DNN Monthly Chat - 2022 Reunion

Jan 29, 2022

SUMMARY

0:00 hello hello alex oliver here this says the reunion of the dnn monthly chats or
0:07 as my buddy joe says whatever happened to those clowns
0:13 and for with me i have joe craig scott wilkinson mike meltzer and a special
0:20 guest dave poindexter um let's start i guess that before we
0:25 catch up before each one of us has a chance to to talk about our own stuff
0:31 i think that it's fair to start with the with with the common grounds of what
0:38 brought us all together initially and still is our i'd say our linchpin let's
0:44 put it this way about the union you know let's let's talk a little bit about dean let's start there before before we go around
0:52 and for that topic it's one of the the reasons why i have
0:58 this special guest here because i know that our special guest is still very connected to the community
1:04 and i would like to invite to ask david how is everything in
1:11 let dna see um let me kind of look at a few sites here real quick anderson i don't know
1:17 i can i can step back i can be more specific what has been happening with dnn
1:23 you can you can pick the time frame but my curiosity is about the last two and a half years because
1:29 we have stopped doing the recordings and been more active at least myself in the past two and a half years so
1:36 mid 2019 again i don't expect you to record oh mid 2019 it was just like this
1:42 but think about the recent i'd say the recent months and how are things
1:47 doing with dna well first of all i think things are going really great i was just joking by the way
1:54 i feel like really you know i guess there's different aspects of it there's the technical aspect of it
2:00 and i can touch on that for just a second but you know really at a 30 000 foot level i think
2:07 you know you remember i don't know maybe four years ago or so um we were all wondering
2:14 is dn going to live is it dying is you know what is going on you know what what
2:21 should we should we be looking elsewhere you know i mean it was a common conversation right
2:27 um it shifted big time you know it took a long time
2:33 to really shift but it has shifted and it's been in a what i would call the last two years has been a more stable
2:40 state um because from a technology standpoint there's been constant releases
2:46 a stability of the platform security has been top of mind so you
2:52 know getting us to a point to where we're really more stable as a platform
2:58 and um have more confidence in utilizing it on sites
3:03 and the community i think is actually growing
3:09 um that's maybe a bit of a stretch you know from
3:15 probably because i hear a lot more um you know behind the scenes people talking and things like that but it's
3:20 like there's there seems to be people coming out of the woodwork that
3:26 were either a part of the platform a long time ago you know or the community a long time ago and have now found
3:33 themselves attracted back in because of that stability and that focus on security
3:40 or they uh you know there's new people that have landed in a job that they've inherited aside or something like that i
3:47 mean i've just seen a lot of activity that just was not there you know four
3:53 years ago at least we didn't know about it right um so i'm encouraged at the state of dnn
3:59 you know and where things are got it's got again guys feel free to drill david there but i i have a
4:05 follow-up here david is that question of oh are we moving to core are we not
4:12 moving to court is that question still relevant or not no that's not really relevant anymore i
4:17 mean of course it may be in some people's minds but we i guess it was
4:23 maybe a little over a year ago maybe a year and a half ago now we have actually published a few blogs
4:29 out there um mitch sellers and myself published a blog that really
4:34 was kind of a recognition of who we are and who we're going to be who we're not
4:39 going to be and that conversation really it wasn't really a decision that we made
4:46 per se it was really a decision that was made for us by microsoft just because of
4:53 the path that they took with net core and some of the things that we would not
4:59 have the option of doing like we hoped or thought originally
5:04 for some of that so um it was really just let's put this conversation to rest because it's
5:11 distracting you know we can't it's it's a solid platform as it is
5:17 on asp.net and asp.net has a longer you know life cycle than net core just
5:22 because of the way things work you know it's it's a much faster paced
5:28 framework so you know it was really just a coming coming to ourselves recognizing who we
5:34 are and who we're gonna be who we're not gonna be and just moving forward with that embracing that
5:40 you know maybe there's a path in the future i mean there's other projects that are on net core that are succeeding
5:46 and doing really well i mean our friends sean walker you know in octane they're doing well you know it's still early in
5:54 that game but that's what that platform is we're not that
5:59 you know so just recognizing that and if somebody really wants that they could go there you know and
6:06 explore that in in again i'm even though i'm into the microsoft space
6:12 but i don't know the nitty-gritty details the ins and outs of for example if we look at
6:18 asp.net does microsoft promise or there is really a long-term
6:23 vision for asp.net i mean a long term at the very least maintenance of asp.net
6:30 do you know that i mean i would say so it's much longer than the vision that they state for net core i mean
6:37 we have to be careful when reading that stuff you know because it doesn't mean that things are going to
6:42 end at that point it just means we're going to have support at least to that point
6:48 and that goal post is much further down the pike you know for
6:54 asp.net than it is.net core okay so we're gonna we're gonna go back to you david in a second again i want to
7:01 go back to a few more points about dna but i want to give a chance first of all
7:06 to see if anyone has any pointers back to david for about the end but i'm going to reconnect with dna again there are a
7:12 few other topics that i want you to get david's opinion anyone for david this point
7:21 well that was easy okay that's what makes sense okay so uh scott let's start with you then
7:29 tell me what you have been up to in the last two years again just recapping oh boy we have stopped this
7:37 uh for two and a half years now you know mid-2019 so
7:42 tell me what's new what's wonderful what's happening with you professionally let's not go personal yet
7:49 you know i have a segment for personal but professional you know oh professionally okay well uh it's hard to
7:55 it's hard to uh uncouple the two for me but okay um because my personal stuff will
8:02 be professional i guess you know that and that and vice versa but i
8:08 i left uh around this time last year uh i left blue bowl but i didn't really leave so for the
8:14 developers out there i did a soft leave or whatever you want to call it so i
8:20 still i still have like a perpetual contract with them and do some consulting but um
8:26 yeah i don't know i just i just felt like i needed a little more um a little more room to do personal
8:33 projects and other things like that but um i i uh so i you know you guys know i started
8:38 that youtube channel which you know is a kind of a side a little hobby thing but that hobby is kind of you know
8:45 eventually going to be my uh probably my um retirement pre-retirement
8:50 job that's what i'm i'm i'm working up to my pre-retirement that's how that's how it's going to work now from
8:57 now on you don't just retire you you work up to a pre-retirement career and then you use that
9:03 to retire off of the launch pads as a lunch pad you know launch pad of retirement and and if you guys know me i
9:10 i like like adderson i can't sit still so it's not like i'm gonna just sit around golfing
9:16 uh but i did some consulting i actually got a contract last year doing initially
9:23 doing dnn and azure stuff and then it morphed into salesforce so
9:30 the reason why you haven't heard from me in the dna community lately is because i'm kind of now a full-time sales force
9:37 developer uh so that's just kind of ended up
9:42 happening but um uh now i'm working full-time at a contract for a uh
9:48 an insurance company in in chicago uh that doing salesforce development but i'm i'm working from home but eventually
9:56 i want to get to the point where i'm not i love my my hermann miller chair don't get me wrong but uh my issue is i don't
10:02 like sitting for eight hours a day and i'm trying to get out of that so eventually
10:08 maybe i'll be doing more of my youtube type stuff you know
10:13 and and and develop doing that kind of stuff as well as software development but for now i'm
10:19 still a fourth time software developer i haven't gone completely insane yet despite the way i look so so
10:26 that's been it okay so when you talk about salesforce and then you find
10:33 i'm saying not a similar community but did you find a community there that you can hang on that you can
10:38 chat that you can talk i mean did you find that kind of a thing there and salesforce oh there definitely is
10:43 there's a huge community and sub communities and meetups and all that other stuff i haven't really worked into
10:50 it i don't know it's it's not really my dnn i i
10:56 felt like i needed to because it's an open source project and and and and it's
11:01 fun and and it's and that's what i wanted to do but for salesforce it's just so big and i don't know i my my
11:09 attitude now is i want to you know i want to do a good job because i always want to do a good i want to do good for
11:14 the company i work for but my vested interest in salesforce is not what my interest in dnm
11:21 it's not the same awesome awesome okay we're going to go come back to you but but we're going to
11:26 explore that youtube channel in a second i'm very curious about that let's let's go around
11:32 uh let's go mike let's go what's up two last two years actually you know
11:38 something that i forgot to me to to to add to the conversation as well is covet
11:44 has happened in the last two years now at this point in time so again a big part of our last two and a half
11:50 years was within the context of covet so mike again last two years what's up
11:56 where where dnn is in your life at this point where are you yeah um
12:01 i guess from that from a dnn standpoint like i'm uh i'm not involved nearly as much as i i have in the last few years
12:10 in using dna professionally or or from a community aspect you know to your point like when when government
12:16 happened a few years ago that was um i was at dna summit i believe like a week before two
12:21 before that and that was a you know great conference has made a lot of
12:26 networking and new people that i've never met before and then boom we had uh had a pandemic happen
12:33 and at the time you know i was um i do consulting uh i have been for last
12:39 uh you know eight or nine years and um all of a sudden you know all kinds of you know companies i've been
12:45 working with were going a different direction right like hey the world's flipping upside down you know we're not
12:50 to do that project now we're not going to go down this path right now a lot of things started to kind of come to a halt
12:56 and um i also had a little girl who's now three and uh my attention started getting
13:02 pulled in in different directions and trying to figure out what to do um so i had to pivot a couple years ago and
13:09 you know most my customers are local local customers um here in canada and i started doing uh
13:15 custom like custom.net apps not not on dnn but just kind of you know
13:20 native vanilla you know.net solutions for some of our local government uh entities
13:27 here and that ended up you know going down another path being for the last two years of building a solutions to help um
13:35 to help governments get out of um or you know digitally transform you know take manual
13:41 processes and put them online and uh and improve things and then you know maybe
13:46 four or five different projects i think kind of just end to end started you know going over that and
13:52 yeah when you have a little kid and you're working all the time it's hard to fit in much more
13:58 that's very true virtue you know guys i have to say the other day a few months ago i sent a you know a very interesting
14:04 job opportunity for our friend mike and he said man thank you but no thank you no i mean i'm
14:09 too busy i don't need anything else right now you know kind of like snobbish
14:14 but that's why that's why i'm joking about it yeah no no i don't hear you it's uh i i've uh i've been
14:21 fortunate the last last last little while that there's been a lot of a lot of work coming coming our
14:27 way uh locally and uh more and more like i work independently um and then also do
14:32 some subcontracting um but you know more than more than we have resources to take
14:38 on which is you know the lost opportunity um but you know i t is booming in a lot of
14:43 places i think and i wish i could clone myself yes i know i know the feeling like okay
14:50 mike again coming back to you in a second but let's go for
14:55 i don't know should i say the godfather i mean is that is that what scribe godfather you know kiss the ring you
15:01 know i kind of kind of think you know again joe how are you doing tell me about the last two years come on
15:07 well that that was a nice way of saying the old guy uh um yeah like mike uh you know my my last
15:15 story into the real world was dnn summit in orlando
15:22 and i came home uh
15:27 and i think i went to the uh i i think i came home on on thursday night
15:33 uh went to the office on friday and never went back
15:39 yeah that's kind of a dramatic reading of it i mean for you know i've been
15:47 working a lot from home doing my dnn consulting but uh
15:53 so last fall i actually made a
15:58 a change uh and uh have a full-time employer
16:05 uh in uh the dnn world um
16:10 um and i you know and in the modern world you don't actually work for the company
16:16 that you're working for you know there's a there's a third party involved that pays your salary and sells
16:23 your body uh but you but you tend to forget that you don't work for those well it's
16:29 called it's all it can also be called a pimp you know but that's fine that's okay yeah yeah so um so i'm actually
16:37 working for a uh large company uh
16:42 and you would recognize some of the names of the people uh involved in that
16:47 company and i was actually uh when i interviewed for the job uh i
16:53 was interviewed by the godfather of our world
16:59 and um uh the team that i joined was in the
17:06 midst of some uh changes he has uh
17:11 people rolling off and people coming in and yet several months later
17:18 uh we actually have a team that's that's
17:23 got some impressive dnn experience the job the job is working on uh
17:30 an enterprise level set of dnn things and like everybody in the world is
17:36 involved in it uh but uh yeah i probably since we're we are
17:42 recording this right or whatever and i won't mention uh names and companies
17:49 and things like that but um uh yeah it's it's really interesting uh
17:56 as as this team has developed somebody deserves some credit for going out and
18:03 hiring some really good
18:08 uh experienced talent in the dnn field you know so i'm i'm really excited about
18:15 that um yeah i used to work at the low end
18:20 you know small small customers uh small things uh you
18:26 know a small to medium-sized company's website
18:31 and i'm now working on websites that have presences from
18:36 new england to texas to california yeah um uh
18:43 so it's it's i'm seeing it i'm seeing a different uh uh side of things and and and that's
18:50 interesting uh meanwhile i'm waiting for scott to get his uh van
18:55 electrified so yeah it's it's yeah and
19:02 uh all of this done from the chair that i'm sitting in right now
19:07 so um my wife and i have not heard one another
19:17 it will be nice at some point to actually be able to see children and grandchildren again uh
19:25 although we we back in june i'm getting into the personal yes yes
19:30 i'll stop that so professionally yeah i'm still very heavily involved in dnn
19:36 and involved in the side of the dnn uh universe that's
19:42 quite different than what i have done before okay okay so joe i have i have a
19:47 question i'm really curious i think that you can help me here you can really help me here uh
19:53 i er i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna be as
19:59 subtle or tactical touching this subject as possible but it boils down to age it
20:05 boils down to reinventing yourself so i'll be honest with you i'm very
20:11 i'm very i'm in a way worried about how long how how much energy and for how long
20:19 do i have energy to keep in this space you know and sometimes i think that by 55 i'm going to be dragging myself in
20:26 like on the ground i'll be crawling i'm not even just sleep anymore my question
20:31 is how can you keep up the the interests the motivation
20:39 uh the energy level with technology that you have and again
20:46 feel free to reveal what where you are i don't want to be the one doing that but

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