Today’s guest on Cloud Gossip is Fabian Williams! Fabian works as Senior Program Manager on the Microsoft Graph Team. Prior to joining Microsoft, he was awarded as Microsoft MVP several times. Fabian is going to talk to us about his program manager role at Graph and explain what the components of his daily routine are. Enjoy the episode and don’t miss the links and resources that Fabian shared with us; you can find them at cloudgossip.net.
We are going to learn about who benefits from using Microsoft Graph, what changes and advantages the platform brings to the table, and how it evolved over time.
Fabian is going to talk about why he believes more developers should add Graph to their skill-set, why he likes Python, and how modern-day software development is shaping the industry. We are going to hear his thoughts about the future of tech, FTL travel, diversity, and inclusion, and remote work.
Guest Bio:
Fabian Williams is a Senior Program Manager on the Microsoft Graph Team at Microsoft.
He is a 7x MVP awardee beginning with his work with the SharePoint product line that dates to the 2003 release.
Fabian holds a Bachelors of Science degree in Computer Information System “Magna-Cum-Laude” from Strayer University, Washington D.C. and his Masters in Computer Information Technology studies at the Johns Hopkins University Carey School for Business in Columbia, Maryland.
He likes to engage with the SharePoint PnP community and share his expertise with others, with a strong focus on diversity and inclusion.
You may find him on Twitter at the @fabianwilliams handle and his blog is http://www.fabiangwilliams.com.
Quote
“For people who are in my position: turn around and look back to see all of the people that are trying to get up the ladder as well, and extend a helping hand.”Fabian Williams
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Annie: [00:00:00] In this episode, we cover what really is the Microsoft Graph, the state of modern business app development and remote working culture of Microsoft in this work from home era.
Here is a quick taste of the episode and then let's get going.
Karl: [00:00:16] If you could make any tech a reality, what would you pick?
Fabian: [00:00:21] I think FTL or Faster-Than-Light travel, because.... which is all part....its parts of quantum, right?
Because quantum computing is about, you know, unifying those two opposing ideas.
I think that's key.
Annie: [00:00:37] This is Cloud Gossip podcast, demystifying the Cloud and the people behind it.
Hi, I'm Annie. I'm a cloud native technology marketing manager, and I've worked for tech companies ranging from startups to fortune 500 enterprises.
Karl: [00:01:02] And my name is Karl and I'm a cloud security leader working at a Swiss financial sector company.
Annie: [00:01:08] Great! You are listening to cloud gossip and in today's episode, we're going to talk about Microsoft Graph and anything else and in between there as well.
So, Karl won't you introduce our guest?
Karl: [00:01:22] My pleasure.
Today's guest is Fabian Williams and Fabian is a senior program manager at the Microsoft Graph team. He's a seasoned public speaker and before joining the mothership, he was a Microsoft MVP for a number of years.
Fabian: [00:01:38] Thank you. Thank you for having me, Karl and Annie.
So the number of years is actually seven years. I got the blue ring plus two more.
Karl: [00:01:47] But luckily nowadays with the reconnect program, you still get to accumulate some swag, right?
Fabian: [00:01:53] Yeah, indeed. In fact, that was one of my worries. And I'm not saying it's a worry, it was a concern when I joined Microsoft, because for seven years I was spoiled with the Azure credits, into this and into that. And I said, "Oh my God, when I join Microsoft Im gonna lose it all!"
Then the reconnect said, "No, you get a little bit back". So it was pretty cool! And you know, it helps because, you know, I still blog. I still do public speaking and it's always helpful to have an environment where I can demo easily.
Annie: [00:02:18] Yeah, so really cool. So what does a program manager in the graph product team do?
Fabian: [00:02:24] All right. So, um, well, let's, let's qualify that a little bit.
Although I'm a part of the graph team, it's somewhat distributed and I'm part of "Jeremy Thick org" and org is Customer and Partner Experience is a CPX for short.
Our goal is to help unblock partners as they build solutions on top of the Microsoft graph, or provide them as much support as needed to help them along that journey to be successful in their application experience.
So, you know, the work that I do is several fold. Um, I meet the triaging questions that's coming through, you know, in our team's channel that we have for a T.A.P. Program, responding to emails or, I'm doing one-on-ones on with customers as well.
And I guess on that note, I really have two customers because, in one end, one of our customers is the engineering team that are actually building solutions on Microsoft.
And...for that, we become basically a feedback loop as to what partners are doing and we provide the feedback to them of what's working and what's not working.
You know, what's really landing and what's not landing. And gap .....address gaps. And on the partner side, which is the other customer, you know, we help them as I said before un-block and encourage them to grow for success.
Karl: [00:03:40] Yeah. You mentioned a couple of acronyms here. There was the CPX, which I believe stands for customer and partner experience, but what is this TAP? T.A.P.?
Fabian: [00:03:49] Oh, right, right, right, right. So TAP is a technology adoption program. Basically it provides.....we provide you with MBA content. So things that are either a roadmap or things that are not public, you know, we provide you the ability to have that conversation early on because the charter again, really is to ensure that our first party products are aligned with your third party products.
And there should be no gap between them, there should be fidelity between them.
Karl: [00:04:15] And by fidelity you mean what I see in an announcement in builder ignite, should be something that I will be able to build on my own as a customer, right?
Fabian: [00:04:25] Exactly. But also because, you know, we're encouraging people to build on the graph....so their SDL, their Software Development Life cycle should be in tune with ours. You know, so they shouldn't just be seeing stuff as it drops. They should be...you know have enough roadmap and ramp ahead to say, "Ah, this is coming out! Maybe we should start building for it."
So there's preview programs, there's technology induction programs, and we make sure that they have enough of a ramp so that, you know, once we launch, you know, they can launch either soon behind it or at the same time as well.
Annie: [00:04:53] Cool! Really interesting. So, what does your typical day look like? What does it entail of?
Fabian: [00:04:58] Yeah, so, again, it's been evolving. I guess what we talked about, the fact that I was an MVP and, now that I work at Microsoft. I think I'm on.... what am I?.... I'm on month five now at Microsoft. So I'm relatively still a newbie.
So my days, you know are....you know, they're stabilizing, but then theyup and down as well too. So my typical day. As I'm iterating, which is a word you learn at Microsoft, you're constantly iterated.... is, you know.... I guess in large part my responsibility in our group is Microsoft teams, Microsoft search and also national cloud.
So I try to break up my week as such that I can spend dedicated days,you know, addressing those workloads if you will. We have a lot of meetings. Because again, our group is just part of a whole, so we're always interfacing with other engineering PMs or with other workloads as well.
We also meet as a team to make sure that we have our objectives as well, too. So, you know, you may or may not know this, but as I say it, so......so I already mentioned that Jeremy Thick is who we report up to, but my peers are....
We also are on the East coast and most of our team is on the West Coast. So we usually get to get in the morning and then we'll do huddles and we'll talk about what's going on.
You know, Sev and I also new to Microsoft Brand as a little bit more tenure there. So, you know, he sometimes big brothers us a lot. You know, we work on stuff independently. We come together as a team and then we also interface with others. So it's usually something like that. You know, it's a rinse and repeat.... but for me..you know I have days where I just focus on teams, days where I just focus on search, days where I just focus on National Cloud.
Karl: [00:06:42] Mm. Hmm. And you joined what....like five months ago?
So that means like....the day to day office life for you has always been remote.
Fabian: [00:06:51] True, true. Right. I think the MVP program does prepare people who are on....you know....I guess who'd become full-time employees at Microsoft because.....you're already somewhat familiar with the culture. You're familiar with the environment. You're familiar with the people, which helps.
Because, you know, you can jump in and have an impact on day one. I would say.... it's not necessarily the hardest, but the things that have been most...... Let's say the hardest thing for me to....to adopt was that the culture, and it's not that the culture is bad.
The culture is just so good that you know.... coming from outside and now on the inside, you know, there's really a focus on wellness. There's a focus on, you know, work-life balance and, you know, that's really emphasized and it's top-down. And in fact, we have a “no meetings Friday”.
So on Friday, nobody meets. You know, there's something...somewhat new and, you know, sometimes you may have something important and then you have to recognize that.
And...even though this.... I think this impacts graph to some extent. So I'm actually going to use this example. One of the things that I actually got....you know...I had to come to terms with...is that.... for me....I have, you know....and....you're a developer as well... Sometimes creativity hits you at odd hours and sometimes for me is 2 AM in the morning, then I'll wake up.
"Oh my gosh!" And then I want to get it out of my head onto the keyboard and I'm doing stuff, and I email and stuff, and I'll get an alert saying, "Are you sure you want to send this email? This person's work hour, doesn't start until X time. Do you want to send it now or do you want to pause?"
And that's just something fantastic because again, work-life balance, this person has not seen or been on their phone and immediately responding.
So that's pretty cool. And ,you know, I'm happy to be a part of that.
Annie: [00:08:23] Yeah, for sure. I think Microsoft is such a large company that, for example, when I started in my current role at Microsoft...one told me that, "Oh, it's going to take you like one year and a half to like, actually get accustomed to like, what are you doing"
And sure. Like, yeah, you can kind of....as I had a past in the Microsoft scene as well, I did kind of bring impact earlier on...but still, it takes a long time to actually like, understand what do you do? And what does it mean in relation to the other people in the teams around?
Fabian: [00:08:51] Yeah, exactly. I was told the exact same thing .....they say, "it's going to take you a year to feel comfortable."
And I say, "I'm fine. Let's go. "
Annie: [00:08:59] Yeah, for sure. Yeah, talking about complicated and Microsoft, there has been. So many Microsoft services with the name of Graph in them. What is the Microsoft Graph in 2021?
Fabian: [00:09:12] Right. But it's an evolving story. And, you know, a lot of it started off with, you know,in the mother of the graph-in arenas, who Jeremy reports up to.
But, I would say that, you know, it's just an acceleration of what we've been doing. In fact, the one thing I will call out is.. December.... I don't want to say the 16th, but in December of last year, which is only a few weeks ago..... search query, GA you know, became generally available.
You know, things are just maturing and things are coming out into the field.
People, you know, kids start to build on there. There's more of a true synergy between what first party and third party means.....Graph is just, you know, growing.
So from an internal standpoint, I guess one of the major milestones is that. We are....
there's momentum in getting the engineering team for all the workloads...touse Graph to build against.
Because again, we need to get the first party to enable the third party. So as we're telling third party, you know, ISVs and customers to build on the graph, we're telling an engineer in the same thing and we're meeting, you know, at a faster velocity.
Karl: [00:10:14] On top of the naming, there's also...the different brands that the Graph has had over the years. So there's something that used to be called Intelligence Security Graph, which I think is now "something....something" security API of Graph.. And then of course it can be something completely different from these rest APIs. It can be stuff like the Graph TDK, the Graph toolkit.
Fabian: [00:10:36] Yeah, you bring up a good point because Alice.....she's...one of my peers as well, and she and Nicola, they work on the Microsoft Graph Toolkit. And I think Saad, I think a few weeks ago actually did a blog post around that.
Which reminds me actually, I have a blog post myself due for Brian ....in a week or so that I've only started to build up my demo environment.
But, um, the Microsoft graph toolkit is just another avenue to make it easier for developers and for customers.
Karl: [00:11:05] Okay. So how is the Graph developer scene? Who is it really the users of....Who are really the users of Graph?
Fabian: [00:11:13] It's certainly a developer platform.
You know, we say....you know, the Microsoft graph is the API to allow your apps,you know, to have access to your customer's data and services.
So if you, you know...... there's a couple of checkpoints that we set along the way in that one statement. So it can be anybody, it could be an ISV, it could be a developer at an organization. Because obviously they have a tendency.... they can build on top of the graph themselves. So it's just about anybody, but certainly it is a developer platform, so you know, it will need to acquire that kind of mindset.
But the one thing I will say as well is that Graph is also meant to be inclusive and there's tons of SDKs out there as well. I was a fanboy for a while, but then I've become more and more of a fanboy of Python.
And Python doesn't necessarily get a lot of love at Microsoft .....but, you know, I see....I tell Jeremy that is going to be my mountain to die on! I'm gonna try and figure out how to get the Python community, you know, heavily involved into Graph to the extent that I can.
Well, there's solutions that I'm building....and whenever I blog, I try to make sure that there's a story...around you know... Python in there as well.
Karl: [00:12:15] Yeah, yeah. Beyond those modern or this Python developers and all of this fancy cool stuff. Uh, how about the existing Microsoft scene? Are they coming from Office?
Are they coming maybe from the .net Developer side? Or are they maybe coming from their SharePoint background?
Fabian: [00:12:32] Right. It's a great question. So, because the Graph endpoint is just a restful API... I don't think it necessarily lands on a particular discipline of users ....if you need to call on something. In fact, one of the things that was given to me as an item to work on.... that I own since joining Microsoft ....was this concept around blueprints .
And what blueprints are...., are basically....consider it...you know, as the name says, it's a
blueprint, it's a framework around which you can build on top of.
So I looked at what telemetry told me about the Graph endpoints that are used highly or not used as much. I look at it to figure out "how can we create something that would encourage a set of users to build on top of it?"
So in that framework, I came up with one it's called a Why-What-Where, right?
Why would a person care about this? What do they get if they build on the Microsoft graph and where would they use it? The story really resonates a lot with ISV because, you know, we're able to show them where that value is. Obviously an ISV is not necessarily starting with zero. They already have products out here in the field.
So, we look at them and say," well, for these products, you know, are you doing this?" I'll be like... let's use photos as an example. "Are you storing your photos, you know, inside X repository? Or Y repository?" You know, why not have it inside the Graph and inviting it inside the graph...now it's a restful endpoint and you get different dimensions that you can just call by just one call to the graph.
It provides you consistency and you can use it on a bunch of form factors. And I have another blueprint for teams, for mail, for contacts, for events and so on and so forth. So we're telling the journey, you know, to... anybody. And like you mentioned, so SharePoint developer, they can start to use a graph.
In fact, we encourage them to use a graph.Whether they're just a line of business LOB, developer as well, again, use the Graph .
If you wanna integrate things in there. So I don't think i...., I think it's inter intra discipline.
And it really doesn't care where you're coming from....the idea is thatif your data is in Microsoft 365... in you know, EMS Enterprise Mobility, Security,....whether it's inside of windows 10 or what is inside office 365, the Graph is there for you.
Karl: [00:14:34] So could you say it's for any sort of business or organization or developers? So the only line to draw in sand will be "not consumer developers".
Fabian: [00:14:44] Well, not really, right?
Because...as long as..... you can have an,.....everything is predicated to Azure AD, right?
And by using, and now we're going to go into... I guess, deeper developer topics.
If you're using the V2 version of Azure Active Directory, it works for devices, consumer, and also for organization and school and work. As long as you can authenticate there.
It could be a device, and it could be consumers, you know, just to address your point directly, say "not necessarily just work and enterprise".
From there and then you can start to consume again, the Microsoft 365 data and service. And so I highly encourage anyone considering the Graph to build on the Azure ABV to endpoints, use micro MSAL, a Microsoft Security Authentication Library, and use the SDKs as much as possible.
This is my little pitch right there! There you go. Bingo words!
Annie: [00:15:35] Great.So what value does Graph bring to a modern business application development?
Fabian: [00:15:44] Right...
So definitely.... and I guess I would ask you to qualify what modern means....but let me take a shot at it. When I first started off in this field, I was a SharePoint developer, which means I had a SharePoint.... in Air quote... as if you can see me. So I had an object model that was a subset in.net that I used to work on.
And then my entire world lived there, so I couldn't do anything on the outside of that.
Then, you know, we started....we moved towards, you know, SharePoint grew and then, you know, SharePoint have become now a restful service. And then now we're here at the Graph.
So if by modern, you mean that, you know, it's truly web dev....you know, web developer experience...than the answer is yes, right?
So and by making things restful, then you make things easier for people. And the fact that you can return objects as Jason, you know, that's also in tune with what the modern developer lifecycle experience is as well.
So in that scope, the answer is yes. And the fact that we have all of these SDKs that are out there and that even the Microsoft Graph Toolkit, which you can just drop an element onto a page and get something back that's truly formative with just HTML, 5CSS and JavaScript.
That's adherent to a bunch of just modern standards. ....Yeah?
Annie: [00:16:56] Yeah!
Karl: [00:16:59] Considering this pathway from this traditional SharePoint developer to a modern line of business developer, will you agree that there are a couple of pathways....or a couple of changes from moving from SDKs to API APIs from on prem day "this is my machine....here's my SharePoint environment. If something goes wrong, I can go ahead and hug or poke at it until it actually is fixed". From on-prem to cloud.
And also from these .Net based environments into this modern Web based technologies that are hogging all of my memory in my laptop.... and are consuming, not just the whole browser in an app, but also consuming this web-based front end technologies and consuming those APIs there.
Fabian: [00:17:46] Yeah, that's a fantastic point and a great segue to something as well!
So my blog posts that I'm doing for Brian for the mail back series, when it does come out is actually going to be using Blazer and the Graph. So to your point, you know, we have got a blazer application, you know, you can all, you can have that running directly on your client's side and take that off the surface side as well, too. Even though it's still cloud technology.
So, that's a key example of just building for monitoring. So fantastic example.
Karl: [00:18:10] Hmm. Hmm. So given all of these changes in the role of a modern developer or quote on quote "modern developer",...could you imagine that someday, maybe doubling your time at Microsoft...let's say five-years....five months from now...
...We'll see Graph becoming someone's full-time job?
Or do you think we will see more like full stack developers building up their Graph expertise to complement their skill set rather than specializing?
Fabian: [00:18:37] Right. So you're saying could Graph stand on its own as a discipline and you can now just have a graph developer, as a full-time job experience.
I would say the answer is yes. And in fact I know a few partners that already have that type of model.
You know, where they're just so heavily invested in the Graph, that they have, you know, disciplines of developers that are there, that is their full-time job.
You know, to... their entire platform is built on the Graph.
So, the answer is yes to that.
But again, you know, the typical consultant's answer "it depends", right? Or the answer is yes to everything. Yeah, it doesn't have to be, right?
Um, As I said, Graph can just be something that you are stapling for lack of a better word...onto an existing application because you see value and the value could be that you are offloaded cost of what you used to do before in a legacy application...
....and you say, "well, let me just do this in the graph now"....and that can actually be a part if you just accelerating in what your.... what your application would become later on.
You know....Application is steadily moving to the Graph. So it could be where you're doing this ad hoc, and you have somebody there just....just doing this tinkering POC.....Or doing a feature branch.... On your application and just building that out until it hits back the main branch and everything is Graph.
And now your entire stack of developers are Graph developers.
Karl: [00:19:56] I'm sure you wouldn't mind that.
Fabian: [00:19:59] No....yeah, I would say, in fact, it's a great point!
So this entire week we're meeting with the internal folks, you know, the internal engineering team. And when I first came on board in August, in October, we had our first iteration of what this meeting is and we came to them with what the current landscape is.
And again, we know what does it look like from a partner experience? And last week I ran the reports and spoke to my partners and....vested adoption.
You know, the numbers are completely different in a positive direction or trajectory, you know, from where it was just only what two, three months ago. So the answer is yes, I see more acceleration, more adoption, more of a full-time experience...., from ...again, qualifying this from an ISV perspective.
Most of my interactions have been with ISV. I think I may have one or two experiences with customers that are using the graph. So this is my pryzm answer in terms of...you know... the scope of where I can see things, but I'm sure if you asked maybe even Brian....brian interacts a lot more with customers in relationships to partners than I do.
Hmm.
Karl: [00:21:06] So it really starts to sound like all of us need to learn at least a little bit of Graph development in the future.
Fabian: [00:21:12] Yeah. And I would say most developers today know a restful model and know how to code against this. So it's not a huge leap, but it's not a big, you know, learning ramp to get on.
It's easy to adopt. No matter what your discipline is, whether you're a front end developer. Whether you are using the Microsoft Graph toolkit....you know, to put stuff on a page. Whether you are a middle-tier developer building even connectors in the Microsoft Graph, or whether you are a backend developer just trying to surface data from the graph into a service endpoint that you can consume in your application.. So....all around.
Karl: [00:21:46] All right. All right. So, let's switch gears a little bit. There's so many different use cases and personas for using Graph, but let's take an example that will be fun and very graphable as well. What would be your favorite work from home life hack using Graph?
Fabian: [00:22:06] Sure, sure. So, um,mmmm. Oooh, using Microsoft Graph, right?
So, again four months in, not too much life hacks that are there, but I will tell you that the work from home model has really turn on the light on what Teams is able to do through the Graph. Why not a direct life hack? There's been a tremendous uptick in just the amount of applications that I'm seeing from ISVs building on top of Teams and the Teams team.....
... for me, I'm led by Nick Kramer.....he's managing the features for this.... what I'm looking at. They're just tremendously busy and the team is a global team. And I would say if, you know, I mentioned that I look at Microsoft Teams search and National cloud.
Teams by far takes up, you know, two thirds of the things that I am doing!
So from a life hack perspective, I think, you know, teams is the one that you see most of that with,...
You know, there's a lot of creativity in terms of the applications that are building for teams. And there's a lot of acceleration with things coming off the backlog into active work items on the Teams team as well too.
So....my favorite thing is definitely the teams in terms of just this work from home model...
...but from a life perspective, a lot of the things that I encourage people to do....and I think...if you get the connection, that'd be fantastic! That means that I'd Done my job perfectly!
I think....that photos.... the photos end point, right? It's by far the one that for me..... I'm trying to make sure I don't step on my foot here when I say this....because you know it's almost like this is my favorite baby out of the other baby over here as well too. It's my favorite child!
Photos matter most to me, righ?. Or at least I think it should be the starting point. Why?
Because we're in this...we're in a workforce where we're so separated from each other and the human connection can be sometimes lost. So I always tell people, if you want a low hanging fruit to build for your application and you want something that you can use all over the place.... photos. Right?
Because it allows you to see each other, make that human connection contact. You know, you can look into a person, you can see facial expression. You can actually see and have a better conversation rather than just, you know, not seeing that person or just working with words and pictures on a page.
Further, if you're building an application and the person's photo is inside that application as well. They have a connection to the application experience as well, too. And they can see, you know, maybe like a cloud of people that are building this and you have that sense of unity behind here as well. So from a life hack perspective, definitely for me, I build on top of photos first, but like I said, Teams is just being gangbusters in terms of what it's been able to do.
Annie: [00:24:48] That's really, really great. Then we're going to switch gears a bit and go to our recurring segments that we have in this show. And we're going to kick it off with “future of tech.”
So, what are the three things in tech that make you most excited at the moment?
Fabian: [00:25:21] Three things in tech that make me most excited at the moment ...okay.
Before I even joined Microsoft. Again, I started off as a SharePoint developer. Then in 2014, I heard Satya Nadella, at a time cloud vice-president in tech at New Orleans, said: Mobile first, Cloud first.
So he coined that phrase. And it took me in a different trajectory. I said, "okay, fine. Azure is awesome. Let me just dig deep in Azure." And then mobile, but the challenge for me was that I didn't know objective C and I didn't know Java. And you need for iOS and for Android development, but then Xamarin came on the scene, right?
And then I said, "okay, I'm going to learn Xamarin." And a lot of my sessions and stuff was all about using Xamarin, talking to SharePoint and surface and stuff like that. And I was as huge around that. And then machine learning and AI came into play, and then I started jumping into Python, which is why I'm a huge Python fanboy now because I do a ton on my own with Python and, you know, just trying to create my own models and, you know, and work with Azure cognitive services and stuff like that.
And a lot of my sessions became around that. So...and the Graph now.... the Graph uses a lot of insights. You know, using its own ML AI, you know, to provide a better experience for users. Like, you know, if you just look at insights alone providing you,....I mean... you know... the best time to do work, to create focus time.. You know, to see the people that you interact with regularly, like frequently contact versus the others, as well as you type people's name inside there.
So I think, you know, to answer your question.... you said "three".
The first one is definitely going to be the acceleration of machine learning and artificial intelligence. I think that is definitely key...number one, on top of the list. I have a huge bias there.
The second one is in automation. I think automation is fantastic.
That's what I do in my spare time. You know, I think about things that I can automate in Python and I just throw it on there. In fact, if you look at my blog...you look at my Twitter feed, now you'll see a recurring theme of just blogs that are out there....that are on this Python script I wrote to look at several different content sources at Microsoft and every four hours....go see if something's new and tweet it.
So, I'm huge about that! And I love what raspberry PI is doing today. And, you know, with the RFIOT as well.
The third rail. I guess it's just data.
You know, data and touchpoints. So the Microsoft graph is all around, you know, signals and edges. You know, it's around the individual experience....you know...how they communicate and where they intersect and everything that we do today, there's a data touch point to our data footprint and that's only going to get more and more. You know, the ability to have to Graph to be able to surface that up for people as well, too.
So those are probably the three things that really get me excited.
Karl: [00:28:00] I was waiting for how long it will take before it mentioning your own service.
Fabian: [00:28:05] No, but I put it third! Didn't I?
Karl: [00:28:10] So if you could make any tech, none of your own, a reality....from Sci-Fi...to vison reactors...or to proper quantum computing, what would you pick?
Fabian: [00:28:21] Yeah, mine, I think is impossible. But... well, nothing is impossible. It just demands a lot of energy.
I think FTL or Faster Than Light travel because.... which is all part...it's part of quantum, right? Because quantum computing is about unifying those two opposing ideas. I think that's, that's key.
And quantum computing is definitely a manifestation of what FTL could be as well.
But FTL solves so much different..... would solve so much different things....it can solve transportation obviously, but it would solve just the way computers communicate and really get us into a place.
Imagine if you could have a quantum computer by your feet and you're working on stuff like that. Oh my God, that would just be crazy mind blowing stuff! Whatever you're doing now in augmented reality it would be like, you know, light years ahead if you could do something like that. So, I think that is my all-time wishlist.
And then I'm really.... if Elon Musk is listening to this podcast, I would say "Elon, put this on top of your list!"
Karl: [00:29:14] Yeah. If he is, we have a long list!
Fabian: [00:29:18] Yeah. If he asks Microsoft to do....let's just edge this one in there.
Annie: [00:29:24] Perfect. IfElon is listening, you know what to do next, then! Cool. Um, then the next recurring segment is around diversity and inclusion.
So have you encountered any really good projects in this field regarding well... diversity and inclusion.
Fabian: [00:29:54] I know, speaking to somebody that look....well... people can't see me over the podcast, but if you can hear from my accent, it's not entirely American. So I'm Jamaican by birth, you know, I came to this country as an immigrant.
I now work for Microsoft. Microsoft has a huge push around diversity and inclusion. In fact, one thing I would say as well is.....the pandemic brought upon us, you know, something that was just unprecedented...
...and from that people had to adjust and react. The position that I'm in right now, traditionally, would be some....it means that I would have to move to Redmond because that's where most of the team is.
However, one of the things that, you know, the pandemic, created is the ability to now look globally and to have the team distributed. And by doing so, Microsoft also has initiatives where, you know, there's diversity and inclusion and it allowed them to look at scale for that.
So a lot of our team, there's some in Nairobi Kenya there, some in Latin America, we have team members in Canada. We Have team members in the DC Metro. And we have team members actually in Australia as well, too, notwithstanding what's in Redmond.
If I look at our team, we do our team meetings that we do together mode inside Microsoft Teams.
You know, a lot of women....a lot of minority representation as well. And I think that brings just an array of just opinions because people are shaped by their experiences and they bring that into their work. It allows the product that you're building and to really connect with other people that, you know, look and sound like me because I'm bringing that experience into my conversations and also to the program managers and then also to the engineers.
So, you know, it makes it more impactful. Notwithstanding that, however,Robbia Williams, you know, she is a former VP as well, and now she's also part of Microsoft on the cloud of advocates.
I think she had a tweet recently and there was a program that she was promoting and I don't have it on top of my head.
But it was all about inclusion and diversity and also about opinions and should it matter. And she says that, you know....her... people are also concerned with our accent. You know, how she looked and she was saying that, you know, just if you're comfortable and you know, your topic, just go out there and speak.
And there's always, you know, nevermind everything else. And I'm a live in walk-in version of that as well, too. I think, no matter where I go into the speaker community....in fact, I had one person pointed it out. It was a.... you know, most conferences there'll be.....you know, a picture of follow the speakers and they just say, "......."
And sometimes it's true. I mean, it is changing. But you know, there's a lot more work to be done.
Karl: [00:32:24] Yeah. Baby steps for organizations are good, but they take a lot of time.
What would be some of the steps that you and I, or our listeners could take to lift others up.
Fabian: [00:32:38] Yeah. You know, I mean, there's something called unconscionable bias.
I mean, it's something that everyone, you know, faces and deals with. I would say.... before we make a decision on anything, you know, take a deep breath, step back, think about it, you know, more broadly and see how you can have more of an impact to bring somebody up.
One thing that I say is that.....and I try to do is, you know, there's a lot of people that helped me to get where I am today and, you know, certainly.
For people who are in my position, turn around and look back to see all of the people that are trying to get up the ladder as well, and extend a helping hand. I try to do that as well, as much as possible. People still have to take the initiative as well, too...so...
Some people are wallflowers, but I would say if you're trying to have an impact, you have to step out of that shell, create your own voice.
I mean, it doesn't have to be a huge voice, but, you know, put something, you know,....put ownership out there. Create a blog, answer a tech question, you know, speak at your local user group. You know, it's virtual now. And in fact, that's one thing I would say ....virtual user groups are now all over the place and it, and you don't have to be in a location, you know, to have an impact you can be in.....you know, I'm here in my home office, you know?
So you have something that you're passionate about. Get in a local user group, start talking. People hear you. And then people say, "Oh, that person has a really good idea. Maybe we should start talking to them more. " And then that's how that inclusivity comes about.
Annie: [00:33:57] For sure. Ithink it's so important than,.....and....for sure.
It starts with the small things and going and building from there.
Yeah. So no one, no one does this alone and it kind of takes a village to raise a child in any kind of projects and activity. So, would you like to give a shout out to your favorite communities?
Fabian: [00:34:32] Definitely, you know......SharePoint is what started it for me. So definitely the SharePoint community Patterns and Practices is one.
Plug hours, I'm going to plug the..... Microsoft Graph community as well, too. You know, fellowship of the Graph is another. You know, and the, obviously, you know, the local user groups, I mean on the Baltimore SharePoint user group that Shadid, you know, managers here in the Baltimore area.
These are just some of the things that I'm passionate about.....just to name a few.
Karl: [00:35:03] Perfect. Thank you. Well deserved shout outs. So, today we talked with Fabian Williams, senior program manager in the Microsoft Graph team. We learned all about quote on quote "modern line of business development" with Graph.
Fabian's experiences transmitting from MVP to Microsoft FE and his wishes for FTL travel.
These TLAs stand for Full-time Employee and Faster Than Light travel. And finally how we can all pause and check for unconscious bias in our day-to-day activities. Pleasure talking with you Fabian.
Annie: [00:35:38] Yeah, truly Fabian, thank you for being here.
Fabian: [00:35:41] Yeah. Thank you for having me, my pleasure!
Karl: [00:35:48] Hey, thanks for listening to Cloud Gossip. You can find us from our website Cloud Gossip.Net. Please leave us a review and subscribe to us at iTunes, Google, or Spotify. .