Inside IT
Ryan has always had a passion for IT starting all the way back in secondary school, well before then but that when it really started.
Ryan is a strong believer that technology, when used correctly, can improve our daily lives. He enjoys sharing his knowledge because the community, and the people within it, is the best thing about working in IT.
Once Ryan got into IT as a career at the tail end of 2012, after failed attempts in both 2006/2007 & 2009, he began to really see the value in process automation, initially business process automation built upon SharePoint Lists & Workflows. Throughout 2013 & 2014 he started learning PowerShell to automate a repetitive IT Support task with SharePoint, after learning about the SharePoint Object Models that came in from SharePoint 2007 (Server Side - SSOM) & then in 2010 (Client Side - CSOM) and with some help from a former Microsoft PFE (Premier Field Engineer) & former colleagues at the time, he started to write scripts using CSOM as he didn’t have Server Side access. Though he did end up writing a number of some Server Side Scripts and make use of AutoSPInstaller before learning of PowerShell Desired State Configuration, which with the SharePointDSC project he has installed many farms using this as opposed to custom install scripts that he’s seen out there.
He then started to contribute and then become the sole maintainer of a PowerShell project previously developed on Codeplex named SPPS (SharePoint PowerShell) before Ryan migrated it to GitHub and renamed it SPCSPS (SharePoint Client Side PowerShell) to better describe it. At this time the PNP.PowerShell (formerly SharePoint PNP PowerShell) was gaining lots of traction and he realised it wasn’t worth spending much more time on SPCSPS, when PNP.PowerShell was getting better development and support.
As such he has not looked back since, with PowerShell being his core Programming language of choice for him due to it’s flexibility and more importantly just how accessible & non-cryptic a language it can be.
Since 2015 Ryan has presented at a number of user groups and conferences which you can read up on the Where I’ve Presented page. You can also see where he may be on the Find me at page.
In 2015 after attending PSConfAsia, Ryan helped revived the UK PowerSell User Groups (site currently offline) which with help of other community leaders all across the UK this had grown to include Manchester, London, Yorkshire, Birmingham, Cardiff, Southampton, Nottingham & Scotland (mostly) under the UK DevOps Collective branding since then, which has unfortunately due to organisers moving onto other things after the 2020 pandemic, stopped being a collective. There is work to be done around this in the future.
In 2016, Ryan was awarded the Microsoft Most Valued Professional Award for Cloud and Datacenter Management and you could have viewied his MVP Profile to find out more as he has been awarded every year since then. However In August 2022, he was removed from the program, due to his own mistakes. He’s since made it somewhat impossible to make those same mistakes again, though like most things this is a work in progress.
Ryan has also been involved in organising a number of conferences including small bits with PSConfAsia in 2015 & 2016, a distant co-organiser with Tobias Weltner PSConfEu in 2016 & a tiny part in 2017 (which he should have sat out from), almost nothing with multiple instances of PSDayUK, the UK PowerShell Conference, & even helped organise and run in 2020 during the height of the Pandemic a follow the sun virtual conference called #PWSH24 and for a short whole helped manage the calendar and co-host the PowerScripting Podcast.
Through all this interaction Ryan has been able to see first-hand just how useful and powerful PowerShell can be and this allows him to bring this experience to wider audiences through training, mentoring and involvement in the community Slack/Discord
Ryan has also run the now defunct LeedsAzure User Group, which he set up just before the Covid-19 Pandemic hit, and this has now been Yorkshire Azure User Group, now that he no longer lives near enough to be able to effectively run it, nor has the time to dedicate to it either.
Eventually Ryan may run/help other User Groups or conferences, but that is yet to be seen.
He was once quoted as “Ryan Your Passion for Community is Infectious”
Outside IT
Ryan has a keen interest in all sorts of music, but mainly focusing on Metal, Rock, Indie, Drum & Bass, House, Techno & Psytrance to name a few genres. Ryan has year on year listened to well over 130k minutes of music via Spotify and when he can will attend gigs and festivals to support those that, quite frankly have saved his bacon, over the years.
Ryan also has a very keen interest in all manners of areas of Science particularly around Neuroscience, Psychology/Mental Health (which he blogs about more over on Mhasl.me - Mental Health Affects Someone Like Me) & various branches of other core sciences, including not least Chemistry, Physics & Biology.
Try not to get Ryan started on either Law or Politics, unless you want a very long, but interesting, conversation on either topic. Save to say that he understands the need for certain systems to exist,
Ryan was a Volunteer Vaccinator with St John Ambulance from February 2021 until 2022. Ryan was trained to deliver doses of Pfizer, AstraZeneca & Moderna Covid-19 Vaccines as well as flu vaccines. Ryan volunteered his time regularly over Saturday and Sunday mornings in addition to his day job and has delivered well over 500 vaccinations to those getting 1st, 2nd or Booster doses. Ryan was also accepted to join St John Ambulance as a First Aider, however this is something that he has been unable to progress with at this current time, mostly due to no longer having a car or funds to do so..
You can find Ryan on Bluesky Twitter & LinkedIn & GitHub & can follow his slowly moving content at both kila’s kitchen where he will be posting all sorts of kitchen tips and recipes gathered over the year & as mentioned some content on Mental Health Affects Someone Like Me - mhasl.me & very soon to come podcast #IRrrwR - Irregular / Ridiculous rants/rambles with Ryan!
Life can kick you, like it’s kicked Ryan plenty, but he wants to remind you (like he does himself) that you can almost always bounce back from it, given enough time, space and support to do so.