Category: About the blog and other

Sometimes I will write about the status of the blog. This will mostly be content related to statistics such as the Post number 100 post, or when I did a post to celebrate the fact that I now own a personal domain Happy Easter and welcome to the new Project Corner Blog! But I will also cover things that I am particularly proud or happy about such as the time I got married and when Wendy and Louise were born.

Although not directly related to Microsoft Project and such, it gives you an insight on how the blog and the person behind it (me, Erik van Hurck) are doing. It gives a nice personal touch I believe, and I hope you like reading the articles in this category.

This blog is dead…?

“Dearly beloved, we gather here to remember The Project Corner — a blog that bravely stood between confused PMO managers and Microsoft’s own documentation. It served faithfully as a middleman between people who couldn’t figure out Microsoft Project and a company that couldn’t be bothered to write clear docs. It is survived by approximately 14,000 unread Microsoft Learn articles that said the same thing.”

LAST WORDS “But… but I had REAL-WORLD EXPERIENCE configuring Project Server 2016… you can’t just KNOW that…”

That’s what I got when entering the blog’s URL into a lovely (and frightening) website called: Deathbyclawd.com. I was just scrolling on my phone, so the images are “phone sized”.

Brutal response from the website about my blog. — This really got me thinking, so I’m actually happy about this.

Last post of the year, looking ahead

Yeah… this will never rank high in Google 😉. But let’s wrap-up 2025 and look forward to another year together.

That's a wrap for another year of blogging, vlogging, podcasting etc. Hope you enjoyed 2025 together with me. — Cartoon style image of a male blogger who’s celebrating a year worth of articles.

Launching the Voices of the Neighborhood podcast

I’m happy to share this new initiative I started!

Voices of the Neighborhood is a podcast where I talk with the Microsoft MVPs that work in The Digital Neighborhood.

Projectum, the company I work for, joined TDN a few years ago. And with that, we got access to so many great people.

And since I am not shy when it comes to sharing knowledge (blog, YouTube, newsletter 😉). I wanted to try my hand on a format I personally use on a daily basis: only audio format podcasting!

In this podcast, in each episode, I’m going to talk with one of our many (18 and counting) Microsoft MVPs. The podcast will probably be all over the place, spanning AI, Dynamics security, Intune, AR, and more. But, if you are a bit like me, you don’t mind getting interested in new topics.

So, for something completely different, take a look at the website for the podcast recordings to date:

The Voices of the Neighborhood Podcast

Or, you can even listen to the first episode (and others) right here:

Future episodes and plans

My next guest is Magnus, from the sister company Delegate. I’ve always enjoyed my talks with him and look forward to the opportunity to dig into his work.

For some reason, I can’t get my profile picture in the right format to share it on the major podcasting platforms. So, the logo might change a couple of times in the near future while I figure out what to do.

But once I have that figured out, Voices of the Neighborhood will become available on the big streaming platforms as well!

Let me know if you listened in on the podcast and what you thought, I’m eager to learn.

Post #200, it’s been a journey!

Wow! I was looking through my stats the other week. And I found out that this is Blog Post number 200!

The Project Corner, celebrating the 200th post! — Here’s the updated image reflecting your curly brown hair **and clean-shaven look**.

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”

Back behind a desk, what happened with AI & the PMO?

Just before Easter 2024 me and the family got the keys to our new house. And as mentioned back then in blogs and YouTube video’s, I’d be away for a while to settle in and do final adjustments to the house.

To be honnest, I’m still not behind a real desk but more at the kitchen table, and there are still things that need attention. But let’s dig in to some of the things I picked up at the European Power Platform Conference in Belgium and recent changes to Planner Premium (the “old” Project for the web).

A generative AI image of a blogger / YouTuber working from a construction site. — Initial prompt: Create an image of a blogger/youtuber working with projects.
Follow up prompt: Now put this person on a construction site and age him a little bit (40 years old).

My GPTs and me

As the bullet train called Generative AI moves along we can only stop and marvel at its progress for a short while. That is, until the next big announcement hits us in the face, right? I think it’s a good idea to “niche down” and not look at everything the GenAI ecosystem has to offer. It’s time to only look at the thing that interests you the most, and find the GPT / AI companions that can assist you with that.

For me, I want to help the PMO succeed with Microsoft Technology. This has led me to create a couple of ChatGPT models. Let me introduce them.

Note: I’ve been away for a bit because I was moving the family to our new house. Seems these GPT models are now available and free for everyone to use, and that you only need to log in. Please let me know if I misread that message.

Create an oil painting with a man in his 40s (clearly dark blond hair) and 4 robots standing beside him, group photo style realistic.

Yes, Oh Yes! That is definitely me!

Time to close 2023 and look ahead

As we are closing the year, I guess most people will also be closing their work brains to go for something more festive. But wait! Let’s look at TPC’s best content of the year.