Interview with Forum Ninja and Forum Moderator – Edward van Biljon
Have you ever wondered who are the people behind the scene?!? Each week one of the “Forum Ninjas” staff members picks a top contributor in the MSDN and TechNet Forums that impressed him. We write about their achievements, and we interview them. Today it’s time for Monday Interview with a Forum Ninja!
The person I would like to introduce today is a member of the Forum Ninjas council. He is Messaging and Collaboration Technical Lead at Global Micro Solutions, who in his free time serves as Moderator at MSDN and TechNet forums, supports and answers questions, writes TechNet WIKI articles... in short, a real Forum Ninja!
Let’s meet Edward van Biljon!
Here are some of Edward’s Statistics:
- More than 64k Recognition Points!
- 1,430 Answered Questions
- 838 Helpful Posts
- 6,291 Replies
- Total of 57 Medals!!!
Some Examples of Recent Posts from Edward:
- Forum - Continuous Outlook prompts (Not the usual suspects)
- Forum - Procedure for Exchange 2013 upgrade from cu 8/9 to cu 14
- Forum - exchange protocols - MAPI, MAPI over HTTP, outlook anywhere. what are the differences?
- Article - Exchange 2013: Hide Mailbox from Address List
Well, it’s time to hear from Edward…
Who are you, where are you, and what do you do? What are your specialty technologies?
My name is Edward. I am a father of 2 beautiful boys, I stay in South Africa with my wife. I have been married for 6 years.
I used to be an all-rounder doing Hyper-V, SCOM, SCCM, DPM, Exchange, Skype for Business, Networking on switches but my focus is more on Exchange in the recent years.
Our first holiday at the sea with the kids...
What are your big projects right now?
I am currently working on an 80 000 user migration from Exchange 2010 to Exchange 2013 and have just built the new infrastructure and finished one half of the setup.
I have completed the latest Exchange 2016 certification as well as all the Office 365 Certifications. Other than that I am also busy with my MBA in IT part-time.
I have a blog where I am very active, it is called Collaborationpro.com, this blog is about real world scenarios and how to troubleshoot and solve them.
As the Messaging Team lead in my organization, I try my best to upskill the junior staff, it doesn’t help having all the knowledge but you don’t share it and make yourself replaceable at the end of the day.
What Microsoft Forums do you participate in? What different roles do you play?
I participate in the Exchange Forums from legacy to the latest. I am a moderator, Owner and Answerer on these forums.
Socializing with friends at a birthday party :-)
What are the Microsoft Forums for? Have you ever seen them have a powerful impact?
Firstly, the forums are for people who do not have an understanding of Exchange on the level of MVP’s or system administrators that have been around for a while. It is a knowledge base at the end of the day as most errors/issues have been asked and answered.
No question is stupid in any form, the simplest questions asked are because of a lack of understanding the product. Forums teach people new things each day.
In what other sites and communities do you contribute your technical knowledge?
I share my knowledge on my own personal blog as well as the Technet Wiki. I am a former MVP for Exchange and used to be part of the community nights at Microsoft.
This is the best moment in my life (besides getting married of course 😊) holding my little bundle of joy.
What are your favorite forum threads you’ve contributed on?
It is definitely Exchange but also the DPM forum threads, there are not many guys that actively participate on them and cleaning up the forum like I did a few months ago was an exciting challenge as there were questions unanswered for a year and it is the amazing the feedback you get once you have answered them.
What forums need more attention? What could they use more of?
The forums in general need a lot of attention in a sense of proposing answers, marking answers, giving more technical input to questions vs just pasting links to an article as it is easier. Moving threads is a daily challenge as people don’t post questions in the correct sections.
Who has impressed you in the Forums community, and why?
It has to be Peter Geelen and Ed Price. They have such in-depth knowledge of the products they specialize in and it is always great to see them on the top 10 list each week.
Thank you, Edward, for your contributions to the community and to the forums! It was great to hear from you directly, and nice to know more about you.
Please join me in thanking Edward!
Forums, the final frontier
– Ronen Ariely,
