Hey everybody!
Wow, it’s been a while. I have been neglecting this blog for a while now, but I’m thinking it time for a comeback.
I’ve thought about a bunch of different ways to kick this back off again, but I’m just going to jump right into it and see where it goes.
Starting around 2020 I had a bunch of “stuff” hit me. Most of it is completely irrelevant to this blog, so I’m not going to dive into a bunch of personal stuff, but let’s just say things have changed for me. Of course there was a whole pandemic thing that I assume you’ve heard of, but along with that I had a fair number of other more personal things that really took me out of the head space where I felt like I could contribute to this blog.
Now, most of the way through 2025, I’m starting to feel like I have my stuff back together again, and I am once again excited to re-start contributing to the greater Microsoft 365 community. That being said, I expect this space to look a lot different going forward that it did in the past.
The biggest change that is relevant to this space is that I am not longer working as a consultant.
I went into consulting in 2010, right as Office 365 launched. I was pretty good at Exchange at the time, and I had an opportunity to jump into Exchange Hybrid migrations. I did that, I loved that, and I got pretty damn good at it. I did a whole bunch of Exchange migrations, learned a lot, and got an opportunity to go through the Microsoft Master program.
That was an incredible experience in many ways. I got to spend a month up at Microsoft, and I became an MCSM: Messaging. I found out I had passed that test on a Wednesday, then two days later (I kid you not) I found out Microsoft was canceling the Master program.
That was a bit of a kick in the teeth, but I took it for what it was and used the knowledge I had gain, and the contacts I had made to pivot that into the Microsoft MVP program. That is about when I started this blog, in 2013.
From there I went on to grow this space, and to write, speak, and do a bunch more Office 365 migrations.
Right around 2020, I had some personal stuff come up that really took me out of the head space where I could contribute the way I had before. Some of that personal stuff put me in a space where I couldn’t travel like I had before, and that fairly directly lead to a layoff. Looking back, I probably should have moved out of consulting at that point.
Since I am not independently wealthy, I still needed a job, so I went back to consulting for a couple of different companies, but none of that really worked very well. I wasn’t happy, and I’m pretty sure that was obvious to the people around me.
It took me a couple of years, and a couple of jobs to figure out that I no longer belonged in consulting. That sorted out, it took me a while to find the right place for me, but today I think I’m there.
After a bit of searching, I think I’ve found a good landing spot. A couple of months ago I started a position running the Microsoft 365 tenant for a young company that is about to undergo some major changes. I am now working as the “Cloud Apps Architect” for Ampere Computing.
Ampere Computing designs low power CPUs mainly intended for use in cloud applications. I think that CPUs we design are currently in use at Microsoft, Oracle, and a number of other large service providers. I don’t want to say a whole lot more about that, because honestly, I don’t really know a lot about that side of the business.
My job is to help Ampere grow into a real live enterprise organization. That is going to start out mostly managing their Microsoft 365 tenant, but I do expect I have to learn about and support a number of other cloud applications. I’m going to get the chance to train a team that is used to supporting a small startup and we transition into a (hopefully) large, and successful enterprise.
What that all means for this blog is that my point of view has shifted considerably. I need to go back and learn (and re-learn) a lot of things. It turns out that supporting a Microsoft 365 tenant day-to-day is a very different endeavor that planning and executing migration projects.
I don’t know what this is going to turn into, but I’m pretty sure it’s going to be different from what it has been. For the first time in a while, I can say that I am looking forward to the journey. I hope you’ll join me.
Thanks for listening,
Nathan