Time for something else...

Hi folks, this is my first blog post ever, so bear with me... :)

I work in a big Belgian IT company. We have about 1200 employees and deliver all kinds of IT services, going from hardware to software. You name it, we've got it! :)

I started working there back in 2001. I still remember this very clearly. September 1st was my first day at a customer after months of training. Back then I used to develop in OpenEdge Progress.

Everybody still knows exactly where he was on 9/11 when the planes crashed into the WTC in New York. Well, I was at work at that customer...

I've worked full time with this customer for 5 years before I moved back to the office to do some customer support. This was all in function of a self developed ERP system. I slowly moved from supporting customers to doing installations, some reporting, business intelligence, ... I love the more technical aspect of the work.

After 10-years, and doing installations blindfolded, it was time for me to do something else... An opportunity came along to switch to the Microsoft Dynamics AX unit of our company. Up until then I haven't done any object-oriented programming. Dynamics AX was an excellent opportunity for me to get some hands-on experience. Especially when it was in a project with the customer I have worked with at the start of my career. I knew this customer very good so this was a bonus.

So X++, Dynamics AX's own programming language, was my first OO-language. It took some time to get a feeling with how to use this, and I'm sure I'm still learning new stuff everyday, but it was a major step up from OpenEdge Progress. Don't get me wrong, I loved to work in Progress, and Progress nowadays also does OO, but I had a feeling that if I wanted to extend my IT-career for some decades to come, I needed to do something else, and so I did.

After 2 years working in the AX-unit, another opportunity came along. Due to too little work in the pipeline and because of this, too much people in our unit, some of us were asked if we were interested in switching to something else within the company. I had a few conversations with some people and was told the Microsoft Dynamics CRM unit was actively looking for consultants. I had a meeting with a manager of the CRM unit and he convinced me. I believe this is another step forward in my career.

This is the point where I am today. Since September 1st, exactly 13 years after my career started at this company, I'm in a new unit and am studying hard to tackle the technical hurdles CRM covers.

I already have two Microsoft exams done: Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Applications and Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Customizations & Configuration.

Next up is a MOC of the .NET fundamentals. After that there is a 5 day C# course. After that there is HTML5 and JavaScript. This is a lot to cover in only a couple of weeks. The real experience will come when I'm doing the real work on projects. Looking forward to that.

I've started this blog because of several reasons: I was thinking of doing a blog for some time now, but didn't know about what I should blog. So this new move in my career was an excellent opportunity: let others view/read the perspective of a CRM-newbie, but well-seasoned IT consultant. Let people know I am struggling with along the way and how I deal with these hurdles.

So, take a subscription on this blog and ride with me!

Until next time!