Barret Blake
#MicrosoftMVP, speaker, husband, father, solutions architect, manager, developer, gamer, Buckeyes fan, model railroader
Columbus, Ohio, United States
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Microsoft MVP, husband, father, speaker, mentor, writer, solutions architect, former manager, developer, gamer, Buckeyes fan, model railroader. When I'm not doing all that other stuff I also occasionally develop applications. Find links to my previous speaking, podcasts and sessions at my website: https://barretblake.dev
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Revolutionizing Business Processes with Power Automate RPA
We all have to deal with them, those legacy desktop applications that are too important to get rid of, but not important enough to replace, the kind of application where someone has to open it up and click a few buttons a couple times a day.
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is transforming the way businesses operate, letting us automate those ridiculous legacy app processes. And Power Automate RPA is at the forefront of this revolution. In this talk, we'll explore the features and capabilities of Power Automate RPA and show how it can be used to automate repetitive and time-consuming tasks with those legacy applications. From automating legacy applications, to reducing errors, to increasing efficiency, we'll cover the benefits of RPA and demonstrate how Power Automate RPA can be used to improve business processes.
Whether you're a business leader, IT professional, or developer, this talk will provide valuable insights and best practices for leveraging Power Automate RPA to drive innovation and growth in your organization.
Unlocking the Power of Data Movement with ETL: Simplify, Transform, and Scale
Data is everywhere. It’s scattered across different systems, platforms, and tools, creating an overwhelming web of disconnected information. For businesses to harness its true potential, they need to move that data seamlessly between systems. But how do you tackle the mess of mismatched formats, data silos, and complex integrations?
That’s where ETL comes in. ETL—Extract, Transform, Load—makes moving and transforming massive amounts of data a breeze. It's the secret sauce that connects your data, ensuring it’s where it needs to be, in the right format, and ready for use.
In this session, we’ll explore how ETL systems can simplify these complex data interactions and streamline the flow of information between systems. With real-world examples from Azure Data Factory, we’ll dive deep into how ETL processes can be leveraged to automate data movement, transform raw information, and load it into systems for actionable insights.
By the end of the session, you'll have a clear understanding of how to harness the full power of ETL to take your data integration to the next level—making your systems smarter, faster, and more connected than ever before!
A Hands-On Overview to Building AI Solutions with AI Builder
Whether it's generating automated interactive chat experiences or automating business processes, AI is the future of business software. AI Builder is a powerful tool for organizations looking to incorporate the power of AI into their business processes.
In this talk, we'll explore the key features and capabilities of Power Automate's AI Builder and demonstrate how it can be used to build and deploy AI models quickly and easily. From automating tedious tasks to enhancing customer experiences, we'll examine the various use cases for AI Builder and show how it can help organizations drive innovation and growth. Whether you're new to AI or looking to expand your knowledge, this talk will provide valuable insights and best practices for using AI Builder to unlock the full potential of artificial intelligence to automate your work processes.
Soft Skills for Developers: The Key to Success in Tech
Technical skills may get your foot in the door—but it’s soft skills that open the next one. In today’s fast-paced, collaborative, and remote-friendly work environments, developers who can communicate clearly, solve problems creatively, and work well with others have a distinct advantage.
In this session, we’ll dive into the core soft skills that elevate developers from good to great: communication, collaboration, adaptability, time management, and emotional intelligence. You’ll learn why these skills matter just as much as your technical stack—and how to start building them intentionally.
Whether you're early in your career or a seasoned pro looking to grow into leadership, you'll walk away with practical techniques to strengthen your interpersonal toolkit, improve team dynamics, and thrive in any organization.
Rediscovering Entity Framework Core: Speed, Flexibility, and Power for Modern Development
Are you tired of wrestling with data access layers and managing complex database interactions in your applications? It’s time to give Entity Framework Core (EF Core) another look. This session will show you how EF Core has evolved and why it’s now an even more powerful and flexible tool for modern application development.
Whether you’re building cloud-native apps, microservices, or just looking for a faster and more efficient way to interact with databases, EF Core has significantly improved in performance, scalability, and ease of use. We’ll dive into the latest features, optimizations, and best practices that make EF Core an indispensable tool for developers in today’s fast-paced world.
From raw performance gains to advanced querying capabilities, to the flexibility of working with various databases (SQL Server, SQLite, PostgreSQL, and more), EF Core has become a highly capable, cross-platform solution for all your data access needs.
In this session, we’ll explore the latest EF Core performance enhancements, how they can supercharge your apps, and how to leverage new features like improved raw SQL support, better LINQ performance, and advanced migrations. We'll also talk tips and tricks for making the most of EF Core in your projects, including best practices for working with complex models and optimizing queries.
If you’ve written off EF Core in the past, this session will change your mind. Come see why it’s time to give EF Core a second chance and why it might just be the perfect fit for your next project!
Building Distributed Apps in Minutes with .NET Aspire: Simplifying Complexity
Building and managing complex, distributed applications can often feel like a never-ending puzzle, where aligning all the different components to work together smoothly takes days—sometimes even weeks—of painstaking effort. But what if there was an easier way?
Enter .NET Aspire. Now generally available, this cloud-ready framework is your secret weapon for building distributed applications quickly and effortlessly. With powerful orchestration tools, pre-built components, and seamless integration capabilities, .NET Aspire handles the heavy lifting, allowing you to focus on what truly matters. It effortlessly ties together web interfaces, data sources, APIs, messaging systems, caching solutions, and more, all with minimal effort on your part.
In this session, we’ll explore how .NET Aspire simplifies the development process, walking you through its core features and showing you how to set up the foundational framework of your next distributed application in just minutes. Get ready to transform the way you build with .NET Aspire!
Tales From The Trenches: Leading A Dev Team Is Hard
Let's face it, being a leader is tough. Whether it's wrangling the complexities of projects large and small, keeping your team members on task and their skills sharp, ensuring your clients are happy, or balancing all that with keeping your own boss happy, there's a lot on your plate.
In this session, using real-world examples from my own 20+ years of leadership experience in and out of tech, we'll delve into common hurdles such as maintaining morale, managing conflicting priorities, dealing with HR issues, and more, all while making sure you're keeping in line with your organizational goals.
So join me as we discuss practical strategies for overcoming these challenges to ensure the growth and success of your own development team.
Mastering Code Reviews: Fundamentals for Better Collaboration and Quality
Code reviews are an essential part of the development process, but how often do we pause and think about how to make them truly effective? In this session, we’ll explore the core principles of good code reviews that lead to better collaboration, higher-quality code, and a more cohesive development team.
Whether you're new to code reviews or looking to refine your process, we’ll dive into the key elements that make a code review valuable—not just for the author of the code, but for the whole team. We’ll cover how to foster a positive and constructive review culture, create clear guidelines for reviewing, and identify the common pitfalls to avoid.
In this session we'll focus on developing the proper mindset for code reviews, best practices for reviewers and developers, tips on how to present feedback to promote teamwork and improvement, and leveraging tools to streamline the process and reduce friction.
Whether you’re a developer looking to improve your review skills or a team lead building a healthy review culture, this session will give you the practical strategies to make every code review more effective, efficient, and beneficial for your entire team. Let’s build better code together—one review at a time!
Enhancing Your Workflows with Copilot in Microsoft Power Automate
Copilot all the things!
AI is revolutionizing automation, and Microsoft Power Automate is leading the charge with their implementation of Copilot. This session will dive into how Copilot enhances the Power Automate workflow paradigm by enabling users to build, edit, enhance, and optimize their flows using natural language interactions. Whether you're new to automation in general or Power Automate in particular, we'll walk through how to leverage the AI of Copilot to streamline your workflow processes, reduce your development time, and increase your efficiency.
We'll cover some of the key features of Copilot like AI-assisted flow generation and best practices for integrating this assistant into your automation efforts. Using live demonstrations and real-world examples, you'll see first-hand how Copilot can help you automate repetitive tasks, connect to your internal and external apps, and accelerate the automation of your business processes--all without needing a deep technical background.
So join me as we explore how Copilot-powered automation can save you time, boost your productivity, and empower the users across your organization to make themselves more efficient.
From Code to Community: A Developer's Journey into Speaking, Content, and Community Involvement
You’ve spent years honing your skills as a developer, but now you’re wondering how to take the next step and share your knowledge. Whether it’s writing blog posts, speaking at conferences and meetups, mentoring others, or building your brand online, becoming involved in the developer community can be both fulfilling and career-changing.
In this session, we’ll break down how any developer—regardless of experience level—can start contributing to the broader tech ecosystem. You’ll learn practical tips for:
--Finding your voice and creating technical content (blogs, videos, open source contributions)
--Preparing and submitting your first talk (and surviving the nerves!)
--Engaging with local and global developer communities
--Building credibility and growing your network without burning out
This talk isn’t about being famous or chasing followers—it’s about creating impact, forming connections, and giving back to the community that helped shape you. Whether you’re introverted, unsure where to start, or simply looking for a way to level up, you’ll walk away with actionable steps to start your journey. And maybe build up some confidence along the way.
You Get Nothing Without Data: Adding Database Functionality to .NET Aspire
From SQL Server and PostgreSQL to CosmosDB, most applications are meaningless without data. In this session, we’ll explore how to seamlessly bring database support into your .NET Aspire projects—whether you’re working with containerized services or cloud-hosted databases.
You’ll learn practical techniques and proven best practices for configuring connections, managing secrets, and integrating data access layers using Entity Framework Core or Dapper. Through real-world examples, we’ll cover how to structure projects for maintainability, manage schema migrations, seed data, and architect for scalability in modern, distributed environments.
Whether you're building APIs, microservices, or cloud-native apps, this session will equip you with the tools to make your .NET Aspire applications truly data-driven.
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Agents & Copilot are defining the future of Dynamics, CRM, Power Platform, Azure, Fabric and more, explore and discover what this means to you at Community Summit, the largest Microsoft Business Applications User Conference on the planet
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Building Distributed Apps in Minutes with .NET Aspire: Simplifying Complexity
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