Following a great example from my former colleague Bas van Kaam, today, December 31st 2015, seems like the ultimate day of the year to acknowledge this year’s accomplishments.
Looking back on the year I realize the list is longer than I firstly imagined, already gone to oblivion…. So let’s go.
- I was invited by Microsoft Academy to create two sets of exam questions on Office 365 for their People Readiness Health Check program. So the good old Dutch Microsoft Office 365 and Learning communities still knew where to find me on Aruba!
- Microsoft Trinidad (MS HQ for Caribbean) invited me to become one of their “P-Sellers”, P-Technical Sales Professional, quit an honor! Even got myself an @microsoft.com mail address J.
- I founded the Caribbean Office 365 User Group @o365caribug together with Trinidad based Akinola McLean and Jamaica based Roland Lattery.
- With the team of Inova Solutions, my current employer, we delivered my creation “The Office 365 Theatre Play” for the 4th time. Location: Courtleigh Auditorium, Kingston, Jamaica. Yah Man! Positive vibes!
- Time to take on some newly released exams as Microsoft published the Azure Infrastructure exams “Implementing” and “Architecting” Azure Infrastructure Solutions. Pass on both occasions.
- Maybe the highlight of the year was the organizing of the Trinidad TechDays 2015. Thanks you Inova Solutions for making it possible to do a 3-day event:
- On the first day we did once again our “Office 365 Theatre Play”.
- Followed by the first official meeting of the Caribbean Office365 User Group.
- The second day was all about moving away from Windows Server 2003 as the product ended life on July 14th (R.I.P.). Thanks to Darren Mohammed, Stephen Agard and Akinola McLean for doing your sessions.
- Global AZURE Bootcamp on Day 3! Actually the whole 3-day event came to life out of this worldwide event. We hosted one of the over 140 locations in world where people were doing a whole Saturday of Azure, Azure, Azure. Thanks Basil Sands (flew in from the Bahamas where we did a huge Azure Project together), Yanek, Daryl, Stephen, Akinola for doing your sessions.
- Microsoft Ignite, Chicago. Although no role this year as MCT Ambassador of MCT Proctor, it was great to be there and meet all of you who I met there. Thanks for being there!
- In my role as Microsoft P-TSP and as MCT I delivered MS Cloud Training for the Caribbean Partner Channel. Thanks Microsoft Trinidad for the opportunity.
- Inova Solutions became Cloud Solution Provider in July 2015, thanks Inova Solutions (specifically Hans Kruithof, CEO) for enabling me to drive that with you. LSP bye bye, hello CSP!
- With the Inova team we did a “Cloud…what else?” Roadshow on Antigua and St. Maarten. We chose to do only sessions from the user and business perspective and not technical. The audience had a ball, as if they were watching the best Fireworks show!
- Took the beta-exam 70-697 Devices & Deployment. Great content with lots of Office 365, Intune, Azure, Onprem, Windows 10, Windows Phone, iOS stuff covered. Have it on your resume, I say.
- Throughout the year I delivered the complete Server 2012 MCSA Track two times, on the British Virgin Islands and in Belize. A PowerShell training on Bonaire, an Azure Training and an Office365 Training on Curacao. A total of 10 trainings this year, all of them successful. Love being a MCT.
So, now this will be saved for the next generations, ha-ha! And, the only way is up so this is all very promising for 2016. I already know some cool stuff ahead of me but I’ll keep it up my sleeve for now. May your way be up as well, carve out your future, starting tomorrow, January 1st 2016!