Angelo Gulisano's Path: From Coding Passion to Power Platform Leadership

Mark Smith: 0:37
Welcome to the MVP show. My intention is that you listen to the stories of these MVP guests and are inspired to become an MVP and bring value to the world through your skills. If you have not checked it out already, I do a YouTube series called how to Become an MVP. The link is in the show notes. With that, let's get on with the show. Today's guest is from the wonderful country of Italy. Just quietly, my wife and I's favorite country in the world if we weren't living where we were would be Italy. He is currently working as a self-employed consultant, focusing on Microsoft 365 and the Power Platform. He was first awarded as MVP in 2023. He's curious and passionate about problem solving. I love that word, curious. He also loves traveling and meeting new people. You can find links to his bio and socials in the show notes for this episode. Welcome to the show, Angelo.

Angelo Gulisano: 1:38
Hi, hi, Thank you for inviting me. I'm really really happy for this.

Mark Smith: 1:43
Excellent, angelo, you live in the most amazing part of the world outside of where I live, so much so that I'm coming to live in Italy for at least a month to six weeks next year with my family, just because there's so many conferences and stuff going on that I want to get involved with, and it's a long way to fly from New Zealand all the way to where you are. So we thought, hey, why don't we make Italy our base for whatever we do across Europe for those six weeks? But tell me about what part of Italy you're in.

Angelo Gulisano: 2:15
So, yeah, I live in Italy. I live in a small town around 100 kilometers north of Milan, in a quiet area surrounded by nature, near the Italian Alps, so I think this location is really, really beautiful and peaceful.

Mark Smith: 2:37
Sounds amazing, like everything in Italy. Tell me food, family and fun. What do you? Tell us a bit about your family, what do you do, what's your favorite food and if there's any cuisine that you recommend that I should partake of next time in Italy, in Italy, and then do you do for fun, so kind of like everything that you don't do as part of your job, tell us a bit about that.

Angelo Gulisano: 2:59
I really enjoy Italian food, of course, especially pasta and pizza topped with cheese or mushroom. I can suggest you pasta alla carbonara if you come back to Italy again, and I also have a soft spot for hamburgers. It's not Italian food, typical Italian food, but I like it. And on the family side, I've been happily married to my wife for 11 years this year and I am a handful of two new few whom I absolutely adore. And from the fun side, I am passionate about music. I play guitar and I'm currently trying to learn piano, but I don't have much time to spend on this activity, unfortunately, and having true is quite a challenging activity, so it's really difficult. I also love to participate as a speaker at conferences where I can share knowledge and experience and especially meet new people who inspire me. It's a fulfilling way to combine my professional expertise with my personal interest, and then I can give you other information. I go to gym when I have time, so basically, I'm not a really supportive person. Basically, I go to gym one day a week.

Mark Smith: 4:59
Yes, this is cool. This is cool hearing your story. How big is the Power Platform community in Italy?

Angelo Gulisano: 5:10
We have a community in the north of Italy. We have a community in the north of Italy.

Mark Smith: 5:15
I'm also part of Power Platform Bootcamp Organizator and I love the community because we try to help each other If you have a question or problems, other if you have a question or problems and we help each other to our journaling challenges, like in in business applications right which, uh, is where I sit as well as an mvp. One of the longest standing mvps in our community is Giorgio, and you know he's from the south of Italy. Have you met him? Do you know who he is?

Angelo Gulisano: 6:05
What is his name?

Mark Smith: 6:06
I knew you were going to ask me that. It's impressive for me that I can remember that it's Giorgio. Now you're asking me to remember his last name. Hang on, I will look it up while we talk. He's, I think, one of the longest standing MVPs in business application maybe 15, 16 years. He owns his own company down there. He runs a business that and he's done a lot in the community in Italy and across Europe as well. Me many times. I need to visit the south of italy, um, have a proper pizza that he reckons they make the best, best pizza in the world down there, and uh, um, yeah, so I'm looking forward. Hopefully I'll get to catch up with him next year. Just depends on timing, because I know he does a lot of travel as well. Um, what was your journey into it? How? How did you decide IT was a career that you wanted to do?

Angelo Gulisano: 7:14
Well, I started to use my first computer when I was a child. I love programming and I'm always passionate about technologies, software developing and what all around technologies. I currently work as a self-employee consultant. My specializing area is power platform, of course, and also SharePoint platform, of course, and also SharePoint, and I am in IT industry around 16, 17 years. So I have 17 years in IT industry as experience and I am also Microsoft certified and trained. And I started my current as an AspNet and SQL Server developer with NET C Sharp and then I moved my focus on SharePoint from 2010. And I am on Power Platform from four years five years when it was available.

Mark Smith: 8:36
So who introduced you first to the Power Platform? What was the first time in your memory that you come across the Power Platform from your perspective?

Angelo Gulisano: 8:46

started to develop some application to try the platform when the platform was published for the first time and I was impressed to the simplicity and the possibility to create a quick application and the possibility to quickly develop and deliver application for customer. But I love the possibility to focus on the business processes.

Mark Smith: 10:11
But how did you first hear about the Power Platform? Can you remember the day, kind of, when you first came across it?

Angelo Gulisano: 10:17
I don't remember it was around, you don't remember? No, I don't remember. It was around four years ago or five years ago.

Mark Smith: 10:27
You're freelancing right. How long have you been a freelancer? One year.

Angelo Gulisano: 10:31
One year in October. Why did long have you been a freelancer? One year, one year in.

Mark Smith: 10:33
October. Why did you decide to become a freelancer?

Angelo Gulisano: 10:38
After I went to MVP, because I like to work for myself, because I can choose I can choose the project, project, I can choose the customer and basically I'm. I work for passion, I love my, my job, so I like to work for myself. And when I become an SMVP, I decided to change after 15 years to switch to self-employee consultant.

Mark Smith: 11:23
And so I get a lot of questions from people asking about becoming a freelancer and and and like. One of the big questions is um, how do you decide to make that first move? Like because people are worried, right, if you've got a mortgage and your family and things like that, the the security that you get from working for a company goes away, right, you're now you and it's only you, and you have to stand out in the world. Did you have those fears, you know, at the start, when you decided to go freelance?

Angelo Gulisano: 12:02
I understand the question. I was scared too, but I think that if you have a lot of competence, you should focus on the competence, and when you know what you do, I think you can't have a problem Because you have the focus, you have the knowledge from your side and when you have knowledge you can do what you want.

Mark Smith: 12:37
I like this. I like this Now. When we talked about Giorgio before, it's Giorgio Garcia Andrea is his name. And then my other good friend is Guido. Do you know Guido?

Angelo Gulisano: 12:59
No, I don't know.

Mark Smith: 13:01
These two guys have been two MVPs in Italy for as long as I can remember.

Angelo Gulisano: 13:07
I am looking to the LinkedIn lincoln, but I I don't know, I don't know this guy.

Mark Smith: 13:15
Okay, georgio garcia agreda have you got him yeah?

Angelo Gulisano: 13:22
no, uh, I.

Mark Smith: 13:24
I see this guy for the first time he's been a, he's a, he's been a mvp for 17 years, wow, wow, like that's OG man, that's like right from the beginning. And then Guido, he's another legend. 10 years.

Angelo Gulisano: 13:39
He's a legend, yeah.

Mark Smith: 13:41
Yeah, guido, in the program. So let's go back to freelancing, because the next big question I get constantly from folks is I don't sell. How do I sell myself Like I'm not a seller? Right, I'm really good at my skills, I'm really good at knowing what I know, but I don't know how to market so that people know who I am and that I'm available, and then I don't know. Then how do you? Yeah, so let's ask that one first of all how do you pick up new clients, how do you make them aware that you exist, that you have this specific set of skills and how you can help them?

Angelo Gulisano: 14:29
So it's not a simple task to serve yourself, because it's another kind of skill. It's another kind of skill because, basically, we are technical people in love with technical technologies. So from my point of view, I used to do it before, but for the company. So it's not a big jump for me, but I know it's not simple because it's not a hard skill, it's a soft skill and you should work on your soft skill every day. I think also, to be part of a community, of a community. If you do a lot of conferences, a lot of article, a lot of articles, blog posts on the internet, so customers see your face, see your activity, can help to sell yourself easily, in my opinion.

Mark Smith: 15:49
So let me just check this. So your customer, you've got only one customer.

Angelo Gulisano: 15:55
No, I spent most of my time for the company of my friend Fabio Franzini. He's also a famous Italian MVP. But I have other customers, italian MVP, but I have other customers and they met me from previous experience or from conferences and for this reason it's too simple to work for them and to find other customers, to work for them and to find other customers.

Mark Smith: 16:32
Very interesting. I noticed that you did a post recently and it was around the design kit, the Creator Kit.

Angelo Gulisano: 16:47
sorry, oh yes, the Creator Kit. Yes, yes, I studied the Creator Kit deeply, especially before the modern controls coming, because I like Power Apps. But I know some of my customers don't like the graphical aspect of the applications. So for this reason I found the Creator Kit and I started to do a lot of conference, a lot of speech session around the Creator Kit, because I used it for most of my application. Of course, Creator Kit is based on the same graphical aspect of Microsoft 365. So it's too simple to show your application created. So it's too simple to show your application created with the Creator Kit in the Microsoft 365 context. So I really like it and, to be honest, I use it also today for some of my application. For example, I use the detail list Because I think they give me the possibility to do the same user experience of, for example, SharePoint list, Because it uses the same graphical components. So for my customer, it is too simple to use my application with the same graphical aspect of Microsoft 365.

Mark Smith: 18:34
So do you get into using Figma at all?

Angelo Gulisano: 18:37
No, I don't use it. No, I know, but I don't use it.

Mark Smith: 18:44
I think, when it comes to UI, Figma is the most unbelievable compelling tool that you should have if you want to create amazing UI on Power Apps.

Angelo Gulisano: 18:57
Wow, I should study it sooner or later.

Mark Smith: 19:03
Yeah, the reason like I had a guy on a call this morning who I did a module on ui and ux and and part of my 90 day mentoring challenge and I showed him sorry and part of what I show there is a figma drawing of an app that everybody that looks at it goes man, that's amazing. I bet you can't build that in power apps. And then in the next screen I bring up, as I bring up, the power app. The Power App is identical to the Figma design and people are just like I didn't know Power Apps could look this good, I did not know that that is. It looks like a proper iPhone application or Android application. It doesn't look like a Power App, right and so.

Mark Smith: 19:46
But I have always used for people that really know Figma well, you've got to get really and are creative and stuff. And then what I found is that when I took those Figma designs to then my development team, my Power App development team, the first thing they were saying, oh, you can't do that. And I'm like, give it a go, try and do everything that's in this interface and you tell me, guess what? Not a single thing they couldn't do every so when I switch and people go oh my gosh, like I'll interact with the app. It's like here's a fully functional app that's the figma, and they cannot believe that that is the app because it looks so identical to the design that was done on Figma.

Angelo Gulisano: 20:33
Wow interesting. Should I try it? Yeah, you should try it. Do try it.

Mark Smith: 20:40
I see you speak at a lot of conferences. You have a lot of events that you cover. Do you enjoy public speaking?

Angelo Gulisano: 20:47
Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely. I also have nine speaking sessions this year, so yeah, I'm really a bit tired, but I like it. I like to share my experience. I like to compare me with other people, share knowledge, collaborate with others. I think this is an opportunity to grow both personally and professionally, I I really like it.

Mark Smith: 21:34
yeah, do you have any kind of habit or process that you go through when preparing to do a presentation? And I'm talking about how do you think about a topic? How do you then break down that topic? How do you, you know, decide? Am I going to do a demo here? Am I going to have an illustration of my concept here? Am I just having text on slides? How do you go through that process? How does it work for you?

Angelo Gulisano: 21:58
basically, I try to get idea from my job. So if I create a particular app or if I resolve a particular business case with a particular technologies or particular path, I try to extrapolate this idea and propose a speaking session. Then, if the speaking session is accepted, I usually try to study and I'm looking for other information, other articles around this path or around this technology and then, especially if I should deliver my session in English I started to prepare it one week before because I'm not comfortable with English- so much more difficult, right when English is a second language, and I fully respect people that are multilingual in this.

Mark Smith: 23:14
Anyhow, that's all we've got time for. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Perhaps I'll get to meet you in person when I'm in Italy. We might be able to have a pasta together or something like that, but it's been a pleasure talking to you, angelo.

Angelo Gulisano: 23:28
Oh, also for me, let, but it's been a pleasure talking to you, angelo. Oh, also for me. Let me know when you come back to Italy.

Mark Smith: 23:36
Hey, thanks for listening. I'm your host business application MVP Mark Smith, otherwise known as the NZ365 guy. If you like the show and want to be a supporter, check out buymeacoffeecom forward slash nz365guide. Thanks again and see you next time. Thank you.