At the recent Microsoft Ignite The Tour Johannesburg, I was introduced to MVP Nicolas Blank. During the conference we had several conversations regarding content creation with regards to blogging and his podcast; the fear of pressing publish; and imposter syndrome.
During these conversations, we discussed the pace that IT is changing and how I seem to constantly have to learn something new, to solve a technical issue or propose a solution to a problem, and how that drives my philosophy of doing Microsoft Certifications to force myself to ‘fill-in-the-gaps’ and learn things I wouldn’t otherwise be exposed to.
Hence the idea (or was it a challenge) of documenting/recording some of these learning experiences was born!
My idea is to share things that I learn along the way, with the desire to give back to the wider community, whilst fostering a more cooperative and collaborative work-life experience.
We can’t all know everything!
I was reminded of this recently (and relentlessly teased) by a very close friend. My friend doesn’t work in IT, but much to her continued amusement, she taught me what Alt-F4 does. *
In recent years I have become increasingly aware that the most successful and enjoyable projects are where team members are confident enough to admit their knowledge gaps. When we put our ego aside and allow ourselves to say “I don’t know” it seems to allow a more open and collaborative experience where things can just flow.
I will always remember a Microsoft technician that was deployed to assist me with a project. Upfront he admitted to not having experience with one element of our requirements but confidently announced that “we’ll use some just-in-time learning and work it out together”. We did just that –both parties working closely, learning together and enjoying the experience.
So, whilst I am reluctant to call this a ‘challenge’, my intention is to post regularly ‘Learning out Loud‘ articles with solutions to the issues I’ve had to solve. The focus is Microsoft technologies such as Azure, O365 and M365 but may also delve into other areas that interest me.
My desire for these posts is to avoid being ‘over technical’. The Microsoft documentation is an incredible technical resource, but I would like to quickly, succinctly and clearly share lessons learnt that may help others solve the same of similar issues.
At the same time, I welcome any feedback and will update posts if I find or am informed of an easier, better, more secure, or more elegant way of achieving something.
Footnotes
* In Windows, Alt-F4 closes the current application.
** No Simon! This does not count as today’s Learning out Loud post!
You can find the Learning out Loud posts here: https://simonangling.com/category/learning-out-loud/
