On Wednesday, November 17th, 2021, I will be speaking at MVP Dagen 2021! This is a free event where attendees can learn tips and tricks and get updates about Microsoft technologies from Norwegian MVPs.
There are several reasons why this is a very special event to me. It will be my first in-person event since February 2020, and I’m really looking forward to seeing and hanging out with fellow speakers and attendees again! It covers a wide variety of topics so I get to learn about cool things outside my regular data bubble. And… I will be delivering a session in Norwegian… about PowerPoint… Whaaat!? 🤯😁
I will be presenting a brand new session called Bli en PowerPoint (Slide Master)-mester på 1-2-3! (It roughly translates to something like Becoming a PowerPoint (Slide Master) Master in 3 Simple Steps!) It’s a 40-minute mostly demo-based session on how to make PowerPoint work for you instead of against you.
Why am I presenting a session on PowerPoint, though? Excellent question! Johan Ludvig Brattås (@intoleranse) had already submitted a great session called Azure Synapse + Power BI + Purview = True that I want to attend, and I reeeaaally didn’t want to compete with him for a speaking slot. Since attendees will have wildly different backgrounds and expertises, I decided to submit a session on a topic that most are familiar with. So! I chose something I feel like a know a thing or two about: creating slide decks with minimal effort.
On Saturday, October 2nd, I’m guesting the anniversay show of Rockin’ The Code World with dotNetDave 🥳 The show starts at 10:00 AM PST / 19:00 CEST and we’ll be talking about things like Azure Data, blogging, career development, and maybe even a little bit about keeping up in a fast-paced world. Yay! I hope you’ll tune in 🤓
It’s been one month since I migrated from WordPress to Hugo. In my original post, I mentioned some of the immediate benefits of migrating: I saved money, performance went up, and I was totally geeking out about getting to learn new skills. It was all about the tech, really. Today, I want to reflect on some of the less obvious benefits and how migrating has had a positive impact on me this past month 😊
I think I can summarize it in one sentence:
I enjoy blogging again because I’ve taken back control of my website.
That sounds a bit strange, doesn’t it? I mean, this has always been my website and I have always been in control of it. But what I’ve realized is that for many years, WordPress and its features and plugins shaped how I used - and didn’t use - my blog.
I can’t and I don’t really blame WordPress. This is mostly about my habits and thought processes and how I started changing them. However, that change only happened because I migrated to a new blogging platform. It was only after I started using Hugo that I realized how I could do things differently.
Did you know that PowerPoint can help you improve your presentation skills? 💡 If you rehearse with the PowerPoint Presenter Coach, you can get real-time feedback on things like your pace and language. If that’s too distracting (it is for me), you can choose to hide the real-time feedback and only view the detailed report at the end of your rehearsal.
The report shows you details about the total time spent, your pace and pitch over time, whether or not you are simply reading from your slides, as well as actionable feedback on your language. The feedback includes whether you are using too many filler words (like umm, actually, or you know), whether you are using too many repetitive words with alternatives you can use instead, whether you are using any words that can be offensive, and specific sentences that you can refine.
I delivered my first ever keynote at Data Saturday Oslo 2021, called “I can’t keep up!” - Turning Discomfort into Personal Growth in a Fast-Paced World. We decided to record it, and it has now been published on the brand new Data Saturday Oslo YouTube channel. Yay! 🤓
