Automation, Citizen Development, and the Power Platform

The Power Platform is one of the fastest-growing technology areas within the Microsoft ecosystem. Consisting of 4 primary tools — Power BI, Power Apps, Power Automate, and Power Virtual Agents — the Power Platform enables organizations to “analyze data, build solutions, automate processes, and create virtual agents.” You could call them the centerpiece of Microsoft’s “citizen developer” efforts to provide users with low-code, scalable and flexible solutions.

For the next #CollabTalk TweetJam being held on Wednesday, October 28th at 9am Pacific / 12pm Eastern we will gather as a community to discuss “The Era of the Power Platform.”  Participate in the discussion with other members of the community as we share feedback, ideas, and insights about this rapidly growing area, and share how the Power Platform may/will impact your own business strategies.

You can join the community discussion using Twitter and the #CollabTalk hashtag or your favorite Twitter platform. You do not need to be an “expert” to participate in the online conversation, and can ask questions, comment on the questions posed, or just “lurk” in the background. These online discussions are open to anyone — you do not have to be on the panel to participate.

This month’s tweetjam is being sponsored once again by our good friends at tyGraph.

If you have never participated in one of these tweetjams, it’s pretty simple: anyone can jump in and share their thoughts, or just lurk in the wings and absorb the wisdom of the crowd. Either way, it’ll be a TON of content to consume in a single hour. You can follow the live session using the Twitter UI of your choice (Twitter.com, Hootsuite, Tweetdeck, whatever). How it works is that I’ll post a series of questions every few minutes, and people will respond to Q1, Q2, Q3 and so forth with A1, A2, A3, always including the #CollabTalk hashtag with their answers. Feel free to reply as often (or as little) as you’d like, ask your own follow up questions, share relevant links, re-tweet others, and engage with the audience.

The questions we will discuss during the session include:

1. How does the Power Platform fit into Microsoft’s future strategies?
2. How much of your focus/business has shifted toward the Power Platform, and what has driven that change?
3. What are some of the common solutions / business accelerators being built with the Power Platform?
4. What is (or should be) the role of the Citizen Developer, and where does the Power Platform fit?
5. What 3 things do you wish you had known before getting started with the Power Platform?
6. What does Microsoft need to change (if anything) about their Power Platform strategy?
7. For businesses and individuals who want to get started with the Power Platform, where should they begin?

As always, there will be side-questions, side-conversations, and wise-cracking throughout. This is open to the public, so please join in the discussion! The dialog is always thought-provoking and fun.

Participating on this panel (so far):

• Eli Robillard (@erobillard), SharePoint MVP, musician, fly-fisher, collaboration technology guy
• John White (@diverdown1964), dual SharePoint and Data Platform MVP, cto at UnlimitedViz and tyGraph
• Laura Rogers (@WonderLaura), SharePoint MVP, consultant, and owner of IW Mentor
• Wes Preston (@idubbs), SharePoint MVP, evangelist,  and owner at TrecStone
• Sandy Ussia (@sandyu), Microsoft Business Applications MVP, technical evangelist at Lightning Tools, co-founder of @NLightningTech
• Mike Nelson (@mikenelsonIO), Cloud and Datacenter Management MVP and solution architect at Pure Storage
• Maarten Visser (@mvisser), founder and product manager at Meetroo, business architect at Connected Services
• Shari Oswald (@shortcutshari), co-founder and productivity evangelist at PowerUP! Learning
• Hal Hostetler (@TVWizard), Microsoft MVP and senior field engineer and social media coordinator for Roland, Schorr & Tower
• Sharon Weaver (@sharoneweaver), Microsoft Regional Director, consultant, trainer and ceo of Smarter Consulting
• Eric Overfield (@ericoverfield), Microsoft Regional Director, SharePoint MVP, and founder of PixelMill
• Paul Stork (@pstork), SharePoint MVP and MCM, owner and principal at Don’t Pa..Panic Consulting
• Ed Senez (@edsenez), president at UnlimitedViz and TyGraph
• Stacy Deere-Strole (@sldeere), SharePoint MVP and owner of Focal Point Solutions
• Galen Keene (@sdkeene), consultant and collaboration architect, managing partner at Butterfly Technologies
• Eric Riz (@rizinsights), SharePoint MVP and ceo of Empty Cubicle
• Tobiasz Koprowski (@KoprowskiT), Data Platform MVP, founder and consultant at Shadowland Consulting
• Fabio Franzini (@franzinifabio), dual Business Applications and Office Development MVP, freelance consultant, software engineer & trainer
• Kurt Kragh Sørensen (@KurtKragh),  intranet consultant and owner of IntraTeam.com
• Patrick Curran (@pcfromdc), director, federal group at Planet Technologies
• Rob Windsor (@robwindsor), .NET/SharePoint developer and MVP, trainer, and author
• Nick Brattoli (@Byrdttoli), Microsoft MVP, founder and lead consultant at Byrdttoli Enterprise Consulting
• Treb Gatte (@marqueeinsights), Business Solutions MVP, international speaker/man of mystery at Marquee Insights
• Sean McDonough (@spmcdonough), SharePoint MVP and chief technology officer at BitStream Foundry LLC
• and your host, Christian Buckley (@buckleyplanet), Microsoft MVP & RD, founder & ceo of CollabTalk LLC

If you would like to be included on one of these panels, please drop me a line via email, LinkedIn, or Twitter. And thank you again to tyGraph for your support of these CollabTalk tweetjams! And finally, if you are interested in being a sponsor of a future tweetjam, please contact me.