What is this blog about?
This is where I will be posting blogs and guides with the many gotchas and helpful tips and just to discuss the many bug bears where “Citizen Engineers” can stumble across. I also hope to have a bit of a sense of humour about it all. Because nothing helps us cope after doing something silly and have shut down production for a few hours… right?
Why Up Dynamics Creek?
My sense of humour, I had been mulling names for this for a long time. The countless times I have run into a behaviour, or have to deliver something that I am not sure if possible. I have had many a colourful word to day to myself. So many of us have been up Dynamics Creek, and some of us, really didn’t have a paddle.
What is your experience?
My professional career has been strange, but I have more often than not always ended up on the user side of the fence, working Customer Support, and quickly automating tools, generating systems of reporting, making things (Knowledge Bases, Tools etc) for use of other users to deliver better experience for both customers and users. I had never been married to one form of technology so often I would go discovering new and wonderful things and applying them to the problem at had. It is what I enjoy, being presented with a problem and finding out how to deliver the solution to that problem, or fix something that doesn’t work. This has lead me to be quite adapt at figuring things out, and putting my hands in many pots.
This ironically is a huge benefit to my current role and in the Microsoft Ecosphere, with Power Apps and Power Automate bring this diverse knowledge of so many different systems (both technical and process).
It all began as a love for gaming as a young lad, learning to script and code, and break games. Which lead into hosting servers, managing databases for MMORPG’s, developing tools and development of games, To even some Webdev, Tool development, Automation. I have done a lot, some in-depth others not so deep.
While mostly done on the hobby side I went professional and got involved in internal tool development. My professional Career from working Management in retail to Customer Service (Both support and technical) Management to Engineering. I have touched on so many things from just admin, to analysis, development. But always as a “Citizen” Developer. Only in recent years have I matured that experience into this.
Why do this?
I want to share my knowledge, and I want to show people that the Microsoft Ecosphere is vast but not scary. A bit of critical thinking, resourcefulness, looking over the fence and asking the questions you think are silly. We were all new once, and we are always learning new things. I want to give people advice and guidance that may get them out of that hole they suddenly found themselves in. And it doesn’t hurt if we put a little humour in there as well.
I also want to learn how to host and create websites again, so don’t mind the mess!
Goal for this blog?
I am starting the journey to advance myself further so I will be jumping into getting certified. I am hoping blog posts will help cement what I learn, but also maybe share some of the problems and how to fix them. My goal is to foster a community who aren’t afraid to tackle the simple and the complex. I will focus on low to no code solutions, as I often find myself to be the only “Techy” in a team I have leaned on this approach to allow other Citizen developers to understand and work on projects I have done after I have moved on.