In this blog series, we’re interviewing the Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs) that work at ANS. 

Keith Atherton is a Power Platform Solution Architect at ANS. Keith has been at ANS for six months and has already made a significant impact within the business. His role involves improving customer satisfaction by problem solving, providing support, and modernising existing architecture. Find out below how the MVP life is suiting Keith, his favourite tech products, future endeavours and much more! 

If you could create a new Microsoft Office feature, what would it be and why? 

Anything that helps with productivity. I love using Excel and Word. Excel is so usable for many different things, and with Copilot being able to summarise and create things, it’s really helpful. So, Copilot for Microsoft 365, it’s not an original answer, but there you go. 

If you could have a conversation with Clippy, what would you ask it? 

I might ask it to generate a document, and include three facts, or insert hidden messages for a laugh. There are all sorts of great and fun things you could do.  

I’d do it in the same style as Copilot, making use of the Generative AI we have, where it has prompts such as ‘What do you know?’, ‘What can you do?’, etc. 

What’s the most creative use of Excel you’ve ever seen or have done yourself? 

Full disclosure, this is going to sound really nerdy! I came across one recently where someone built a 16-Bit Computer in Excel without using anything other than Excel, no programming language or anything! It was wild.  

If you could travel back in time to witness the creation of a Microsoft product, what would it be and why? 

When the early versions of Windows were released, Bill Gates would perform live demos on stage correcting errors whilst conversing with the audience. That totally transformed the way many businesses and people use computers. Microsoft became such a monumental force of nature from those early days when they built this and here we are today using the latest versions. They’ve got a big market share and they’ve transformed the way we work, so I’d love to have been there at the ground level when they came up with it back in the day when they didn’t have Google to help them.  

What’s the strangest or funniest tech support request you’ve ever received related to a Microsoft product? 

This didn’t happen to me but there’s this one I heard about where someone’s computer wasn’t working, and errors were popping up on Windows, so they contacted the help desk. They advised to reboot the machine. Next thing you know, it goes quiet and then out of nowhere you hear this massive whack. They had physically booted the side of the machine rather than rebooted it.  

What is the main benefit to the customer of being an MVP? 

A huge advantage of being an MVP is that you can directly communicate with the product teams that create the products. This means you can pose questions to them, request their assistance with any specific issues customers are facing. It doesn’t guarantee that they will solve it for me or prioritise it for me, but it’s a valuable support channel where they consider adding suggested features or resolving any doubts such as ‘I’m not sure if I’m doing this right’ or, ‘this part isn’t working, can you help me?’, which is a level of support that I wouldn’t get if I wasn’t an MVP. 

What’s the most exciting thing that you’re working on this year? 

I’m very lucky that I recently got approved to speak at an upcoming conference this year. It will be the first time speaking at a large conference in a couple of years so I’m really looking forward to that. It will be Power Platform focused which is very on brand for what I do here at ANS. 

What advice would you give to others looking to become an MVP? 

Before I knew what an MVP was, I was already doing some community work like blogging and presenting. It was never a goal for me, I was just doing things to challenge myself. Like many technical people, I wasn’t very comfortable public speaking, it can be quite daunting if you say the wrong thing or if you’re out of date with your information, especially when you’re speaking in front of extremely intelligent technical people, so that’s one of the ways I’m challenging myself.  

I spoke at a user group and one of the users asked me if I was aiming to become an MVP, and I honestly didn’t know what that was at the time.  She’s an awesome person and doesn’t work in the same space as me, but after learning what I did, she put me forward for it, and then I was lucky enough to be part of the programme. I would say, if you’re aiming for it that’s great but really my mindset is if you do good things and you do what you love and you find your passion, good things will come. If you do good things, good things will come.  

Being an MVP presumably means working in a fast-paced environment, how do you avoid fatigue? 

I was speaking earlier with a mentor who is also an MVP at ANS about this very same question. To avoid burnout, I try to maintain a healthy balance among different aspects of my life, such as work, tech, family, and health. I also use time management techniques to plan and monitor how much time I spend on each activity. For example, I might decide to dedicate two evenings a week and half a day on a weekend to some tech community work and stick to that schedule. If I can’t do everything I want to, I don’t stress about it and just postpone it to the next week or month. This way, I can set clear boundaries and enjoy what I do without feeling overwhelmed. 

What would you like to see improved in the MVP programme? 

One area where I think the MVP programme could be improved is the access to Copilot licences. Copilot is a game-changer in the tech industry, and as MVPs, we want to stay on top of the latest innovations and trends. However, we don’t have the opportunity to experiment with the different Copilots and learn how they work, what they can do, and how they can help our customers. The licences are quite expensive, so, I think it would be great if we could get some free or discounted licences as part of the MVP benefits, so we can explore the Copilots and provide valuable feedback and advocacy for them. I believe this would be a win-win situation for both the MVPs and the company. 

Keep your eyes peeled for the next instalment of the MVP series, where you’ll meet Dan Barber!  

 

To read more about all the Microsoft MVPs at ANS, click here.