Miguel Verweij on The MVP Show

[mark_smith]: 1:09
Today's guest is from Rotterdam, South Holland in the Netherlands. He's a power platform consultant at Power Bauer.He was first awarded his MVP in 2022. The great thing is he started as a citizen developer, and he's grown in his career now to become a full power platform solution architect. And he's a freelance consultant. Have I got that right?You're still a freelance consultant?

[miguel_verweij]: 1:33
Yes, that's totally correct. I just started actually this year in January, so just super fresh.

[mark_smith]: 1:37
Wow. Fantastic. As always links to be in the show notes is his bio, social media, etcetera if you wanna follow what he's up to. Welcome to the show Miguel.

[miguel_verweij]: 1:46
Thanks, thanks for having me.

[mark_smith]: 1:51
Good to have you on the Show. Must be night time there for you. Is that right?

[miguel_verweij]: 1:55
It's actually 9.02 so we just had election day so voting is over so it's just regional elections so but yeah it's night time it's dark winter's almost over we're on the north the north hemisphere

[mark_smith]: 2:11
I'm going into autumn here in the southern hemisphere

[miguel_verweij]: 2:13
yeah yeah exactly yeah

[mark_smith]: 2:14
so the whole switch round. Tell me what you do when you're not working. What do you do for fun? What's the best things to eat in Rotterdam? Like is it the same as the best things to eat in Amsterdam which I have spent you know with the the croquettes of course a lot and then yeah tell us a bit about your family.

[miguel_verweij]: 2:36
Yeah well, family is about to change. My wife is pregnant at the moment, so a lot of change going on.So actually today I just installed a small bed where my son will be my sleeping, so that's nice. Yeah,

[mark_smith]: 2:54
and the food? actually there is a typical Rotterdam dish. Well, you cannot really call

[miguel_verweij]: 3:00
it a dish, but it's like a nighttime snack, and it's like kebab with fries and salad,and garlic sauce, I'm not sure if that's the name, but it's like a jam packed, many carbs,perfect for the night.

[mark_smith]: 3:16
Perfect for drinking beer by the sounds.

[miguel_verweij]: 3:19
Exactly, yeah.

[mark_smith]: 3:20
Yeah, nice. Nice. And what do you do for fun?

[miguel_verweij]: 3:27
For fun, my wife always calls me an old guy. When I have spare time, I just actually like to read The Economist.

[mark_smith]: 3:38
Cool.

[miguel_verweij]: 3:39
And that's basically it, just boring stuff. That's me, yeah.

[mark_smith]: 3:44
Well, that's a very, I found at the moment, a very interesting topic, the economy. What are your thoughts on what's going on in the globe? You know, there's a lot of predictions we're heading into a recession. There's a lot of signs with interest rates, of course, going through the roof. What are your thoughts on all your research?

[miguel_verweij]: 4:01
Yeah, exactly, especially now with the Silicon Valley Bank. And I actually just read that even the Swiss, the Credit Swiss is sort of in what is it? They're balancing at the moment. So yeah, it's interesting times. Interest rates are rising. So everything is basically the era of free money is over. like to read about and what it's especially also with the Ukraine it's all connected it's all about the money right so that's yeah that's what I'm interested in

[mark_smith]: 4:41
totally so tell me if you had a crystal ball and looked at the next five years what are we in for it's only your predictions right you can only we're only recording it place to get on the internet

[miguel_verweij]: 4:49
predictions. Yeah, yeah exactly. Well this is not no financial advice.

[mark_smith]: 4:55
of course

[miguel_verweij]: 4:56
I don't know, just enjoy life, spend it,now you can. And I think that's the best advice to give. Just enjoy life.

[mark_smith]: 5:09
I was interested to read that you started as a citizen developer and you are now a solution architect. And why I think this is going to be an interesting story to unpack is there's going to be a lot of people out there that are not even in the power platform space yet. Or they might have in their companies had a few apps and they're like, you know, wow, I love this. I wonder if I could make something of this and pivot my career.

[miguel_verweij]: 5:45
So, well, I was just reading about you and you started in 2003 and you just entered the ball game from the dynamic side. And I see it like a spectrum, you're either on the sort of the citizen development, the low code, the real low code, like it's the stupid low code and the smart low code. Maybe you can see it like that. And you came in from the dynamic side, but I just came in from the total opposite, basically. So I started architectural engineering, so I'm an architectural engineer.That's what I studied. And then I just like during the thesis,I already entered the IT world. I already liked it when I was a young kid, but I just studied architectural engineering.And then on my first job, there was sort of IT mixed with architectural engineering. in architectural engineering nowadays it's all 3D engineered right so everything is sort of they create a virtual building basically so they can check on okay what is the MVP will they hit structural elements all those sort of because there is no prototyping right it's just everything is a one time it's not like you got a car that you got a million of the same types it's just one building Exactly.Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. And they like in the super giant buildings, like the corporate buildings, they all have their own model, basically. So the MEP guys, they basically designed the electrical outlets and all the piping and the same for for plumbing,all those sort of stuff. But then the structural guy comes in and then he wants a giant beam because yeah,those giant beams. But it all has to fit together, right? So what we did at that moment is like the client also got their requirements. So we tried to make a basically a database, which was already low code, a different platform, but it was sort of low code relational database. And then we hooked it onto the 3D model to do some automated tests if it meets the requirements,basically. So that's what I did and then I already sort of there is where my database knowledge sort of gained a bit of experience. And then I joined Arcadis which is a global engineering firm. And then there I joined a small digital team. So basically we looked in all types of digitalization and how it can improve the engineering world. So we looked into virtual reality so you could manufacturers. But then also I ran into the power platform first by Power BI. So we actually moved the Rotterdam office, it moved, and then we, or at least they installed all sort of smart building telemetry to collect telemetry. And they hooked it on to Azure. And then I read it into a Power BI report. And I use some visualizations to just get some real time monitoring to see basically which desk are available, what's the humidity, all that sort of stuff, what's the loudness like if you got a if you want to focus then you want obviously a more quiet place but if you're in a call then you might just not be that yeah you don't might care that much about it so that's what I then created and so the first journey was Power BI basically but then I looked around because you go to office.com they see all the apps there right and then I, I saw Power behind and I said hey there's also Power Automate,there's also Power Apps and then I just tried it and then I thought okay this Power Apps and then I just tried it and then I thought okay this is good then I gained some more experience and then I started building solutions. I wasn't even aware what solutions were, it was just all in the default environment and now I was just hacking my way into it basically. That worked actually pretty good And then eventually when I was talking to the IT department and sort of suggesting what sort of environment strategy they should use then I thought maybe it's time to move. So then I basically switched career officially,so then I joined an IT company. And there I basically did the same thing, but then officially and then full-time.So and also with more like-minded people. So that was also really nice that I can learn from. met Daniel Laskovich,he's also known in the community. So he was sort of my mentor at that moment. And I know you like mentoring too, so he was mine basically. And that's what I did for like a year and a half. And then I thought, yeah, okay,why not? I like what I'm doing and yeah, I can do it. And then I do believe and for now it's working fine. So that's basically how it went. Then in that middle part where I was just, that's maybe also nice to mention that,like also the time that I switched to SogT,that's also the moment where I thought, okay, now it might be interesting to sort of, I really gained a lot of experience by all the community blogs, all the videos, everything was out there. So I thought I wanted to do something back basically. And then at that time it was December, that's when I was thinking I was doing some sort of

[mark_smith]: 12:39
I also used it to just focus on topics that I wasn't really knowledgeable about yet. So I had to dig into it and then yeah, it's also beneficial for me, right? Yeah.And that's what I did and after one year I got, actually within the year I got nominated and I got the award. So that's pretty cool.cool. That's so awesome. That's so awesome. Tell me now about what's your, you know, we've got about five different tools as in the premium So I'm talking about Power Apps, Automate, BI, Virtual Agents, Power Pages. Of those, what's your kind of go-to? What do you love the most out of them, or is it a combination that you're often working with?What are your thoughts?

[miguel_verweij]: 13:26
Yeah, this is a hard one for me,but I think I have to say Power Automate. And it's just because I that's that's all.

[mark_smith]: 13:32
Okay. Are you using Power Automate desktop as well?

[miguel_verweij]: 13:35
No, no,I'm not the biggest fan actually.

[mark_smith]: 13:36
No. No?

[miguel_verweij]: 13:39
I'm not sure if I'm allowed to say but

[mark_smith]: 13:41
is that right? No,that's good.

[miguel_verweij]: 13:42
yeah, I just like the whole clouds like what I really like where what I think is the power of the power platform is the whole democratization of the of technology basically.And I think flows could be a bit that's more it needs more or requires more skill to make it and that's the same thing with model-driven driven apps which

[mark_smith]: 14:04
apps. Interesting,

[miguel_verweij]: 14:06
I'm actually really enjoying now because now I'm building solutions and I'm using ALM and then I think okay if I'm in a solution then it makes more sense to pack it up into one solution so then you're into the data first world but then if So what I just mentioned, you started from the dynamic side, right? And me more on the, what, yeah, maybe just the power automate side. It's like a spectrum also, what Microsoft is propagating basically. Like, it's like a whole spectrum, right? So from real citizen development to pro-codes. And I think that the, yeah, basically desktop flows and model-driven apps and data versus both sides and I think Power Automate like Cloud Flows and Canvas apps is more on the citizen development side. And I think that that's the real entry point. So Power Automate, Canvas apps, that's where people get in and then like the people who are knowledge or take time to get more involved, they can just proceed on to the next sort of platform services.

[mark_smith]: 15:22
Yeah Let's unpack RPA and And

[miguel_verweij]: 15:25
and the

[mark_smith]: 15:25
the power automate desktop. Why do you why do you think it's what are your thoughts because you obviously You've got some opinions there

[miguel_verweij]: 15:35
yeah. Well, it's not like like I'm real. I have a real passionate opinion about it. But in my like, everything is cloud flows nowadays. So just use APIs and like,that's makes the most sense to me.

[mark_smith]: 15:53
Interesting.

[miguel_verweij]: 15:53
So The RPA is probably more like a last resort, in my opinion. And

[mark_smith]: 15:57
I probably get... People will start to come to me now, but that's my honest opinion about it. Yeah. I...

[miguel_verweij]: 16:06
I'm a Dutch guy right? We are just blunt.

[mark_smith]: 16:09
So here's the thing, you're right, it's harder to use. I've been trying to use it for the last couple of days and nothing just works, how I would expect it to work. And so I have to do some research and stuff like that.

[miguel_verweij]: 16:19
Yeah, you got the runtimes,like the one desktop takes it different than the other so that's the app you have to take into account. So it's a bit harder to get up and running.

[mark_smith]: 16:28
You've seen Microsoft's investment in open AI, right? And that they're playing big in that space.is Power Automate Desktop. Do you? Actually data was the, there was a thought that it's,

[miguel_verweij]: 16:43
Yeah, do you? Yeah, actually today there was a post that it's in...

[mark_smith]: 16:46

they evolve it, if they evolve it to what it could be. So, so this is what I see. Let's say if we looked in five years time, what Power Automate Desktop could be.If it was set up to monitor just everything that I was doing every day on my computer, all the interactions,and then it was given the command, look at how you could automate various tasks. a very simple one that I'm doing at the moment. I work for a company that requires through their single sign-on at least three clicks every day when I log into the machine. Those three clicks grind me because they're just wasted fricking time, right? And you're waiting for the next screen, blah, blah, blah. And that's what I'm at the moment. And the thing that's got me hooked up is browser profiles. RPA doesn't like to deal or as struggles with that because in the pop-up window when you say select a browser, it says the Power Automate is not installed in that window. Yet it is installed,

[miguel_verweij]: 17:49
Yeah, exactly.

[mark_smith]: 17:49
but it's not in that pop-up window which is then throwing an error. That's why I have to look at it from a programmatic point of view, how to command line that piece out.That's where I'm just working through at the moment. But this is why I think it's going to be the biggest deal ever. That's going to change the world even for everybody using Windows. They've got it on Mac or anything else at the moment. But that tool, if it was monitoring everything I did, and then all of a sudden I'm getting 10%,20% productivity improvements a day because it's looking at everything.It's looking at my emails, you know, naturally I'll switch it off when I'm looking at porn. But you know, I'd have to be careful that it was, so it could be monitoring everything,

[miguel_verweij]: 18:29
Well, if it got some good recommendations.

[mark_smith]: 18:31
right? And then all, yeah, exactly. And then all of a sudden in a year and a half's time,It continues to improve as it continues to learn.It learns me, it learns me.

[miguel_verweij]: 18:42
That's an interesting take on it, yeah.

[mark_smith]: 18:44
All of a sudden 25% of my job's automated. Then in another two years time, 50% of my job's automated.Like it pre-knows everything, because it knows how I work. It knows what my work patterns would be. And that's why I think RPA, because they installed it in Windows11 by default, right? It's part of the operating system install,I think could be the most powerful tool, has going forward in the AI realm because I tell you what I bet it'll get to a hundred percent.

[miguel_verweij]: 19:25
Well, by that time then probably part probably won't come in Europe and then our productivity is a gun, so...

[mark_smith]: 19:30
But the thing is as long as it contained it right because what I'm seeing now already people are creating AIs that if you've got a juicy enough GPU card that these AIs large ones stand alone so there's no data handoff right everything of that could be contained on my PC not no privacy breaching or anything you know and what it's doing so I think that if it's like a localized version yes there's the we need this you know the super the quantum computing ultimately is gonna affect the AI and etc but I think that yeah

[miguel_verweij]: 20:03
Well, actually, maybe not, maybe RPA isn't really required for that because you already see AI being infused in outlook,like it sort of suggests like your synthesis,that's what it's already doing. And it's already...

[mark_smith]: 20:20
But the thing is with Windows, right? If it can listen, it can monitor,

[miguel_verweij]: 20:23
true.

[mark_smith]: 20:23
it knows all the endpoints, because it wouldn't just see what I'm doing on screen, right? It can see the performance on the process, it can see everything, the data uploads, it can see all of that. If you're just doing AI at an app level,What happens is around the transition between apps the data you move between apps the power points that you do over and over again All of a sudden it pre builds them because it goes hey, I've seen you build these a hundred times Your microphone was on so I heard you talking out loud about how you're gonna create it You know

[miguel_verweij]: 20:57
Exactly.

[mark_smith]: 20:57
your camera is on so I can see how you're getting frustrated with areas I'm gonna solve those areas quicker for you. I don't know, you know

[miguel_verweij]: 21:05
that could be an interesting time to be alive well to be alive in

[mark_smith]: 21:09
Yeah, why why?

[miguel_verweij]: 21:10
but the whole the AI thing that's also really really powerful it's also coming.

[mark_smith]: 21:15
Yeah It's infused in AI build obviously And yeah, I think they're also Like recently they gave 250 credits and now

[miguel_verweij]: 21:36
I think it's just 500 credits a month and for every license you get it's just on the stack and you can just allocate those credits on different environments.

[mark_smith]: 21:45
Nice.

[miguel_verweij]: 21:47
But that's pretty cool.

[mark_smith]: 21:49
Last question I have for you. Tell me about, what did you learn when you became an MVP that you didn't know before becoming an MVP? About the program, the MVP program, that type of thing. What I've learned. You know, was there anything about the program that you didn't realize and then after you joined, you're like, wow, okay, I didn't expect that.

[miguel_verweij]: 22:17
Well, I haven't been to MVP for that long, but I can tell that it's sort of overwhelming, like all the DL emails you get. I'm a pro at Outlook rules now, so it does it all automatically.

[mark_smith]: 22:31
now. Nice. Nice, exactly.You get very good Yeah, at making sure they get routed some photos right?

[miguel_verweij]: 22:38
exactly. Yeah, and that's still something that I'm figuring out at the moment, like how to sort to be honest that still something I'm sort of figuring out at the moment it's it hasn't been so long and like what I mentioned when the show started my wife just got pregnant so that also tumbled things around so it's I tried to do my best to keep up with everything but yeah