Hands-On 2023 | A Year in Review
João Ferreira
Microsoft MVP | Blogger | Book Author | Speaks and Writes about SharePoint, Microsoft Teams and Microsoft 365 in the Modern Workplace | Program Manager at Appspace
Hello and welcome to the last issue of Hands-On newsletter about 2023! 👋
As we are starting a new year, I want to take a moment to thank you for your support and interest in my projects. It has been an amazing journey so far, and I am excited to share with you some of the highlights and achievements of 2023.
Hands-On tek is about to turn 12 years old, and I am proud of how far it has come. This year, I reached a milestone of over 1 million visitors on my blogs, where I share my insights and tips about Microsoft 365. I also had the opportunity to travel the world and speak at various events and conferences, where I met many of you and learned from your experiences and feedback.
In this issue, I will recap some of the best moments and memories of 2023, as well as the updates from December. I hope you enjoy reading and find it valuable. Thank you for being part of Hands-On tek, and I wish you a happy and prosperous new year! 🎉
Events and Public Speaking
One of the most rewarding experiences of 2023 was the chance to share my knowledge and passion with others who are interested in Microsoft 365. In 2023, I was honored to be a speaker at seven different events in five different countries, where I talked about various topics such as Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, Viva Connections, Microsoft Lists, and lists formatting. These are some of the tools and features that I use every day to collaborate, communicate, and create with Microsoft 365. I enjoyed meeting some of you in person and exchanging ideas that inspired me to write new blog posts and explore new scenarios for future sessions.
The year began with a trip to Estonia, where I had the opportunity to speak at the Cloud Technology Townhall Tallinn 2025 . I presented a session on Microsoft Lists, the versatile app that lets you create and manage lists for any purpose. The event was superbly organized, the venue was stunning, and the city was charming. I had a wonderful time exploring the culture and history of Estonia. This was my favorite event of the year.
Following Estonia, I visited Olhão in Algarve, Portugal, where I spoke at the Iberian Technology Summit. It was an unexpected but impressive location for a tech event in Portugal, with high-quality sessions and a large audience. Next, I traveled to Poland to present at the Collabdays in Warsaw, another superb event with excellent organization and speakers. Collabdays Poland was the first time I did a session on Viva Connections, the platform that is the landing page for your corporate intranet, these were still the early days of Viva Connections, and I was amazed by how much it evolved throughout the year.
The global connected world offers us the advantage of joining thousands of people in remote events without leaving the comfort of our own homes. In 2023, I had the pleasure of presenting at two remote events: Teams 10x and Petri’s Teams Day. I talked about Microsoft Teams and how it integrates most of the Microsoft 365 applications. The experience was different but still very rewarding, as I engaged with attendees from all over the world.
I wrapped up the year by speaking at the biggest event I ever attended as a speaker. At the ESPC in Amsterdam, I had the privilege of talking about Microsoft Lists to a room with more than 200 attendees. It was a great way to end the speaking season with a session on the power of Microsoft Lists formatting.
Besides speaking at events, I also contributed to the community by organizing the Collabdays Lisbon with some friends. We moved to a new venue and brought diverse and excellent speakers in different tracks about Microsoft 365, Azure, and Power Platform. We will definitely keep doing this in 2024 and we have big changes planned! Stay tuned for more updates!
For the first time after the Pandemic, Microsoft organized an in-person MVP Summit. The event took place in Seattle, and it was great to see so many familiar faces after so much time and catch up with the product groups about the upcoming changes to the applications we all love. Looking forward already to the 2024 edition.
Awards & Recognitions
2023 was a year of recognition and appreciation for the work I do for the community about the Microsoft products. I am honored to have received several awards and nominations this year. I renewed my Microsoft MVP in the M365 development category for the fifth consecutive year and got my five-year blue disk to celebrate this milestone. I hope to keep renewing it for the years to come. 2023 was also the last year of the Windows Insider MVP program, which Microsoft decided to end and unify with the MVP program. I was proud to be a WIMVP for three years and I wish all the best to the other former WIMVPs in joining the MVP program.
I was also nominated for two different awards in 2023. In August, I was nominated for the UK Community Awards in the Modern Work Evangelist category. I did not win, but it was very rewarding to be on the same list with so many people who inspire me every day. In November, I was nominated for the Inspire awards at the ESPC in the Tech Trailblazer category and this time I took the award home.
The day after the Inspire awards, the Microsoft community showed once again why it is the best and most fun community in tech. Kevin McDonnell organized the Ugliest Sweater contest and I won another award. I keep this one next to all the others to remind myself how fun it is to be part of this community.
Blogs
Blogging is still my favorite way of contributing and giving back to the community. In 2023, I wrote 143 blog posts that reached 1,264,010 visitors. These numbers are amazing, and I am proud to have exceeded the million visitors mark for the first time in a single year in the 5 blogs combined.
The year started with the February blog post madness where I posted 28 blog posts in 28 days for the second year in a row. In 2024, I'm going to attempt to do it for the third time so stay tuned as I have posts planned for the Hands-On SharePoint, Hands-On Teams, Hands-On Lists and Hands-On tek blogs.
Hands-On SharePoint
With 62 new blog posts in 2023, Hands-On SharePoint was where I invested more time. From everything I published in this space I want to highlight the following posts/series:
Inspired by the AI hype in early 2023, I asked ChatGPT and Bing (now Copilot) what a SharePoint intranet should have. Based on their answers, I built an intranet from scratch that was entirely designed by a robot.
On the SharePoint blog, I also began a monthly series on what's new for SharePoint and related technologies. I publish this post at the start of each month, covering all the new features that Microsoft adds to the message center in the Admin portal and to the Microsoft 365 road map.
The Future of Jobs Report 2023 from the World Economic Forum states that one of the top priorities of organizations for the next five years is to accelerate automation processes. This inspired me to start a series of articles on automation in Microsoft 365 late in 2023. I will keep adding more content to this series in 2024. If you want to automate repetitive tasks in Microsoft 365, I recommend you check it out.
Finally, I want to highlight SharePoint premium and SharePoint embedded, two new offerings that will enhance the SharePoint platform. If you are not familiar with them, I recommend you read the posts below.
Hands-On Teams
Recommended by LinkedIn
Hands-On Teams came in second with 55 blog posts in 2023. Most of them covered the new Teams client that was released during the year and that will boost everyone's productivity. To get ready for 2024 and all the new features that will arrive in Microsoft Teams for both end-users and administrators, I wrote a blog post with all the features planned for Q1. Check it out and stay on top of the game.
On the Microsoft Teams blog, I also began a monthly series on what's new for Microsoft Viva. I publish this post at the start of each month, covering all the new features for all Microsoft Viva applications that Microsoft adds to the message center in the Admin portal and to the Microsoft 365 road map.
Hands-On Lists
I did not post as much as I wanted in the Microsoft Lists blog in 2023. I have many ideas for new view and column formattings, but they will have to wait until 2024. In 2023, I shared some tips and tricks for using Microsoft Lists and wrote about the new features that will soon elevate the Microsoft Lists application to the next level.
Hands-On tek
Hands-On tek is the brand that agregates everything I do and also the original blog that I started in 2012. The portal has a new landing page that matches the themes of the other blogs and is inspired by Microsoft Delve. This landing page is dynamic and gives you easy access to the latest blog posts from all blogs, the latest YouTube videos from my channel, and the calendar for my speaking engagements.
This blog is where I publish about everything that is not related to Microsoft 365. In 2023, I shared some tips and tricks for Windows and other technologies that I use daily to complete my tasks.
One of my goals for the year was to read at least one book each month. I did not achieve it, but I started more than 12 books in total. I cannot read just one book at a time; I need to have multiple options. In the first months of the year, I began a series of book reviews about the books I read the previous month. I will keep doing this in 2024 and catch up with the books that I have not reviewed yet.
YouTube Channel
I wanted to publish 12 videos in 2023, but I only made six. Even though I missed the goal, the channel got 29,000 views and 290 new subscribers. My goal for 2024 is to find a routine that lets me record and publish new videos as easily as I do for the blog posts. I'm not promising a number of videos this time, but I will be happy if I publish more than I did in 2023. If you haven't subscribed yet, please follow the link below. Your support motivates me to create more.
Community Contributions
As a former developer, I love to code and build things. I enjoy creating full solutions and samples to help others make their own products. This year, I focused mainly on SPFx and I want to highlight the Microsoft Teams integration that I demonstrated a few months ago in the PnP Community Call. This solution got a lot of positive feedback and I saw it being used by others on their intranets.
Unselfish Travel Blog
2023 was also the year when my wife and I launched a joint project. We created our own travel blog where we share our adventures around the world. We published some of those adventures this year, but we have many more stories and photos to share. Stay tuned as we visited eight countries in 2023 and did the Grand Train Tour of Switzerland. All those adventures will be published in 2024.
See you next month 👋
I hope that you have found the content to be informative and engaging. I am committed to keeping you updated with the latest trends and developments in technology and productivity. To stay connected and ensure that you don't miss any updates, I encourage you to follow me on social media.
Thank you for your continued support, and I look forward to connecting with you soon. 👇