what's your magic skill when it comes to the Power Platform? What are the, what areas do you excel in?

[Ben den Blanken]: 4:12
Well, not in Excel, that definitely not, but it's all of the Power Platform I focus on, including... the areas surrounding it. So also a little bit of Azure, but also modern work. And I'm not necessarily a solution architect per se,but I connect all the dots and including customer questions and combining that with the specialized specialists at work who are a lot deeper in certain areas. Yeah.

[Mark Smith]: 4:44
So you're the power platform lead,right?At dynamic people tell me like,so do you have a team of people that work for you?

[Ben den Blanken]: 4:51
Yeah, basically we are divided in a few different business units at Dynamic People. We have from ERP to Business Central to Power Platform and BI.And at the Power Platform team, we do both customer engagements and Power Platform areas, excluding Power BI. And we have sub teams with coaches.And I'm both the coach and the technical lead for... of those teams. Yeah.

[Mark Smith]: 5:23
So how do you make sure, you know,today build is in full effect and when we're doing this recording and of course new public announcements from Microsoft about everything, AI, Co-Pilot, a lot of new stuff is landing in the platform all the time. How do you make sure your team stays up to speed skill wise on all these changes?

[Ben den Blanken]: 5:51
I think that's the hardest challenge we all have to face. I have to be honest, I'm a little bit overwhelmed myself with all the co-pilot announcements and how that incorporates in our day-to-day work what we do for customers and how we actually build stuff. And I think that overwhelming feeling is natural. And I think we should all accept that we are getting overwhelmed with all the information.And we, as a company, or I think as a community,we have to consistently look out for each other on a personal level that we are grounded, also an important skill for AI, but also grounded that you can cope with everything,but also help each other because you cannot know everything. So what we do at Dynamic People is we have one day time for R&D. And we do a lot of knowledge sharing. And I think we should keep learning for new methods to bounce ideas off each other when we're doing customer work. Yeah.

[Mark Smith]: 6:59
I like it. I like it. I noticed in a couple of your blog posts, you've recently talked around Power Virtual Agents.Tell us your thoughts on PVA.

[Ben den Blanken]: 7:11
Yeah, Power Virtual Agents,I did a couple of projects a few years back.Did not do a project for the last year. But Power Virtual Agents is a special interest of mine because I really like the technology. Not necessarily because I felt like conversation was taking off, especially as it is going now,but more about connecting.all the different kinds of the platform with the model work areas and creating quick wins and keeping people in the flow of work. I like to do Power Virtual Agents for teams, so the internal areas of Power Virtual Agents where you can actually help relieve some of the pressure of the HR department,for example.

[Mark Smith]: 8:05
Are you seeing, have you looked at all at the nuance, you know, Microsoft purchased nuance and they had their own very strong AI chatbot technology already and we've been told for the last I don't know 12 months, maybe 18 months now that we're going to see more integrations of that. Now I don't know whether we're not hearing about it just now because of course with copilot been integrated.and the ability to pass a URL right into PVA of a knowledge set that you can then start querying is pretty powerful.

[Ben den Blanken]: 8:44
Yeah, I'm not sure if you read the latest Power Virtual Agent news around the build today, but there's apparently coming some action sets and automatic API scraping that you can combine with Power Virtual Agents using co-pilots.And that was surprising for me as well, how fast the landscape is moving in that direction. I'm not sure what nuance is in the picture is Microsoft purchased Nuance most for their voice technology.And I've not really looked into the bot building part of Nuance, yeah.

[Mark Smith]: 9:23
Gotcha, gotcha. My understanding is that they purchased Nuance for their medical suite of applications and the voice and what you got with call center, case management, chat, that was kind of like all icing on the top. It wasn't their primary, but my understanding is that the entire team that was at Nuance from an R&D perspective and product development that was under all that um all that chatbot layer is now reports up to Charles Lamanna directly so I can only assume they're not going to keep a forked if you're what's not really a forked but two versions of something going forward right they're going to consolidate and bring all the best out of that technology because I tell you what is the the stuff and nuance when it comes to chat is absolutely a multi-part question, right?And it being able to understand the nuance of that question and answer it in context and answer the multi-part of it is so, so powerful. It's very human-like. And I think, yeah, I really think that in the future when people call into a contact center and or engage with a chatbot. as a human you're going to ask am I speaking to AI and if the answer is yes you're going to breathe with a sigh of relief because you know that you're not going to get that you know the dare I say it the bullshit run around that sometimes people have taught on help desk calls and stuff to kind of placate you but not really answer your questions and things like that I think you're going to get a very precise accurate answer which is going to create a much better customer experience. So I'm quite excited about that whole AI chat, voice chat type scenario going forward.

[Ben den Blanken]: 11:26
especially if you combine it with the magic that is happening with the AI language models that we're seeing today. And then you have the connecting of the voice with large language models to do the answering. Yeah, that's going to be magic, yeah.

[Mark Smith]: 11:42
I tell you, I'll confess one thing that I've not understood yet, and I've not probably done enough research on it, is when we look at OpenAI and the Azure service, etc. that's there, and this whole concept of bring your own data,but the, you know, if you're dealing,let's say in a banking or healthcare scenario,there's compliance issues right about handing your data off to another entity like potentially open AI, but somehow they've created a model where your data is still protected, right?You're not here. So I don't understand how the large language model or generative AI works against my data set without them getting a copy of my data set. So I still got to do it. Do you understand that? I don't get it.

[Ben den Blanken]: 12:28
I understand the building blocks, but as you said, it's still a bit magic behind the scenes that's going on.First of all, OpenAI has a, or Microsoft has a copy of OpenAI language model on Azure.So that means it stays in the same boundaries of that Azure model.

[Mark Smith]: 12:48
You've just solved it for me.

[Ben den Blanken]: 12:50
However, there's still the factor searching that's going on with your data and that factor. is used by grounding inside that large language model.And well, that's why it can be magical for me because how can you dissolve,factor it into relevant search information, but yeah, they solved it and it works great.So that's amazing.

[Mark Smith]: 13:15
That's what I find incredible is that with what has changed so much in the last, I don't know, since November,you know, when we first heard about chat GPT and really, even though, you know,inside as an MVP, I had heard about GPT 3 being used in the Power Platform maybe two years ago. I remember it coming out. I'm pretty sure I did some posts and stuff on it at the time. And so it's been around for a while, but it obviously had an inflection point where it took off.Right. And you know, with, with,with what happened there, I, I am now a bit frustrated with she who shall not be named, right. Uh, the device on that I can talk to in my home and get to do different things, how unintelligent that now feels. Right.You just like, you know, I have,so I use commands. So when I come into my studio here, I say blah blah blah Studio Go right that's my command Studio Go that's all and what it does turns on all my monitors turns on all my lights turns on all the power for the computer every all the different power sets camera that type of thing and I've been doing this for three years and you know day after day she'll go I've searched for studios in your local area and these are the studios I've found and I'm like you know like It's the same command and I've given you every variant,but you have seams that you have no ability to learn.

[Ben den Blanken]: 14:48
No.

[Mark Smith]: 14:48
That's the same command. I'm not asking for a Google search of this. I'm asking the same command over and over again. So I just feel that that, and I reckon the desktop, the desktop AI at the desktop layer in Windows 11 and whatever future versions, I think it's a game changer in what's possible, what could happen there. You know, just.

[Ben den Blanken]: 15:11
Yeah, and I share your frustration because I had the other person who's not to be named in this show.And I quickly threw it out because it felt more like work to get it to work than fun to work with it. And I was hoping to have more fun with it

[Mark Smith]: 15:30
Yes.

[Ben den Blanken]: 15:30
with starting my home automation journey. And I stopped I stopped because the interface was so clunky.I could as well press buttons.

[Mark Smith]: 15:40
Yeah, yeah, I didn't stop. I've got over 200 IP connected devices now around me in my building outside inside I can I can monitor everything from my water tank levels because I've got a bit of a little acreage here and um, yeah,I'm getting constant data and I love data like real-time data from everything and I really want to learn it because I'm building a house um soon and I wanted to make sure that I had that house tracked out as much as possible to be you know eco-friendly,low energy consumption but also using all the latest around connected devices and of course I'm really hoping that the A lady and the the GH lady will get to that point where it is totally voice-driven immersive I can ask it. And a couple other things I think that they need to get right is the APIs for those. It won't let me for example consume my work calendar.And I would love to go, hey give me a breakdown of my day without having to visually look at something.Tell me what I've got. Give me voice reminders.Say hey upcoming you've got this and I notice that you are outside in the garden.You need to get back inside.

[Ben den Blanken]: 16:58
You should get home.

[Mark Smith]: 17:00
There's an appointment coming up. That type of thing. I'm hoping that we'll get to that level of intelligence.Within two years, I'm hoping.

[Ben den Blanken]: 17:08
I'm seeing it happen with the ecosystem that's going to, of the plugins with ChetGPT that's going to be brought over to the Azure OpenAI stack and I think that will take off. That should definitely take off and then help you with your calendar integrations and if only Microsoft will bring in their own version of the voice input together with Nuance. Chachipiti,

[Mark Smith]: 17:37
Exactly exactly.

[Ben den Blanken]: 17:38
that will be game changing.

[Mark Smith]: 17:41
I mean do you know when you say that and I jumped to my computer and I was trying to find what the little circle was, you know they used to have there was a chat bot on the desktop wasn't there?

[Ben den Blanken]: 17:52
Yeah, it wasn't Clippy but I think it was Cortana.

[Mark Smith]: 17:54
No what was it Cortana Cortana like you know Cortana once again I am surprised we've heard nothing because if anything if Microsoft wanted now leapfrog those other two major brands I think now is the time. I can imagine a world where I use voice input so much more in my day-to-day work if that was enabled in the technology layer. But yeah, time will tell, I suppose.

[Ben den Blanken]: 18:23
Now you can work on a widescreen and actually have the input or the data coming through your audio if you need anything instead of moving to your computer to Google or Bing something.

[Mark Smith]: 18:34
yeah, yeah and even if it had the context of whichever device you are closest to that it said hey I'll tell you on that because it's obviously closest to your ears that you're going to hear you know whether it be my mobile phone whether it be a you know one of those devices around my house that I can talk to I think that would be a pretty powerful story.Tell me.

[Ben den Blanken]: 18:57
Yeah, and that's how quickly you and when I prepared for the show and prepared for my interactions, I found that I used to be quite privacy or private person online. I stopped using Facebook.I'm slowly moving away from Twitter as well. But when you're becoming an MVP, there's probably something that you have to do is profile yourself.And now I've quickly shared a lot of personal data from myself, which I was normally not comfortable with. And if you're talking now about your home automation suite and your whereabouts, yeah, if it's that usable,then I will probably give away all my locations.

[Mark Smith]: 19:48
Yeah, and I think all the kind of black-mirror stuff or edge cases around what could potentially happen to you that we've been brought up with for years, you know, the fear of that.I know without a doubt that Facebook is listening, you know, as in they've just,I think an article came out just recently that WhatsApp, for example, is using that data. And how many times have you said something and all of a sudden you get advertised too searched it or anything as a buyer keyboard and it pops up. But it was interesting. I was in China for a piece and I was talking to a guy that took my wife and I for a day trip across the Great Wall of China.We went 100k out of Beijing to get to an area where the tourists kind of weren't.And we're talking, I brought up about privacy and stuff and he said, you've got to understand in China, there's no concept of privacy.Nobody is but nobody's bought up to feel that there is a right to privacy.So it's just not a thing like and I'm like, yeah, isn't that interesting?And I feel that the next generation is coming through. They're just not going to think about it that same way that we are. Oh, you know, I was brought up in a generation where you didn't talk about politics. You didn't talk about religion.You didn't talk about sex. Right. And all money was the other one. Right. But but now all that's fair game with the current generation. Right. They're very with their friends, etc.It's, yeah, they're out there.How do you manage work-life balance?

[Ben den Blanken]: 21:20
I don't. No, it manages me.No, as I mentioned, we had quite a busy time with the kids and both me and Cindy, my girlfriend, both really like to work. We enjoy the challenge, we enjoy the connectivity, we enjoy being out there and challenging ourselves to grow. And well. that leaves us struggling and that leaves us with choices we have to make and a mindset that we try to shift from being bummed out that you have to choose for something, from being glad that you can choose something. We can choose to do more social stuff, we can choose to invest more in our work life. We do not choose or whatever. Main priority is our family life and that's something that is just number one. And then managing that social time and sharing the time because she is entitled to the same amount of work events or outside work events that I have. They're going to conferences and whatnot. Yeah, that's the challenge. And that's the I think that's that's the most difficult part that we do in our calendar to make sure everything is connected and moving in the right direction.

[Mark Smith]: 22:54
I like it. I like it. Ben as we wrap up, what advice do you have to other people that aspire to be an MVP?

[Ben den Blanken]: 23:02
I don't think you should aspire to be an MVP. I think if you like to do community work and to do that in this atmosphere, in the community, in the Microsoft community, then it will come naturally to you. What you do need to look out for, and I can think when I started my blog that was six years ago, your blog, Mark, was really helpful because that set me up in the right direction to start. slowly profiling yourself. That's something you do need to think about if you have this little goal of yourself to become an MVP eventually, or not have it off the table. But you should enjoy the work that comes with it because creating content or sharing your knowledge or hosting community events, that's going to be a lot of work anyway. And if you don't enjoy that, then you should not even try to.