Podcasts about citizen developer

213 | BWLer werden zu Programmieren mit No Code & AI | Fabian Q. Veit, CEO Make.comAI Tools und Vibe Coding macht BWLer zu Tech-Hackern. Was ersetzt die AI und was ersetzt sie nicht? Fabian Q. Veit ist CEO des deutschen No-Code-Powerhouses Make.Mach das 2-minütige Quiz und finde eine Geschäftsidee, die zu dir passt: digitaleoptimisten.de/quiz.Kapitel: (00:00) Intro(02:52) Was ist No Code und warum der Hype?(09:12) Paradigmenwechsel: Warum immer mehr Leute programmieren können(15:25) Die Zukunft des Programmierens im Jahr 2035(26:50) OpenAIs First-Mover-Advantage(36:50) Wer ist in Zukunft CEO? AI oder Mensch?(42:25) Warum im Zeitalter von AI Menschlichkeit boomen wird(44:10) Wie kann Europa aufholen?(59:18) Fabians Geschäftsidee(1:04:16) OutroMehr Kontext:In dieser Episode von Digital Optimisten diskutieren Alex Mrozek und Fabian Q. Veit über die Welt der No-Code-Automatisierungen. Sie erklären, was No-Code ist, wie es funktioniert und warum es immer beliebter wird. Die beiden sprechen über praktische Anwendungsbeispiele, die Rolle von Citizen Developern und die Veränderungen in der IT. Zudem wird die Bedeutung von Governance in einer zunehmend automatisierten Welt thematisiert, sowie die Zukunft des Programmierens mit AI und die Entwicklung von Vibe Coding. In dieser Diskussion werden verschiedene Aspekte der Zukunft von Technologie und KI behandelt. Fabian und Alex sprechen über die Rolle von No-Code-Tools, die Integration von KI in Arbeitsabläufe und die potenzielle Disruption des Software-as-a-Service-Marktes. Sie diskutieren auch die Entwicklung hybrider Belegschaften, in denen KI-Agenten und Menschen zusammenarbeiten, sowie die Bedeutung von Menschlichkeit in einer zunehmend automatisierten Welt. In dieser Episode diskutieren Fabian und Alex die Herausforderungen und Chancen, die Künstliche Intelligenz (KI) in Europa mit sich bringt. Sie beleuchten die Notwendigkeit von Menschlichkeit in sozialen Berufen, die digitale Transformation in Deutschland und die Rolle von politischen Fragen in der gesellschaftlichen Entwicklung. Zudem wird der AI Action Summit in Paris als positives Beispiel für die Zusammenarbeit zwischen Wirtschaft und Politik hervorgehoben. Die Diskussion umfasst auch die Bedeutung von No-Code-Lösungen und die Chancen für neue Geschäftsideen, die durch KI ermöglicht werden.Keywords:No-Code, Automatisierung, Citizen Developer, AI, digitale Transformation, Governance, Programmierung, Technologie, Software, Innovation, Technologie, KI, No-Code, Automatisierung, Software-as-a-Service, Zukunft, hybride Belegschaften, Menschlichkeit, Künstliche Intelligenz, Europa, digitale Transformation, soziale Berufe, No-Code, Geschäftsideen, Technologie, Innovation, KI-Entwicklung, politische Fragen

Mike & Tommy answer a great mailbag question on what it means to be a Citizen Developer in an organization with a low Data Culture.Get in touch:Send in your questions or topics you want us to discuss by tweeting to @PowerBITips with the hashtag #empMailbag or submit on the PowerBI.tips Podcast Page.Visit PowerBI.tips: https://powerbi.tips/Watch the episodes live every Tuesday and Thursday morning at 730am CST on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/powerbitipsSubscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/230fp78XmHHRXTiYICRLVvSubscribe on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/explicit-measures-podcast/id1568944083‎Check Out Community Jam: https://jam.powerbi.tipsFollow Mike: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelcarlo/Follow Seth: https://www.linkedin.com/in/seth-bauer/Follow Tommy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tommypuglia/

Wenn jemand Prozesse automatisieren kann, dann doch eigentlich die Menschen die sie täglich ausführen. Doch wie kann es gelingen diesen Menschen dafür die richtigen Werkzeuge an die Hand zu geben? Darüber spricht Christian Krug, der Host des Podcasts „Unf*ck Your Data“ mit Corina Zilch-Schuler, Chief of Staff und Transformation Manager bei Teva Pharmaceuticals.Ein großes Thema der digitalen Transformation sind auch Prozesse in Unternehmen. Damit natürlich auch deren Digitalisierung, Verbesserung und im besten Falle sogar deren Automatisierung. Doch sehr oft stellt hier der Mangel an IT Fachkräften ein Hindernis. Die It Mitarbeitenden haben diese Aufgaben oft neben ihren anderen Aufgaben zu erledigen und müssen sich dann in Prozesse eindenken, die ihnen nicht täglich begegnen.Das kann für viel Frust und Zeitverlust sorgen.Idealerweise würden ja die Menschen, welche die Prozesse täglich ausführen daran arbeiten diese zu Automatisieren.Allerdings fehlte diesen bisher oft das technische Know-How dies umzusetzen.Eine technische Wende können hier low-code oder no-code Lösungen bringen. Diese Tools erlauben es auch technisch interessierten, aber nicht voll ausgebildeten Kräften selbst Anwendungen zur Prozessautomatisierung zu bauen.Aber: A fool with a tool is still a fool.Das heißt nur das Werkzeug hinzuwerfen und zu hoffen, dass die Mitarbeitenden sich dann schon selbst helfen, wird nicht funktionieren. Es macht das Ganze vielleicht sogar noch schlimmer.Corina erklärt wie es besser geht.Mit dem Citizen Developer Approach.Durch gezielte Schulungen, eine starke Community und vor allem eine gute Kooperation mit der IT kann der Wandel gelingen.Denn auch die IT muss hier einen wichtigen Beitrag leisten, damit eben nicht in den Fachbereichen eine Schatten-IT entsteht und möglicherweise sicherheitsrelevante Probleme entstehen.Mit einen starken Center of Excellence und ausgewählten ersten Freiwilligen aus IT und Business kann so die Transformation gelingen.▬▬▬▬▬▬ Profile: ▬▬▬▬Zum LinkedIn-Profil von Corina: https://www.linkedin.com/in/corina-zilch-schuler/Zum LinkedIn-Profil von Christian: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christian-krug/Unf*ck Your Data auf Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/unfck-your-data▬▬▬▬▬▬ Buchempfehlung: ▬▬▬▬Buchempfehlung von Corina: Surrounded by Idiots von Thomas EriksonAlle Empfehlungen in Melenas Bücherladen: https://gunzenhausen.buchhandlung.de/unfuckyourdata▬▬▬▬▬▬ Hier findest Du Unf*ck Your Data: ▬▬▬▬Zum Podcast auf Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6Ow7ySMbgnir27etMYkpxT?si=dc0fd2b3c6454bfaZum Podcast auf iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/unf-ck-your-data/id1673832019Zum Podcast auf Google: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5jYXB0aXZhdGUuZm0vdW5mY2steW91ci1kYXRhLw?ep=14Zum Podcast auf Deezer: https://deezer.page.link/FnT5kRSjf2k54iib6▬▬▬▬▬▬ Kontakt: ▬▬▬▬E-Mail: christian@uyd-podcast.com▬▬▬▬▬▬ Timestamps: ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬00:00 Intro01:20 Corina stellt sich vor02:59 Der Citizen Developer Approach und seine Bedeutung09:55 Ziele und Vorteile des Citizen Developer Approach15:52 Wer kann ein Citizen Developer sein?22:35 Die Rolle der IT beim Citizen Developer Approach24:23 Vermeidung von Shatten-IT durch den Citizen Developer Approach26:16 Herausforderungen beim Citizen Developer Approach29:12 Die Bedeutung von Centers of Excellence beim Citizen Developer Approach36:06 Zwei Fragen an Corina

Vand finder vej - og det samme gør data! Hør, hvordan Arla har ført Gartners Citizen Developer-tankegang ud i livet og skabt et 4-trins koncept, der dygtiggør medarbejderne, understøtter lokal innovation, favner AI & ChatGPT og demokratiserer data både i og uden for den globale organisation. Kunsten er således at være stor og effektiv uden at spænde ben for græsrødderne. Derfor ville ingen af Arlas initiativer kunne leve uden den stærke enterprisearkitektur, der skaber trygge rammer og sporbarhed, når Arla stiller rådata til rådighed for studerende og lader medarbejdernes gode idéer få liv. God fornøjelse i Dataklubben, der i dag har besøg af Søren Bækgaard Hansen, Director for Enterprise Architechture and Strategy i Arla.

Developer-friendliness is at our core and developer-friendly process orchestration is our passion. We believe pro-code concepts are absolutely essential to addressing the complexity of real-world automation. That is why we are combining pro-code capabilities with the ability to encapsulate code into reusable modules that we call “low-code accelerators.” These shortcuts are meant to benefit both technical and non-technical users. In this episode, we will follow along the journey of one citizen developer as she learned how to develop executable processes. Listen as Senior Technical Community Builder Mia Moore chats with Community Manager Maria Alcantara about her role here at Camunda, what inspired her to gain more technical process automation skills, and how this experience has enabled her to better collaborate with technical users like IT and software developers, provide feedback based on her experience, and grow in confidence. Mia and Maria also discuss their favorite Camunda 8 features as well as tips and resources for learning more about BPMN, DMN, and Camunda–spoiler alert: our Community is one of them. Listen to learn more about: Camunda Community meet-ups, the Camunda Educational License Program, and the Camunda Champion ProgramThe collaboration features of Camunda 8, including ConnectorsTips for developers and other technical usersAdvice for citizen developers and low-code users FEEL PlaygroundShare your questions or feedback about this episode on our forum.Start your free trial of Camunda Platform 8.Additional Resources: Connect with Maria, Mia, and Niall on LinkedIn.[blog] Camunda's Vision for Low-CodeCamunda Academy---Visit our website.Connect with us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Mastodon, Threads, and Bluesky. Check out our videos on YouTube. Tweet with us. ---Camunda enables organizations to orchestrate processes across people, systems, and devices to continuously overcome complexity and increase efficiency. With Camunda, business users and developers collaborate using BPMN to model end-to-end processes and run sophisticated automation with the speed, scale, and resilience required to stay competitive. Hundreds of enterprises such as Atlassian, ING, and Vodafone design, orchestrate, and improve business-critical processes with Camunda to accelerate digital transformation.---Camunda presents this podcast for informational and entertainment purposes only and does not wish or intend to provide any legal, technical, or any other advice or services to the listeners of this podcast. Please see here for the full disclaimer.

What if you could create your own ChatGPT without coding? Thanks to low-code and no-code development platforms, this is possible. They enable people, who have little to no knowledge of coding or have no time for it, to create their own applications. And that's how the citizen developer is born.   Together with Davy De Roeck, a Senior Technical Specialist in Business Applications and Low-Code at Microsoft Benelux, and Xavier Lisoir, Managing Director in Emerging Technology at PwC Luxembourg, we discuss the emergence and evolution of low-code, its capabilities and limitations, and the impact of emerging technologies like ChatGPT and Bing Chat.

Willkommen bei unserer Mission New Work. New Rules. - du bist mittendrin!    In unserer Un:zipped Reihe wollen wir euch in Kurzfolgen die M365-Anwendungen und damit verbundene Themen näher bringen.     Diese Woche dreht sich alles um den Citizen Developer. Doch was ist das eigentlich und wie kann ich als Mitarbeiter in der IT-Branche oder Unternehmen davon profitieren?     Martin und Max bringen euch die Voraussetzungen, Skills und Vorteile näher! Beide beschäftigen sich schon lange mit den Prozessen und wissen worauf es ankommt.     Was hat es mit Low-Code und No-Code auf sich und welche Tools und Werkzeuge helfen mir als Citizen Developer und wie kann die KOM4TEC dabei unterstützen?     Viele, vor allem junge Menschen besitzen schon eine ganz wichtige Fähigkeit, nämlich die Affinität zur Technik, da sie bereits mit vielen Technologien aufgewachsen sind.     Citizen Developer treiben die digitale Transformation an!       Zitate aus der Folge    Martin    Ein Citizen Developer ist nicht unbedingt jemand der eine IT-Ausbildung oder ein IT-Studium abgeschlossen hat.   Die Generation die jetzt kommt, wird bereits an viele Technologien herangeführt und hat die besten Voraussetzungen um ein Citizen Developer zu werden.   Man schafft neue Fachkräfte mit verhältnismässig wenig Aufwand.     Max    Wir geben Werkzeuge an die Hand, damit die Personen sich selbst befähigen können.   Ein Citizen Developer benötigt nicht erst Jahrelange Schulungen.   Die Generation die, im Vergleich zu beispielsweise meiner Eltern mit vielen Technologien aufwächst, besitzt bereits die grundlegende Voraussetzung: Die Affinität zu Technik.    In den kommenden Podcast-Folgen bekommst du:    Infos und Tipps rund um die M365-Welt und ihre Anwendungen wie Power BI und Power Apps  Inspiration und praktische Tipps für den Kulturwandel für dich oder dein Unternehmen, um immer einen Schritt voraus zu sein  Wertvolle Impulse für ein bewusstes Mindset  Vorbilder, Themen und Ideen zu allen Facetten der New Work  Tipps zu praktischen Tools, die deinen Change unterstützen können, egal ob persönlich oder als Unternehmen  Viele weitere Einblicke in die Welt des New Work    Let's connect  Du hast Ideen, Themenvorschläge oder Anregungen zum Thema, dann teile gerne deine Gedanken mit uns und schick uns eine Nachricht an podcast@kom4tec.de oder auf Instagram @kom4tec  Wir freuen uns von dir zu hören.   Follow us!   Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/KOM4TEC/   Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/kom4tec/   LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/company/10407066/     

In this episode, we will interview Mark Tognetti, the Senior Director for Creator Workflows Product Success at ServiceNow. Mark was previously Managing Director at PWC for 4 years, where he assisted with cloud and global payment processor transformation. The Customer Connection Podcast helps you learn the implementation and adoption of the ServiceNow platform. This show is led by a Customer Experience Expert and Director of Customer Creator, and Workflows-Leading Practices, Jerry Campbell, and Portfolio Manager Shanna Grier.   Key highlights of the Episode: 08:05- What is the Citizen Developer Program? 09:45 - What skills do you need to get started with the Citizen Developer Program? 11:02 - How does ServiceNow's app engine differ from other low-code systems and how does it help customers? 16:10 - What are the top priorities and business objectives for customers implementing the Citizen Developer Program? 17:51 - What role does Generative AI play with the Citizen Developer Program?   To learn more about the implementation and adoption of the ServiceNow Platform, subscribe to the Customer Connection Podcast on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. For feedback, please send us an email at customerconnection@servicenow.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode, we will interview Mark Tognetti, the Senior Director for Creator Workflows Product Success at ServiceNow. Mark was previously Managing Director at PWC for 4 years, where he assisted with cloud and global payment processor transformation. The Customer Connection Podcast helps you learn the implementation and adoption of the ServiceNow platform. This show is led by a Customer Experience Expert and Director of Customer Creator, and Workflows-Leading Practices, Jerry Campbell, and Portfolio Manager Shanna Grier.   Key highlights of the Episode: 08:05- What is the Citizen Developer Program? 09:45 - What skills do you need to get started with the Citizen Developer Program? 11:02 - How does ServiceNow's app engine differ from other low-code systems and how does it help customers? 16:10 - What are the top priorities and business objectives for customers implementing the Citizen Developer Program? 17:51 - What role does Generative AI play with the Citizen Developer Program?   To learn more about the implementation and adoption of the ServiceNow Platform, subscribe to the Customer Connection Podcast on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. For feedback, please send us an email at customerconnection@servicenow.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode of the AI Today podcast hosts Kathleen Walch and Ron Schmelzer delve into the diverse roles and concepts within the data universe: Data Science, Data Scientist, Citizen Data Scientist/Citizen Developer, and Data Custodian. Data Science isn't just a buzzword; it's the art of transforming raw data into meaningful insights. And Data Scientists may be the sexiest job of the 21st Century, but do you know what they do? Continue reading AI Today Podcast: AI Glossary Series – Data Science, Data Scientist, Citizen Data Scientist / Citizen Developer, Data Custodian at Cognilytica.

32. Unser Gast: Nikka from the Barrel. Ohne gefährliches Halbwissen. Er ist lecker. Für die Fassstärke sehr bekömmlich. „Citizen Developer ist der mit No-Code und Low-Code Tools Software entwickeln kann, ohne selbst ein Software Entwickler per se zu sein – also der jedermann – oder ein Produktmanager, der seine eigenen Anforderungen umsetzen kann.“ „Schöne Grüße an Jörg, in Erinnerung an das gemeinsame Gespräch wie sehr Development ein Commodity wird?“ „Was machen gute Software Entwickler häufig auch? Sie setzen ja ohnehin schon Bibliotheken ein.“ „Streng genommen ist eine No-Code oder Low-Code Plattform wie eine Bibliothek auch nur ein Software Inkrement.“ „Vielleicht ist es aber auch aktuell erstmal vor allem Prototyping und Bau für MVP.“ „Ich glaube, ich habe meine erste Website anno 2000 gebaut – komplett mit Hello World und inkl. Befehl, die Seite in 1024x768 aufzurufen.“ „Was kommt nach verfügbaren Website-CMS, Webshops? Web Apps. Und hier helfen heute mehr und mehr Tools.“ „Spannende Herausforderung: So wie sich unsere Elterngeneration manchmal schwer tut, gute Google Suchanfragen zu stellen, ist es heute mit ChatGPT.“ „Ich erinnere mich nach an Diskussionen vor einigen Jahren bei Personalern, ob die KI Menschen überflüssig macht. Nur war und ist das die falsche Diskussion. Die Frage ist eher, wie wandeln sich die Aufgaben?“ „Software befähigt uns mit einem krassen Fachkräftemangel umzugehen, z. B. mit Befreiung von lästiger Bürokratie.“ „Auch ein Beispiel: Ich war gestern bei einer Vorladung als Zeuge. Und die Polizeimitarbeiterin musste wirklich das Gesagte manuell abtippen. Wie schrecklich das ist! Wie unproduktiv.“ „Gerade der öffentliche Dienst hat massive Probleme mit Ineffizienzen. Und da geht es nicht um richtige Digitalisierung, da Print Prozesse teils einfach nur am Bildschirm abgebildet werden und nicht digital gedacht werden.“ „Noch ein schönes Beispiel: Das Kopieren von Links nach Rechts der Informationen für die Grundsteuererklärung. Das hat den Fuck-up toll dargestellt.“ „Es geht nicht um fleißiger, sondern um besser.“ „Die schwächste Arbeit in Excel: Zahlen untereinander schreiben und Ergebnisse manuell ausrechnen.“ „Das braucht ein Unternehmen, das so eine Kultur verstanden hat und provoziert.“ „Wir machen jetzt deswegen einen Hackathon. Vor allen mit Leuten, die keine Developer sind.“

In dieser Episode spreche ich mit Reto Beutler, Head of Product Management Automation (RPA), Swisscom Wir sprechen über folgende Themen: Wie baue ich ein Ausbildungsprogramm für Citizen Developer auf? Was sind die wichtigsten Fähigkeiten, die ein Citizen Developer für RPA benötigt? Was sind die Risiken und Herausforderungen bei der Implementierung von Citizen Developer-Programmen und wie kann man sie bewältigen? Erhalte jede Woche aktuelle Strategien in dein E-Mail Postfach: https://www.stateofprocessautomation.com/ Podcast-Moderator: Christoph Pacher LinkedIn Interviewgast: Reto Beutler, Head of Product Management Automation (RPA), Swisscom LinkedIn

Increíble, la hiperautomatización se impondrá en 2023 con tecnologías de IA que imitan la cognición humana y los asistentes virtuales inmejorables. Descubre cómo Citizen Developer y Process Mining están cambiando el juego empresarial.

You may have heard the term 'Citizen Developer' used when discussing low code development. What does it mean? What technical skills does one need to have in order to become a citizen developer? Do citizen developers get membership into a secret society? Find out more when EY Kalman, Microsoft MVP, MCT, and business applications solutions architect joins the podcast to let us know all about citizen developers! Check out EY, aka the CRM Ninja on his YouTube channel!

Microsoft Power Platform is a great way to do more with less, as Microsoft themselves state. The low code solutions it offers allow users themselves to become their own “Citizen Developer” and plug gaps in their solutions by building apps, flows, reports and more. Now, while this all sounds very exciting and the low/no code aspect makes it sound like a piece of cake, is it really as simple as it sounds to get started? That's exactly what we'll be looking at in this episode of Tecman Talks Dynamics.We're exploring everything you need to know about getting started with the Power Platform and what skills you'll need to get the most out of it. But don't worry, whilst you will need some technical know-how to get going, the Power Platform really is low code and you might already have what you need to get stuck in. Listen today!If you'd like more information on Microsoft Power Platform, how it works with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central and CRM, and how you can do more with less, get in touch today. One of our Power Platform experts will be happy to chat through any questions you have. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Binny Gill started his career as a programmer after studying CS and Engineering at IIT Kanpur and later UIUC, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He then had an impressive eight-year run as a technology leader at Nutanix, the hyper converged infrastructure company, eventually becoming its CTO for cloud services. In January 2021, Binny left Nutanix to start Kognitos based on a bold vision to make everyone a programmer. In this discussion, we learn about his journey and how generative AI just may change everything.Thanks to Steve Kaplan for the intro to Binny.Listen and learn:Binny's inspiration for starting Kognitos: "...why should humans need to think like machines... when machines can now think like humans?"What makes programming so hard.Why the future of programming is using natural language to describe the features you want.How computing interfaces restrict us from communicating like humans when programming.Why Binny says "generative AI is the new electricity."The most important leadership lesson Binny learned working alongside iconic leaders at IBM.References in this episode:How Petals just became the BitTorrent of LLMsPhil McKinney, former HP CTO, on AI and the Future of WorkThe Kognitos blog

In this segment, I share my perspective on the citizen development trend and why it may prove to be counterproductive. Follow along on BarcVox.com, where you can also find related content. Transcript available for this segment: http://barcvox.com/2022/11/24/citizen-developer/ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/barcvox/message

In this episode, Matt Hubbard is here to dicuss citizen developer and why it would help your business. Three key points are People, Technology, and Process. Matt Hubbard is a pioneer on a mission to usher in a new era of productivity through citizen development. Matt caught the citizen developer bug in 2011 after he built his first no-code app on TrackVia in 2011. The app took him 8 hours to create but saved him 200 hours of manual labor per year. Given that success, Matt proceeded to build more apps and teach others to do the same. He later co-founded a consultancy firm that specialized in business process improvement and low-code/no-code technology. Today, Matt is Head of Operational Excellence at TrackVia where he teaches individuals how to become citizen developers and organizations how to scale that capability in a safe and effective way. Contact Information: Matt Hubbard- Matt.hubbard@trackvia.com or https://www.linkedin.com/in/%F0%9F%92%99-matt-hubbard-%F0%9F%92%9B-91b34b98/ Benny Carreon- Velocity Technology Group- benny@velocitytechnology.group Dennis Jackson-WorX Solution- dennisj@worxsolution.com Music by: jorikbasov from Pixabay

In this episode, Matt Hubbard is here to dicuss citizen developer and why it would help your business. Three key points are People, Technology, and Process. Matt Hubbard is a pioneer on a mission to usher in a new era of productivity through citizen development. Matt caught the citizen developer bug in 2011 after he built his first no-code app on TrackVia in 2011. The app took him 8 hours to create but saved him 200 hours of manual labor per year. Given that success, Matt proceeded to build more apps and teach others to do the same. He later co-founded a consultancy firm that specialized in business process improvement and low-code/no-code technology. Today, Matt is Head of Operational Excellence at TrackVia where he teaches individuals how to become citizen developers and organizations how to scale that capability in a safe and effective way. Contact Information: Matt Hubbard- Matt.hubbard@trackvia.com or https://www.linkedin.com/in/%F0%9F%92%99-matt-hubbard-%F0%9F%92%9B-91b34b98/ Benny Carreon- Velocity Technology Group- benny@velocitytechnology.group Dennis Jackson-WorX Solution- dennisj@worxsolution.com Music by: jorikbasov from Pixabay

The #1 source of knowledge for everything automation: https://www.theautomationguys.net Do you have any questions? Would you like to give us feedback? Are you interested in workshops on the topic of automation? Are you an expert in the field of automation and would like to be on the podcast? Let us know: https://bit.ly/3lyq9Yj

In Episode #143 sprechen Andreas und Jörg mit Paul Bumann Worum geht's in dieser Folge Irgendwas mit Logistik? Was bietet mir smapOne? Wieso eine No-Code-Plattform und kein Lagerverwaltungssystem? Kann ich ohne Programmierungskenntnisse eigene Softwareprodukte erstellen? Kann eine No-Code-Plattform flexible Lösungen bieten? Ist eine smap auf einen Prozess fokussiert? Werden die erfassten Daten auch analysiert und wo landen die erfassten Daten am Ende des Tages? Gibt es Standardintegrationen? Wie gut ist die Logistik in der Digitalisierung? Was sind die gängigsten Fälle in der die smap genutzt wird? Bei welchen Prozessen, kommt die smap evtl. auch an seine Grenzen? Ist die smap auch im privaten Alltag einsetzbar? Was ist überhaupt Citizen Development? Jetzt aber genug gelesen - hör einfach rein!

The SAP Process Automation solution is an AI-powered, intuitive, and no-code solution for Workflow Management and Robotic Process Automation that empowers citizen developers. Learn more about this new offering.

Join Bill Bunce, Enterprise Account Executive, Pegasystems and Special Guest Ryan Korn, Senior Cloud Architect and Product Manager, Data Solutions, Bureau of Industry and Security, U.S. Department of Commerce as they answer the following questions: What is the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant Program? How are you leveraging low code today? What is your interpretation of a Citizen Developer? What would qualify someone to become a citizen developer or, to put it another way, what skills should we look for? Do you hire for citizen developers or grow them within the organization? What are the benefits of leveraging a citizen developer mindset? Do citizen developers fit into an Agile development methodology and how? Is low-code better suited for citizen development? What's next for citizen development?

In dieser Episode unterhält sich Thomas Jenewein mit Ulrich Hofmann. Uli ist seit 25 Jahren in verschiedenen Rollen rund um Partner, Produktmanagement oder Produktstrategie tätig, derzeit im Bereich SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) zu Low-Code / No-Code (LCNC). Dieser Bereich, der auf der SAPTechEd 2021 im November neu vorgestellt wurde, unterscheidet u.a. in Applikationsentwicklung mit SAP AppGyver & SAP BAS auch durch nicht-Entwickler, Prozess Automatisierung mit Workflow Management & iRPA und Digital Experience mit SAP Work Zone & Launchpad Service. Wir schauen auf neue Aufgaben für Berater und Entwickler und wie ein sogenannter Citizen Developer einfach mit grafischer Nutzeroberfläche Apps bauen kann. Uli teilt die benötigten Skills und ersten Schritte und wir blicken gemeinsam auf interessante Use-Cases für Personalentwickler wie Onboarding oder Communityaufbau. Wie immer gibt es einen Einblick in die Lernhacks und Narrative unseres Gastes, in den Shownotes findet Ihr zudem kostenfreie Lern-Angebote und weitere Infos zur eigenen Einarbeitung und dem Ausprobieren der neuen Tools und Plattformen von SAP. Mehr wie immer im Podcast.

E90 Citizen Development with Matt and Mario In this episode of Project Management Office Hours Matt Hubbard and Mario H Trentim join Joe Pusz – PMO Joe to have an in-depth discussion about the Citizen Developer program. Matt Hubbard works to bring citizen development programs to organizations using his 20+ years of operational excellence experience. […] The post E90 Citizen Development with Matt and Mario appeared first on Business RadioX ®.

E90 Citizen Development with Matt and Mario In this episode of Project Management Office Hours Matt Hubbard and Mario H Trentim join Joe Pusz – PMO Joe to have an in-depth discussion about the Citizen Developer program. Matt Hubbard works to bring citizen development programs to organizations using his 20+ years of operational excellence experience. […] The post E90 Citizen Development with Matt and Mario appeared first on Business RadioX ®.

In this episode of Project Management Office Hours Matt Hubbard and Mario H Trentim join Joe Pusz - PMO Joe to have an in-depth discussion about the Citizen Developer program. Matt Hubbard works to bring citizen development programs to organizations using his 20+ years of operational excellence experience. The core of Matt's success is his belief that process, technology, and people must be optimized together to achieve a lasting result. “Generically, citizen development is when you empower business people who are not trained coders to solve business problems through the use of low-code/no-code tools, which are tools that basically assemble apps, instead of coding apps. You are dragging and dropping existing elements to assemble the app.” -Matt Hubbard Mario Trentim is currently Citizen Developer at PMI.org, founder at TRENTIM.com, and Board Member at PMOGA.world. Mario is and Engineer with +15 years of experience managing global projects and implementing Project Management Offices in Latin America, Europe and the Middle East. “The development for project managers, is not just to build the finance applications or sales applications, it's also expanding our boundaries outside technical projects to events, to human resource projects, finance projects, marketing projects, and more. When we think about citizen development, an agilest, business analyst, project manager, PMO manager, will be ten times more effective.” -Mario Trentim Listen to Matt and Mario with PMO Joe discuss these topics further in E90 on Project Management Office Hours and do not forget to subscribe! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/project-management-office-hours/id1398533604 Want to discover more? Connect with the guests: Connect with Mario Trentim https://lnkd.in/d7pptwK2 https://trentim.com.br/ Connect with Matt Hubbard https://lnkd.in/gdCsTdsn https://trackvia.com/ Thank you to THE PMO SQUAD and The PMO Leader for sponsoring this show. Learn more about, Project Management with a Purpose. The PMO Squad helps you navigate your Project Management Journey. Learn more about The PMO Squad - www.thepmosquad.com Where do PMO Leaders go for Information, Learning, Networking and Services? The PMO Leader community has “Everything You Need to Become a Great PMO Leader”. One PMO World, One Community! Learn more about The PMO Leader - www.thepmoleader.com

E90 Citizen Development with Matt and Mario In this episode of Project Management Office Hours Matt Hubbard and Mario H Trentim join Joe Pusz – PMO Joe to have an in-depth discussion about the Citizen Developer program. Matt Hubbard works to bring citizen development programs to organizations using his 20+ years of operational excellence experience. […]

I talk to Marie Nordstrom Nordström who works at H&M in HongKong

The idea of low-code/no-code (LC/NC) application development is for end users to create their own custom applications, perhaps using a graphical design tool, selecting from a library of existing building blocks, or perhaps even with the assistance of artificial intelligence. Alexei Balaganski explains the concepts behind this new development, takes a look at the current market and, finally, highlights the challenges and security issues that may be hidden behind the use of such application development.

The idea of low-code/no-code (LC/NC) application development is for end users to create their own custom applications, perhaps using a graphical design tool, selecting from a library of existing building blocks, or perhaps even with the assistance of artificial intelligence. Alexei Balaganski explains the concepts behind this new development, takes a look at the current market and, finally, highlights the challenges and security issues that may be hidden behind the use of such application development.

Bank Automation News sits down with the vendor's new CIO, Sumit Johar, as well as Ken Mertzel, global head of financial services, to discuss how financial institutions can expand citizen development and the automation opportunities banks may be missing. 

It's the first day of August so we kick off the last month of summer with a Super-Sized episode! We talk with Bryant Richards and Mike Jacka about the intersection of Intelligent Automation and Creativity, what it means to be a Citizen Developer, and the ongoing impact of The Fourth Industrial Revolution -- plus tips on implementing creativity, dealing with failure, and building a space where you say "why not?" instead of "we can't." Let us know your thoughts - share a comment! --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/cecilia-sepp/support

84. Bölümde Code2 Ceo'su Mustafa Sakalsız konuğum oldu. Türkiye'den çıkan Palo Alto merkezli teknoloji girişimi Code2 şirketlerin ve girişimcilerin kodlama yapmadan kapsamlı uygulama geliştirmesini amaçlıyor. (00:00) - Açılış https://marvelapp.com/ https://overflow.io/ https://zeplin.io/ https://www.hotjar.com/ https://www.code2.io/ (03:09) - Mustafa Sakalsız'ı tanıyoruz. (05:20) - Low Code / No Code nedir? (08:00) - No Code Platformu: Low Code Bir Platformdan Farkı Nedir? (10:00) - Neden yükselişte? (13:30) - Gartner'ın tespitleri... (18:00) - Hangi geliştirme platformu uygulamam için uygun? Wix - Airtable - Bubble - AppSheet - Outsystems (20:00) - Şirketlerin yükselişinde etkili mi? (23:35) - Siz Code2'de ne gibi çözümler sunuyorsunuz? https://www.podpage.com/dunya-trendleri/ (27:50) - Bankaların uygulamaları üzerine tespitler. (30:15) - Shadow IT nedir? Citizen Developer nedir? (32:24) - Gelecekte yazılımcı olacak mı? (36:30) - Uzaktan Staj (38:30) - Gelecek öngürüleri (43:20) - Simon Sinek - Neden İle Başla (44:11) - Kapanış Mustafa Sakalsız - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sakalsiz/ Sosyal Medya Hesaplarımız; Twitter - https://twitter.com/dunyatrendleri Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/dunya.trendleri/ Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/company/dunyatrendleri/ Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/c/aykutbalcitv Goodreads - https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/28342227-aykut-balc aykut@dunyatrendleri.com www.dunyatrendleri.com Bize Bağış Yapmak İsterseniz Patreon hesabımız - https://www.patreon.com/dunyatrendleri

  Demand for ServiceNow developers is high. That means you don't always have time to work on some of the smaller projects that business users need. That's when it's time to look at the citizen developers. Topics 00:00 Welcome and introductions 07:49 Why start a citizen developer program 12:54 Avoiding shadow IT 14:33 One development platform 15:55 Low-code capabilities are for everyone 16:41 A look at ServiceNow's citizen dev program 18:34 Some example apps and opportunities 21:18 Tips for working together 22:48 What have we learned 28:14 How a customer would launch a citizen dev program 31:52 Consider licensing 32:27 Where to find out more 33:00 Get in touch 34:00 Outro Links Now Learning: ServiceNow Citizen Developer Advanced Skills Developer Portal: ServiceNow Application Developer Learning Plan Now Learning: Getting started with ServiceNow Citizen Developer Training Developer Portal Home Page LinkedIn Community Blog: Democratizing development with Citizen Developer training Check out the other ServiceNow podcasts. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

  Demand for ServiceNow developers is high. That means you don't always have time to work on some of the smaller projects that business users need. That's when it's time to look at the citizen developers. Topics 00:00 Welcome and introductions 07:49 Why start a citizen developer program 12:54 Avoiding shadow IT 14:33 One development platform 15:55 Low-code capabilities are for everyone 16:41 A look at ServiceNow's citizen dev program 18:34 Some example apps and opportunities 21:18 Tips for working together 22:48 What have we learned 28:14 How a customer would launch a citizen dev program 31:52 Consider licensing 32:27 Where to find out more 33:00 Get in touch 34:00 Outro Links Now Learning: ServiceNow Citizen Developer Advanced Skills Developer Portal: ServiceNow Application Developer Learning Plan Now Learning: Getting started with ServiceNow Citizen Developer Training Developer Portal Home Page LinkedIn Community Blog: Democratizing development with Citizen Developer training Check out the other ServiceNow podcasts. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week in HR tech: More tech products are developed outside IT. Lattice and Gusto hook up. Employers need better DEI tracking. And more.

Recursos que possibilitam que leigos desenvolvam soluções digitais sem conhecimento de programação.

Absolutely thrilled to have Katrin Stoecker, Chief Operations Officer at Steadfast Underwriting Agencies join us for this insightful episode discussing their Intelligent Automation journey. We discuss everything from process renewal bots to how they are driving the Citizen Developer agenda. It has been incredibly rewarding to watch the momentous impact that automation is having across Steadfast Underwriting Agencies and the wider Steadfast Group and now you too can listen to their story.

The Big Themes:The citizen developer: Those low-code, no-code tools are giving the power back to their employees, and that's creating a new environment that's having a reorganization in that area.Some of the innovations from Microsoft Teams: It was just like a basic tool that I use with Teams. Some of the innovations that they developed so rapidly in the times of COVID to adapt to a new remote workforce.There's always new things to soak in there: We also have a number of events that take place, and live on demand – one of them is our binge programs.Industry solutions: Trying to compare their challenges with other challenges – and try to see what matches and what's worth their time and investment. The Big Quotes:“Most of my day job is reading, reviewing, producing content that's relevant in the business tech world, and helping others have a voice in that conversation as well.” “A huge feature about mydacfeed.com is the ability to personalize your feed and get connected with relevant topics and find like-minded voices.” “I think we saw something similar when Microsoft acquired Nuance, which was their second-largest acquisition behind LinkedIn.” This episode is brought to you by BMC Software. 

The world of customising Microsoft Dynamics has changed massively over the last few years, making it easier than ever to tailor and extend the solution to meet your business requirements – even for those that aren't trained developers aka Citizen Developers. In this podcast, we explore the role of the Citizen Developer and why it's so important, plus both the pitfalls and advantages of the new ways of developing Dynamics. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What are citizen developer programs and why should companies develop and promote them? In this episode of Dynamic Developer, I'm talking with Marcus Torres, GM of IntegrationHub & VP of Platform Product for ServiceNow, who's joining us again to talk about citizen developer programs.  Spotify: https://tek.io/34Vo2mT Stitcher: https://tek.io/2KkwjHG Apple Podcasts: https://tek.io/2xQUSt5 Google Play: https://tek.io/3btMluL Follow Bill Detwiler: https://twitter.com/billdetwiler Watch more TechRepublic videos: https://www.youtube.com/techrepublic TechRepublic on Twitter: https://twitter.com/TechRepublic/ TechRepublic on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TechRepublic/ TechRepublic on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/techrepublic/ TechRepublic on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/techrepublic/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A citizen developer is a non-professional developer who builds applications for use by other people using tools sanctioned by IT.

Chuck Sterling's journey is another example of the uniqueness of the people in the data field. The short version is that he's a Marine Biologist turned Senior Program Manager at Microsoft. He has intimate knowledge of the entire Power Platform and he shares that knowledge and insight.   References made on the show: Power Virtual Agents Revell Model Ships Who Moved My Cheese? By Spencer Johnson, MD Episode Timeline: 3:45 - The remote workplace, it's not going anywhere 15:00 - The Microsoft Power Platform explained 32:00 - The future of Microsoft 40:30 - Microsoft licensing, specifically Power Apps licensing, explained 56:00 - Chuck's data journey was a long and winding road 1:12:00 - The Dawn of the Citizen Developer

Learn why Citizen Development is becoming a movement. Who are Citizen Developers and how are they different from Professional Developers.

What an episode, what a woman. We hear how Sidney Madison Prescott has forged an incredibly successful career in driving and embedding an automation first mindset at companies like Spotify and BNY Melon. She shares her insights on why starting small can increase your chances of success and what factors can derail the ability to scale.We hear about the imminent release of her latest co-authored book "Robotic Process Automation using UiPath StudioX - A Citizen Developers Guide to Hyperautomation" and how she is shaping the Citizen Developer strategy at Spotify. This is one episode you do not want to miss.

So I noticed Ryan Cunningham, Product Lead for the Power Apps side of the Power Platform for Microsoft, suddenly come available in Teams. So of course, I ambushed him, and we had a great conversation about Power Apps and the whole Microsoft Business Applications group. Enjoy! Transcript below: Ryan Cunningham: Hello. This is Ryan. Steve Mordue: Hey, Ryan. Steve Mordue. How's it going? Ryan Cunningham: Oh, Steve Mordue. How you doing? Does this mean I'm in trouble? Steve Mordue: No, you are not in trouble, but you are about to be a guest on my Steve has a Chat podcast if you have time and are up for it. Ryan Cunningham: You mean like right now? Steve Mordue: Like right now. Already recording. Ryan Cunningham: Hey, okay. Let me check my calendar. There's nothing I'd rather do right now than being an impromptu guest on a Steve show. Steve Mordue: Well, we'll try and make sure you don't regret that decision. Ryan Cunningham: I regret a lot of decisions, Steve. But it wouldn't be the first. Steve Mordue: So let me ask you first, how long have you been with Microsoft? Ryan Cunningham: I just crossed five years. Steve Mordue: Five years. Ryan Cunningham: Just this past fall. Steve Mordue: I used to be a Salesforce consultant. We were Salesforce consultants for about 10 years and we moved over to Microsoft when they first moved CRM online back in 2011. So about 10 years ago. Ryan Cunningham: Sure, yeah. Steve Mordue: And I remember there being a few bumps making that transition going from on-premise to online, but then it kind of leveled out into what I kind of called the lazy river ride. It was predictable, it didn't move very quickly. There was no urgency and then James took over and he brought in all you young guys. It's been like a rocket roller coaster ride ever since. You ever got one of those really big roller coaster rides where you start praying for it to end, but you know it's not going to. It's just going to keep looping around and you can't get off. I almost feel like for a lot of us partners that have been around at least since it was lazy river, man, my head is rocking from all of the stuff you guys are doing. Ryan Cunningham: We don't do lazy rivers very well, Steve. Steve Mordue: Not anymore. Ryan Cunningham: Not anymore. Steve Mordue: Not anymore. Ryan Cunningham: At least class three rapids around here. Steve Mordue: How is it like on the inside for that kind of pace and ideation and everything that's going on internally? Ryan Cunningham: It's a great question. It certainly has not been constant here either. And again my experience in this community is not as long as yours. I joined at about five years ago and specifically joined the Power Apps team long before Power Apps was really a thing. I joined the team when Project Siena was for those that are familiar with that term, the sort of precursor to Power Apps was kind of in an early beta phase and there were grand ambitions of expanding out who could build software, but not a lot of... How do we say it coming out? Not a ton of product truth yet behind that. Steve Mordue: So I was in the audience, I think for one of your very first presentations before a big group of this product. You looked a little deer in the headlights at the time. Ryan Cunningham: I still feel that way sometimes. But if you take that over the course of the last five years where that idea has solidified, that product has gotten more mature. Certainly there's still more work to do, but we've gone from literally zero humans using at least standalone Power Apps to millions around the world and really also in the same breath gone from very long tail, very simple use cases to this grand merger with the Dynamics platform and customers building and trusting frankly much more sophisticated workloads to the platform. Ryan Cunningham: The world has changed a lot for us internally in how we approach this problem as you go through that product maturity life cycle. In the early stage, it's really about can we make anyone successful here? Now, it is much more about how do we scale and how do we focus on enterprise trust and developer productivity and really turn millions into hundreds of millions and that's... Steve Mordue: Oh, we got a little stall there. Ryan Cunningham: Right. Did I lose you for a second? Steve Mordue: Just for a second. I kind of sometimes think of Microsoft kind of like the Japanese manufacturing economy where they saw ideas that we would come up with and then they would put all their resources to make it better, faster, cheaper whereas a lot of the things we're doing in the power platform are not things that weren't being done before by others, it's just that someone on the team somewhere recognize hey, there's this movement going on out here with some of these smaller players and I think it's got some legs, so let's let's drop all of the arsenal that we have available as Microsoft onto this idea because clearly, we weren't the first low code platform right, but suddenly we're bringing everything Microsoft has to bear on this idea and to see it blow up like that. Steve Mordue: You can say that for almost everything that we've got going on, the bots, the flow, all of these sorts of things. We weren't the first, but then we came in and just put all this horsepower into an idea. Ryan Cunningham: Yeah. And it so much is about execution and executing at the right time and doing it for the right people. I think part of the reason why we internally work quickly and don't want to be on the lazy river is also because I think we tried to approach it with this fundamental... This is going to sound weird, but distrust of our own instincts to say, "Look, we have a thesis that people are going to want to build software faster. We have a thesis that they're going to want to do that beyond just forms over data." That's going to take many different forms, but in the nitty-gritty details of who's actually going to find the most value in individual features and individual assembly of those features, there's a lot of margin for error. Ryan Cunningham: And the sooner you get real software into the hands of real humans and they can use it and react to it and give you feedback actively about it, but also just give you feedback through their usage or non-usage of it, then the sooner you have real data to adjust and change and do the next thing. Steve Mordue: So it's not really like build it and they will come, it's more like build something and let's see who comes. Ryan Cunningham: Exactly. Steve Mordue: And then build some more. Ryan Cunningham: Exactly. Develop a relationship with those people who have come and then make sure that you're building it in a way that they're going to get really excited about it and then extend to others. So we really prioritize when we have enough of a hypothesis to head in a direction get there as soon as possible in the world and then work really closely and quickly once you've landed there to make it great and learn, and be willing to be wrong and be willing to change. Steve Mordue: Don't worry. I pointed out when you [crosstalk 00:07:43]. It's a lot of moving parts. I know you came in through the Power Apps door but have since kind of got your fingers into the whole pieces of platform it feels like. There's a lot of moving parts going on. Whenever you have that many moving parts, there's going to be bumps and issues along the way. So I can imagine that's just a continuous thing that somebody's building something over here. Somebody over here. Maybe they didn't coordinate as well as they should have and it gets discovered later and then I imagine these little fire drills going on internally [inaudible 00:08:20]. Steve Mordue: Left hand wasn't talking to the right hand enough. Let's get that stuff going on. Is that part of your role is to referee those sorts of things or identify them? Ryan Cunningham: I guess you could say that. And that's also part of growing a product and a team across a really wide surface area. How do we put in place the right listening mechanisms to customers, to data and reviews internally so that we can catch those things sooner and react to them more quickly. Because in many ways the ambition here is to span a really wide area of software and do it with a platform that has value and relevance to a number of different people in that spectrum, which is fundamentally really hard. Ryan Cunningham: It's one thing to build a focused experience for one very focused narrow niche of people, it's another... That alone is hard. It's another to build a set of tools that a lot of different people can use. But I think that was actually part of our... If you rewind several years ago and look at what we did between the Power Apps software project which started independently and the Dynamics platform and bringing them together, we really realized at the limit these things converge. At the limit, making it easier for non-traditional software people, citizen developers, amateurs, makers, whatever you want to call them and making it faster for professionals to build apps, those two ends have to meet each other at some point for this to really scale. So let's rip that band-aid off. Steve Mordue: How close do you think we are? How close do you think we are to getting to that ideal point? I mean, I think there's still... Even when I look at the citizen developer stories, a citizen can go so far and obviously we'd like them to go as far as they're able to go, to comfortably go and pro dev takes over. I have to assume there's a continuous motion inside to keep trying to move that line. Let's simplify some of these formulas that may be required that are just whatever those stopping blocks where you see a citizen is able to get this far, it hits a wall. Can we get them to the next wall? How much is going on in that process? Ryan Cunningham: It's a great question and it is really one of the central things that keeps driving a lot of what we do. I mean, we also look at a professional's experience through that journey, right? You look at not enlightened professionals such as yourselves, but all of the other software people out in the world who are very skeptical of platforms and who have an instinct to start from scratch and write everything themselves and go through some- Steve Mordue: Some of that could be financially motivated also. Ryan Cunningham: Oh, sure. Steve Mordue: Yeah. Ryan Cunningham: Right? But I think realizing that two trends are really converging here. To your point earlier, low code is not new, but we've had low code in two very different camps. This is the company that shipped Excel 35 years ago, 36 years ago. We certainly know low code for true amateurs and there's always been this world of people without a software development background working around the boundaries of the software they're given with tools to solve problems and that goes straight to- Steve Mordue: To Access wizards. Ryan Cunningham: Absolutely. Excel macros, VBA, Access, InfoPath and a number of other products outside of Microsoft. That's an enduring tradition. Then on the other side, what we've been doing is professional software people for the last 40 years is just adding layers of abstraction and tooling and not repeating ourselves and borrowing from other people to more efficiently assemble solutions as well. You can look at a platform like what XRM was unofficially and Dataverse and Power Apps on top of it now is just a natural extension of making professionals more efficient by not doing everything from scratch. Ryan Cunningham: Now, that's where those two trends converge and you're absolutely right to answer your question. We focus on okay, we made a number of people successful at that. There's a plenty of existence proof in our community and in our growth numbers and in our customer stories of people coming at the product from both of those directions and getting really successful and having a lot to show for it. Now of course behind the scenes, we're still, I would say very hungry. We're still at a couple orders of magnitude less than the addressable market of software consuming humans of what we could be serving even for all the astronomical growth we've seen in the platform over the last couple years. Ryan Cunningham: I mean, so it is absolutely about how do we take people coming in the front door. I'm a Teams user. I have some Excel skills. I happen to stumble on this Power Apps thing. How far do I get on my first try? What brings me back? How do I go from a user who expresses intent to a user who has a moment of success, to a user who then has an app that's used in production. And even from that point to somebody who keeps coming back to keep putting apps in production. Ryan Cunningham: Then similarly as a professional, how do I expand my tool set from Azure and Visual Studio and how do I have good experiences in my first try with a platform. How do I get to a point where I put something out there that humans are using in the world and I feel good about it. We really closely look at retention. We look at funnels through those early experiences. We look at satisfaction. All those annoying prompts of how likely are you to recommend Power Apps to a friend or colleague. Those are really valuable data points for us in addition to just the general growth rates overall because of indicators of the likelihood to be successful and grow in the future. Steve Mordue: I know we definitely have had success with enterprise organizations in particular where IT has embraced this and shepherded the process and built in their own systems like at the whole chevron way that they go about making power apps developers out of their employees and they've got a very specific process. I guess the other side of the equation is a smaller company that doesn't have those kind of resources. It's just Bob who's always been handy with spreadsheets. Suddenly he's trying to figure his way around. It seems like that's the one where we can't give that guy too much help. Steve Mordue: In enterprise they're going to have their system. Maybe have classes internally. They send their people to and stuff like that. It's a smaller organizations where he's left to the documents he can find and what he can understand. I think one of the things that Microsoft has always been a little bit of a challenge with Microsoft and documentation in particular is that they assume a certain level of understanding, in particular Microsoft and there's lots of folks that are coming to the platform that have zero understanding of Microsoft or history or know anything. Even acronyms or none of it. Ryan Cunningham: Right. Steve Mordue: It's almost like you can't make the documentation too dumbed down to get to that success. Well, how big is the team up to? Now, the last number I heard, and this has been a while ago, it was like 7,000. It was a pretty, pretty good sized team for the bag. How big is it now? Ryan Cunningham: That's a good question. I'm not trying to dodge you. I suppose I could look it up. I don't know for sure what James is... That whole business applications group org size is, but that's actually probably a decent estimate now that's not too inaccurate. Now, that's spread across a really wide surface area. All of the first party Dynamics apps have dedicated teams working on them. There are a number of other orgs within that organization focused on things like advancing AI and whatnot and then there's the core platform team, the Charles Lamanna team which I'm a part of which we structure into a core team focused on the backend, on Dataverse. A core team focused on each of the front-end products, so Power Apps, that's my team, Power Automate, Power Virtual agents. Then we also have a dedicated group in the platform org around admin and pro developers, and those experiences. Steve Mordue: I think when he came in, there was closer to a thousand on the team. So I mean the team has exponentially grown because you can't keep a lazy river going. Ryan Cunningham: Nope. Steve Mordue: You got to have speed when you got that many people on the payroll all working on something. So I also recall a time and I know it's still there, where there was a maniacal focus by the business applications group on the competitors particularly Salesforce at the time. I know that Salesforce is still in the radar. It does feel like we've kind of moved from really being focused on one primary competitor as we've launched all of these different applications into other competitive spaces where now you guys have hundreds of competitors that are all out there. How much do you guys focus on what the competition is doing internally and how you guys gauge what directions to go? Ryan Cunningham: It's really important to be aware of what people are doing in the marketplace. And we do spend a lot of time making sure that we have an intimate and hands-on not just academic understanding of what a lot of different software companies are producing out there. Steve Mordue: So you guys have licenses for everything. Ryan Cunningham: Well, where we can and it gets complicated because Microsoft also partners with many companies. Some companies we have agreements with about who will or won't use what software and we've got a lot of great lawyers to help us navigate that whole [inaudible 00:18:23]. I think the point is look, we're adding software to a world that already has a lot of software in it. It's important to look left and right and be aware of what else is out there because none of this stuff gets consumed in a vacuum by customers. You go to any moderately large customer organization, there's already a CRM system or seven in place. There's already an ERP system or eight in place and there's already a bunch of individual systems around that for point things and that's just the world we live in. Steve Mordue: And if they're exploring something, they're seldom exploring one thing. Ryan Cunningham: Exactly, right? And often if they're exploring especially a platform. There's a lot of existing things and a lot of the conversations become about how does this work in an existing ecosystem and how does it work? How can it potentially consolidate some of those things? We had Ecolab at a recent digital event talking about some of their Power Apps and Dynamics implementations. The average field employee at Ecolab had something like 27 different individual tools that they had to use to get their job done and it was a mix of... I mean, they had dynamics and they had Salesforce, and they had an ERP system, and they had a whole bunch of individual custom homegrown things and this experience was just really terrible for somebody out there on a tablet or a phone trying to inspect your water filter at your company. Ryan Cunningham: Starting to bring in Power Apps as a front door to some of those other systems without replacing them and just even making the wayfinding better is key. So look, it's important for us to be aware of what the world is doing. I would say it's never as simple as pure competitor or not in that picture because look, if you're a company like Microsoft, a lot of the names you rattled off or alluded to are also Azure customers and they're partners with them in other places. We're fundamentally a platform company I think is what it comes down to. Ryan Cunningham: The world is better when people can choose what they want to choose and are able to interoperate with those things at scale. Now obviously, there's incentive for us to have them using our stuff in that mix which is why we care a lot about it, but there's really not... Especially if you look at the body of what we offer even just in the platform, there isn't a clean head-to-head competitor right now for all of it. There are certainly competitors for each piece and I think being aware that those customers have choices and that we want them to genuinely choose the best and we want to be the best, that means we have to be aware of what best is and what customers define as best is just as important as what the guy down the street is offering. I think that the business applications group has the advantage of the enormous coattails of Office 365, now Microsoft 365. Steve Mordue: Sure. I don't know how many calls I get from a brand new customer who the primary reason they're looking at this platform is because they're already using Microsoft 365. And this idea that we want everything to work together and talk together. I think those coattails are an example of coattails that some of the other companies just don't have. You look at Salesforce for example. They don't have this productivity suite with millions and millions of users. So their story is going to be... We can integrate story and I just see more and more... I think we have to give such a credit for this because for many years Microsoft had a mixed reputation with IT. Steve Mordue: There are lots of people that hated them and all sorts of different things and such. It kind of seemed to have changed the attitude of the company to where IT who used to be like we're using on-premise exchange that's the only Microsoft thing we're going to touch. Now, they've brought in Microsoft 365. Now from an IT standpoint, it's you know what, I don't want to make my life any more difficult than it needs to be. What's the most logical choice for business applications when we're already stood up on all of this stuff and it's an enormous advantage and a huge coattail for the whole business applications group to ride in on. Ryan Cunningham: Yeah. I mean, this is why we focus so much on the platform working well in Teams for example. We've put a lot of effort into that this past year. I mean, part of that is the world turned upside down and changed and everybody started working in Teams. The other part of that is it's a huge advantage for a customer to be able to program and customize the collaboration environment whatever that is. Again, there's a long history of that within Office with SharePoint and InfoPath and stuff like that, but being able to look at that in a modern world and say, "I already have every employee working every day inside the team's environment. If I can start to put line of business applications in that environment, it's much easier for those employees to discover and it's much easier for them to then work around and collaborate around when those experiences require some form of collaboration." Ryan Cunningham: There are major Microsoft customers, Fortune 500 customers with tens and hundreds of thousands of users in their tenant that have more than half of those users using a Power App and Teams every month. You see IT departments using it. Those are not necessarily bottom-up Citizen Developer apps. You see IT departments really seeing that as a way to sort of re-imagine maybe what we might have called an intranet site 10 years ago sort of imagine an employee-facing app in the place where employees are already working. Steve Mordue: Sometimes, I actually feel a little guilty that one of our biggest growth years was a result of a virus and certainly the same could be said of Teams. I mean Teams was doing fine, but a virus really catapulted Teams to the position that it is. You feel a little guilty, but then again it is what it is and somebody has to feel that that need and it does create some massive opportunity. Ryan Cunningham: For me, especially rewinding to March and April, and May, I mean this was really a pressure test of our whole promise. The whole shtick and spiel of saying you can develop apps faster, you can do it quickly, you don't have to go through all the time and expense of software development, you can put it where people want to use it. Got a lot less nice to have in March of 2020 went from a lot of people from, "Oh, that sounds cool. I'll check that out someday." Steve Mordue: Someday. Ryan Cunningham: This is interesting to this is the only game in town. There were moments where I don't... I hear what you're saying. It is difficult to go feel like you're thumping your chest about business success in a year where a lot of people have had a really hard time and I really want to be sensitive to that. At the same time, the platform has really directly and indirectly helped a lot of people with those struggles. A whole number of both through the healthcare response to COVID, solutions that were implemented almost literally overnight in some cases for major state governments around the US and national governments abroad to first roll out large-scale testing programs on portals with CDS or Dataverse behind it and then roll out economic assistance programs on the same platform. Ryan Cunningham: Now rolling out return to work solutions on the same platform. Those are things where the traditional model of start up a waterfall development process, go write a giant requirements document, triple bit it, go through... You don't have the luxury of the Gantt chart in this world and you have to be able to move fast. And those are places where that is the platform we've been building for is that environment where we got to move fast. We have to do it non-traditionally and we have to do it with a lot less effort. Ryan Cunningham: This last year has really forced us to hone in on that value prop and prove that it's real, and frankly adjust a lot to make it more real for people who are trying to get that value. So I would say we have learned a lot in the course of this pandemic. A lot of people have. But we've also been able to do some good for the world in the same breath. Steve Mordue: It definitely was interesting timing because if you guys probably had to pick a time for a super crunch test of our platform maybe you don't like to see it in another year out or something. Ryan Cunningham: Yeah, sure. Steve Mordue: You can't cage these things, but it kind of hit when you guys still had some wiring to finish and I would imagine that the pressure on the team... It's one thing to we got to be out to market quickly because of competition. It's another thing because something like this has come. It has to bring a huge amount of pressure the team. We need to take Teams to the next level. We need to take build your own apps the next level and suddenly we've got an entire workforce that is now working from home that never planned to be working from home that is completely ill-equipped for that entire motion and these people need this stuff fast. Ryan Cunningham: Not to mention an entire generation of students who are now learning remotely, many of them in every age group from my first grader up to colleges and in universities. It's affected everybody. But you're right. I mean, the platform has been stretched at every level and it's not just the power platform. You're right. It's also very much Teams. I saw a really interesting internal presentation from an engineering leader in the Teams org comparing, "Look, here's what our load and traffic pattern looked like in January of 2021 and then to scale superimposing that on what it looked like in March." Not to say that, "Hey, look at all this great growth," it was really to say, "Look at what it took to go scale a planet scale service that dramatically that quickly." That was not a pleasant experience for the engineers having to work on that. That was [crosstalk 00:28:54]- Steve Mordue: A lot of late nights. Ryan Cunningham: ... 24/7 as any other response. No software is perfect. We like to gripe about everything and I share my set of barbs with stuff, but man, I have a ton of respect for the Teams engineering group and how well they have handled that just massive overnight change. Steve Mordue: So as we're recording this, vaccines for the virus are rolling out and I assume at some point in the coming months, it'll be behind us. In the meantime, it was around long enough to push lots of people to work from home longer than maybe their company owners thought would have to happen, but now they've gotten used to that. They've made accommodation. They've made it work. What do you think is going to happen when this particular crisis has passed and there's the ability to go back to normal? What do you think is going to happen with all these folks? Are we going to see a mass return to offices? Are we going to see people say, "This is working"? What are you guys thinking? Ryan Cunningham: I mean, it's a good question. I don't know that I can speak for all of Microsoft on this one, but I think at least in our own team- Steve Mordue: What do you think? Ryan Cunningham: I mean look, our team is already very globally distributed. We have the majority of our engineers and core products, PMs working in the Pacific time zone, but we have a significant group in Paris. We have a significant group in Bangalore. We have individual pockets. We have people in Fargo, North Dakota. We have a team in- Steve Mordue: Israel? Ryan Cunningham: We certainly have team in Israel. We have teams in parts of Europe. We have a team in Toronto. If nothing else, I think the core of [inaudible 00:30:49] sound based team has developed a lot more empathy for the experience of the very significant portion of our group that works around the world. I'm very experienced joining Teams. And I really hope that that continues if nothing else even if we all end up back in offices at a more regular level. Ryan Cunningham: We've learned at digital events and conferences and stuff. Certainly, it is not the same as being in the room with people catching up and networking, finding those discovery and unplanned moments with humans. And I do believe that we will go back to getting in rooms together both as employees, but also as colleagues. I really hope that we get to do that again soon. However, some of the digital events that we've pulled off as unelegant as some of them have come together also very rapidly having to figure out how to completely reimagine conferences like Ignite virtually in just a few months, those themselves were gargantuan tactics. In some cases there were orders of magnitude more participation in those events than when you had to get on a plane and fly to Orlando to get the benefit really. So there's- Steve Mordue: If I'm Microsoft, I don't know how eager I am to go back to in-person events given the success of like you say, I mean, so many more people able to attend. Microsoft's goal in having an event isn't for us all to hang out and have beers, it's to disseminate product information to his broader audience as possible and as deep a format as possible. Sitting in a session room, watching some guy present a slide deck, maybe it's a little more interactive, but not enough more interactive to justify the 30 people behind me versus 3,000 people that could be behind me in a video meeting. Steve Mordue: So from Microsoft's standpoint, you would think that, "Hey, great news. We don't have to go back to doing live events," which are, I think, they got to be a huge expense, a huge logistical challenge, all that sort of stuff. So the only reason to go back- Ryan Cunningham: I mean, I imagine- Steve Mordue: ... would be camaraderie or something. Ryan Cunningham: Like all things moderation. I'm sure we will... I hope we will reconvene at least some live events and I'm sure we will. I think we've learned that there's probably a bias before this year, this past year that the digital portion of a live event would be much less valuable. I mean, even already, I don't want to overplay that hand. Even already, we would frequently get more total usage over a lifespan of content consumed digitally when it was produced at the live event than at the live event itself. Ryan Cunningham: You could take a keynote at Ignite. There's 3,000, 10,000 people in the room, whatever, but then you go take the three months following the streaming of that online would accumulate far more visitors and end users than originally. That was already known. But being able to extend that from the keynote stage out to every session and being able to figure out how to produce that type of an event in a very decentralized way is, I think we've learned a lot through that process. Ryan Cunningham: Back to your question about people going to offices and the team working in places, I think there's a lot of reasons why a lot of people really value that type of working whether... There's people on my team who live alone and are really, really craving social interaction with other humans that are ready to come back. But there's also people on my team and self included with young kids in the house and a lot to manage and really craving return to normalcy and in that type of life environment. Ryan Cunningham: So I think work from home, I think we've all learned that we can do it and some people have learned that it's even better for them, but I think there's a lot of people who will still value working in a physical location and I hope we'll return to a good chunk of that as well. Steve Mordue: Yeah. It does get kind of lonely for a lot of folks especially those social people that need to be around people, need the water cooler or need to go to lunch. Ryan Cunningham: Yep. Steve Mordue: That's the best part of what they're doing. Ryan Cunningham: Yeah. Steve Mordue: Let me ask you about... Maybe I'll get a little self-serving here now. Ryan Cunningham: Sure. Steve Mordue: You're familiar with our RapidStart CRM? Ryan Cunningham: Yep. Steve Mordue: And I'm just curious about what the team internally thinks about motions like the one we're doing and others are looking at where we've... And I know you'll be a little biased because you're more on the platform side as is Charles. Charles is less concerned about the first party group. They got their own problems to deal with, but we're basically making a business out of building simpler versions of what the first party Teams have built for an audience that isn't prepared for that level of complexity. Ryan Cunningham: Yeah. Steve Mordue: And we've built it to run on the $10 pass, and we recently made it free. I'm just curious what the talk in the halls is about ISVs like us that are basically building products that are attacking directly. I mean, I'm attacking directly the sales professional for sure and even enterprise for a lot of customers because you've given us enough in the platform that I can build quite a bit for a lot of customers before I'd have to really go to those first party. What's the talk in the halls about that kind of motions? Ryan Cunningham: Well, luckily we don't have any halls anymore, Steve. We're all working from home. Steve Mordue: That's true. Ryan Cunningham: Otherwise we're- Steve Mordue: In the video halls. Ryan Cunningham: [crosstalk 00:36:36] Steve Mordue in every elevator lobby. Look, I will say a couple things on that. I don't want to speak for Charles, but from a platform perspective and certainly from my perspective too. Yes, our day job is focused on building a platform. Our biggest customer of the first party apps running on that platform still by revenue at least. We have a lot of incentive as a Microsoft shareholder and as a member of the business applications group and seeing the first party apps be successful. In fact, a lot of our effort and our engineering effort goes into helping those first-party apps be successful and stay successful and get modern and get fast and get mobile in addition to or in some cases around building the core platform itself. Steve Mordue: James has said not that long ago that make no mistake, those are what pay the rent. Ryan Cunningham: Yeah, absolutely. Look, Power Apps is driving an incredible amount of growth from a both a usage and a revenue perspective. But yeah, I mean there's an established greater than a decade business in CRM at scale that customers are driving themselves trusting billions of dollars of business too and paying Microsoft a lot of money for that privilege, right? So we take that very seriously and we are directly incented to protect that business whatever that means. Ryan Cunningham: Now, that said to rewind earlier in the conversation, we're a platform company at heart right and it's not just that Steve Mordue can go out there and build a CRM system on the Dataverse and Power Apps platform. I mean, we have multiple Power Apps competitors building on the Azure platform. They're Azure, and that's great as a shareholder and as a software person. The best solution should win and that's never going to be a one-size-fits-all answer for every customer. To your point, there are some customers that are going to be best served by a certain piece of software and Microsoft as a builder of generic things is not going to get into every niche, it's not going to get into every vertical. Ryan Cunningham: We want an ecosystem of people to build on the platform and extend things and even build fully standalone things for those niches, because we won't get there ourselves and we know that there are more of them out there where expertise needs to go. For Microsoft to really have a Microsoft product offering at scale, it needs to have a really big business behind. It's a really big business behind it. There's plenty of opportunity in the market at other multiples that is very profitable for software vendors and very advantageous for customers that are businesses that Microsoft will not directly enter. Ryan Cunningham: So I think in those worlds if the platform doesn't work for that, then what's the point of having a platform. It needs to work for that and we need to make RapidStart successful just like we need to make the first party Dynamics app successful. I believe those two things are not at odds with each other and they should live in a co-existing world. Ryan Cunningham: From a customer perspective even as a platform person, a lot of people will come in and say, "Should I use this off-the-shelf piece of software or should I build it myself in Power Apps?" My first answer to them is always if the off-the-shelf thing does what you needed to do or even does 80% of what you needed to do, it's usually worth buying. And even if the price tag feels more expensive, because what you're buying there is a team of people behind that app who not only put all the effort into making it, but are going to keep putting effort into making it better. Ryan Cunningham: And whether that's Steve's team or whether that's Muhammad Alam's team that is almost less relevant. The concept is I'm going to buy a piece of software that people have already figured out a lot of the hard parts for this use case and they're going to keep making it better. Now the ability to extend it is really important in business applications because selling shoes is very different than selling wind turbines even if it all involves selling stuff. [crosstalk 00:40:55] Steve Mordue: It's one of the reasons we ended up going free. When I first came up with that idea for RapidStart, we launched it in 2015 and it sat on top of CRM online the single SKU at the time to just really make the whole thing simpler because there was that need for something to be simpler. I had this dream that I was just going to sell that. People would buy it, pay me every month and leave me the hell alone. That was what I had imagined. But everybody, everybody wants to tweak and fiddle and make it unique. We actually look back last year at our revenue with 10 times more revenue on the services of helping customers customize our app that we did on the recurring revenue. Steve Mordue: That's the reason we decided, "Well, let's just make the app free and lean into the services as much," because I really didn't want to do that. I didn't want to do that business at all. Now, I'm being you know pulled in or the godfather won't let me out of the services business. But you're right, everybody needs something unique. So we really recast them as accelerators as opposed to here's something you just buy and use. But it's the same even with the first party apps. Nobody installs a first party app and just uses it. Steve Mordue: They've all got to be molded to fit the business, and I think that that's the nice thing about the platform whether it's on first party or just on Power Apps is you've got all the tools to... And that's actually one of the challenges we run into, I'm sure you guys do too where they look at some app and they say, "Oh, that's not exactly what I need," and then they move on, without realizing that, you know what, that can be exactly what you need and frankly, with the tools available that we have today, not that expensive, not anything like it used to be. Ryan Cunningham: Supposed than what I need and I can make it to work. Steve Mordue: Yeah, and a fraction of what it used to cost to do those kind of services. Ryan Cunningham: Part of making this stuff easier to adopt is about having apps that are much... At least much closer to what a customer needs out of the box. They don't have to do a bunch of customization upfront. I think something that we have been on the journey from, if you go rewind 10 years in CRM to now is make it less of a giant monolith make individual modules much more ready to consume. We've done a lot of work around that. But even within Power Apps, a lot of people get started by grabbing a template and implementing it and starting to use it fairly stock and then realizing, "Hey, I want to put my logo on it and then I want to change this form and then I want to change the field. And then I want a thing to kick off." Ryan Cunningham: Making the customization incremental as opposed to putting a really large tax and price tag before it's useful is one of the tactics we pursue to make it easier to get more people started. But that said, there will always be the need to tailor and customize software in a business application space. I think one of the trends we are seeing is this blurring of lines between... We like to pretend classically that there are ISVs who produce software and put it in the world and then never touch it. Ryan Cunningham: Then there are system integrators who do the dirty work of services to make it work. Those lines get really blurry in the modern world where from a classic services provider standpoint when I'm building and customizing on a platform, it's actually much easier to then start to templatize and repeat my solutions so I'm not just doing labor every single time. Ryan Cunningham: And to your point from a software maker perspective for customers who want to constantly customize it, it gets more viable to go the other direction depending on what your business model is. We see a lot of people living in that world. We even see customers themselves, energy companies, healthcare companies building stuff, financial services companies building stuff for themselves on the platform and starting to commercialize it to other people in their industry because it's on a platform that's transferable and that's something that classically you didn't see with line of business software. Ryan Cunningham: It was built in a vacuum custom and very tailored for one customer and then it sort of lived in that silo for a long time. But the ability to make those assets transferable is a huge advantage in this world. Steve Mordue: Back when they really first started pushing the Citizen Developer motion, I think I wrote a post about the end of SI business. This is it. We're all dead now. They won't need us anymore. The sky is falling, Chicken Little. But now as we've seen this thing roll out, because it is less expensive to get deployed, there are people building apps and using apps that would never have considered it before. Steve Mordue: So while I would say it's probably true that our average customer SI project has lost a zero in value, there's 10 times as many of them. So it's evened itself out. We've got many more customers available now than when the only way you could become a customer was if you had really deep pockets and a lot of patience. So we just opened up the number of potential customers by 10 times even though the deployment of each has gone down some. I'm not disappointed. Ryan Cunningham: And I think that trend is holding. I mean, I think you see even some of the big services companies like the big four and stuff like that actually seeing some very similar trends where they're building real practices on power platform whereas a couple years ago, they didn't see it as something for their business model, maybe even a threat to their business model. Now, they're realizing, "Look, I can drive real revenue out of this just the size and dollar amount and number of projects is a different mix that it was before." Ryan Cunningham: In some cases, those tend towards strategic consulting engagements. It becomes, let me think about helping a... For a large global organization to wrap their head around how do I use Citizen Development in my company? How do I keep it secure? How do I monitor it? Where do I let a business unit roll their own thing versus where do I bring in a team of professionals to build and maintain a solution? Ryan Cunningham: Even just that decision-making process and the center of excellence and governance practices that go around it, that's a major engagement that a lot of customers need help with right now because they're not organized for that today or resourced for it today. And then you look at getting into each of those individual projects. Certainly today, even in a future where apps are 10 times as easy to build as they are today, if I'm going to go roll out a mission mission-critical solution for managing customer data and critical decisions, I need software-minded people to help me think about how to keep that compliant, about how to build it in a way that humans are going to want to use it. Ryan Cunningham: Just because we put a tool like Photoshop out there in the world, does not instantly make everybody a photographer and a digital artist. There's still that mindset and expertise that's going to be really necessary. So for a lot of a lot of services organizations right now, I think they're realizing that there is a lot of value both in the execution of individual apps and projects, but then also in helping customers adapt to this new world where a lot of people can build software and you have to make decisions about who builds what and how you maintain it. [crosstalk 00:48:15] Steve Mordue: I think definitely one of the areas that's been blown up completely is the old ROI story because you used to be looking at a significant investment to deploy something of time and money, and the return on that investment was quite some time. That was what was going to limit the growth of any business application platform out there was... And now, that's produced almost nothing. Steve Mordue: So literally, Bob can go build something that starts generating revenue or saving money in an afternoon. The ROI, it's not even a question anymore about a half a day of Bob's time to go and streamline this process and save us five hours a day with his four-hour effort. Ryan Cunningham: True. Steve Mordue: And that didn't exist before. That just did not exist within the dynamics application before platform, before Power Apps, before Canvas apps. It's completely changed the entire game. Ryan Cunningham: Yeah. Steve Mordue: Before I let you go, what of the things as you look across the landscape right now and maybe the things that are coming up that have been discussed that people are aware of, what excites you the most? What do you think is... Two things. What are you the most excited about? And the other one is what do you think more customers would be excited about if they understood it better or realized that that's the most underutilized high value thing that people are just missing? Ryan Cunningham: Sure. Those are big questions. I think there's a lot that I get excited about. For people that know me, it's not hard to get excited. Steve Mordue: Yeah. You're excited about that lamp in the background, I know. Ryan Cunningham: Exactly. It's a great lamp. It's not. It's a crappy lamp from Ikea. Look, I think for me certainly there's a ton of work in our feature backlog that's really cool and really exciting and there's a lot of work particularly around bringing intelligence to the authoring experience that I'm pretty excited about. To the earlier conversation we're having about make it easier for people to be successful and maybe not have to deal with that formula bar, there's a lot of cool stuff that we're starting to apply. Ryan Cunningham: We've brought AI builder to end user apps, but actually bringing that to the maker experience of being just... And not in magical unicorn pixie dust ways, but just in really practical ways suggesting ways for people to do things, suggesting things to do next, making it possible to write logic in natural language as opposed to having to know all the ins and outs of the formula for example. There's some really cool stuff cooking there that I think will start to continue to open up orders of magnitude of humans who can be successful. Steve Mordue: Move that bar farther down the path. Ryan Cunningham: Absolutely, right? Classically, sometimes we think about those as tools just for true amateurs. But if you go look at even all the productivity that a product like visual studio has brought to professional developers, it's in stuff like Typeahead and linting and all that. It's really about bringing micro intelligence to those micro interactions that a person who's living in this tool for eight hours a day, all day long is going to need to be really productive. Ryan Cunningham: So we're really thinking about that both ways. So those things are exciting. I think if you zoom out a little bit though beyond the individual level of feature work, I would say, what's most exciting to me and what I hope is getting more exciting to more customers is less about any one individual feature or product and more about what's possible when you start to combine them at scale. Ryan Cunningham: I think that's where, if you look at organizations that have really gone all in on Citizen Development and low code for professionals as well and start to work together, you see this new way of working where you have professionals and amateurs and IT people and business people knowing each other and working side by side in a place where they traditionally were opposed to each other. Or at least just not aware of each other. And that's where you get not just one cool app with one cool feature, but literally thousands of applications inside of organizations that are just creating a crazy amount of value and you start to change you start to change the lives of people in those organizations. Ryan Cunningham: Both the people that are able to implement that stuff, but also you just make the jobs better for the people who get to use stuff that was built by their company and was built much faster. That's ultimately super exciting to me is to start to see this making a real change in the way that humans are working and doing it through a mix of apps and bots and automations, and Teams experiences. Ryan Cunningham: It's when those things sort of work together in concert that I think they get most exciting. So I'm thrilled to see that happening. I'm really excited about this end-to-end stack of what customers have done with Azure resources through power platform, in Teams and how that has created a meaningful dent and how a company works. I'm super excited about all the work we're doing to make that smoother to actually implement and manage and deploy, but I really hope customers see beyond the one use case, see beyond the one app or see beyond the one product and see what's possible when I start to change the economics of how software is rolled out in my company. And by economics, I mean not just- Steve Mordue: It is a discovery process. Ryan Cunningham: ... who participates. Right, yeah. Steve Mordue: It is a discovery process. They stumble upon something. They start using something and if they're successful with it, then they start discovering these other pieces around it that are available around it to extend on it. I don't think the technology itself right now that we have is a blocker to growth. I think the biggest challenge with growth right now probably relies more on the complexity of the licensing side. I mean, there's a lot of customers- Ryan Cunningham: I mean, I think there's good parts of it. Steve Mordue: ... that can't even get started because they don't understand what they even need or how to buy especially in the Power Apps store where they've got some seated Power Apps capabilities, they don't know what word seated even means or that they have it, and then they're seeing all these cool Power Apps things and they can't figure out how do I get from here to there? Why can't I do this and that? I think that probably is a bigger blocker to potential growth than the technology itself. Ryan Cunningham: Maybe. I would say certainly- Steve Mordue: Have you read the licensing guide? Ryan Cunningham: It's my favorite James Joyce story. Steve Mordue: I'll bet. Well, most customers haven't and wouldn't. Ryan Cunningham: Well, I guess what I would maybe zoom out from that, I would say... You're right. The technology itself can solve a lot of problems for a lot of different people and we have existence proof of that. Getting an organization at scale to discover it to see it in that light and then to have an organizational culture embrace it. Certainly licensing is a part of that, but it's also about who in IT is responsible for it? How do we govern it? Where do we roll it out? Who is footing the bill when I do understand how to pay for it? Ryan Cunningham: At the end of the day, licensing is actually very simple which I know is a controversial opinion. You get a measure of it in Office. For extending Office, you pay for Enterprise data sources. There's two ways to pay. You pay per app or you pay unlimited, full stop. That's the license. Now, we do not do ourselves many favors when we have classically rolled that out. And I absolutely take your point that we have made the communication of that complex. Ryan Cunningham: And for a lot of customers, this is not a commodity expectation. We're at a point right now where everybody needs an email account and a productivity suite and Word processing and every seller needs a CRM license and those things are not necessarily controversial, it just becomes about what's the best price from the best vendor. Because they're mature products in mature markets. Ryan Cunningham: Low code is at a very different state of market maturity. So for a lot of people it's about not just understanding how our pricing is structured, but understanding organizationally for them how do they conceptualize ROI? How does the market offer these products and how do I evaluate that potential expense against the value I'm going to get out of it? I think in addition to making things like the licensing guide easier to read for people who do not have PhDs, I think it's also really about helping the market get more mature and seeing... We really genuinely believe this will become an expectation of organizations. Ryan Cunningham: If you go fast forward another couple years, if I can't rapidly innovate internally and I am dependent on a team of professionals to start from scratch every single time that I that I need a problem solved, that's going to be a major competitive disadvantage for organizations. And on the flip side, being able to have every information worker be able to do at least basic tasks extending their software and solving their own problems is increasingly going to be an expectation. Ryan Cunningham: We're not there yet from a market maturity standpoint. Not everybody sees it that way, but we've certainly seen enough proof of organizations already evolving to that point that we know that that's coming. So I think being able to get to that place is a journey for a lot of companies. It's then really the next phase for us of bringing the world to where we know it can be. Steve Mordue: I mean, you just look at some of the things in the past like the first Obamacare website debacle with all the millions of dollars they spent to basically build a website and then look at what it would have taken for somebody to pop that up on portals today. I mean, there's no compare. I mean, we've actually lost projects in the past because the people thought we didn't understand the scope because we were like 10% of what the other companies... So we clearly misunderstood the scope and they just misunderstood the value of a platform and what that does to a development cost and time cycle and everything. Ryan Cunningham: There are government entities that rolled out COVID testing solutions on Power Platform in literally weeks to tens of millions of citizens and had that go off without any major hiccup. You're right. We get back to that pressure test. It's like getting that to go to scale and to help more people see it that way and be able to expect that from their software. That's really the next mountain to climb. Steve Mordue: I think the two challenges we've had around licensing are that Power Apps versus Power Apps. We've got these two products that really are our different products that share the same name and that puts some confusion in customers where they think they already have Power Apps. Ryan Cunningham: Have it right. Steve Mordue: They don't understand why they have to go buy Power Apps or they have Power Apps. And the other one is the passes, the per user or the per app passes. Those are assigned in a different way than all the other licenses they have been using internally for years. It's the only thing that's assigned that way. So it's a different process and they're looking at how do I do this? I've assigned licenses all the time. I don't understand how to do this. Steve Mordue: Those are two spots if you could personally take as a favor to me, go clean up the pathways [crosstalk 00:59:39] on those to make that as smooth as possible for people to understand, that would be that would be awesome. Ryan Cunningham: And that feedback is well heard across the market. I mean, we are at the pace that we were trying to do some work on the first problem to clarify really Power Apps for Office from our apps for stand-alone. And then separately the per app concept is a really powerful concept and actually a lot of organizations have embraced it. I don't know if I'm allowed to say this. there's more monthly active usage of apps on a per app license today and this has been true for many months than there were on either the older two licensed models, right? Steve Mordue: Sure. Ryan Cunningham: I mean it hunts for a lot of people when they can realize, "Oh, hey. This is a way for me to apply the value of the platform to a use case without having to go have this broader discussion about committing the entire organization to an unlimited number of apps." Steve Mordue: And just a difference of cost Ryan Cunningham: It's a different concept for people. Steve Mordue: And just a difference of cost. At $40, I can afford to have 10 people use this. Ryan Cunningham: Right. Steve Mordue: At $10, well I can afford to have 40 people use this. So suddenly, strictly related to cost, you're going to see that usage explode on those lower cost licenses because those are people now using an app that weren't going to be able to use it before. They weren't going to justify the expense for that level, that tier if you will. You start getting into 10 bucks, I mean that's pretty much anybody in the organization you could justify 10 bucks for. Now suddenly, everybody has an app. Ryan Cunningham: Yup. We've seen a number of customers already even though this has been in market only about a year. Start there and then very quickly realize, actually we want unlimited [inaudible 01:01:25] people through the transition is a phase as well. Steve Mordue: This is something that you take in account as a builder of apps also if you're wanting to try and build for that, you build your apps understanding the licensing structure and you design for it. So listen, Ryan, I appreciate you taking this time out of your, obviously not busy afternoon. Ryan Cunningham: [inaudible 01:01:50] Steve Mordue: A rare not busy afternoon for you, I'm sure. I'm feeling very lucky to have caught you when I did. Ryan Cunningham: Sure. Steve Mordue: Any closing thoughts? Ryan Cunningham: Hey, keep doing what you're doing, Steve both being a rock in the community and also pushing us on the platform to make it better. I think ultimately we see this as a thing we're doing together and I mean that really genuinely. We don't sit in an ivory tower. [inaudible 01:02:18] When we do, we make plenty of blunders, but I think this thing we are building is bigger than lines of code. It's a mindset and I think the more that the community embraces it, the faster we go. So I really appreciate you and everybody that is hopefully going to listen to this someday and participate. Steve Mordue: There'll be thousands listening. There usually are. So don't worry. Ryan Cunningham: Yeah, 100%. Thanks for the call, Steve. Steve Mordue: All right. Cool, man. Talk to you later. Ryan Cunningham: Be well, peace.    

Our Marketing Manager, Marlene, takes over the podcast from Danny. Listen to her and Bruce Harple talk about how citizen developers can get started with power apps.

Toronto has a legacy of citizens volunteering their time to contribute technology solutions for local problems. In recent years the City has actively embraced that trend and now maintains a huge open data portal. Aside from transit data, you can find data about waste collection, bicycle sharing, child care, water quality at the beach, and events across the city. One group that's latched on to the movement to take that data and turn it into products and services for residents is Civic Tech Toronto. It hosts hack nights weekly, dedicated to finding solutions to civic challenges through technology and design. Joining me today on Tech Insights to discuss all this is Skaidra Puodziunas. She's the senior engagement advisor, Ontario Digital Service and she's also a co-organizer at Civic Tech Toronto.

I recently became aware of an interesting concept in psychology called the Dunning-Kruger Effect, and Citizen Developers came to my mind. What the hell am I talking about now? Read on to find out. The Dunning-Kruger Effect Essentially the Dunning-Kruger effect is one's own perception of their reality. Often displayed as the following image: For those of you who are listening to this, instead of reading it, I will describe the image. On the vertical axis is confidence level, from low to high. On the horizontal axis is Competence level, from "Know Nothing" to "Guru". It seems that many people, who know nothing, can have high confidence of their knowledge in spite of that fact that they... well... know nothing. In the Dunning-Kruger model this places these people at the peak of "Mt. Stupid". I am very familiar with that particular peak have spent my early 20's there. Following the peak of Mt. Stupid, is the Valley of Despair, where one realizes that they actually know... well... nothing, and their confidence plummets. From there, they travel the "Slope of Enlightenment" back up, slowly, until they reach the "Plateau of Sustainability", or actual Guru level. This assumes they remain on the "Slope of Enlightenment" long enough. Citizen Developers Almost every other day, I am on the phone with Citizen Developers at various stages of this model. Like all of the low-code platforms, the Power Platform's primary goal is to "enable" Citizen Developers. Unfortunately, all of the Low-Code platforms, including the Power Platform, present themselves in such a way as to give a person who "Knows Nothing" very high "Confidence". Thus, marching them Pied Piper style to the peak of Mt. Stupid. I have spoken to Citizens with this high confidence, aka "Cocky", and after about 30 minutes of conversation. aka "Enlightenment", have unintentionally knocked them off the peak and into that valley. Well... not the really cocky ones. Riding the Slope I have been involved with Business Applications for over 20 years and still feel firmly on the "Slope of Enlightenment". Whenever a platform, in my case Microsoft, adds a slew of new capabilities, that "Plateau of Enlightenment" just moves farther out. The best that the most knowledgeable and experienced of us can hope for, is to remain on the Slope... indefinitely. When a "Citizen Developer" thinks they are as capable as one who has been on the Slope for 5-10 or 20 years, they are clearly straddling the peak of Mt. Stupid. While I am not easily impressed by your Power App, I am professional enough to not laugh out loud at your feeble effort, since I understand, sitting on the Peak, you are quite proud of your accomplishment. Circumventing the Peak In my experience, this idea will be harder for men than for women, because it requires reading directions. But if you want to bypass the Peak, start at the Valley. Since you would not have gone to the Peak in the first place, the Valley is not one of despair, but rather the beginning of your journey on the Slope. If you want to do this right, and many say they do, but actually don't, then you need to invest the time. Do not fall for the over-confidence building marketing messaging from any low-code platform. Why? 25% 25% is about the percentage of our practice's work that is allocated to fixing things built by Mt. Stupid flag planters. I am reminded of a buddy of mine when I was a teenager. He thought he was a great mechanic, but every time he rebuilt something, like an engine, there was this odd pile of parts leftover. When asked about them he would say something like, "I'm not sure what those are, but they are definitely not needed". As I recall, his vehicles were always on blocks, and I never saw him drive one. A Fork in the Road What many Citizens miss are the forks in the road. Some are obvious, and still the wrong one is taken, and many are not so obvious. Where this matters is down that road, when the clear realization that the wrong fork was taken becomes apparent. I'm not sure if any statistics exist, but I would assume the number of efforts that went the wrong way, and were then either abandoned in frustration, or taken all the way back to the fork, is quite high. The biggest thing that Mt. Stupid does not provide, is a clear view into the future. However, after a while on the Slope, the future becomes quite predictable. Back to the Slope The Slope of Enlightenment is vast, and as I said, even those of us with decades on it, are still climbing. So where does a Citizen even start? I can tell you where we start. First, before building anything, we create the data-model. Apps are pretty easy to change, but the data model will eventually expose any wrong forks taken, and these tend to be the most complex to reverse. Second is typically the UI, getting the data onto forms in a usable way... this is harder than it sounds if you take into account user friendliness vs. function. Lastly is automation, which seems to be the thing too many Citizens are way too eager to get to. If this post sounds like I am bitch-slapping Citizens.... I'm not. I am fully cognizant of the movement, and it is actually not even a new movement. We still spend time unwinding Access databases built by tech savvy, but not business savvy Citizens of those days. I'm just suggesting that scaling Mt. Stupid does not give the same satisfaction as scaling Mt. Everest.  

Previously, workplace software and applications were exclusively built by expert coders on tools that took years to master. No-code development challenges this paradigm by lowering the barriers of entry to application development and laying the groundwork for the inevitable surge in citizen development. What is citizen development? Gartner defines citizen developers as employees who create 'new business applications for consumption by others using development and runtime environments sanctioned by corporate IT.' In this episode we'll take a look at how workplace innovators can build applications that help businesses save time, lower costs, reduce IT backlogs and solve long neglected problems.

Alexei Balaganski and Matthias Reinwarth look at the citizen development movement and discuss the potential risks of letting business users create their applications without proper governance and security.

Alexei Balaganski and Matthias Reinwarth look at the citizen development movement and discuss the potential risks of letting business users create their applications without proper governance and security.

Равняясь, смирно! Как вы думаете чем отличается прогер в штатском от бывалого программиста-вояки? Такое вот условное разделение на сей раз будут обсуждать бессменные ведущие Кибирда – Олег Пузанов и Михаил Иващенко. Программист-вояка, или прогер служивый – это специалист с огромным багажем знаний и опыта, который за свою жизнь повидал то, как IT-индустрия менялась и развивалась. Вояка может накодить что угодно на каком угодно языке, он знает как всё работает под капотами, как всё разобрать и собрать (без лишних деталей). Программист в штатском же (Citizen Developer) – это новобранец, у которого отсутствуют глубинные познания в программировании, который ещё даже по-настоящему "прода не нюхал". Основные навыки гражданского разработчика – умение использовать готовые технологии и решения, просчитывать бюджет, а кодит он по-минимуму. Больше деталей в нашем подкасте, приятного прослушиваения.

Равняясь, смирно! Как вы думаете чем отличается прогер в штатском от бывалого программиста-вояки? Такое вот условное разделение на сей раз обсудят бессменные ведущие Кибирда – Олег Пузанов и Михаил Иващенко.Программист-вояка, или прогер служивый – это специалист с огромным багажем знаний и опыта, который за свою жизнь повидал то, как IT-индустрия менялась и развивалась. Вояка может накодить что угодно на каком угодно языке, он знает как всё работает под капотами, как всё разобрать и собрать (без лишних деталей). Программист в штатском же (Citizen Developer) – это новобранец, у которого отсутствуют глубинные познания в программировании, который ещё даже по-настоящему "прода не нюхал". Основные навыки гражданского разработчика – умение использовать готовые технологии и решения, просчитывать бюджет, а кодит он по-минимуму. Больше деталей в нашем видео, подписывайтесь на канал, ставьте лайки и оставляйте комментарии, нам важно ваше мнение.Приятного прослушивания, въетнамские флешбеки обеспечены!Вольно салаги.

In today's episode, we explore the journey someone who is not a full-time developer takes when they approach a problem equipped with the MongoDB platform as a solution. We're joined by Dominic Wellington, Director of Market Intelligence. 

In this episode, we welcome Glen Robinson, National Technology Officer at Microsoft UK, to discuss the growing focus on low-code/no-code development platforms.  Glen identifies the potential benefits of using visual software development environments, where citizen developers can simply drag and drop components to build apps. He also discusses the impact this can have on enterprise transformation, and what can be achieved when innovation is enabled at the edges of an organization. Subscribe to the Cloudbusting newsletter here: https://cldr.ch/388FZR  

Episode Notes In this episode we discuss the changing nature of who builds applications and systems on Azure/o365. In recent years, with the proliferation of low/no code platforms, we have seen a rise in people within the business building solutions to their problems without the need for traditional development and project practices. We cover who these people are, where they have come from and how we, as IT professional can help to promote and support transformation, directly in the teams that need these solutions. We also recap the news over the past few weeks. Find out more at http://www.letstalkpodcast.co.uk Send us your feedback online: https://pinecast.com/feedback/lets-talk-azure/7a393b0b-4ccc-4177-a768-5327c091d9c5

As part of our ‘Disrupt & Advance’ series, in this ‘The Download’ special episode we are joined by a range of firms who are advancing careers in tech through accessibility and innovation – narrowing the skills gap to progress. We were joined at Soho Studios in London by firms who flew in from around the globe from New York, Porto and Dublin. This discussion centred around how workforces are thriving and innovating through a diverse mix of people, with unique backgrounds and experiences, to shape a future of shared success.Shilpa Shah is the programme Director for Deloitte Delivery and Large Scale Implementations, with over 20 years’ experience consulting on Technology for Deloitte. She is a Women in Technology Leader who broadens diverse participation in the technology workforce. Shilpa talks about the initiatives she is involved with and how Deloitte champion diversity. Jim Cassidy is CEO at Code Institute, he shares the importance of bridging the tech skills and productivity gap between developers and non-technical professionals. He explains why it's a necessity to get on board with tech upskilling in the age of digital transformation.Stephen Murphy has held senior business & “C-level” positions at investment banks including Goldman Sachs, HSBC and more. He is now the CEO of Genesis Global Technology, a global capital markets software company who are empowering the modern “Citizen” Developer. Hugo Valente is a Solution Architect and Tech Product Owner at Staful. He explains how his customizable monitoring platform can be adopted by newly skilled employees. Padraic Geraghty, Senior Market Advisor also joins the conversation with how Enterprise Ireland are driving diversity across their organisation. Did you enjoy your time with the disruptors? We certainly did. Keep up to date with ditto tv on LinkedIn and our guests at Deloitte, Women in Tech, Code Institute, Genesis Global Technology, Statful and Enterprise Ireland. Don’t forget to join the ‘Disrupt & Advance – Breaking down barriers in tech’ webinar on 3rd December at 11am to follow on the discussion – register here https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/3391977282028171010

Who wouldn’t want to empower individuals and teams to solve problems as they encounter them? It’s a natural instinct for many developer-led organizations. But as phenomena like Shadow IT or skunkworks have shown, there can be a downside: a lack of coordination over what gets tackled and maintaining solutions over the long term. In this episode, our co-hosts, Rebecca Parsons and Zhamak Dehghani, are joined by Andy Yates, Head of Strategy at ThoughtWorks TechOps, to explore the idea of the Citizen Developer. They look at ways of supporting problem-solving go-getters, while giving them the tools to ensure their efforts are aligned to business needs.

Our goal? By 2023 any human can build an application. That’s why platform godfather Paul Engel will be answering all your questions about our platform in an upcoming Betty Blocks Webinar. He’ll be joined by USA Account Executive & Citizen Developer, Jermel Ladd.Send them your toughest questions, before or during the session, and get insights into the inner workings of the platform. Your questions can be submitted when you register in the form below. Don’t know what to ask? Come along and see what others are asking or join the live chat if anything comes to mind.

What a wonderful invention spreadsheets were. For many things, I don't know how we even managed before them. Okay, I do know, because I am that old... we managed things poorly. Spreadsheets solved so many challenges, that they eventually created new ones. 1-2-3 The first spreadsheet software I actually used was called 1-2-3 from Lotus, back around 1985. I created all sorts of spreadsheets, Shortly after, I switched up to Lotus Symphony, which was basically spreadsheet software with a programming language. With Symphony, I built a complex job-costing system for my business at the time. It was really my first experience as a "Citizen Developer". Needless to say, Microsoft eventually launched Excel, and crushed all of the other spreadsheet applications out of existence. For good reason... it was better. Access Microsoft launched another product in 1992 called "Access". It was a relational database product, and also was not the first. Some users of Excel started looking to Access as a way to build business applications. Access was "accessible", and many "normal" users built things on it. While the term "Citizen Developer" may seem recent, the concept has actually been around for a very long time. Although the tools may have changed quite a bit since then, the fundamental concepts are still pretty much the same today with the Power Platform's underlying Common Data Service (CDS)... a relational database. Fast-Forward Before I put you completely to sleep, let's jump ahead about 3 decades, to today. While the popularity of Access has waned, Excel is still very much alive. If I had to guess the percentage of businesses that use Excel.. I would put it at... 100%. It is simple-to-use, requiring almost no training at all for creating basics lists of information, and basic calculations of those items. Excel's use in organizations is ubiquitous and prolific. It is the "go-to" tool for many users, for almost anything. In fact, in enterprise organizations, I would not be surprised if the number of active spreadsheets in use is in the tens of thousands. Even small businesses often have hundreds of spreadsheets. Spreadsheets have become... an infestation. Infested It sneaks ups slowly. A business or department is formed, and there is an immediate need to capture some data. Who cares what it is, there is some shit we need to keep track of now, and the reflex is to whip up a quick spreadsheet to throw it on so it won't get lost. Makes total sense. Maybe we got a contact page on our website throwing off 5 leads a day, probably going to someone's email box. Let's put them on a spreadsheet and save it as "web site leads", and then we'll just add to it as they come in. Forget about web leads, it could be anything, but this is an easy example. So having these leads on a spreadsheet is good... we won't lose them, but we need to act on them. Next step, send a copy to our two salespeople. Today, you could actually just share it with the two salespeople, but copies are still most often the default. So now have someone updating the spreadsheet daily with new leads, and sending it to both salespeople. The salespeople are getting a daily new copy of this spreadsheet, but they have been taking actions on the last one(s). So they create a spreadsheet of their own to track their activities, and just add to it when they get the daily update. The Sales Manager wants to keep track of what is going on, so she asks the two salespeople to send her their updates daily. She then creates a spreadsheet to consolidate the two she receives. So how many spreadsheets do he have now? To be fair, a lot of this could be simplified using a shared spreadsheet, but still a spreadsheet is being used as a database. 95/5 Rule Excel was not designed to be a database, but rather a data analysis tool. The number of capabilities in Excel are staggering, yet 95% of users only use 5% of the capability. But Excel actually looks like a database table... columns for attributes and rows for records... sounds pretty similar. But used as a database, Excel gets unwieldy quickly. Imagine the scenario I described above growing over time to 50 leads a day coming in, and 20 salespeople. In enterprise businesses, I have seen similar scenarios with thousands of people trying to coordinate a business process with Excel. Excel was never intended to do that. Have you done this? I often see spreadsheets that do not use any of the calculating functions. A tab is created for each thing, like a tab for each Customer for example. On each tab are areas for the customer name, description, etc. Maybe even a running list of Phone Calls or other activities. Basically using a Spreadsheet as a quasi-CRM. I can't say this is stupid; CRM systems have become quite complex and expensive, where spreadsheets are more or less free! Tipping Point When are you torturing Excel too much? I don't need to tell you, if you have read this far your Excel-based system is already breaking down. Sally, looking at the wrong spreadsheet, calls a customer to introduce herself, only to find out that Bob called them yesterday. Bill added a note that someone needs to send Acme a price list, and nobody ever did. Joe adds a new Lead to his own copy, without realizing that Mary was already working on it. The fracture points are various and numerous. When did it start? Actually, when the second person was added to the process, the seeds were planted for it's eventual implosion. But CRM is so expensive! Think ROI It's funny some of the rationalizations customers come up with to avoid a cost. I often hear stories of massive inefficiencies costing customers thousands of dollars, followed by, "Is there a way 5 users could share a license"... to save $160! I get it... you are moving from a shit system, but it's free. But is it free? Have you taken into account anything other than a free system vs a system with a cost? SMBs really struggle with this one, focusing 100% on the possible additional cost. Easily able to ignore the costs they are currently incurring like wasted time and lost opportunities, and in a worst-case lost customers. A Path Forward Microsoft gave you the tool to create this mess, and thankfully, they also created the tools to get you out of it. You need a "Business Application" to replace your spreadsheet(s), we both know that. If you are using Excel, you probably already have other Microsoft products, like Outlook etc, or maybe even Office 365, so it makes sense to look to the same company for a solution to your Excelplosion. The main thing is, that you don't want to find yourself down the road with the same problem. Microsoft has a couple of ways to avoid that happening, Dynamics 365 or PowerApps. Let's unpack them briefly. Microsoft Dynamics 365 This is Microsoft's world-class, enterprise-grade Business Application family. If you are an enterprise, it may already be in use elsewhere in your organization. It competes head-to-head with Salesforce.com, and is a very powerful platform for solving the most complex business processes. If you have sophisticated applications in place already and are looking to move to the next level, this is something to consider. But, moving from an Excel-based system, you could not possibly have been solving enterprise-grade problems, so it could feel like a pretty big hammer. It is a big hammer, and if you are reading this post, you should ignore it completely.  Trying to go from 50 Miles per hour, straight to 500 Miles per hour, will snap everyone's neck, and you will be in an even worse place. PowerApps Now we're talking. This is exactly where you need to be going next. It is the most logical step forward from an Excel-based system. It is also significantly less expensive than Dynamics 365, and it's "Citizen Developer" friendly. My choice for moving customers off of spreadsheets is what are called "Model-Driven PowerApps", they are like Dynamics 365's little brother. They sit on the same relational database (Common Data Service) as the monster applications, but without all of the tentacles of complexity. If your needs eventually become really huge, you can easily activate the monster without having to move anything. Back to Access? If you ever worked with Microsoft Access before, PowerApps is kind of like the new version of that, but at the same time, nothing like that. The similarities are that a person with some basic technical skills can build a usable application on top of a relational database. While Access was not specifically designed for non-developers, PowerApps has enabling "Citizen Developers" as a core goal. If you don't have a comfort with basic "techy" stuff, or you don't have the time to mess with it, a partner that specializes in PowerApps can help you get there. Shameless plug: my company, Forceworks is a PowerApps partner, but the army of PowerApps partners is growing fast. Another Shameless Plug As part of our mission to move Excel-based systems to PowerApps, we created an accelerator to help customers get there faster and save some money. We call it RapidStartCRM, and you can learn more about it at https://rapidstartcrm.com. So I think that about covers it, or at least starts the conversation. It's time to stop torturing Excel, and torturing your team... you have officially run out of excuses.    

Episode 77: Markus Erlandsson talks to Rory Neary from DataSpinners about how to become a Power Platform Solution Builder. Rory explains his view on what a Power Platform Solution Builder or a Citizen Developer is and how more people are becoming developers in the Power Platform. He then continues to talk about what is needed … Continue reading Becoming a Power Platform Solution Builder with Rory Neary

When it comes to implementing a successful Citizen Development Strategy in organizations, Chris Obdam, CEO of Citizen Development platform Betty Blocks, is who you want to talk to. Watch the webinar and discover why Citizen Development is your way forward.

I usually wait a week or two to weigh in on new announcements from Microsoft. I like to let the noise die down a little, and see how others are responding to the news. But I am way too excited about the Public Preview launch of the PowerApps Component Framework. What's in a Name? The journey to Public Preview has been a rather long one. Originally coined the "Custom Control Framework" (CCF), which gave way to another name, "PowerApps Control Framework" (PCF), to ultimately landing on the name "PowerApps Component Framework", this "framework" has been quite the work in process. According to the new Branding Guidance, we are not supposed to use the acronym (PCF) anymore, but whoever decided that, does not write blog posts. Good Delays When PCF was first announced, there was a lot of excitement, among the MVP community in particular. We were all eager to get our hands on this new "capability" that was coming soon... but it did not come soon. It was not because there was any lack of will from the team behind it, rather it was another example of Microsoft seeing an "Opportunity". I recently discussed this "opportunistic re-trenching" that has been going on across Microsoft Business Applications on Mary Jo Foley's podcast. The source of this particular delay, was the realization that if both Model-Driven and Canvas PowerApps could share the same Component Framework, it would be way more valuable to everyone. So one step back was taken, to get two steps forward to the Preview. A frustrating delay for some, but well worth the wait. What the Hell is PCF? Is it charts? Is it Kanban boards? Is it Gantt Schedules? Buttons, dials, widgets, cameras? It is actually a way to create all of these, and many other "components". Is it a "Citizen Developer" capability? No, it is not. Building "Components" is a developer-level job, requiring Javascript/typescript and other development skills. For those of you on the development side, this is the future of what you now know of as html Web Resources... but way better. How is it better? Flexibility, portability and supportability are three things that come to my mind of why this is way better. As opposed to building a hard-coded webresource tied to something, with a Component you can package that up with parameters. This means that your Component is abstracted away from the particulars of a specific environment. For example, during the just concluded "Private Preview", we worked directly with the Microsoft development team to refactor a Gantt Chart Webresource that we had built for a specific custom project management entity in one of our ISV solutions. Our original html webresources were of course hard coded to this entity. The finished "Component" version instead included a parameters capability, meaning we could actually display our Gantt Chart "Component" on anything that met the minimum requirements to display it, which in our case was a start and end date. If additional parameters are present such as predecessors, successors or percent complete, it would take advantage of those also... very flexible. We can install our component solution on any environment, and use it wherever we want. While Citizen Developers may struggle to "build" a component, configuring one for their use is completely within their capability. From a supportability standpoint, since Microsoft developed and owns the "Framework", it falls on Microsoft to handle component lifecycle, retain application business logic and optimize for performance... instead of you. Is this All New? Well, it's new to you, but you have actually been using "components" for quite a while, possibly without even knowing it. Remember the fanfare about the addition of editable grids? That was a "component' built by Microsoft on the framework. In fact, a lot of the features you see in the new Unified Interface are actually "Components", including all of the original charts. What is new is your ability to now create your own components. Who will use this? Personally, I think the largest opportunity around the PowerApps Component Framework is for ISVs. Either building components as part of their larger solutions, or even freestanding components that they might resell individually via AppSource. There is some development effort involved, and I don't see a lot of SIs necessarily learning the nuances of building components for individual end customer needs. Better that they just incorporate components that exist, or will exist in the near future. Of course many ISVs still need to get themselves up to the Unified Interface, but that will happen pretty quickly, or they will be in a world of hurt. Are Html WebResources being deprecated? A common question today from customers and partners, whenever the Microsoft Bizapps team launches something new, is whether the old stuff will go away. Everything you are doing will eventually require change. Microsoft can only advance so fast when they are dragging a big bag of legacy behind them. This was the impetus for the One Version strategy. But even in the One Version world, a level of backward compatibility is a requirement... but for how long. How long will Microsoft allow that technical debt pile to grow? As long as they absolutely have to, and no longer. I have not heard anything about deprecating anything as a result of PowerApps Component Framework. But of course the same could have been said two years ago about other, now deprecated things. Neither the future nor Microsoft is waiting for you.

As I have been exploring the Power Platform, I continue to make new discoveries every day. I am not a developer, but I have developers on my team. Lately, I am noticing that we are pulling them into projects much less often than in the recent past. I wonder what the future-state of this will be... Power Platform We are in that fuzzy time, between something "new and significant" being launched, and the world understanding what it is, and what it means. Many customers are still saying things like, "I don't want this new Power Platform, I want Dynamics 365". Of course, Dynamics 365 runs on top of this "new" Power Platform. While confusion remains, I have covered this in other posts, so the "confused" obviously have not read them. For this post, I am more interested in the Developer's Dilemma. What is a Citizen? Lately, Microsoft has been using the term "Citizen Developer"... a lot. To listen, you would think that any boob could build an enterprise grade application in an hour. That may be the case in the future, but we are not quite there yet. However, we are at a point where a technically inclined, non-developer, who understands their business, can indeed get quite far, all the while thinking that C# is either a musical note, or some kind of cheese. So what is the current, and future role of that hard-core developer in this equation? Deep Water Even though more apps are now being built by non-developers, most of them will hit some deep water at some point. That deep water is about a mile further out than it was just two years ago, but eventually they will reach it and either settle, or engage a developer to help paddle through it. But they got a mile further before having to do so! That's a mile of work that previously would have kept a developer busy... and the deep water line continues to move out. The End of C#? Not anytime soon, but I can see the need for advanced C# developers fading over time. On most partners' benches, these are among the highest paid resources. It is because of this, that the off-shore industry was born. But as the need diminishes, and the opportunities become scarcer, rates will come down, and never go back up again. This spells long term trouble for both on-shore and off-shore companies focused on deep development. Automated Code I was chatting with my good friend and fellow MVP, Mark Smith (aka @nz365guy) the other day. Mark has been around development for decades. He suggested that all code is logical. At the end of the day, all code results in 1s and 0s. It's not emotional, it's not creative. Mark feels that in the not-too-distant future, code will be written by AI. I can't come up with a single reason to disagree. What replaces C# Skills? So, if the world continues to grow... a given, and platforms like the Power Platform continue to evolve in the direction they are... another given, what skills will be needed? Whenever I have looked at complex things built by coders, one thing always stands out to me: it's some ugly shit. In a world where UI/UX trumps functionality, the world that we have been living in for some time now, it seems the future needs are clear. Business Analysts and Front-end Developers will be the coveted skills. BTW, Mark is with me on that one. Javascript, HTML and CSS The tools of the Front-end developer trade, are currently the tools that will become even higher in demand than they are today. I'm not saying that we won't need that occasional bit of complex code to accomplish some thing, but that box keeps shrinking. Far more important to me, and customers, is the UI/UX we engage with. We don't really care, or appreciate, what goes on behind it. Just like everything else, UI/UX tools will continue to evolve also, and at some point that skill set may be in jeopardy also. Rise of the BA If you abstract out the developers, both front-end and back-end, what is left is the business logic and process. I have always found developers to be lousy analysts, they work with the other side of the brain. But those people who are able to dissect a business, really imagine all of the components of it floating in the air, see how they connect, see where they fail and can improve, from the front all the way to the back... they will be the kings. And they won't need to know a lick of code. Of course the Business Analysts I have known, are not UI/UX capable, they take more of an "I'll know it when I see it" approach, rather than a "Here's what it should look like". Couple a good analyst, with a good front-end developer, and you can rule the world Who sees this? Microsoft sees it.  So do the other major players, but Microsoft has a unique set of assets to actually seize upon this. The "Power Platform" is the tool-set that is rapidly evolving to fulfill this exact scenario. I don't know if Microsoft actually coined the term "Citizen Developer", but they have taken ownership of it, just like they did with "Cloud", which contrary to what you might hear, Microsoft did not invent. But unlike Cloud, this time they are not late to the party... they are right on time.

Solutions for either Model-driven PowerApps, or for extensions to First-party Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement apps share a lot in common. In fact, almost everything in common. What they do not share in common among each other, or themselves, is quality of build. Customers, Partners and ISVs all build Solutions for various reasons, and the quality is wide-ranging. Who uses Solutions? Unless your business requirements happen to fit exactly into the out of the box first-party applications, a circumstance so rare that I have never seen it, Solutions are going to come into play. They serve a few purposes, for Customer deployments, a Solution is where you, or your Partner, should do your customizations to make the product fit your needs. While many will just use the "Customize Button", which will then allow you to make changes to the "Default" Solution, I am not a fan of that. It may add a step or two, but making your customizations in a new Solution of your own will make managing them a lot easier over time. There is another reason for this approach that I will get to in a minute. Solutions are also the primary vehicle for ISVs to get their IP into your environment in a manageable way. Either by directly installing them, or installing them via AppSource. Whether it is a custom vertical solution built directly on the CDS platform, or an addon solution extending the First-party apps, Solutions is how they will get in there. Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder If you were to crack open a typical solution, you would see a lot of stuff. That stuff could have been put together by a highly skilled Business Applications Developer, or a Citizen Developer who is an expert at Googling. Needless to say, the quality of the Solution will vary widely. Just because something works, does not mean it was built well. Working in the App Designer, a citizen developer can't get in too much trouble, Microsoft has abstracted some of the more complex capabilities away. You may build something that does not work, or is not efficient, but you "should" not have to worry too much about breaking anything. Pro Developer While Microsoft came up for a term for the Citizen Developer, I did not hear a term for those of us who are expert at this, so I am going to call us Pro Developers. Pro Developer sounds highfalutin, but actually the quality of build varies just as greatly there. The fact is, that anyone can hang up a shingle and call themselves a Pro Developer... how would you know. Sure there are certifications and competencies, but as many freelancers pointed out in this post, that does not prove expertise. Well Microsoft has couple of new tools to help. PowerApps Solution Checker The PowerApps Solution Checker is a new tool that will be available to both Citizen and Pro developers soon. This tool, when installed on your instance, yes it is a Solution also, will activate some capabilities for you. Once installed, you can go to https://web.powerapps.com, open up your environment, select an "unmanaged" solution that you, or your Partner are working on, and click "Go". That Solution will be run through a battery of tests, resulting in a pretty thorough report about the quality of what was done, along with areas for improvement. Shingle hangers beware. Using this report, you can go back through and modify an unmanaged solution, and keep rechecking it until it is snug as a bug in rug. Nice! This is also why you should consider creating an unmanaged solution for your customizations instead of modifying the default solution. What about ISVs? Sure, ISVs can use this same tool to check their Solutions in development, but ISVs have an even more robust tool at their disposal. The "On Demand Code Analysis" pre-certification tool. This tool is available to ISVs who plan to publish Apps on AppSource and is a more robust version of the PowerApps Solution Checker tool. With it, you can test Managed Solutions. Taming the Wild West For customers, you should ask your Partner to run the PowerApps Solution Checker on everything they do, and provide you with a clean report as part of your exit criteria. It is probably the only way you can know if they customized your environment correctly, or just built a house of cards for you to maintain. For legitimate ISVs, this should be great news! We all know that AppSource is currently loaded with a bunch of crap, hacked together by who knows who. Many Apps in AppSource will not even install today. After a few tries by a customer, the whole of AppSource gets a bad name, and your solution by association. Microsoft plans to fix that. As of now, Solutions that cannot pass the pre-certification tool, cannot be published to AppSource. This should significantly improve the quality of Apps in AppSource. Next step is to run all the existing solutions back through pre-certification and remove all that fail. Which will be many. The good news is that your quality ISV solution will be more easily discovered, now that it is not sitting in a huge pile of crap. Keeping Current To be fair, many of the existing Apps in AppSource worked fine at one time. But with the continuous, and significant upgrades to the platform, they don't work any more. Many fly-by-night ISVs could not be bothered to go and update their apps, or even remove them. That should be rectified soon. I have also been told, that as changes are made to the platform, the pre-certification tool will also be updated, and Apps will have to get "re-certified" on a regular basis. This is a major step in the right direction for AppSource, and may help lead to it becoming what we all hoped it would be. If your AppSource plan was to build shit, and throw it up there just for lead generation... you will need a new plan.

Six years ago, I wrote a post that was directed at IT Directors/Managers, about the need for them to re-imagine their roles in the face of the then rapidly growing cloud thing. Today, the role that needs to be re-imagined is that of Microsoft Business Applications Partner. Between Microsoft and the Citizen Developer, the space previously occupied by the Partner is getting narrower. You can't Get There from Here Not that long ago, if you wanted to bring Business Applications into your organization, a significant part of your budget planning had to include a pretty big chunk for an Implementation Partner. It did not matter whether it was Microsoft Dynamics or Salesforce.com, a large bucket of cash had to be allocated. For most implementation partners, this was their entire business model. It has been a great model... for years... for the partner that is. But not so great for customers who had to pay for it, or Microsoft who got no vig on it. Back in 2016, I wrote another post titled The End of the Microsoft Partner, which may have been a little early, but it is coming to fruition now. The End is Near Two days ago I was driving somewhere and stopped at an intersection. A well-dressed man, who looked like a banker, was waiting at the crosswalk. When the "Walk" sign lit, he walked across in front of my car, and as he reached the middle of my hood, he stopped, pulled out a piece of paper from his suit jacket pocket, unfolded it, and held it up to me. It said "The End is Near". After a few seconds he folded it back up, put it back in his pocket and continued on. I was not sure if the massage was for me, or all of humanity, but I checked my seat belt anyway. As I was driving away I found myself thinking about a call I had with one of our customers last Thursday. It's About Bob Bob (not his real name) is one of our Dynamics 365 customers. Bob is pretty technically savvy, but was quick to say that he was not very familiar with Dynamics. He also said that, while he wanted to learn more, he had a pretty full plate of other responsibilities at his mid-sized company. Bob also felt his company was an excellent candidate for Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Marketing, and that he wanted to jump all over that with us, as well as build out his entire sales process. Most partners would probably be drooling at the Project Services opportunity that this appeared to present. The engagement seemed to be ramping up rather slowly, we built a basic custom entity, after which things quieted down, with just the occasional questions here and there. Then suddenly, it seemed like all-hands-on-deck with the Marketing App. Last week he wanted to have a call with me to show me "Something he had been working" on, just to see if he was on the right track. Over the years, I have had similar calls, and so have learned to not chuckle, when a customer shows me their feeble efforts, so I felt I was prepared. I was not prepared. Bob the Builder I joined the call at the appointed time with Bob, and made him a presenter. He wanted to show me an "App" that he was working on for a segment of his sales team, to get my thoughts. Of course my first thought was, "Why are you building it instead of us". Until I saw it. Bob, who did not know Dynamics 365, and had a full plate, was able in his spare time, to build an app that would rival any I have seen most partners do. Sure, there were a few areas for minor improvement, but truly minor. My role was limited to pointing out a few ideas, that I am sure Bob will go explore on his own. Bob's Limits... for now Bob ended up needing more help with the Dynamics 365 for Marketing application, but in reality, most of the areas where he needed help, we also needed help. Mainly, as one of the first customers of this new application, we were both working through some V1 issues. Issues that were being addressed and eliminated as we went. Bob probably would not have even needed our help with that, if he were starting in October. or at least not much. Bob is Coming As I said, our Bob is pretty tech savvy, but not unique. There are a lot of Bob's out there in our customer organizations. Meanwhile, Microsoft is continuing to lower the barriers to entry, and the level of tech savviness to accomplish what Bob is doing, will continue to come down. What will be the partner role in a world full of Bobs? The Answer To be honest, the answers are hard to come by here. It is obvious that partners will need to reinvent themselves, but into what? How long before we are over-run by Bobs? Who knows, but probably quicker than you are hoping. It seems partners will need to go even deeper down the rabbit hole of either the super complicated shit, or the brand new shit, because what was too complicated yesterday, is no longer.

There has been quite a bit of chatter in the channel lately about this new "Citizen Developer" role that Microsoft is attempting to better support. Not surprisingly, many "real" developers have been none to pleased with the idea. I thought I would try and unpack this sticky-wicket a little bit. New Term for Existing Crowd I'm not sure if Microsoft coined the term "Citizen Developer" or not, but they did recently start using it... a lot. It is primarily used to describe a person at a customer organization who has some level of technology skill, or at least comfort. It could also be used for Partners, who typically have technology skills, but might not actually be developers. These people are not new, they have been around forever, we just have a new term to describe these "citizens". Developers When you think of the term "Developer", you probably imagine some person in a darkened room, typing at lightning speed, what appears to be gibberish on the screen. That is probably mostly true. These would be the people who write code, and can actually read it. Everything that is delivered to you by Microsoft is based on code written by developers. Coding is a high specialized skill, not something you are going to pick up over a weekend from a "For Dummies" book. Developers for Dynamics 365 are typically associated with a Dynamics 365 Partner. So I personally do not think "Developer" is the right term to use for this role, it probably should be "Citizen Configurator". Configurator Even though my auto-correct is telling me that "configurator" is not a word, I am still going to use it, as it is a good description. Configuration generally refers to things that can be done, including vast customization, without needing to actually write any code. You will be hearing terms like "No-Code" or "Codeless" a lot going forward, meaning that you can customize business applications to your needs, within the applications and the options and processes that are available, without requiring the services of a Professional Developer. This is 100% true, but it's not the whole story. Before I get into the rest of the story, why is this "No-Code" even a hot thing? Dam Busting In the not-to-distant "pre-Cloud" past, with Dynamics Business Solutions, if you wanted to do anything different than the way the application was delivered, you had little choice but to engage a Developer. Simple actions on a form often required someone to write Javascript, and it only got more complex from there. Of course before you fully realized this, you would have already purchased your hardware and licenses, so development... was just another expense that you were now committed to. Whatever you ultimately paid, and kept paying, to a developer, did not impact Microsoft one way or the other. Microsoft already got paid for the software, and they did not make any money on the relationship you had with the developer, that was just between you two. However, all of that changed with the Cloud. Microsoft no longer gets paid upfront, they now get paid monthly. Combined with the elimination of your server expenses, your commitment level to using the products is significantly reduced. Instead of having to generate a ROI on the huge upfront investment you made, if things don't feel right for any reason, you can cancel, and are only out a couple of bucks. This new cloud "Dynamic" changed everything... for Microsoft... Partners... and their Customers. Customers are no longer "stuck", in fact, it is the opposite, cloud has empowered customers. But customer empowerment arrived with some unintended consequences. If they discover a high development cost will be involved, they can, and many did, just pull the plug. So, while not entirely eliminating the need for Developers, Microsoft had no choice but to at least attempt to minimize it. Some customers were leaving, and others were not starting, as a direct result of high development costs proposed by partners. Again, costs that did not accrue to Microsoft in any way, but instead got in Microsoft's way. I can't blame Microsoft, I would do the exact same thing. You can't have the channel you depend on to sell your products, be the very reason customers won't buy them. From Balmer screaming "Developers, Developers, Developers", there is now a growing "cold war" between Microsoft and Developers, at least in the Business solutions space. The winner is going to be the customers, and these "Citizen DevelopersConfigurators". Specific Efforts The no-code mindset has swept through Microsoft, and nowhere is it more evident than in the Business Solutions business. Things like App-Designer and the Business Process Designer that sit within the apps, as well as things like Flow and PowerApps that are connected to the applications. The entire Dynamics 365 for Marketing Application, for example, is code-less. Microsoft is attacking every aspect of their business solution applications that typically generate a need for, and cost of, Developers. The only people this is bad news for, are developers, who made a living doing many things that Citizen Configurator can now do. And Microsoft is not finished, they are just revving up this no-code revolution. A Jet gets a Steering Wheel Before we get too carried away with the possibilities... imagining that Dale, who is a whiz with a smart-phone, will suddenly be able to "Digitally Transform" your business on his own, there are a few other pieces to consider. Like... who will be the "Citizen Architect"? Even Developers are typically executing on a plan engineered by someone else; usually an "Architect". Similar to the Architect/Builder relationship in a construction project. While a Builder might construct the staircase, it was an Architect who determined where it will take you. In fact, the most critical key to success with Business Solutions is not being able to build your own Business Process... it is understanding what that Process should be. Microsoft is still quite a ways from everything being push-buttons and check-boxes. But what we are already discovering, are "Citizen Configurators" using what they are able to use, to build overly-complex solutions to problems that could have been simply solved by other means. For some, Flow is the new hammer, and every issue is a nail. I have seen more and more Dales lately; they're building endless loops, dead-ends and forks to nowhere, using "logic-less" logic. Help or Hurt? In this post, I may seem to have gone back and forth on the "Citizen Configurator" role. In truth, it will depend on how a customer uses it. If a customer is of the opinion that these new capabilities will allow them to successfully deploy business solutions without any outside help, they will be in for a surprise. In a worst-case scenario, a customer with no budget, heads down the "Citizen" path, makes a huge mess, and has no funds to fix it. This is not theoretical, it happens all the time. In a best-case scenario, a customer heads down the "Citizen" path, and builds a usable system, that is missing 90% of the available power. "So Steve, you're saying you don't like the Citizen role?" Actually, I am a huge fan. We've Seen This Before Back in the old days, if you wanted a website, you hired a web developer. They would build you a lovely website. Then you moved... and the only person who could change your address on the website was the developer. This "Nickel and Diming" infuriated many. Then along came Content Management Systems (CMS). Now you could easily change your address yourself. But this did not make you a web developer. We have all seen websites out there built by DIYers. Bringing this back to Business Solutions and Dynamics 365, if you truly want to succeed, you will need a team. On this team should be a Dynamics Partner who can not only "Architect" a solution to actually solve your needs, but can bring in development expertise where it is the best option. "What about Dale?" Dale is absolutely a key member of this team. Thanks to Microsoft, some of the things that only your partner could help you with in the past, Dale can now do as part of the team. Will this dramatically reduce the cost of Deployment? Over time, as Microsoft makes more tools available for the Dales, deployment costs will come down. You will always need an Architect in order to get maximum value out of the vast palette of Dynamics 365. But today, Dale should at least be able to limit the nickels and dimes.  

In this episode, we officially announce our new Slack community and discuss Marc Benioff's most recent bonus, using FluidApp with Gmail, Gartner naming Salesforce.com the leader in AIM (Application, Infrastructure, and Middleware), TrailheaDX, Skuid's Rockaway release, a lightning round of Lightning UX topics, and the Lightning Locker Service.Salesforce just paid Marc Benioff a $2.3 million bonus, on top of the $56 million he made in four months selling stockFluidAppGoogle InboxCitizen DeveloperSalesforce takes AIM, hits bullseye in enterprise integrationTrailheaDXRock Your UX with Fabulous New Skuid FeaturesLightning UX SASS DeprecateIntroducing the Salesforce Lightning InspectorIntroducing UI Theme Detection for Lightning ExperienceIntroducing The LockerService For Lightning ComponentsMatt Morris - Technology Flows