One of those 2020 review posts
Many people have been sharing posts about their year and how 2020 has impacted their lives. For me personally, the year has certainly been mixed, with highs and lows. I also reached an important milestone of 5 years working for myself through several different business entities. However, ultimately I am leaving the year in a stronger place than I started.
Like many people the first few months of 2020 were like any normal year, I even had the opportunity to go to my only in-person conference of the year. Scottish Summit was a fantastic event, pulling together an array of community speakers from across Office 365, Dynamics and the Power Platform. I also praise the organisers for their early decision to move the 2021 event online, which should hopefully keep the terrific audience engaged.
For me, my working world changed on the 17th March when I was supposed to be meeting a new consulting in London. I had even dug my suit out of the cupboard, but my plans were scuppered a day earlier by most London companies sending their staff home. I was also starting to organise myself for two trips to the US for NACS and SP Fest, but over the following weeks, it became apparent neither would happen. Like the rest of the world, I have spent the last 9 months working from home, except for one very strange trip to London in September.
From the beginning of 2020, I had actually been working from home more than usual, but lockdown felt very much like 7 days a week with nothing to do but work. Like many people, I struggled with my working plans being thrown in the air, isolation from friends and family, and a pretty depressing birthday. Initially, I occupied myself with Zoom board games, a daily run and even my own gardening blog. Things slowly changed, and undoubtedly the introduction of support bubbles greatly helped me to return to some normality in a week.
As someone who travelled a fair bit to go to customer site or conferences full-time home working was going to be a change. However, as businesses across the world had to adapt to long periods of staff working remotely, I found new work opportunities. 2020 ultimately presented me with the chance to work on Power Platform projects with customers I would never have done in “normal” times, and I have helped numerous others rapidly adopt Microsoft Teams. It allowed me to better focus myself in a way I never could with too many of daily live distractions.
ProvisionPoint has grown into a business I would not have imagined at the beginning of the year, with new staff and many new features. I am excited about how this business will grow next year and continue to help customers with Microsoft 365 governance.
I hope at some point we can meet up again, so I can better share what has kept me so busy this year. It is however important to not think that everything will be perfect in 2021, but instead, it be another year to grow and learn.
