Vivian Voss on The MVP Show

[mark]: 2:24
today's guest is from denmark she works as a business architect at alta people she received her first n v p award in february twenty twenty two outside of work her words she spends time with her little trouble maker son and husband while trying to squeeze in some knitting and crocheting she loves travelling discovering new and exciting places in the world you can find her in twitter at vivian t and and her website at vivian dot tamon dot com welcome to the show vivian voss

[vivian]: 2:56
thank you very much it's great to be here

[mark]: 2:59
excellent it's good to have you on the show i always love talking to people from denmark i've got two nephews that live in denmark with their mother and well they're not they don't live with the other any more ones in the military and ones in and media they're actually growing up guys now but yeah and i've loved my time visiting denmark but first of all before we go there can you pack for me vivian teamin because i got confused with your name vivian voss is

[vivian]: 3:27
yeah

[mark]: 3:27
on the name but your team an is the actual handle

[vivian]: 3:31
yeah well things happen when when you get married

[mark]: 3:35
they do

[vivian]: 3:35
even eva is actually actually my maiden name i'm originally from astonia so having the name movin team i was actually when i started getting into community so that was when i created the website twitter handle and then when then i get married changed my name and though okay use the same one and then ever since been thinking that i should probably change it because every place is like wait name is maybe in furs why is that name so so you get to explain a lot but i actually think it's kind of fun

[mark]: 4:13
yeah i like it

[vivian]: 4:14
because

[mark]: 4:14
it's good it's

[vivian]: 4:15
it's different so

[mark]: 4:16
a good

[vivian]: 4:17
it's

[mark]: 4:17
conversation

[vivian]: 4:17
not something you

[mark]: 4:17
piece

[vivian]: 4:17
are

[mark]: 4:18
right

[vivian]: 4:18
over they it is it's a good style at least

[mark]: 4:21
yes tell me about what you do when you're not doing it related things so tell me about the three f food family and fun

[vivian]: 4:32
well actually i was about to answer when i'm not doing it then volunteering in it so but food family of ton i love food i'm cooking especially if i have a recipe in front of me then it usually turns out the best

[mark]: 4:50
yes

[vivian]: 4:53
were usually trying to make foot together

[mark]: 4:56
yes

[vivian]: 4:57
with a family it can really really busy recently so enjoying the few moments that we can spend as a family of three my husband is a developer working

[mark]: 5:07
well

[vivian]: 5:08
in it so we're both also having our job as hobby so we're taking the small time that we have to other things so that's kind of what we have figured out cooking with me and a three year old son he he's kind of getting more interested in the fact of what is it that the moment are doing at the kitchen at once a not always

[mark]: 5:31
always

[vivian]: 5:31
a safe option to have him there but trying

[mark]: 5:34
yeah

[vivian]: 5:34
to always a learning moment i see also when we figured out that there's some stuff laying around like oh yeah you shouldn't touch that part so so yeah we're taking the whole food and cooking experience also as a family time

[mark]: 5:51
i like it i like it

[vivian]: 5:54
otherwise

[mark]: 5:54
the

[vivian]: 5:54
it's fun as already you mentioned i love traveling it has of course been a bit handicap the past few years now but i did that a lot before i also like to combine it with volunteering was volunteer at the rio degineero olympic summer olympic games in two thousand sixty

[mark]: 6:13
wow

[vivian]: 6:14
got to experience speech vally ball at the cobacabanna beach could not be a better play to do that it was completely amazing and then i wrote a book about it so i like to push my

[mark]: 6:26
wow

[vivian]: 6:26
boundaries let's put it that way so yeah

[mark]: 6:30
yeah

[vivian]: 6:31
tried to find new things they haven't tried and then do it either fail or succeed but then i can say i've tried

[mark]: 6:38
i love it i love it wrote a book that's incredible it's a lot of work right

[vivian]: 6:44
oh yes at the moment i think it's the half point point when you figure out is the reason why i'm doing this we why did you say yes to that at the moment you actually it published the moment you can see it in in stores or someone actually willing to pay money for it is as a really great feeling

[mark]: 7:04
yeah yeah tell me about astonio is that where you said you came

[vivian]: 7:08
yeah

[mark]: 7:08
from

[vivian]: 7:09
yeah born and raised in born in de which is the southern part of esthonia but primarily most of my twenty years

[mark]: 7:18
yes

[vivian]: 7:18
that i lived in astonia ave been living the capital talent it's a very nice country it's almost the size size wise it's similar to denmark people wise in denmark you have around five million in the stone have point three million people very different lots of nature trees and we have wife everywhere

[mark]: 7:42
wow

[vivian]: 7:43
one one point of that we attract people that a song attracts people is the fact that you can be in the middle of the forest enjoying bird sings and animals and then oh yeah i'm connected to if

[mark]: 7:56
wow that's cool that's very cool

[vivian]: 7:57
that's so that's that's pretty pretty nice were actually like it married in austonia in southern austonia so i also got to bring the danish family over to sonia to show where i come from and he and they are absolutely loving the nature the people in austonia so it's always a good thing to

[mark]: 8:17
yes

[vivian]: 8:18
show other people from other countries to the ragons and and where

[mark]: 8:22
what

[vivian]: 8:23
maybe from a country that people haven't been visiting yet

[mark]: 8:25
exactly

[vivian]: 8:26
so there's there's a lot of prejudices or ideas of how a country is and the it's good to see that people are like wow moment

[mark]: 9:11
tell me about how long does it take to get from denmark to astonia i like is it is it a direct is a direct flight or is it multiple

[vivian]: 9:22
you can get the direct fight from copenhagen to talent which is around one and a half hour not that long or you can

[mark]: 9:32
you

[vivian]: 9:33
take the adventurous trip where you can take a car or a land transport through germany and poland and the baltic countries which will we managed to do it in one and a half day but that is then driving most of the time we did actually have one night when we were sleeping next to the trucks very and not you call it safe feeling between them but but it was a very adventurous

[mark]: 10:00
i bet i bet tell me about alpha people and the reason i ask is you know i've been working in dynamics since two thousand and three so quite a while alpandyouknow i'm based in new zealand but through my career i've seen the name alpha people pop up time and time again more and all in europe actually tell

[vivian]: 10:22
yeah

[mark]: 10:22
us just give me a bit of a background of alpha people and particularly what they do in the business application space

[vivian]: 10:30
alpha people is originating from denmark it was founded in copenhagen and then it has kind of spread all over the world we have offices in europe germ and switzerland and the u k as well and then there's a to huge a presence in the southern america where where they actually have kind of their own company and it's actually one of the biggest dynamics houses that they are in southern america so that is it's over all a huge company in denmark rat trying to recreate the team starting from scratch again with the business applications building up an f and o team our sales team and trying to just approach you from another angle getting

[mark]: 11:23
yeah

[vivian]: 11:24
a very amazing people that have actually been working with business applications for the past ten fifteen years getting on board and actually working together trying to break the silos of which is the fan and the sales part i think that is actually pretty amazing and also yeah on dynamics carm and marketing myself but actually getting to work and hear about how people work with fan or on the r p p side of things as actually it really exciting and also to get to work together without having to kind of put yourself in a box saying no no i'm not touching that area that's our p oh it's a great great approach i believe

[mark]: 12:07
yeah i totally understand what you mean because my entire career has

[vivian]: 12:11
i

[mark]: 12:11
been

[vivian]: 12:11
yeah

[mark]: 12:12
built around the customer engagement products and and very much you know started off in cars base and of course power platform now but in my current role now i'm finding i'm doing a heck of a lot now in the f and o space and it's exciting it's cool it's like i think more and more microsofps move to break down the piece ram kind of silos at the product level has kind of led to it happening out in companies like the ones we work for tell me so so where the people do you do things other than um microsoft business applications like do you do other type of consulting and like a jure or even other

[vivian]: 12:50
yeah

[mark]: 12:51
non microsoftech

[vivian]: 12:54
not really if we

[mark]: 12:55
yes

[vivian]: 12:55
take asia if we take other areas than it has been part of a bigger solution that we're trying to the issue we're trying to solve with a customer it is

[mark]: 13:06
the

[vivian]: 13:06
primarily a dynamic or power platform that

[mark]: 13:10
well

[vivian]: 13:10
we are were focusing on

[mark]: 13:12
well and i find it interesting that you say that you've got a big presence in south america so like is it argentina or

[vivian]: 13:19
its brazil

[mark]: 13:20
brazil okay brazil because i know of one brazilian

[vivian]: 13:25
oh

[mark]: 13:25
v p he originated from their lives in malburnnow diego but i don't

[vivian]: 13:31
light

[mark]: 13:31
see massive presence

[vivian]: 13:32
yeah

[mark]: 13:33
in the in the community of brazilians and or

[vivian]: 13:37
no

[mark]: 13:37
you know people from the rest you know i know of other south americans that are you know living in spain for example

[vivian]: 13:44
yeah

[mark]: 13:44
and they they are you know big in the in the bizet space but

[vivian]: 13:50
yeah

[mark]: 13:51
yeah it would be good to see you know a greater presence in the community because i think you know diverse cultures always brings something new and unique to the bazepsumspace tell me about

[vivian]: 14:04
definitely agree

[mark]: 14:06
how did you get into dynamics how did you actually know what was and i'm talking about the very first thing was that that point of exposure to dynamics

[vivian]: 14:17
oh

[mark]: 14:17
how did that happen

[vivian]: 14:19
yea that was

[mark]: 14:20
i was

[vivian]: 14:20
two thousand fifteen i had just yeah i was during my practical placement there while studying for my bachelor

[mark]: 14:28
thank

[vivian]: 14:28
of sales and marketing international sales and marketing and then i actually was working as a marketing assistant doing pretty pictures putting up stories and everything so i was sitting together with the sales team time and time again i heard them whining about a system something that

[mark]: 14:50
think

[vivian]: 14:50
they had to feel an information nothing was working but the buses were always at their back they had no idea why they needed to do that and it was like again i had time aside from the from the works that i was doing so just look into the system what is so terrible about it and so i started off looking into it as from the user

[mark]: 15:13
it

[vivian]: 15:13
a point of view and i thought it was

[mark]: 15:16
it

[vivian]: 15:16
wasn't that bad but when i started more listening to the sales people i figured out it's because they have actually never gotten training in and then i then a bit deeper thing like okay what is the system who is owning it in the company and what is kind of the story behind it and figured out that the whole problem was the fact that absolutely no one wanted to do any about it no one wanted to take a responsibility for it or train anyone in it so it kind of made sense that no one could find anything around it so i asked my boss if i could look more into it see but if i could take do something about it if i could make it better well anything was better that the point they were at at that point and that started googling so the first product i ever worked with was dynamic crmversion two thousand eleven

[mark]: 16:09
well ye

[vivian]: 16:11
pretty programme

[mark]: 16:11
many

[vivian]: 16:12
very pretty very i like that some customers right now called the dynamics that we have at the moment very corporate they have probably definitely not seen the two thousand eleven version so i would call that a corporate one but but then

[mark]: 16:27
yeah

[vivian]: 16:27
i started looking and then i came up with something called the serum university where we took all the sales people who took all the functionality they was there and the i created kind of kind of like microsof learn is now for the sae sales team created some programs they even got a nice diploma in the end and they loved it and that we also kind of built upon so every time there came a new update or feed you that they went through a new model that they passed and then they got yeah an additional diploma for it so that

[mark]: 17:05
i like

[vivian]: 17:05
they

[mark]: 17:06
it

[vivian]: 17:06
could put it behind their desk say ho i've passed that so and the great part what i think is is it about the whole thing is that now i left for another company and five years later i could still hear i still have context there i can still hear that they're still running the ceram university so having started something

[mark]: 17:28
to

[vivian]: 17:28
that actually still seeing value and

[mark]: 17:30
yeah

[vivian]: 17:30
this is a great feeling

[mark]: 17:32
i love it i love it so so starting from there how

[vivian]: 17:36
you

[mark]: 17:36
did you then switch to you obviously

[vivian]: 17:39
yeah

[mark]: 17:40
your an architect now how did that journey to architecture come to from from doing that training to ultimately becoming an architect

[vivian]: 17:52
well i quit that job when i went to be to be a volunteer in the summer olympics that so i took a month in brazil where i was traveling around rio and then was a volunteer and when i came back

[mark]: 18:09
i am a

[vivian]: 18:10
then i had some time to think what i wanted to do but one thing i knew was the fact i wanted to research more on the dynamic area about the car mire so i took a long shot really long shot when i applied for a job as a technical consultant in a company in southern denmark on a island called el in the company called line which is producing yeah lineal actuators too desks and everything that you basically need to make moving and and i actually got the job which was one of the best experience in my life because i was so sure that i had absolutely no qualifications knowing that i just had graced the top layer of o c r m and then ha no clue about the technical side of things and everything so but the five years there and that also shows if you have the right laws you have the right you're given free and to do what you want to do than the possibilities are endless so i dug deeper i started the connecting with different people in the community started following different people from the community and so yeah reached that deep that i actually in the learned javascript and s cha

[mark]: 19:34
yah

[vivian]: 19:35
dynamics yeah so yeah i started actually writing about the things that i learned because working with a system

[mark]: 19:46
came

[vivian]: 19:46
that was that old because in two those fifteen two thousand eleven version was already prety old

[mark]: 19:53
yeah exactly

[vivian]: 19:54
and and then the problems that they raised and the solutions i could find and so that was afterwards i also led a project where we upgraded to two thousand sixteen

[mark]: 20:06
thank you

[vivian]: 20:07
and in the end also ran up went through a project where we actually moved from on premise to online so within those six years or five years that i was with that company i actually managed to go through huge projects and steps in dynamics and followed the yeah i travel also that the product has one through itself and different possibilities and feed is that have come and are continuously coming from now

[mark]: 20:38
i like it i like it vivian i feel like i'd talk to you for ages because it's like in my mind i'm like i know i've run out of time but i'd like to talk to you about dynamics marketing and your experiences with that of course you speaking at scottish summit or you're involved in scottish

[vivian]: 20:52
yes

[mark]: 20:53
summit as well which

[vivian]: 20:54
yes

[mark]: 20:54
i think is fantastic it's great to see that in person vent you know been run in person this year again which is exciting before i let you go though tell me any advice you would give to others that think that they perhaps want to become an m v p

[vivian]: 21:14
go for it but what it is just do what you love do it with passion if you just started flogging if you just started the interacting with the common it don't dare to ask anyone people are super amazing i was totally terrified of ever for everyone myself but just getting the first introduction saying you will soon within the community and everyone is so amazing

[mark]: 21:42
yes

[vivian]: 21:42
so you love it efinitely go for it