About Me
Is he real? YES I am real – SharePointMark exists and has done so for a long time.
My journey from Mechanical Engineering at Racal Chubb (back in the 80’s and 90’s) to IT began with spotting a network fault and discovering Windows 3.11 and Lotus SmartSuite. Early hands-on troubleshooting taught me adaptability and the impact of technology that truly works for people.
Today, as a Modern Workplace Architect, I help organisations Understand, Evolve and Transform through automation and AI.
Welcome to my story!
My Story
The honest version – the long version – the human (I am not a Bot) version.
I’m Mark Tonks, known across the Microsoft universe as SharePointMark, and more recently as Mark v2.0 (thanks to the wife!!) – both nicknames that somehow captures the fire, chaos, creativity and resilience of my journey so far.
I’m based in Calderdale, West Yorkshire, where the hills are steep, the brews are strong and the Wi-Fi is… let’s say “unpredictable.”
I’m not here to sell you anything. This isn’t a consultancy website.
This is my digital home – a place where technology, humour, honesty and the occasional existential crisis co-exist peacefully.
What You’ll Find Here
This isn’t a site full of jargon.
You won’t find corporate fluff or robotic content.
You’ll find:
Deep-dive Microsoft 365 articles.
Behind-the-scenes stories from 30+ years in IT
Lessons from my own mental-health journey
Humour (because if we can’t laugh at life, then what’s the point?)
Resilience, honesty and the occasional Lego Star Wars reference
A reminder that technology and humanity are not separate worlds; they shape each other
If you’re a beginner, a consultant, an expert or someone simply looking for a bit of honesty and perspective… you’re welcome here.
From Engineering to IT: The Strange Detour That Started It All
The truth? I didn’t plan to work in IT. I was headed firmly toward Mechanical & Production Engineering (no actual Car mechanic apprenticeship back then!! – yes I mean the 80’s ) until one day I spotted a serious network installation issue and did what any self-respecting geek-in-the-making would do:
I fixed it. Or at least, I pointed at the problem loudly enough that everyone assumed I knew what I was doing.
Suddenly I wasn’t the engineer anymore – I was the new IT Assistant. My toolkit?
A 486 DX100 PC (State of the Art back then), Windows 3.11 for Workgroups and a copy of Lotus SmartSuite that had a mind of its own.
Those early days were full of curiosity and pure chaos. I discovered the magic of macros, the thrill of a successful mail merge and the deeply humbling reality that one wrong floppy disk could undo four hours of work. Every moment taught me adaptability, patience and the belief that technology is only meaningful when it actually helps people.
That belief shaped my entire career.
Growing with the Technology and Growing as a Human Being
As Microsoft Office reshaped the world, I embraced every update and every surprise feature that appeared overnight. In the late 90’s and early 2000s, I was the person people called when Outlook had a mood swing or when someone tried to save a giant Word document (bigger than 1.44 mb) onto a floppy disk (yes… that really happened) and file names that had to be 8.3 characters long.
Those moments taught me that technology moves fast, but humans take their own time and that the job was as much about supporting people as fixing systems.
I moved from installing Office 97 on beige desktops to designing Exchange environments for organisations who suddenly depended on email for everything (150mb mailbox limits – .pst files rocked! ). Then came the era of Windows Server, humming racks where success was measured not by applause, but by the peaceful silence when everything ran smoothly.
Thirty years in IT feels like a lifetime of reinvention. I’ve watched dial-up fade, broadband surge, cloud computing rewrite the rulebook and servers transform from physical boxes to virtual machines to services that seemingly run on fresh air. Teams became the meeting room, automation stopped being a buzzword and suddenly technology architecture was limited only by your imagination.
But the biggest transformation wasn’t the technology – it was me.
The longer I worked in IT, the more I realised technology is only half the story. The other half is people; with their worries, deadlines, doubts and those quiet “I hope I’m not the only one who doesn’t get this” moments. Over the years I learnt patience, empathy and the truth that sometimes the most valuable thing you can offer isn’t expertise, but reassurance.
Three decades in this world teaches you what most textbooks never mention: the stress when something breaks, the relief when it’s fixed and the pride someone feels when they finally understand something that once scared them. Change is hard, standing still is harder, but people grow when they feel supported, not judged.
Somewhere along the way, I became more than a Microsoft Modern Workplace Architect.
I became a guide; a translator; someone who stands between humans and technology, helping both sides understand each other.
Mark V2.0 — The Day My Life Rebooted
There are moments in life where everything stops — not gradually, not gracefully — but suddenly.
For me, that moment came in November 2022.
What started as a stubborn headache, the sort you power through because “there’s work to do,” unravelled into a life-threatening brain abscess. One minute I was planning projects, juggling deadlines and living life at full speed. The next, I was in Leeds General Infirmary facing two emergency surgeries I don’t remember, fighting something my body understood long before my mind did.
I woke up on 19 December with no memory of the days that came before. Seven weeks in hospital. Months of recovery. A new reality that didn’t look anything like the one I left behind.
Through it all, my partner sat by my side — steady, fierce, unshakeable — and somewhere in that chaos, she started calling me “Mark V2.0.”
It wasn’t a joke.
It wasn’t a throwaway nickname.
It was a declaration.
A reboot.
A restart.
A new version of me; one forced into existence, not by ambition or career progression, but by the sheer unpredictability of being human.
Coming back from that ordeal reshaped everything.
Not just my health, Not just my work – but the way I see people. The way I listen. The way I understand fear, uncertainty, hope and the quiet strength it takes just to keep going when your world has flipped upside down.
It gave me:
A Perspective. A Purpose. A renewed sense of what really matters.
That experience didn’t merely influence my mental-health advocacy – it ignited it. It pulled back the curtain on the hidden emotional layers that so many of us carry but rarely talk about. It gave me permission to be vulnerable, to be open, to share the uncomfortable truths that often live behind “I’m fine.”
This moment in my life is important; It changed everything and it deserves more than a few paragraphs.
If you want the full story, the raw version, the emotional version, the version where everything shifted; you can read my in-depth blog post:
👉 Navigating a New World (My full recovery story, reflections and the moment everything changed)
It’s not a short read. It’s not polished or corporate. It’s real and it’s the chapter that gave rise to the person writing this page today.
Mental Health Isn’t a Topic - It’s the Foundation
I used to think mental health was something we talked about once a year – A poster; A workshop; Maybe a mindfulness app someone used for two weeks and forgot about.
Then life forced me to confront the truth.
Mental health affects everyone; it is a continuum – shifting quietly every day.
The “I’m fine” moments can hide a storm.
The quiet battles are often the hardest ones.
Becoming a certified Mental Health First Aider wasn’t about adding a badge. It was about recognising the gap between what organisations believe they’re doing and what people actually need.
People need:
honesty
vulnerability
permission to struggle, and
spaces where they won’t be judged when they say, “I’m not okay.”
That’s why this blog exists.
Not just to teach Microsoft 365… but to talk openly about the human beings who use it.
Life Outside the Cloud
Believe it or not, my universe isn’t only Microsoft 365,Azure, Exchange and PowerShell.
Sometimes, it’s a pile of LEGO® Star Wars bricks waiting to become a starship.
Other times, it’s a vinyl record crackling through rock, classical, or something that makes me say, “What on earth is this… I love it.”
I unwind with ARPGs on PC because sometimes slaying monsters digitally is cheaper than therapy.
And I devour books – from fantasy to philosophy – because stories are how humanity make sense of chaos.
These are the things that remind me to breathe.
To laugh.
To stay curious.
To live a life that isn’t measured in tasks or tickets.
If You’re Still Reading… Then Hi, Friend
You’ve learned a lot about me – the messy bits, the personal bits, the technical bits and the human bits.
If any part of my story made you smile, think, or feel a little less alone… then this page has done its job.
I’d love for you to stay connected:
- Reach out and say hello (see social links above)
Share your own journey
Or just follow along quietly – that’s okay too
This is My Story, but it’s also a space for yours.