Power Platform Boost Podcast
The Power Platform Boost Podcast is your timely update of what's new and what is happening in the community of Microsoft business applications. Join hosts Ulrikke Akerbæk and Nick Doelman for a lively discussion of all things Power Platform!Like what you hear? Buy us a beer: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/Powerplatboost
Power Platform Boost Podcast
2025 Review (#75)
✨ 2025 Review 🎆
Can you believe that the term "vibe coding" was introduced in February 2025? That tells us something about the speed of change in the tech space.💨 No wonder we get a little dizzy 🫨 at times trying to keep up with the news, announcements, and updates 🚀
In this episode, we look back at 2025 from different angles: 🗞️ news, ⌨️ tech, 🎫 events, and 🎓 learning. Join us for a conversation where we summarize the big news and 📣 announcements around Power Platform over the last year and make sure you didn't miss anything.
We discuss what we have enjoyed learning about this year and the current projects we have on the go. Nick is diving into learning 🤓 React - and has big plans for new content 📽️ streams - so stay tuned!
We also take you through the main events that are coming up in 📆 2026, and Ulrikke provides some insights into the benefits of organising events and what she is looking for when she reviews session submissions 👩🎤
From both of us, to all of you, a huge and heartfelt💕 thank you for listening and supporting us throughout the year. We hope to continue helping you stay on top of things in the new year as well, and encourage you to give us more feedback and share this podcast with a friend or colleague 🥰
As 2025 comes to a close, we hope you all had a good rest over the holidays and wish you a wonderful start to the new year ✨
Events
Arctic Cloud Developer Challenge
January 22th-25th, Oslo
Nick: React with Power Pages SPA
Ulrikke: Power Platform Pipelines
January 29-30, Tallinn
Canadian Power Platform Summit
March 20th-21st, Vancouver
April 15th-17th, Germany
May 25-2, Slovenia
European Power Platform Conference
June 1st-4th 2026 - Copenhagen
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So to me, this was the biggest shift or change for 2025 is the fact that now we're going into an era where makers and people that have always kind of been those low-code developers are actually utilizing a new way of building apps and creating that code which is fully accessible by pro developers. And I think that's going to make Fusion Teams so much more tighter. It's going to start making much more amazing applications. It's going to make things a lot easier to get that vision that a customer is telling you and working with them. And I still think we need people like us, like Solution Architects, to take that vision and prompt appropriately and properly to build these applications. Hey Nick. Hey, Ulrikke. Merry Christmas. Oh, it's just past a few days, but uh going to be New Year. Actually, this episode will be released on New Year's Eve. So as people are gathering around, we're thinking on the 2025 year past, what better way to listen to all the things that have happened in the power platform and Microsoft communities in 2025? Well, all the time.
Ulrikke:Or maybe being hungover and just chilling on the sofa, just scrolling, and then suddenly we appear. And then you go, oh, I wonder what those little people did over the last year.
Nick:Well, that that would be on New Year's Day, probably, right?
Ulrikke:Yeah, yeah, definitely. But either way, we're here to recap the 2025 and getting ready for 2026. Yikes. Which is gonna be awesome. Yikes? No, come on. It's gonna be an awesome year, I'm sure.
Nick:Oh, definitely, definitely. But it just it's fun 2025 to me just went like a blur. It was so fast. I feel like I was still in Tallinn last week for um the that conference, and it's literally happening in three weeks, the next one, or four weeks or a month from now. It's crazy. Yeah.
Ulrikke:I know. Yeah. It's pretty awesome. Uh a lot of things happened over the year, and we're gonna cover some of the top things. And let's start with top news items, top announcements, maybe. What was your favorite thing of the year?
Nick:Um, I don't know, your favorite. I think that the biggest thing that was the most impactful was the very fact that they they Microsoft said out loud at the Power Platform conference in Las Vegas that low code is dead as we know it. And I think we've been talking about this for a while. We've mentioned this on our podcast, but seeing things such as the rise of generative pages, code apps, the new thing they announced, vibe.powerapps.com, plus everything else going on in the industry in terms of looking at things like lovable and replit, and the fact that, you know, you go on YouTube now and people are saying, oh, you can build an app in a matter of minutes. There's advertisements of kids with laptops that are building and launching applications. To me, this is sort of the whole shift kind of happened this year. We saw it coming late last year. The term vibe coding actually wasn't even a thing until February of this year. Um, all launched by a single tweet, and then all of a sudden it just steamrolled into something. Of course, from that we spun out, you know, there's vibe coding, but vibe engineering, um vibe, vibe uh uh vibe refactoring, you know, all these vibe things uh that have kind of uh erupted from this. Now, of course, there's a lot of controversy with that, thinking, well, you're just going to give it a prompt, it's going to generate an app that you have no idea how it works. But on the other hand, um, and that's true, like you tell the AI to do something, it will gladly go and build it for you. But what I think what's what's cool about this new technology, especially in our space, is we've now got to the point where we're using true low code. And when I say true low code, I mean just conversational, regular language. And that's always sort of been the dream of being able to tell a computer to build something. And I've been working with this and it's definitely increased my productivity. And it's not like I'm just telling it to go create a black box. I'm working with, you know, vibe coding or vibe engineering or whatever you want to call it or AI assisted development step by step. I'm kind of going through, okay, for this particular function, I'm going to need it to do this. For this particular thing, I want it to do this. And actually, even working in Visual Studio Code, it's almost predicting what I'm going to type. And eight times out of ten, it's exactly kind of what I was planning. Other times it's not. Other times it shows me something that I didn't really consider as well. But overall, I still have um my hands are still on the steering wheel. Um, I still think I'm, you know, kind of going through and building out these things, but it's pretty cool. It's actually generating code. I was working on some content now for um bring your code to PowerPages um the past few days and just absolutely loving what this thing could do and building out these prompts and getting it to kind of put together some pretty amazing things, even things I didn't quite know how to do, but it actually showed me in a sense, so I'm not only am I building, but I'm learning at the same time. So to me, this was the biggest shift or change for 2025, is the fact that now we're going into an era where makers and people that have always kind of been those low-code developers are actually were utilizing a new way of building apps and creating that code which is fully accessible by pro developers. And I think that's gonna make Fusion Teams so much more tighter. It's gonna start making much more amazing applications, it's gonna make things a lot easier to get that vision that a customer is telling you and working with them. And I still think we need people like us, like solution architects, to take that vision and prompt appropriately and properly to build these applications. So for me, that was the I think the biggest top will kind of news when it wasn't even a specific story or a specific event or anything, but just the whole story of how that's evolving and pretty exciting to see where that goes.
Ulrikke:Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. It's hard to argue with that. And you kind of covered the whole year in in a kind of in your summary right there. So yeah, definitely. Um sorry, I took your thigh down. No, definitely not. It's it's absolutely accurate. And that was kind of on the same lines that I was at. I think uh for me, um, also wanted to highlight um the same thing, right? The the the death of low code, but also the rebirth of power platform. Because I if if anything, I started a year off in a I wanted to see dark place, but it's it was hard to feel motivated. I didn't really see my place in the whole picture. Where am I going to go with this? I saw that there was no more um kind of investment being made in in dataverse and in power platforms seemed kind of irrelevant. Um, so I was kind of a little bit lost in terms of what I was gonna do with my skills. I actually had a very good conversation with a very good friend of mine, and he said, um, it's I don't rely on on the branch that I'm sitting on. I'm relying on my ability to fly. Um, and that kind of made me see myself in a in a different way. It's I I can't really relate on the platform. It's not about the platform or the tech. It's about my experiences, it's about what I enjoy doing, my skills. And the broader skill set that I have, the more prepared I am to excel in the future and to kind of lean on my unique combination of skills. I think that's kind of what brought it around for me. And diving into more and more kind of more deeper code stuff, but from, like you said, the the vibe engineering or the vibe code angle with AI helping me to to learn new things has been very helpful and very enlightening. So um I think for me, in terms of tech or news, um Ignite combined with Vegas in Vegas in in at BPCC, that big announcement kind of shifted. And I and and with the advent of uh code apps and generative pages, kind of bringing the power platform into the new world and making it relevant again, and maybe more relevant than ever when you see what the platform, because that is actually working with the platform and enhancing the things about PowerPlatform that's always been a benefit, which is the governance. It is the security, it is everything in one place, it's the unified way of working. If you know Canvas apps, model-driven apps, power pages, or or power automate, you can work with any PowerPoint pages, power apps or power automate kind of project, which is a really big uh advantage, even or even maybe even more so in the age of AI. So, and it's bringing low code and pro code together in a different way, which I also uh like. So I think um for me it's the same thing that um the power platform is still very much relevant going forward and that we have new tools that we can use our existing skills, right? To to still work within the power platform. There is a there is a place for us, for all of us, uh with the skills that we have. And I and I do see that in the project that I'm on and and this year's really being transformative at work as well, to see the the different projects that come up, the different requirements from customers and what they're they want and what they're looking for. I feel more than ever that my skill set is very um, very kind of actual. It's uh it's very in high demand. So that's been a it's been a good year in that respect. So definitely. And of course, work IQ, uh kind of the the thought leadership around AI and how to embrace it as a company with the frontier firm and the the work IQ, founder IQ, and fabric IQ bringing that all together. It's I see that the different then Microsoft is bringing all the different kind of home bases together in a new way, which also is very refreshing to see. So definitely that's uh that's the thing for me as well.
Nick:Well, yeah, we're seeing we're seeing the platform like the M365 co-pilot and the power platform merge together. We talked about that a few weeks ago about you know, some of the things that we're seeing about the the ability to access your model-driven app through the M365 front-end co-pilot there and a lot of those things. And it's interesting you talk about the skills. Um, I kind of feel the same way. There's um our jobs are definitely changed, they're definitely different, but those skills and that knowledge or even that gut instinct that we have is so important. Um, like I said the last few days, you know, vibing my way through creating an app, it didn't, you know, one of the iterations just didn't work right. And I was kind of looking at it, looking at the code, and I realized um it was a Power Pages thing, needed to use the PowerPages web API, but the the the AI, the GitHub co-pilot, decided to use the Dataverse API instead. And that was just, it didn't know really the difference, but that was something that I noticed from my experience that I was able to pick up on and my gut feeling that that's where the problem was. So that's where, again, AI is not going to be replaced. It still needs that guiding hand and that experience. And it just doesn't have that gut feeling when you say there's something wrong with your code. It's not like, well, my gut says it's this, but you know how many times, like I'm sure you're in the same boat, you've troubleshooted something or you looked at something, or some error come up, or some problem with the code, and it wasn't so much a logical, it was almost a gut feeling, and that's experience shining through that's helping um you kind of put this together. So that way, for sure, our skills and experience and like yours and mine are definitely going to be extremely valuable going forward in this new era as well.
Ulrikke:So yeah, and it's it's in the nature of AI. It it is best when it's very narrow and it's focused. But what we're good at is actually seeing what it doesn't see when you create that little silo that it makes it work well. It's our jobs to keep an eye to the side to see what it's missing because they can't know everything. But we're very our brains are very good at associating different things. And we bring that into our knowledge and our working with AI. I think that's really where I found my strengths. Um, and it's been this past year, which is really refreshing. So that's a lot of fun. So tur talking about kind of learning and and and also we've gone to a lot of conferences this year. I think yeah, you've had a you've had a busy year. Um, what was your top conference uh or event?
Nick:Hmm. It it's it's hard to say because there's there's different factors that go into most in terms of community and that um interacting with people in terms of okay, let's just start with the with the party and the fun um conference. I have to say uh Dynamics Minds is still kind of top of mind, just more the location and just the vibe of everything. Of course, the really good sessions and good discussions as well from a learning perspective. Um I still giggle when I think of the panel with Steve Mordeau, Yucca, George, and Mark, like four bald guys arguing about AI and the future of everything, just that in itself was worth worth the price of admission plus everything else. Um kind of going through, I really enjoy a lot of these smaller community events, like the collab days in Finland, the the Baltic summit that was in Poland, Nordic Summit, of course, is one of my favorites as well. Um, just because you have just that one day, it's very concentrated, but you tend to learn quite a bit because just the knowledge of the thought, the brain power that shows up at these community conferences and has a completely different vibe. And it's really about real-world stories. The people that do presentations are really great storytellers in terms of you know transferring this information. And then when you get to the the big, the bigger conferences like the the Power Platform Community Conference or Ignite, I mean, those have a completely different spin as well. Ignite, of course, is much more Microsoft, it's much more drink the blue Kool-Aid, everything's awesome. Um, and it definitely has its benefits as well. Exactly. Power platform conferences like that as well. It's kind of that big show, it's all about all about the future, where I think the community conferences that I really like are about the here and now or what problems people are solving. Now, in terms of my favorite, I don't, it's hard for me to really pick a favorite. I'd have to probably say for this year, I mean, I think, yeah, I probably think Nordic Summit was probably my favorite. Um, but of course they all rank super high. Uh Holland was also really good, looking forward to that. And then some of the other ones in the spring uh as well. I did miss a few due to scheduling and a few other things have come up, so I didn't get to no way I can get to all of them, but a lot of the ones are pretty good from the very huge ones to the small ones. Yeah, and looking my calendar for the spring looks pretty solid going forward as well. Yeah. What was your favorite?
Ulrikke:Yeah, I I uh I think in terms of community vibe uh and the kind of the social stuff around everything, it has to be Nordic Summit for me as well. Because of course, also I'm on the on the the organizing committee, the best day of any conference, and this is kind of a shout out to anyone who's not gotten into um to organizing yet. People, you're missing, yeah. The best part of any conference is the thing that you miss. It's the day before when uh when Auntie is popping his head up in the middle of a table, and then someone's knocking something over, and it's dividing candy in 60 paper bags. It's the the fun dinner topic, talking about stuff with good stuff. It's that's the thing that I love the most, being so hungover and so tired in the morning, you can barely stand up straight and you have to assemble entrance thingies. And but it's a lot of fun, right? So for me, the day before any conference that I'm organizing is is absolutely the best, but also Nordic Summit for me was really nice. And um, yeah, but in terms of content and learning, I think the I had the opportunity to go to a full-day workshop, attend a full-day workshop at uh PPCC in Vegas, which was absolutely fantastic. So for me to be able to dedicate a whole day to sit down and learn and to dive into foundry and AI stuff and agents that I really haven't touched before, but and feeling it's outside of my wheelhouse, but then also recognizing or experiencing that I not only were I able to follow along, but I did all the labs and I did it at the allocated time and I got what I was doing. That was a really good experience. And I learned so much. And I can't wait to have the time to kind of go through everything again and kind of reiterate and see what's changed and kind of start or continue to dive into that, um, which which we're gonna do also in preparation for uh the the workshop that we're doing this year uh at a few conferences, which is the curriculum for Agent Academy, which we are blessed to and be allowed by Microsoft to deliver as a workshop content. So I'm super excited to kind of dive in and continue that learning. So I think for me it's kind of twofold. Um and I'm like you, I for community and for networking and for kind of bringing together as a social activity, I love the local um Nordic Summit type smaller conferences. Um but for learning, of course, you get all, like I said, the masterminds together at the place like Vegas. So that's absolutely one of my favorite, favorite things. Yeah. So talking about learning, and you touched on that a little bit. What was the the thing you learned this year that's kind of the highlight um of 2025? Do you think?
Nick:Uh it's never it's never one and done, right? There's always learning. Um I think going through.
Ulrikke:So next year I'm gonna tell you to just pick one thing. You can cover everything for all the topics and not leave anything for me. Come on, dude. This is not working. Choose one thing. Challenge, choose one thing.
Nick:For for well, I think part of what I'm uh what I'm actually diving into now is actually kind of learning React, um the framework. Um, because it's interesting. The the reason I kind of chose it is, well, first off, the generative pages, the code apps, the the power pages, um, single page applications, like even the non-Microsoft things like Replit and the Google Firebase and all these things, I believe, they generate React code. So React being a JavaScript framework um for user interfaces, it's basically just taking HTML and kind of spinning it around, making it kind of work a little bit backwards but look better in terms of its JavaScript generating HTML, but kind of doing it in a state machine. So we're not doing those page refreshes. It just makes the whole app more responsive. And I've been learning it not by kind of going through kind of step by step, but rather like vibe engineering and seeing the code that gets generated, reading through the code, debugging it a little bit and kind of getting a good grasp on how the whole structure works. And to the point where what part what kind of forced me to do it was that the session I'm doing in Tallinn is called Learn React Before You Need to React. And I'm basically reacting, learning React. So reacting to the session that I put in. But I think for anybody, even the low code makers, it's actually relatively accessible. Accessible. It's not that you have to be a full stack pro code developer, start with a blank screen, but understand what GitHub Copilot or some of these other AI tools are generating for you. And then again, once you have the more of that experience, you begin to pick up, like I said earlier, those gut-feeling instincts of why isn't this working right or why isn't this formatted right? And if you already know, like I know HTML, I know JavaScript. So these things work really well together to kind of learn that particular framework. Um so really, I think in terms of what's been sticking in my head or what's very top of mind, because like I said, I've been working on some content these last few days, is definitely that. Um, and I know a lot of people are sort of heads first diving into Copilot Studio and everything like that. And that definitely is on my learning path. When the Agent Academy went out, I went through that content and I mean a lot of it was a review, but there was quite a, there's a few of those aha moments, like, oh, this is how this works or this is how it's supposed to be. So that is um those definitely those two things, more from the coding aspect is what I'm kind of learning most about. But of course, trying to keep on top of the 10,000 ways to build an agent in the Microsoft ecosystem. Well, 10,000, there's like four or five, but still, um, you know, trying to keep on top of that so I could speak intelligently to both customers and other people I'm presenting to. Um, so yeah, that's sort of my big learning focus this year is to continue on this path of learning the new way of building applications.
Ulrikke:Yeah, definitely. And I think that's on all of ours, uh all of our lists basically, right? Because we need to understand what's going on. And also see when I work with uh GitHub Copilot, especially with PowerPages project or any code project, the code is very fluffy. And because I don't know React, I'm not, you know, professionally taught React. I'm kind of reading through it and I go, yeah, this makes sense. And I understand what it's doing. It's very good at documenting what it says, but then I have no way of knowing, is it really necessary with all this code? Because to me, it's like, wow, this is a lot. And I get that you need uh kind of error handling and testing and and uh timeouts, and and there's a but I also find that it's very fluffy. So what I want to do in terms of if I wanted to learn React is I wanted to go about it learning it the old way, to actually sit down, do a course, and then have a pet project on the side to apply apply what I'm learning, just so that I'm able to down the line kind of keep it a little bit in check, the code that AI is creating, to kind of know if it's necessary or not, know when it's uh just creating fluff. Um, and if I ask it to downsize the code a bit, then understand what it's removing and what it's adding. Um, I still find that I need to help it along. Um, it's not really, I don't know. It's I I have a challenge with a a grid view, for instance, right? You have um and I my knowledge of CSS is actually more profound than than what GitHub Copilot can help me with. So I'm finding that I need to up my game to be able to use this codes, these new code tools. Uh, and that's probably what I need to do the going forward. And also I'm a bit, so what I've learned this year is probably has to do with the ecosystem around all the new AI capabilities that are popping up. So, in terms of me as an architect, that's probably been my biggest focus this year. And I also see that in the engagements that I'm having with customers and what where I'm doing, where I'm providing most value is when I get to talk to customers and help them navigate this um very complex world. As you said, there's a million ways to make an app or an agent and and use AI for different things and for different tools to do different things and have different strength. So actually helping customers navigate, that's probably been my kind of the thing that I've felt like I've had most to give this year. Um and and also I'm a bit on the fence of whether or not I need to dive into code, if that's where I should use my skills or not. I think maybe I'm now leaning towards the more architectural and business side, business kind of side of things. So I'm still a bit still a bit on the fence, really. So we'll see. I haven't really decided.
Nick:I think that, I mean, at the end of the day, like I don't, I think that's the important part. You kind of touched on something there is knowing what can be done, even though you can't necessarily do it yourself. I think that's always a good um skill of a solution architect to kind of understand, yes, I know that this is possible. I have no idea how to do it. Um, and then yes, I can ask AI to do it. And it's interesting you say the fluffy code, like in my own iterations. Like I look at the first, first or second attempt that I did to create um a particular React app that I'm working on. Looking at that code, I'm like, this is not, this is this is half baked. Like it's passing parameters and hard coding other ones. Like this isn't how it should be. And again, this is part of the experience of at the end of the day, it's fingers on keyboards that is really going to help us learn. And I like to think over the past week or two, I've learned a lot. Looking, it's almost like you say, look at the code that you wrote 10 years ago and it's probably embarrassing. It's look at the code that you prompted a week ago and it's embarrassing.
Ulrikke:Like it's I know, I know. No, and also something else that we've talked about. I mean, you look at this, the the coders of the world, right? There's so many um uh React developers out there, there's so many pro coders out there, and why coding is such a big deal. I find if I want to kind of monetize on my skills that I have today and to see where we're lacking going forward, it is actually that built-in experience that I have as 15 years of doing this job and being in this space and applying that to the advisory role, the architect role, the the knowing, like I said, the what to do. That is more an acquired skill. And it's not so easy to vibe your way there. No. Right. So I I just looking at the overall work force and where I stand out and where I'm special and kind of going in that direction, I think, and then actually also then enabling the pro-coders, because I I work with a big partner. We have so many front-end developers, brilliant React developers that know this so much better than I do, maybe finding it harder to find project these days because a lot of the customers that we have think that they can do a lot themselves. So me being actually enabling the customers to get into the new project and thinking in a new way and actually then getting into the project, that will then um mean that the React developers have some more exciting projects to work on. So I think, yeah, it's um it's still a work in progress. Uh, but I do love the tech as well. I I realize that. So I'm gonna be bored out of my mind and and you know, go crazy if I'm not fingers on keyboard, like I said, touching the code, fiddling with it. I absolutely love it. It gets gets me going. So I need to do that as well. Um because that's just how I roll. But uh I don't think that's gonna be my priority.
Nick:Yep. Yeah, it's it's it, yeah, definitely interesting times.
Ulrikke:Oh, yeah. So we kind of touched on it a little bit. So 2026. You always say in the beginning of the year, this year I'm gonna not go to all the things. I'm gonna look at my travel schedule, but I know that 2026 is probably gonna be your busiest year yet. So, how what do you kind of hope for for the new year? And this is where you get to to set some um, what is it called, new year resolutions for yourself that you can break down the line.
Nick:Well, I mean, you know me, I'm always goal setting. I always got plans, I always have ideas, I have a bucket list of things that I want to do. Um it's it's interesting. So yeah, no, that this year, in terms of my overall goal, I definitely want to up the YouTube game. Um, I'm making a public statement here. Noticed, if anybody noticed, I was posting a lot on this channel, the Boost channel, like a lot of my YouTube videos. Around the summer, I shifted off back into my own channel again. Um, I haven't posted since September, but that will change. Um, I have a few different ideas for a couple different things, but basically that's really one uh I'm seeing where there's a lot of content, there's a lot of opportunity there for doing content. But for me, this is something I enjoy doing. I enjoy putting the videos together. I enjoy kind of the editing process. Of course, with AI, it helps with a lot of different things. And so this is my my overall kind of plan for 2026 is to kind of build out that channel. Uh, a couple other, I have a couple other side channel ideas as well. You know me, I can't just do one thing. And I wish you could, you know. Um I know. Um, so there's that. Definitely some of these conferences. I I'm trying to be a little bit more um pragmatic around that too. But of course, already this year of there's at least three or four trips planned um um up until July. Nicely, though, that some of these conferences in terms of timing are kind of coming together. I am not applying to certain conferences. For example, DynamicsCon is one that I went to the last two years. Um, not going to do it this year, just for a couple of reasons. Timing doesn't work out, and sorry to the organizers of DynamicsCon, but I'm a once a year at max to going to Las Vegas. It's just uh it's that you know, it's it's a it's a it's it's all right, but it's just sort of it's eating a friend of mine described it once. It's like eating Kentucky fried chicken. You get a craving once a year, you have it, you're good. You're good for a year. Yeah, um definitely. And then there's a few others that I'm not going to um that I didn't, I've never been to, for instance, the European Um Collaboration Summit, I think it's called. It's in mid-May. I know a lot of our friends are going. I'm seeing on LinkedIn that they've been accepted as speakers. Uh, won't be at that one, but I will be um planning going to Tallinn um to MVP summit, of course, Color Cloud, Canadian Power Platform Summit. Yeah, plan to be there. Um, we got quite the You're organizing, so I'm not sure.
Ulrikke:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Nick:We got quite the I'm gonna be there. Yay! Yeah, it's gonna be pretty cool. We have a lot of things planned, of course, workshops, uh, course dynamics uh the the folks that put on Dynamics Con are having a DynamicsCon regional the day before. So it's gonna be a great weekend of business apps right before the MVP summit. Um and then yeah, Dynamics Minds, um, European Power Platform Conference as well. Thankfully, one comes one week right after the other, so that helps travel.
Ulrikke:Yeah.
Nick:And uh yeah, we'll see what the fall brings after that. But that's the the spring plan anyway for travel. And then yeah, there is some power lifting, of course, kind of mixed into there as well. So again, this as every year I'm hoping to get some PRs, um, focusing on my training, um, trying to always do a little bit better than before, continue improving as well. So there's always that. And I need to, like everybody else, you know, lose a bit of weight, drink a little less, eat a little bit better, you know, get some more sunshine. Um, all the things I've been trying to do and just having a new year just sort of reiterates um point that point to continue on. Yeah.
Ulrikke:So yeah, I think that goes for a lot of us. Um, and also you, you know, the the just kind of this is bringing 2025 to a close. But then I I and I and I tried to stay present, but it's hard when you because it it's just a few weeks away. We have ACDC, we have Tallinn, I'm going to Dublin, um, and then a little bit of a break before, you know, um, uh, like you said, uh CPPS in Canada and then MVP Summit and then Color Cloud, and then you have May. So I know that I'm kind of I'm I'm holding my breath a little bit and just trying to get a bit of a head start into the all the crazy um that's coming, uh, and and and also trying to be present here and to relax a little bit. So this break has been good. I had a really busy fall and November and December, as I touched on last time, is a bit of a rough patch for me, but I got through. Um, I signed up to a gym and I'm now running and going to the gym, and I'm outside getting my sunshine and I'm with the kids and I'm having fun. So I've kind of I got the break that I needed. So I'm kind of ready to have can dive in. I have some, I'm doing some traveling this week, so I'll have some time on the train and I can't wait to kind of get started on the sessions and prep for the things. And that's early for me. It's two, three weeks away, and I'm already kind of diving into it, which feels really good. And before Christmas break, I was dreading it and I didn't want to open my laptop. So I've I've done well in terms of resting and actually getting the space I need to feel excited about these things again because it's one thing to sign up for it, because we sign up for these things, we apply nine to six months in advance. Yeah, you don't really know where your head space is going to be at that time. And you it's like I talked to a friend of mine the other day, and he says, that's I'm now dealing with something that past Keith created for this keys, and I'm now hating on past Keith because he planned lists for future keys, and I have to live with it. And I do that all the time. I put my future self in a in a bit of a tight situation. And I think when I get there, I'm gonna be able to cope with it. And then when I get there, I'm like, dude, don't do this to yourself. Um, so it's it's it's kind of trying to to keep that balance and to manage that a little bit.
Nick:Yeah, 100%. No, I future Nick, I screw that guy over all the time. And past Nick, I could just go and slap him so many times of the various things.
Ulrikke:Yeah.
Nick:So just to kind of pull together. Oh, yeah. It always it always works out in the end. Um so any big predictions for 2026 to wrap this up?
Ulrikke:Um, that's a tough one, I think. I I don't know because it's going so crazy fast. Everything's happening so quickly. I expect there'll be more news for a power platform. I don't think we've heard the end of the story yet. I'm excited to see where they go with the IQ stack and and all that. But in terms of community, I also see a bit of um a need for change in terms of what we do for conferences. I see a lot of people trying new things, and I expect that conferences as we know them may change a little bit over time. Because I see the the need for content and to consume and to create content is shifting. I'm playing with a lot of different ideas because I'm all about changing the format. I don't want to do uh this is my PowerPoint and this is because I'm a bit sick of it. So I want to see something new, I want to have a new experience. Um, so that's kind of my predictions in terms of conferences and the way we create and consume content. I think, I hope that we are seeing different formats this year that we haven't seen before and encourage people to have an open mind and to try new things and uh yeah, and experiment. I think that's probably what I'm hoping for. And also I'm judging. So I'm now in a lot of different uh content committees for conferences this year, which means I'm also gonna be kind of rating and looking through a lot of submissions. I am looking for creative content. I'm looking for the talk show or the quiz or the you know the crazy things. Do something else, create groups and have them do assignments, do uh speed labs, whatever it is. Surprise me. And and that's what I want to see. What about you?
Nick:Oof. In terms of predictions, I predict Microsoft will rename things.
Ulrikke:Um that's so easy. Uh, this is cheap. Yeah, yep, yep, yep. But we got new icons. I don't expect them to change. So we'll see.
Nick:Yeah, well, for at least two or three weeks. But yeah. No, I don't know. I I do see, of course, like we talked about the whole of the the way apps are being built. That's changing. We talked about that earlier. To me, it's going to be interesting in terms of the overall competitive landscape. You're looking at companies like Google, um, a lot of these other startups like Lovable, Replit, N A N, and all of these. I do expect we would we may begin to see some consolidation of these companies. Like Microsoft, like you look at the Microsoft Tech, a lot of it, you know, they'll come out with a brand new feature. Like, let's look at M365 Notebooks as it's a feature that I absolutely love. I really liked it. Um, it's really changing the way I work, but it's not new. Google came out with notebook LMs. And if you look at the Google Notebook LMs, it's way ahead of where Microsoft is. Look at um, we do vibe.powerappps.com. Like I said, there's replet, there's Google Firebase, there's lovable, there's all these other tools out there. Even within Microsoft, there's GitHub Spark. So there's even competition within within all that. So I'm beginning to see like some of these smaller players might be absorbed by the bigger players just to not so much to take their tech, but just to kind of clear out the competition a little bit. Um, and you look at some of these tools, like I played this year, had the opportunity to play a little bit with N-A-N, and it's sort of like this makes Power Automate look like garbage compared to playing with what this other tool can do. So are we gonna see Microsoft kind of take what they've learned or are they going to be on a bit of a buying spree? They've not typically done that, they have in the past, but we'll see. So that's what I'm gonna see. Let's it's interesting to take a look at to see the consolidation in some of these players and see what will happen. That's sort of part of my prediction as well for 2026. And maybe it happens later, maybe it won't happen at all. But just sort of my observations. This is more like a Yuka post more than anything.
Ulrikke:Yeah, the conspiracy theory podcast. Maybe that's what we're gonna do.
Nick:Oh, maybe that's what we're gonna do.
Ulrikke:And also we're gonna rename this podcast. We talked about it for so long. We need to kind of make sure we we decide on something and rename the podcast, I think. That's also my prediction. There's gonna some things are gonna happen and change with the PowerPlatform Boost Podcast. We'll see.
Nick:Yeah, I think it's still gonna be boost something.
Ulrikke:Something something boosts.
Nick:Something something boost or boost something something, or maybe just boost. I don't know, but maybe if if people have ideas or feedback, we're totally open as well.
Ulrikke:Yeah, if I can say something, and this is a bit of a, you know, it's something you're grateful for, something you want to change. I want to hear more from our listeners. I want to hear more from you at home. I want to hear more about where you're listening to us, when, and what kind of, you know, what you do, you listen at triple speed, or when do you want more? What would you want less of? And uh yeah, just general feedback. I want to hear more from you guys because I know that you have opinions and we're all about it. So just uh let us know.
Nick:And we can see by the stats you are listening or watching. I I look at Spotify, I look at the the the stats we see on uh Buzz Sprout, which we use, I look at the views on YouTube, like you know, we're not into the hundreds of thousands, but we know that there are quite a number of you that are watching and listening. So definitely please give us feedback. What can we do better? What what do you hate? Uh we're all we're all good. We're big kids, we can take it.
Ulrikke:Yeah, definitely. Um and also uh please share this podcast with a friend or a colleague or someone you think it could be beneficial for. Because I think we've reached a point where we don't reach more people on our own because our networks are now kind of at max, kind of maxed out. They all know about us. So if we're gonna grow this podcast, we need your help. So if you think anyone can benefit from hearing our rants and news and updates and from our little echo chamber, then please share this with someone um so that they can also benefit. So that's kind of uh my wish for the new year at least.
Nick:Awesome. All right, well, have yourself happy new year. Sure.
Ulrikke:Thank you. And so do to you too. And a great start to 2026. And we will be back the second week of January, I think. That sounds about right.
Nick:Sounds about right. I didn't throw the data in there. Normally I do that. It will be January something something. Yeah. We'll be there.
Ulrikke:Should be easy math, but you know. All right, guys. Have a lovely time over New Year's and I'll catch you guys later. Okay.
Nick:Bye bye.
Ulrikke:Bye bye. Thanks for listening. And if you like this episode, please make sure to share it with your friends and colleagues in the community. Make sure to leave a rating and review your favorite streaming service and makes it easier for others to find us. Follow us on the social media platforms and make sure you don't miss an episode. Thanks for listening to the Power Platform Boost podcast with your hosts, Ulrika Ackerbeck and Nick Dolman, and see you next time for your timely boost of Par Platform News.
