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Tired of watching canned, pre-recorded sessions on how to do Teams stuff? Want to see some real-life MS Teams in practice and learn from experts around the world?
CommunityDays.org is the new community hub built by the community and powered by Microsoft. It's the go-to place where you can go to find free, events happening worldwide. No need to be connected to an inner circle social network or wait for a coworker to tell you about a free training event. Community Days is the directory for all Microsoft-specific training events that you can be a part of to attend in person or online.

Below are the questions and answers from the December 2022 Meetup Session. 

Q. Tell us a bit about yourself? – City, family, hobbies, job title
A. Tinton Falls, NJ - near the Jersey Shore
Wife and 2 beautiful girls 4 and 7
Hobbies - building things [fixing things at home] or building web applications
Collab Director at SoHo - all things m365 related
 
Q. Tell us something about yourself that not many people know about you?
A. I enjoy playing the guitar, I own a few. Dabbled with drums for a bit
I enjoy flying quads [freestyle / fpv ]
Organize - M365 Saturday NYC
Co-Organzer - M365 Philly / NJ M365 User Group
Run multiple bootcamps/conference a year in NY/NJ/PA
Azure Bootcamp / AI Bootcamp / PowerPlatform Bootcamp / SPFx Developer Bootcamps.

Q. What does a typical workday look like for you?
A. Wake up and check in with the offshore teams
Answer some emails , touch base with on shore teams
Lunch / go for a walk or gym
Afternoons / meetings or dev work
Break - kids / family
Late night - finish anything outstanding, do some side projects, blogging, github

Q. 1st job out of college
A. Graduated after 9/11 where the tech industry took a little hit. I quickly realized that there were not Comp Engineering jobs in Central Jersey. 
Officially, I would say CompuCom - large scale upgrades to all the PNC banks. Replacing teller machines. That led to Bristol Meyers squibb roll out of a pc refresh.
I always loved fixing, replacing repairing. This was not my job of choice but it's what I could get.
Out of a good school NJIT

Q. Your 1st version of SharePoint that you experienced and what year
A. 2001 I experimented with briefly before upgrading to 2003. I was at Fort Monmouth NJ and I implemented our own SharePoint server to run document management on our Master's project for Monmouth University.
 
Q. Last challenging project and why? (this should relate to your demo)
A. Always doing challenging projects - they don't let me do the easy ones. Most recently we had a challenging install of one of the products at Soho Dragon - PDF Editor. The customer had on prem 2019 and had specific restrictions where we had to host the product inside their SharePoint web application. It also had other web applications / web apis inside the SharePoint web application as nested web apps in IIS. They also required some real time communication where we needed to architect a solution nest in the SP web app, with signal r and sql backplane.

 
Q. What is the biggest mistake that your feel holds back your clients from the results they want (this should relate to your demo)
A. I think time is the biggest issue, If I had more time to give to each project then I can deliver more. Many projects it's just a quote to do X and then they want more and more. I'm not the type of person to say no so but there is a limited scope / budget. My old role would be spend all the time in the world on the customer and project they weren't concerned with this running over budget or out of scope, as long as the customer was happy. It's not a great way to conduct business but now I'm in a senior role so I have limited time because I need to work with many customers, constantly communicate with our teams here and help guide the new generation of developers for our company

Q. Describe a SharePoint train wreck project, and what did you learn?
A. My trainwrecks no so much tech based. I'm learning more about people than ever in my career. I haven't had a complete trainwreck in a long time.
Hiring someone that can do  m365 development on a high level is a challenge. Bringing on the wrong person can really derail a project.
So I've come across a few people that have said they can do xyz and then when it's time to perform they falls short, take short cuts, are sloppy etc..

Q. Your favorite M365 feature/tool and why
A. Azure cognitive services - I love this but haven't had much use yet. I like AI assisted stuff, and really can't wait for the perfect project. Image recognition, sentiment, language understanding. I'm fascinated by it all
Also mixed reality is very cool.

Q. Where do you think Microsoft is going with M365.. Be totally honest
A. You can see a glimpse of AI capabilities now with dev auto-pilot, power apps, chatgpt, dalle-2. in the next few years this will really start to expand.

Q.  What are the 3 cool features of the demo?
A.  History - why community days, Microsoft involvement
Community Days as a platform - to host events
Finding events in the Microsoft Tech stack
  
Q. What is the sizzle?
A. Helping community organize and find events as [ attendee, speaker, and sponsor]

Q. What was your first job out of hire school
A. Always been a cook at a summer camp, 14-25, from sandwich maker, salad chef, desert chef, dishwasher, line cook, head chef.

Q. What's your biggest nightmare project you have worked on … And what did you learn from this experience
A. My biggest nightmare projects are the ones that just don't end. We have a scope in place with a clear definition of the project and they keep asking for more during the process. So it sometimes gets extended, the main scope is on hold until everything is incorporated.
In addition to that they are not 100% in on the project, meaning they have other work that prevents them from testing builds, deploying on time and keeping the project on target.

Q. What’s the best and worst tech advice you’ve been given
A. I don't listen to too many people, I make my own analysis.
Do what you do, don't worry about accolades, money, recognition. [I don't think that any has said that]
Don't be afraid to challenge yourself and seek experience - aka in a mentorship. I personally have had business coaches, code mentors, peer advisors.
Surround yourself with your peers and positive influence [only] remove all negative people.
Worst advice: follow your dreams.  I believe in finding something your great at and exploiting it to  the fullest. Then chase your passions or co-mingle.
“Find a job you enjoy doing, and you will never have to work a day in your life.”
Mark Twain

Q. What are you working on to become a developer/consultant / CTO
A. My side project > Community Days
Trying to cut out time to blog more and have more of an online presence. Apply myself to events.

Q. Where do you want to be in 5 years?
A. Leading multiple teams at SoHo Dragon for M365 related work.

Q. What's your blind spot in your Microsoft knowledge? Pitfalls
A. Keeping up with all the latest and greatest - everyone's Achilles heel
Trying to pose as an expert when the technology changes daily.
Part of my unpaid job is staying up to date with trends, blogs, articles, twitter, conference news. It   never ends
 
 Q. Where do you source your knowledge? - Twitter- who do you follow, site urls
A. Matt Wade & Sean Bolger - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/@jumpto365
Mark Kashman - Intrazone
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-intrazone-by-microsoft/id1359992815
Andrew Connell - Dev
https://www.voitanos.io/
Pnp Weekly meetings
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/dev/community/community

Q. In your mind, if there was 1 song that could describe Sharepoint, what would it be? - David Bowie - Heroes
A. SharePoint Starts The Fire

Q. Where can people find you?
A.  @_tomdaly_
https://twitter.com/_tomdaly_
https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-m-daly/