#MVPbuzzChat with Tobiasz Koprowski

In Episode 17 of the #MVPbuzzChat interview series, I sat down with long-time community friend and Data Platform MVP Tobiasz Koprowski (@KoprowskiT), an independent consultant and trainer, and the founder of Shadowland Consulting in Nottingham, UK. The video below was captured while we were both attending the Microsoft MVP Summit in Redmond, Washington in early March this year. Tobiasz and I got to know each other back in my ISV days while I was still living in Seattle, and he was just a hop-skip-and-jump away in Poland, connecting online (of course) and through our participation in the European TechEd events, which were folded into the massive Ignite Conference a few years back. Tobiasz was very involved in GITCA (Global IT Community Association, formerly known as Culminis) where he was a Director-at-Large, and Vice-President for EMEA (and the SharePoint admin for over 2m users), and we would occasionally cross paths at other events where we were both speaking.

In this video, we inevitably started by talking about our time there at the MVP Summit, which expanded into a discussion on the overall Microsoft Community, and how our interactions with Microsoft have evolved over the years. It’s interesting how this topic has been a running theme across MVPs from various technology focus areas, and from communities around the world — people recognize that Microsoft is doing a much better job at listening to the voice of the customer, and taking action. There’s always room for improvement, of course, but overall it’s great to see that community-facing roles at Microsoft, whether product, marketing, or engineering, are being measured on their involvement with the community. It’s not just smart — it’s the right way to build product IMO.

If you would like to get in touch with Tobiasz directly, you can find him on the Microsoft Tech Community, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, SlideShare, his blog, and his company FB page.