Jeff Angama's Insider Look at Shaping a Tech Giant and Cultivating Community Spirit

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 France. He works at AvePoint as a solutions engineer. He is first awarded as MVP in 2020. He has a vision to deliver value to end users around starting small, think big and fail fast, which I love and ask why lots. You can find links to his bio and social media in the show notes for this episode. Welcome to the show, Jeff.

Jeff ANGAMA: 1:30
Thank you, mark, thank you for having me today.

Mark Smith: 1:34
It's so good to have you on the show. You come from one of the most beautiful places in the world, france. Tell me before we get started food, family and fun what do they mean to you?

Jeff ANGAMA: 1:48
Yeah, I'm actually from. My dad is from Small Island, renewan Island, so food, family and fun is all about this island, regan Island so it means a lot, and I've been two years in Singapore so you might know that food is a religion there, so it's a lot on my plate about this.

Mark Smith: 2:10
Just on Singapore. What was the best thing about the food there?

Jeff ANGAMA: 2:15
Oh, the fact is the fact that the food is coming from everywhere. You can go to those food courts where you have some table in the middle. People book it with their phone, so that it's so safe. You know they put their phone to book the table and then you can get food from Southeast Asia, philippines, indonesia, yeah, asian food. So you can. It's a bit like our job. You can get a taste of everything every day.

Mark Smith: 2:41
Did you ever go to? Did you ever go to one of the hotels in Singapore for a bottomless brunch, like you get eat and drink as much as you wanted, did you?

Jeff ANGAMA: 2:51
ever do, one of those in the.

Mark Smith: 2:52
Singapore hotels. Yeah, buffet.

Jeff ANGAMA: 2:55
Yeah, yeah, definitely Not enough. If I knew I was going to leave, I would have gone every week maybe, but now it's good. I mean, you have some lobster and good food for quite cheap.

Mark Smith: 3:08
Exactly, I couldn't get over it. It'd be like a flash hotel and then the food was just amazing and, of course, yeah, you go with a group of people and it's just an incredible time and it's definitely a highlight of Singapore for me.

Jeff ANGAMA: 3:23
Yeah, among the visits to do and the fun food is a good activity there.

Mark Smith: 3:30
Yeah, what made you go to Singapore? Was it for work?

Jeff ANGAMA: 3:35
Yeah, it was for work. I spent four years working in Paris and I was like, why not try Asia again? Because I did study one year in China and I really enjoyed the multicultural context. I wanted to also improve my English and, yeah, that made me go to Singapore. I think it was just before I mean way before COVID. I remember I did my interview using Skype and I got the job through Skype, you know, without going there. It was back in 2015. So kind of an exception, let's say. And I got an IT service company to develop some internet for the Singapore government there. So really nice projects. And, yeah, I actually apply for different jobs and I got Singapore.

Mark Smith: 4:23
Wow, and did you say you spent a year in China?

Jeff ANGAMA: 4:29
Yeah, in Changin, next to Beijing. That was thanks to my study. Thanks to my study, my school allowed us to go. We could go to Canada, usa and China. So I told myself back in 2011,. I think it's a chance that I can do that, because at that time it was not so open. The language barrier is quite a big gap. I don't know, you're Chinese, but mine sucks. So I took this opportunity and went there for Olympic Games 2008 as well.

Mark Smith: 4:59
Wow, wow, and can you speak Mandarin now?

Jeff ANGAMA: 5:04
No enough to impress people. But after they go deeper into the conversation I'm like no, I don't understand. Just to say hello and survive, let's say, in China.

Mark Smith: 5:17
Yes, yes, yeah, it's an amazing country. Amazing country. Tell me, what do you do now? Where is your career? What type of projects do you work on nowadays? No-transcript.

Jeff ANGAMA: 5:31
Nowadays I'm a pre-sales for F-Point. F-point is a software company that builds software for Microsoft 365 customer. Let's say most of the products are on this. There's also for Salesforce, but the most is on Microsoft 365. As a solution engineer, I help the potential customer understand the value of what they can get from the software. There's a lot of listening what they want to do, their pain points. Sometimes they don't know their pain points so we try to understand what are the risks nowadays in the context of Microsoft 365. Then it can be activities like helping them showing the use case about the product, of course, demonstrating the product and get them started with the trial. I still have to learn a lot about Microsoft because you've always been asked this question what's F-Point better doing than Microsoft and also against other competitors? It's still in my. I have 10 years experience in Microsoft 365, I mean N, sharepoint and Primize. I'm still on the same topics, but on a different aspect of it.

Mark Smith: 6:46
Let's say You've been recently working with a large French company taking advantage of the Power Platform. Tell me more about your experience on that, any challenges, achievements and what you're doing there.

Jeff ANGAMA: 7:05
Yeah, that was my previous experience After COVID. A lot of companies, as you know, they moved to cloud or they moved to Teams right, this company. They had a huge digital transformation in place. When I joined they just started moving to Teams and migrating to Outlook from Lotus. Not if you can imagine the big change.

Mark Smith: 7:26
It's a cleaning company. I hate Lotus Not.

Jeff ANGAMA: 7:30
Yeah, I never had the chance to try it. It's a cleaning company, so not the most tech-friendly, let's say they had a lot of paperwork, not a lot of digital systems, so the local was a great opportunity for them to put the digital right in the hand of the people cleaning the airplane. Maybe. If I give you an example, we created one of the first proof of concept we have done for the low code before deploying it more largely through a center of excellence. One of the POC was the cleaner. When they come into the airplane, they only have eight minutes to clean the airplane before the next assignment, let's say. Rather than when they see a problem, they could report that to the pilot or to the team that is there. Usually they tell the manager, the manager write it down. Instead of that, they have an app which is a power app and straight away they can take the picture of the problem. For example, if the wing of the airplane is scratched, for example, if they can see that, or if a belt is broken while they clean, they can report that. This is improving the quality of the future. What did you say? Flight, let's say, because those cleaner they are the eye of their customer. It's not only cleaner. So, yeah, and what did I do for them was to create a center of excellence to let people create their application, but in a safe context, security context, and also which tool to provide them, because there's so many power with Power Platform that if you just throw every tool to no 90 people, they might get lost right. So we define the governance, we help them create an application and we try to get more known. And two, three years ago, we went to Microsoft in Paris to present during a conference what we have been doing for this in this company. So, yeah, I'm happy to achieve this with this previous company.

Mark Smith: 9:42
Wow, it's great. Do you find your workers more centered around SharePoint nowadays, or is it more centered around the Power Platform?

Jeff ANGAMA: 9:52
In my current job or in general.

Mark Smith: 9:56
In general.

Jeff ANGAMA: 9:57
Oh, in general I would say we're on copilot now. I mean, it's not every day, but for me now every day is a lot about talking about governance, copilot readiness in terms of security and classification of data, and also the governance of teams, guests and Power Platform.

Mark Smith: 10:19
So in your day-to-day work, so personally now are you doing more with Power Platform or more with SharePoint?

Jeff ANGAMA: 10:29
I would say more with Microsoft 365 in general. Now I'm exposed to stuff I was not exposed before. For example, before I never knew that there were quota on SharePoint and some company actually go over this quota, so I proposed them solutions to archive this data, et cetera. So it's still around SharePoint, because the data is in SharePoint. But yeah, it's about data, let's say About the data. And maybe 30% of my time is about Power Platform governance, so how to go at scale with local and still know what's going on. So that's about automating some tasks. To ask the end user why did you create this? And yeah, it's really specific to iPhone product, I would say. But since I have to stay up to date, I also keep myself up to date with Microsoft 365.

Mark Smith: 11:23
Obviously, Microsoft's talking a lot about copilot. What are you hearing from customers? Are they requesting a lot around copilot?

Jeff ANGAMA: 11:32
Yeah, before it was 300 license as a start. Right Now it's more open. I know some are doing some pilot and straight from the beginning they are a bit worried about the security. Like are my access permissions right? Does my user has correct access to stuff? I don't want to find the salary of the big boss. Let's say, if I request copilot, so yeah, more and more. But more and more partners I mean IT Services Company that also want to build their offer about how can we help our customer to have a security review, for example, to help them to classify the data. So I talk a lot with potential partners that could resell fPoint. They want to understand which value can we bring for copilot preparation.

Mark Smith: 12:23
Let's say yeah, preparation is a big thing. How did you? In 2020, you became an MVP. How did you become an MVP? What was the process?

Jeff ANGAMA: 12:36
Well, in 2018, I was working in an IT Service Company and I got a chance to go to ESPC Copenhagen if I'm correct, dublin, sorry, dublin first one and I was following MVP online, getting to know a lot from them. To me, they were like the stars, you know, like nobody I could talk to, you know. So when I went to ESPC, I get to meet a lot of people, including Patrick Guimonnais and Gokhan, for example, and they took me around to the people they know, the sponsor and I discovered this beautiful community and I'm like, okay, why not myself? Or so I will try to speak at some conference, and I had this opportunity to organize some conference in the southeast of France. We are live now in Nice, so I organized one conference, I participate to another one. The second year, I organized another conference and then, okay, I tried to get MVP and in 2020, I got M265 MVP for two years, and then I switched category to business apps in 2023.

Mark Smith: 13:41
Do you now co-? As an? You can have two classifications. Do you still have M365, or are you just fully in the bzeps now?

Jeff ANGAMA: 13:50
Only BISapps now, but I would say it's thanks to the. I do a lot of talking about governance, about four platform. So yeah, under BISapps today.

Mark Smith: 14:01
Excellent. So you're using the COE Starter Kit as part of that governance discussion.

Jeff ANGAMA: 14:05
Before, when I work in my previous company, we did something ourselves, and now it's more about how in terms of process. How do we do governance? And also speak about F point, product, but also, yeah, COE Starter Kit as well a little bit, but that's more about process.

Mark Smith: 14:24
Let's say and so, when you look at your MVP tenure and your time as an MVP, do you what's your go-to when it comes to creating content for the community? Are you more a public speaker? Are you more YouTube? Are you more blog posts? What works for you?

Jeff ANGAMA: 14:48
Blog post was until two years ago. Now, more about micro blogging. Let's say, on LinkedIn, publishing some tips about Microsoft Teams, Any tool I use in Microsoft 365 as a user. Let's say, that's how I started really sharing knowledge. Let's say, and yeah, share also about Copilot and poor platform. And then I do public speaking and co-organizing conferences. For example, the next one is in Paris Modern Workplace Conference.

Mark Smith: 15:21
Nice, nice. Tell me about the public speaking side of things and this is more around. What is your process for deciding one, what topic you're gonna speak on, and then, how do you structure your presentation? And I'm asking this question because other people wanting to become MVP's, they're thinking about these things right, like how do I choose my topic? How do I structure a presentation? Do I do some demo? What's your thought process for when you're gonna do a presentation?

Jeff ANGAMA: 15:50
Yeah, first of all, when you submit some talk, you wanna be chosen right, so you have to find a topic that maybe stands out from others. So I know today for sure people are gonna propose Copilot. There gonna be a lot of submitted session about it. So I think it's a good topic, but risky as well. So there's some topics that always come back. Generally, I did about governance for platform because I know there's a lot about citizen development or pro development and not a lot about governance. So I chose governance. Nowadays I know teams has been left out a little bit, so I'm trying to propose some what's new with teams, what's best practice to manage it. So still around governance. So let's say I would say, choose what you like first of all, and trying to think what could be accepted and submit few sessions to get more chance. That's for the topic. And then how to prepare it. Well, if it's a 30 minute session, you might not have time for a demo. I would say I mean you could have time, but it's a bit risky if you want to have Q&A session et cetera. If you have 45 minutes, then it's more comfortable for a demo. I would say so when I have 30 minutes. I just put some screenshot, like animated in PowerPoint, just to open some discussion and knowledge to people. And if you make yeah, the last point is how to structure the presentation. So before I would say I do it naturally, where you put the problem statement at first, or the opportunity, then the solution and then what's the benefit out of it. And I was trying to learn new ways. So just I think two days ago I got those two techniques. So, yeah, one is problem slash, opportunity, solution, benefit. And the one is talk about the product, the what. Then you explain the why, so what can I do with this product? And the last one is the what can I do next with this product, like, should I try it? Should I try to find some use case? So it's always three steps. And, yeah, find time to interact with the audience from right, from the beginning. I guess makes you feel more comfortable and less stress, and also spend some time on question at the end, because it's about all about sharing knowledge, right.

Mark Smith: 18:12
I love it. I love it. Those are brilliant tips. The last thing I wanted to just get your insight on you talked about micro blogging on LinkedIn, and I'm seeing a lot more of this. What's your? Is LinkedIn your main tool that you're using these days as and from a social interaction perspective in the community, and tell me about what you think about when it comes to micro blogging?

Jeff ANGAMA: 18:38
Yeah, initially I tried Twitter and LinkedIn, and I don't know if it's since it became X, but even a few time a time ago, I stopped using Twitter because I feel like it become a bit too much of just pictures and not a lot of value added content. So I kind of switch gear to fully LinkedIn, because I feel it's every post I find value in it, and when I say micro blogging, I am not talking about the article, I'm really talking about the post in LinkedIn. Yeah, and now we see more and more content because also of co-pilot. I remember I feel I was one of the first one putting emoji, you know, back in 2018 in your post, when I discovered this beautiful shortcut and now everybody has emoji. Yes, yes. So I mean, we have a job on the side, right? So to my planning, it's fitting better because I'd say, in my daily job I discover something. It's quick for me to schedule a post on LinkedIn or just post it straight away. So, yeah, that's one of the techniques as well. My colleague tells me how do you do you? You post things in teams, in Yammer, inside the company. You're also post on LinkedIn. I say, yeah, I don't work. Well, I do work, but sometimes I plan some posts maybe at that time now for the next morning, because I know the audience is not connected at this moment. So what's the point?

Mark Smith: 20:05
Yeah, so true. Final question what advice would you give to people that want to become an MVP? I would say never give up.

Jeff ANGAMA: 20:15
I try myself three times and all I did was sharing knowledge, and one day it happened.

Mark Smith: 20:24
Hey, thanks for listening On 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.