Category: Random words

Microsoft Ignite 2020 week it’s just around the corner! Are you excited to join? I’d like to share a great news about this year Microsoft Ignite: Microsoft Ignite Cloud Skills Challenge 2020: Free Certification Exam. You can read full details on the following Docs content: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/certifications/microsoft-ignite-cloud-skills-challenge-2020-free-certification-exam?WT.mc_id=AZ-MVP-5001832

The article says “All participants of Microsoft Ignite who complete at least one collection in the Microsoft Ignite Cloud Skills Challenge are eligible for a free certification exam,…”

If you’re looking to get certified, this is an awesome opportunity to get your cert for free! Check out my Study guides and get ready!

List of eligible exams: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/certifications/microsoft-ignite-cloud-skills-challenge-2020-free-certification-exam?WT.mc_id=AZ-MVP-5001832#eligible-exams

Also don’t forget to register for one of my four sessions. Looking forward to have you in the audience. You can check then out here.

Just got the message!

I got renewed as a Microsoft Azure MVP. That’s 5 years in a row! It’s indescribable the felling and honor to be among the elite of Microsoft Azure Professionals. My imposter syndrome comes to life when I get these emails. Still can’t believe that Microsoft recognizes me toghether with so many great professional out there.

I would like to thank for all the support that I got from several community members and specialy from my family that puts up with my absences when I choose to speak at events across the world, all the late conference calls with other events organizers, etc… Without this support all this wasn’t possible. My wife Sofia and my daughter are amazing and I’m very lucky to share my life with then!

A lot of people ask me what the Microsoft MVP program is, so here it goes: Microsoft MVP it’s a recognition from Microsoft for all the non-paid activity I do for the community. I share my knowledge on Microsoft Azure in conferences, online forums, videos, blog posts, … I also help organizing events for the Azure User Group Portugal – https://www.meetup.com/Azure-User-Group-Portugal/ and the local conference Global Azure – https://www.globalazure.pt/ – and SPS Lisbon, now Collabdays Lisbon – https://www.collabdays.org/2020-lisbon/. You can find more information about the MVP program at https://mvp.microsoft.com/ and a list of all the MVPs at https://mvp.microsoft.com/en-us/MvpSearch.

 

Plans for next year?

Oh yes!!! I have great plans lineup for this MVP year: Continuing to speak in amazing events across the world. In the next few months online-only, but Covid-19 will not stop me from sharing my knowledge and helping the cloud community, so in a nutshell:

• Keep speaking at conferences and user groups.
• Growing the Azure User Group Portugal – https://www.meetup.com/Azure-User-Group-Portugal/
• Keep teaching Azure to IT professionals, Developers and Architects
• Helping amazing customer in moving to the cloud by building and designing state of the art solutions
• Writing and producing amazing content, both in this site and on other platforms like YouTube, LinkedIn Learning, …
• Publishing tons of videos on my YouTube channel – https://www.youtube.com/c/tiagocostamct
• and some more to TBA activities. Keep your eyes on this space.

A final thank you, to all the professionals that I have shared my space with. It’s been an honor and I hope to share more amazing conversations with all of you! Come and join me on my next engagements.

We are living a … let’s be positive and called it “special” time! Corona virus outbreak is among us, and everyone that can, is working from home. You still need to interact with your team, customers and partners, so all conference calls services are seeing an exponential growth. Microsoft Teams saw a huge growth last week when not only a lot of customers started to work from home, but also schools started to teach virtually. You can check this article that states that Microsoft Teams surged to 44 million users (https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft-teams-surges-44-million-daily-users-amid-coronavirus-outbreak), so that you can understand the huge growth. In November of 2019, Microsoft reported 20 million daily users!

I don’t want to write a huge article explaining how back-to-back meetings are a productivity killer. There are other authors that can explain this way better than me. Some meetings can overrun and if you have another meeting schedule without breaks… well… you get it! It’s important to allow for some break between meetings. What about if we could do this in an automatic way? If you’re using Microsoft Outlook, YES YOU CAN!!!

I bring you an amazing feature that we can use to allow some break between back-to-back meetings.

1. Open your Microsoft Outlook desktop app.
2. Under File, select Options.
3. Select the Calendar tab and then check the End appointments and meetings early checkbox.

With this option you will create a shorter meeting allowing some break between meetings for your colleagues, partners and customers.

Hope you liked this option!

From technical to business oriented and strategic scope sessions to tech demos and experiences, Building the Future 2019 helped people from all backgrounds to better understand how they can create their future. The first edition of Building the Future was just the beginning. Get ready to learn, meet and connect with the people that are building the future in 2020.

Toghether with Ricardo Fiel and Alexandre Vieira we will bring an amazing Serverless Lab. During more than 1 hour, you will be challenged to implement an end-to-end scenario using a supplied sample that is based on Microsoft Azure Functions, Azure Cosmos DB, Event Grid, and related services. The scenario will include implementing compute, storage, workflows, and monitoring, using various components of Microsoft Azure.

Can you imagine how many talks, hands-on sessions or workshops about themes such as Digital Transformation, AI, Machine Learning, Organizational Culture or Cybersecurity can fit in 2 days? Look at the agenda and build your own journey at https://buildingthefuture.pt/schedule

Last year recap:

If you’re attending find me and say hi!!!

On July, 1^st, I got renewed as a Microsoft Azure MVP. 4 years in a row! It’s indescribable the felling and honor to be among the elite of Microsoft Azure Professionals. It’s in these days that my imposter syndrome comes to life.

Before starting this blog post I would like to thank for all the support that I got from several community members and specialy from my family that puts up with my absences when I choose to speak at events across the world, all the conference calls with other events organizers, etc… Without this support all this wasn’t possible. My wife Sofia is amazing and I’m very lucky to share my life with her!

But, today is not only a happy day, it’s also a sad day, because many awesome MVPs are not renewing. Personally, I would like to say a big THANK YOU to all of you!!! Your contributions across the years have been inspiring to make me a better professional. I have many MVPs to reference, but I would highlight @André Vala. Across the years I have been sharing time and adventures with him! We had organized amazing events in Lisbon and I’m sure that he is continuing to help on these activities and very shortly will be re-awarded. André is the backbone of some of our events. His insights and organization make out life easier in organizing those events.

A lot of people ask me what the Microsoft MVP program is, so here it goes: Microsoft MVP in a non-paid activity, it consists in sharing your knowledge on Microsoft technologies usually in conferences, online forums, videos, blog posts, … You can find more information about the MVP program here and a list of all the MVPs here.

Plans for next year?

• Continuing to speak in amazing events across the world
• Building new Azure focus communities to life – Announcement will be very soon!!!
• Helping to make the change in the Azure world by teaching Azure to IT professionals, Developers and Architects
• Helping amazing customer in moving to the cloud by building and designing state of the art workloads
• Writing and producing amazing content, both in this site but also on LinkedIn Learning and other video-based tutorials
• and some more to TBA activities. Keep your eyes on this space.

A final thank you, to all the professionals that I had shared my space with. It’s been an honor and I hope to share more amazing conversations with all of you! Come and join me on my next speaking engagements and let’s have a talk over some drinks.