Ståle Hansen, founder of CloudWay, talks about CloudWay, how we work, the bookchapter he has written and common misconceptions clients might have when integrating with the Microsoft cloud.
Below is a recap of the interview, while the full article can be read on Microsoft Tech Community.
Push on the “+” button to see a short version of his answers.
My role as Founder, CEO and Principal Cloud Architect at CloudWay AS is to enable my colleagues to reach their full potential in whatever direction they want to go. I want to share my experience and help them as a mentor and coach and remove blockers so that they can make a difference as speakers, bloggers, trainers, and succeed as consultants at the same time.
I believe that sharing knowledge and helping others will bring out the \”helpers high\” as Jason Silva puts it. That is when you get the energy to do more, when others benefit from your tips and tricks, it is a great feedback loop.
I started CloudWay AS in December 2016 and already we are three people, focusing on secure productivity.
When facing a complex tech problem, it is important to start from the inside out and always eliminate known factors as soon as possible.
At the same time, it is important to break down a problem into individual components.
I always focus on the end-goal, keeping end-users in flow and make sure features works as intended. Knowing the prerequisites for each feature is key to breaking it down to individual components.
I love sharing my knowledge and lessons learned at industry events. Meeting likeminded people that are interested in Office 365 is always fun and we can have some good discussions.
Lately I have been sharing my thoughts on how to be productive using OneNote and the feedback was overwhelming with comments such as life changing and that this was a technique to be implemented right away.
When I was researching Office 365 Groups, I had difficulty finding useful information since neither groups nor Office 365 is something new.
Then I came across the digital book, Office 365 for IT Pros, which is updated every week.
The authors did a great job reflecting on each possible approach and putting them in context.
I thought this was a great source of information and wondered if there were any areas where I could contribute and found that the there was not much content on Skype for Business Online, which is one of my primary areas of expertise.
I asked the authors, Tony Redmond, Michael Van Horenbeeck and Paul Cunningham, if they wanted help in that area and I ended up writing a dedicated chapter that I keep up to date as well as help keep the rest of the content up to date.
What I have learned over a long career in IT is not to make assumptions. Assuming that an integration works in the way you think rarely ends well.
As IT Pros we do not have the same freedom to tweak technology the way we used to, we need to follow supported standards and recommended approaches, which are changing fast.
By looking at the wanted result we need to find the correct approach, sometimes it seems there are multiple different ways to get you there, but only one or two that will. Having the knowledge and insights to find the correct approach is the way to go forward, and that is why I think that people with passion for learning are a great asset in today\’s cloud IT Pro world.
