Wow! I was looking through my stats the other week. And I found out that this is Blog Post number 200!
Nope, ChatGPT is still not able to follow prompts to the letter when it comes to image creation. The initial prompt was “Create an image, of a 42 year old white male, sitting at a desk happily writing blog articles. A big “200!” sign floats on top of the image”
A lot has happened
And that is I think a really big understatement. Ever since the first article came out on 2013/08/30 at 6:01 am, I’ve been writing articles on a variety of topics, all closely related to my current motive/mantra/slogan:
I help the PMO succeed with Microsoft Technology.
Last year I celebrated a decade of blogging with this little image (I look more like this guy than the one from the top image):
With TPC there have been more triple digits celebrations:
Blog #200, it’s something to take in. I started the journey as a single guy, living in a small apartment. And so much has changed. I got married, moved 3 times, became a dad, twice. I’m also an MVP, for 7 years now.
But not only did I personally change a lot. Microsoft and the core products I work with daily have changed as well. A precise timeline is difficult, so I’ll just keep it as a list instead:
- Microsoft Project
- Project Server 2007 & SQL Server
- Project Server 2010 & SQL Server
- Project Server 2013 & Power BI
- Project Online & Power BI
- Project for the web & Power BI
- Power PPM (Model driven power app) & Azure SQL Server & Power BI
- Planner (with Premium features) <– the rebranded Project for the web.
But, let’s look ahead
Broad strokes for 2025 will be a focus on the YouTube channel, Newsletter, MPUG engagements and a return to the stage.
On Stage?
Before Corona, I was a frequent speaker on the topics of Portfolio management, resource management, and all things related to my mantra (I want to help the PMO succeed with Microsoft Tech). And now that we’ve settled in our new house and things return to “normal” I want to get back on stage and share my enthusiasm for Microsoft products.
If you read this and if you host a Western European conference that is looking for speakers. Please feel free to reach out to me.
YouTube
What about this new “Project Manager Agent” announcement? Didn’t that just look like the best thing coming to Planner? You can be sure this is going to be one of the topics I’ll sink my teeth in when it lands on my TPC environment.
And big announcements, such as the inclusion of Portfolio’s in planner, will also return to the channel. These feature release videos have always been fun to do, even though they have a short shelf live.
As we will hopefully start seeing more mature Generative AI features landing in the Microsoft ecosystem. I’m sure I will explore those as well together with the audience. I don’t think I will have a strong focus on it though, as I believe other channels do a far better job at it than I do.
Exploring Power BI, and visuals that can help the PMO, is another topic you will see more of in the coming year. Previously I’ve presented Gantt chart visuals and other visuals, and these videos have always had the largest audience.
In the first 4 years of the channel, I was able to publish 20+ videos per year. After that It’s stuck around 10. For 2025 I’d like to increase the output again to 15 videos.
Newsletter
My newsletter has been a great way to reach people with more content, as well as a save way to share files. If you have seen an interesting visual, or Excel sheet or anything on the channel or blog. There’s a good bet you can find it through the newsletter.
I’m closing in on the 2 thousand subscribers. This brings an interesting topic to light: I’m close to the border of a free Mailchimp account 😱.
So, the question arises: Do I continue with the newsletter and subscribe to a paid account? Or do I start sending “non-openers” a friendly message to unsubscribe (or start opening the mails)? Or…
I’m not sure on this yet, if you are a (future)reader of the newsletter and have thoughts of your own, feel free to reach out.
MPUG engagements
The Microsoft Project User Group (MPUG) recently went through its own changes. Such as the rebranding of the acronym to Master Projects for Unlimited Growth. This reflects the group to explore topics outside the direct Microsoft stack.
I will still stick with Microsoft solutions though, and luckily the MPUG team is still interested in having me as a webinar host and article writer.
You will find my activity on the main author page.
So, what about the blog?
Ah, you are still reading this? Great, because It’s my intention to write more long form content. On the blog I’d like to step away from the weekly Copilot news articles. Again, because I think there are better, more dedicated bloggers that do that already.
For me, I’d like to return to in depth “About” posts. Dedicating time to explore topics in detail. This might mean that there will be less articles per year. But they will also, hopefully, be more useful and will turn into evergreen content such as my “About start dates” article that still ranks among the top articles on the blog.
Final notes
I hope you liked this last message from 2024. I’m looking forward to an exciting year, and I hope you will join me on that journey.
And just in case you are curious to get more from me, here’s a quick way to get access to all my content through this Link tree, a small but very useful service.