“I like working with a computer, but I don’t know how to change jobs. I’m already 48 years old.” This is from an applicant to one of my training programs.

That one sentence says what so many are feeling.

Maybe you’ve spent years in a different career. Maybe you’ve been out of the workforce and are just coming back. Or maybe you're simply ready for something new, but you're not sure where to begin — or whether you’re even allowed to start over.

Here’s the truth:
It’s not too late. It’s not too early. And it’s absolutely not too much to ask for a fresh start that works with the way you think and learn.

That’s why I created this workshop:
My First Day of Power Platform (Powered by Copilot).

It’s built for beginners — people who like to solve problems, who think creatively. People who just haven’t been handed the map yet.

Let’s fix that.

My audience typically ALREADY knows something about Power Platform.  But you have friends, family, acquaintances who are looking for a new start.  Send them my way.

Register here:  My first day of Power Platform (powered by Copilot) - Power Platform Community Conference

But is it better?  I have a new course out.  It's about using Copilot to accelerate solution building.  I thought it would be a nice touch to have what we call a "talking head" intro.  Those are costly, in time to prep, multiple takes to record, then the editing.  So, I decided to AI-it.

Using Synthesia I made an AI video avatar, and so did Dave.  I wrote a script and had it produce the video.  Here they are.

Opinions?

Video one- Julie

Video two- Dave

Video three- fake AI lady

Save button Power Platform Admin Center before

Save button Power Platform Admin Center after

Whew—May is full. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

We kick things off in Washington, DC, where I’ll be joining fellow members of ACT | The App Association for our annual fly-in, AppCon. It’s a week where small and medium-sized business owners like me get to make our voices heard—literally. After reconnecting with old friends and getting briefed on the latest policy issues affecting tech businesses, we head to the Hill. We’ll meet with Senators, Representatives, and their staff to share stories from our businesses and advocate for the issues that matter most. I’ve been doing this for more than a decade (maybe two?), and it’s always a highlight.

Next stop: Chicago for DynamicsCon LIVE. This one’s like a family reunion—but with the family I choose. I’ll be presenting two sessions at this community-driven event full of Microsoft Dynamics and Power Platform goodness.

• First up: “Is it Copilot for Sales or Sales Copilot? You Can Have Both!” We’ll dig into the differences (and how to use both to boost productivity).
• Then we go full nerd (my happy place) with “Revolutionizing App Development with Microsoft’s Visual Designer and Copilot” This one’s demo-heavy, so fingers crossed for smooth sailing.
• I’m also on a panel the last day, all about Copilot. “Ask the Experts - Copilot!”

After a quick reboot at home, I jet off to Valencia, Spain for Resco Next. It’s my first time attending, but I’ve heard amazing things. My session here is all about something close to my heart—community. We’ll talk about how professional communities shape us, support us, and how we can intentionally grow and sustain them.

And finally, I wrap the month in Slovenia at DynamicsMinds—one of my favorite events ever. It’s beautifully run, packed with learning, and full of that magic combo: good people and good content. My talk here is about certifications (spoiler alert: they’re not just shiny badges—they open doors). And I’m thrilled that a few of my former students—part of our reskilling program for displaced Ukrainians—will be there in person.

Buckle up, May! It's going to be a ride—and I can’t wait. Catch me at any of these events, or reach out online if you want to nerd out about Copilot, certifications, or what makes a great conference (hint: community!).

’Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house,
Mrs. Claus was busy — chasing a little mouse!
Her mind was abuzz with the holiday spree,
“I need a solution, Power Platform, hear me!”

“I am Mrs. Claus, and I’m here to request
A tool for my husband, the holiday’s best.
Santa needs help with his global endeavor,
Tracking kids’ gifts and their behavior — clever!”

The Planner responded with AI delight,
“I’ll draft your solution to make it just right.”
Out came user stories, one, two, three,
For Santa, Mrs. Claus, and the elves’ jubilee.

Santa’s app would keep him on track,
With routes and kids in his digital pack.
Mrs. Claus, the queen of inventory,
Had a dashboard and tools to tell the full story.

The elves got a workspace, tidy and neat,
To log toy completions and schedules to meet.
Dataverse powered the data so well,
With naughty or nice lists as easy as Excel.

The Planner then showed the data model’s might:
A table for children, one for gifts, just right.
Relationships clear and entities defined,
Santa’s task list was instantly refined.

“Now approve,” it prompted, “and apps will appear,
For tasks, gifts, and kids — all holiday cheer!”
With a click from Mrs. Claus, the work was complete,
A suite of Power Apps, efficient and sweet.

Santa’s sleigh dashboard tracked every last deed,
With Power Apps lighting his way at top speed.
Nice kids like Tommy, who helped rake the leaves,
Would wake to new toys under festive trees.

But for Emily, who teased her poor brother Sam,
A lump of coal was in the program.
Even the elves sang the praises of tech,
“Power Platform has saved us from wreck!”

When the work was all done, and the elves went to bed,
Mrs. Claus raised her cocoa and happily said,
“It’s an AI Christmas miracle, all thanks to this tool,
Power Platform has made us the Yule-time cool!”

So to all holiday makers, here’s wisdom to savor:
When planning gets tough, trust Power Platform’s favor.
Happy holidays to all, and to all a good night,
May your apps and solutions be merry and bright!

I’ve heard so many great things about Scottish Summit but have never been able to attend, until now 😊.

AND I get to deliver a fun workshop there too.  There are limited spots, but you can still sign up here.

The workshop is called My First Day of Power Platform. I just delivered a similar workshop to a room full of beginners.  I surveyed the audience…has anyone made an app or cloud flow?  Has anyone used a Power App?  Not a single hand came up.  After a few more questions, with no hands, I got one!  She had seen a Power BI report before.  These were true beginners.  Exactly who should be there.

My visual evaluation of the workshop attendees put them in the 40s, 50,s even 60s.  All starting something brand new.  (how inspiring is that!!)

By the end of the day….everyone had built a data model, everyone made and customized a canvas Power App, everyone made a custom model-driven Power App and everyone had made a working Power Automate cloud flow.

Yes, all in one day!

Join me in Scotland and launch the career you’ve been looking for, the change you need.  If not now, when?

I’ve tweaked the title and description just a bit to better reflect the day.

My first day of Power Platform (Powered by Copilot)

In "My First Day of Power Platform (Powered by Copilot)," we'll embark on a journey from idea to execution, exploring how Copilot can be your invaluable partner in crafting powerful business solutions. This session is all about making the Power Platform accessible to everyone, regardless of your technical background.  If you’re new and not sure what part of Power Platform is for you?  You’ll practice with several different tools and products and help you find the one that is best for you.

The full event agenda and schedule can be found here.

Since I last wrote about our Ukrainian cohorts the team has continued to be hard at work to support our efforts.  And we’ve expanded a bit.

Our July group started this week with 222 students.  Our March and May groups each had over 200 as well.

Several of our students want to improve their English skills, so we updated our cloud flows and now track their input language and respond in the same language.  Previously we were hard coded to respond in Ukrainian.  (This also means we can support cohorts in additional languages.)

We’ve added more community experts to help with feedback on weekly assignments.  Let me know if you’d like to help.

We’re getting more support from the community in general.  For example, BizApps legend Lisa Crosbie is adding Ukrainian subtitles to her videos for us. You can see her playlist here, and her whole channel here.  Lisa is my go-to when I need to catch up on all things Dynamics and Power Platform.  If you are a content creator and want to do something for our students, let me know.

We’ve spec’d out the next phase of the program.  We need to build it out a little more, but it will be focused on making functional consultants who are Power Platform generalists.  Let me know if you have jobs or apprenticeships for our grads.

The entire program has been run by volunteers, with a budget of $0.  We might be seeking sponsorship of some variety soon to help with the cost of getting licenses for training environments for our students for their continued efforts.

Learn more about the groups, the impact to students and more in their own words here. 

Interested in joining the next cohort?  Apply here.

As I hope you know, we have been running training cohorts for displaced and vulnerable Ukrainians.  We have been very successful.  We built the program around having a core set of day-to-day volunteers who are Ukrainian speakers, but the support team is currently all English speakers.  We’ve used the technology to make it mostly seamless (specifically Microsoft Forms, Power Automate, Dataverse, and Power Apps.).

We are almost done making updates to be able to bring on additional language groups. We now need committed people to lead the day-to-day operation of the new groups.

Don’t worry.  We have a curriculum and proven track record of success for you to follow. 

What would you be committing to?

• No one ever pays to join any of our cohorts.
• This is run by volunteers. The first one will take a little more commitment, but after that, you should likely be able to take a team of two or three and spend fewer than 10 hours a week each.
• You would offer help grading weekly assignments. This happens in English in a simple gradebook Power App that you would be given access to use.  You would be grading assignments from all cohorts, not just your own.
• It’s a six-week cohort. But we are built around being flexible to allow you to succeed, even with all of life’s obligations.  So, often there’s a few people in each cohort who need some extra time.
• The lessons are primarily located on Microsoft Learn. There are a few out-of-the-box translations available. However, beyond the top 5(ish) you would need to help students learn how to navigate and use browser-based translations.
• The expected student commitment is about ten hours per week. Most of this is independent learning with touchpoints.  This means students can learn after their regular job, before dropping the kids off at football practice, etc.  You would need to set up and facilitate a communication channel.  Teams works well if students can easily get to Teams.  Telegram has proven effective for our Ukrainian cohorts.  I could see it working in Slack also.
• There are weekly videos for students. We have them in English to offer you.  You can have students watch them in English, you can create your own subtitles/translations, write a summary in your chosen language, etc. Most of these videos are short (less than 30 mins) and focus on relevant topics that work with the assigned Learn lessons.
• We recommend at least one open mic-style office hours meeting per week. Make it at a reasonable time based on your students’ availability.  This usually lasts about an hour.
• You would interact and get to know your students. We have found that the biggest predictor of success is simple, someone cares about the success of each student.  Get to know their names.  If someone misses an assignment, reach out, see if they need help, offer an extension, etc.

The program is focused on core tech adjacent skills and business applications.  You do not need to be an expert in the entire platform, but working knowledge of the platform is necessary, with expertise in one or two core parts.  If you find yourself with a student super interested in something that you don’t know much about, we’ve got you covered.  We will help facilitate bringing an expert to your groups as needed.

This training is designed for career switchers.  Non-tech people who need that core set of skills that we often take for granted.  “Graduates” of our groups are not job ready.  But they are ready to join already in place training that is widely available.

So, what now?  Let me know if you’re interested.  We’ll sort through the details and help you get started.

I'm traumatized.

My grandson is now an orphan and I want to give him a good future.

When the war in Ukraine broke out, I had to leave for Germany with my son because it was very dangerous to stay there.

I was working in a nuclear company in Kyiv.

I am a Ukrainian refugee, and I am looking for any kind of professional education in IT.

I am 54 years old, Ukrainian refugee.

Due to the circumstances in our country, I cannot work in my specialty. For more than 10 years, I have been teaching applied mathematics at the University.

I am a professional athlete.

These are quotes from our applicants for our continuing cohorts for displaced and vulnerable Ukrainians.  Our simple application has standard input fields for names and contact details.  It also has two additional questions:

1. Why do you want to join our training cohort?
2. Is there any additional relevant information you'd like to share with us or to clarify any of your above answers?

The answers have gone through some automatic translations, but I think the sentiment is still very clear.  People need help to start over.  They are eager to move forward and do whatever it takes for a new chance.

Refresher on what we do and how we do it.

The Microsoft collection for Business Applications Professional skilling has been translated to Ukrainian (AI-assisted automated translation with manual review for minor edits).  This program gives a great introduction to the tech-adjacent knowledge and skills you need to start a career in tech.  It’s good in English, it’s good in Ukrainian.

The free cohorts take place in Telegram groups.  We tried Microsoft Teams but that proved to be a challenge on many levels because of many restrictions and issues with access to reliable connections and devices.  But the students are already in Telegram, so we go to where they are.

Each week students have an assignment from this translated content.  They also watch relevant (and subtitled in Ukrainian) videos.  And there are two questions per week (via a simple Microsoft Form) that they respond to.  These questions are great for relating the weekly topics into real-world actionable knowledge.  The questions are available in both English and Ukrainian.  I built a Power App with some swanky translation capabilities so students can respond in either language.  And then the swanky translation capabilities translate our feedback we’ve entered in the Power App from English to Ukrainian and send the student an email with feedback from an industry expert in their language.

The 6-week program exposes students to the world of Microsoft Business Applications, capabilities of the Dynamics 365 family of products, and career options. We hope to spark an interest to help them decide what is a good next move for them.  Many love the CRM side.  Many love the ERP side.  Even a few are interested in BC.

The next cohort is our biggest yet with a few hundred students enrolled.  We’re very fortunate in being able to recruit qualified volunteers to lend a hand to help us keep up. 

Everyone who applies is accepted.

Six-weeks is the plan, but anyone who needs more time gets all the time they need.

We’ve automated as much as we can and still provide personal touches and interactions.  We are all volunteers with full-time jobs but together we are making a small difference.  Thanks go out to Vlad, Dima, Kat, Olena, Andrew, and Britta for all they do to help keep this going.  Neither Britta nor I know Ukrainian language, but technology makes it feel seamless to participate.

After the 6 weeks, students stay in the Telegram groups and help the next group.  It is an amazing community that I am lucky to participate in from the sidelines.

What is your call to action?

1. Send your Ukrainian friends and colleagues to us. They can join and learn.  Or they can join and help. https://365l.ink/UkraineSignUp
2. Say yes if when I reach out to you with a specific ask. As the groups increase in size, we may need more help with weekly feedback to students.
3. Find room in your organization for one of our grads as a new hire or apprentice. 

Part of our automation sends students an email to invite them to the Telegram group upon enrollment.  One student replied and I keep it pinned at the top of my inbox.

“Thanks you very much for your answer. It did me so much happy.”

It did me so much happy too.  It really did.

About a million years ago, we opened a business banking account with Bank ABC. 

At the time, they had two primary types of accounts, personal and business.

So far so good.

Personal accounts had data fields for all the expected pieces of information one might need for a personal account.

The business accounts had all you might need for a business account.  Or so they thought.  Turns out businesses are owned by people.  People have separate information from the business.  No big deal, we can have attachments and notes.  In the note we put the names and details of the business owners and an attachment of their scanned signature cards.

Then Bank ABC merges with Bank DEF.

Then Bank ABCEDF is acquired by Bank XYZ.

Let’s smush the old data model into the new data model.  Great, all done.  Nothing to see here.

A few years later during a random account review it is discovered that a particular business account of a million years has no people associated with it, no authorized users.  There was an attachment of a scanned image with two illegible signatures on it, but no names with the signatures.

Turns out somewhere among the mergers and acquisitions, notes did not come with the business account information from older accounts that were opened when records were mostly analog and a little bit of digital.

A good bank manager found this, found us, and convinced me she wasn’t a scammer and got us to the bank in person to get our personal information appropriately related to the business information.  And then we signed paper copies of signature cards (sigh).

There are a few things to learn here.

Don’t store structured data in an unstructured place.  Build the appropriate relational data structure that you need.

Don’t cut corners when moving to a new system.  It really doesn’t matter that there were mergers and acquisitions along the way, it was a new system.  A simple review of notes on common data tables could have shown there was more data that needed to be dealt with.

At some point this would have become a blocker for access to our own money in our own business account.  Hire good people who can do good work and prevent this from happening and correct it when it does.