uProfile August 2019: Søren Kottal

Get to know Søren Kottal

Søren Kottal was nominated as this month's uProfile. Read more about him and why he works with Umbraco.

Working for: Ecreo

Job role: Tech Lead

Country: Denmark

Working time with Umbraco: Since I started at Ecreo in 2013. Originally I was hired to work with another CMS, but I quickly fell in love with Umbraco and had more and more projects using that instead.

Your favorite Umbraco achievement?

It is hard not to mention the MVP announcement earlier this year - the absolute highlight of my career (see the picture of me above with my MVP award 😉). Our office building had just burned down, and we were moved to a temporary office when the email from Niels arrived.

At first, I didn't really understand the text, and then I was sure it was just a late April fool. And I had just recently said to myself, that 2020 should be the year, where I really make a run for an MVP title!

What about Umbraco keeps you coming back for more?

The simplicity and flexibility of the software.

You can do everything with it! Also, the open spirit of the community. There is so much to learn from browsing the forums and Github, and I really feel like I'm getting better every day.

What are you currently working on?

I am currently working on moving an old Umbraco 6 e-commerce solution to Umbraco 8. It is quite fun seeing the things that have changed - and counting the number of "why did I do that?" moments.

Besides that, I am trying to get my most wanted package (Doc Type Grid Editor) ready for Version 8. I almost gave up on that, but a flow of post-Codegarden inspiration got me going again.

It is really close now.

What are your top 3 best tips for an Umbraco newbie?

Keep trying out things. My favourite quote is from the Danish former pro-cyclist Bjarne Riis; "If you haven't stripped a screw by over-tightening it, you can't know how hard you can tighten it."
Use the forums/Slack. The community overflows with helpful people wanting you to have a great experience using Umbraco.
Even if you are just doing Razor views, use Visual Studio. It's heavy and feels way too large, but Intellisense makes you much more productive.

Tell us something unexpected about yourself?

My last name is actually my wife's family name.

I was originally named Søren Nielsen. I took my wife's name when we got married since they are the only family in Denmark named that way.

It dates back to her great grandfather Maximilian (also the name of my son) moving from Bohemia to Denmark in 1901.

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A massive H5YR to Søren! We loved sharing his story. If you’d like to connect with Søren, you can find him on Twitter and LinkedIn.

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