Microsoft MVP Global Summit 2019 is in the books! An amazing week of informative sessions, enlightening talks, networking, and festivities has finally concluded for most of us -- this tiring yet highly fulfilling and informative week left me reminiscing about what does being an MVP mean. I decided to jot down my thoughts and share some insights into the program.
The Sense of Community & Belonging
Microsoft MVPs are highly technical and competitive bunch; yet the sense of community and shared values is overwhelming. It may sounds cliché but in this global community of experts, you truly feel like part of a family. You might be sitting next to the author of your favorite book on ASP.NET, or that open source unit testing framework you adore, or hang out and ask questions with the product manager knowing that your feedback matters and may very well end up as part of the product. Joseph Guadagno (@jguadangno) summed it up quite well in this tweet below:
Being in the company of people who are passionate about technology like you are, and who care to share their expertise, skills, and time with the community is intoxicating. This makes you be able to talk about your insecurities without the fair of being judged, and get empathetic and compassionate responses like our highly skilled fellow MVP Catherine Wilhelmsen (@cathrinew) below:
This summit started with a heavy heart and somber note. One of our fellow MVPs Atta Elayyan couldn't make it; In memory of Microsoft MVP Atta Elayyan who lost his life in Christchurch NZ, your kindness, courage & brilliance will never be forgotten.
Networking
The annual summit, private mailing lists, and chat groups, provide an opportunity to not only keep in touch with your friends and colleagues, but also meet new MVPs and make new connections. There is a certain level of trust relationship which can only be explained as rapid-MVP-connection-phenomenon. Where else can you get an opportunity to share sushi and geek out with best selling authors, international speakers, pluralsight course authors, Microsoft community leaders, open source developers, and overall tech rock-stars?
The Trust Relationship
What do you do when world's most valuable company entrust you with its product road-map, feature-set, intellectual property, and other non-public information?
You return the trust.
As an MVP, we have the privilege to work with product groups and provide the feedback on upcoming features. We also learn about features which are yet to go public and be announced. With great power comes great responsibility which MVPs take seriously as described in the MVP code of conduct scout's honor.
As CPM Betsy Weber said, don't be like Mark Hamil:
The Energy is Contagious
Getting feedback and encouragement, from your fellow MVPs is part of the experience I love about the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional program. Learning about their accomplishments and struggles propels you to do better, be prolific, and accomplish more and give back more. This works only because their genuine care about the community, and sharing their skills and knowledge is contagious.
For example fellow MVP Santosh Hari spends tons of hours organizing and arranging Orlando Code Camp, and Greg Leonardo does the same for Tampa Bay Code Camp. I know this from experience working in organizign committees of SoCal and LA code camp, the amount of effort it takes to get these events organized. Seeing your fellow MVPs hard at work helps me keep the momentum for Irvine Programmer Meetup, and Tampa Bay Data Science group along with other speaking engagement, because community matters.
This encouragement is also what brought me to write my 2nd book, Cognitive Computing Recipes. The book is a problem solution approach using Microsoft Cognitive services and Tensorflow to build AI and Machine learning solutions. I cannot thank the community enough for their feedback and support.
This community, networking, and trust is what leads to overcome the biggest fear we have, Public speaking There are multiple calls for speakers and opportunities, from local user groups, code camps, and conferences, you have a lot of chances to practice your speaking skills and grow your career.
and hey, don't forget to ask your fellow MVPs to be a speaker at your next user group meeting. I would be happy to!
Your Friendly CPMs
CPMs (Community Program Managers) are an integral part of MVP program. They are your mentors to help and guide you through the process, clear any roadblocks, and keep you honest.
When I first became an MVP in 2016, Joe Darko was our CPM who helped me tremendously to understand the program and know the opportunities, and I am forever grateful to him for his help! You are awesome, Joe!
The Business Case for being an MVP
Alright, community participation is great, and being able to improve your development skills is awesome but does it make business sense? heck yeah!
Where else can you:
- Discuss and share real world use-cases, case studies and pain points
- Learn from mistakes, gotchas, best practices, and have aha moments without fear of being judged or looking like an idiot 🙂
- understand the future road-map, and perform feature parity analysis between products to ensure the best fit
- Hear really thoughtful questions based on real world problems with real clients and looming deadlines.
Aside from networking and connections you make, learning about the art of possible by interacting with your fellow MVPs is possibly the biggest value proposition of the program.
Diversity and Inclusion
If there are five people in the room and you hear six different languages, you might be in the MVP summit. This is a truly global program with the award team spanning across the globe. What impresses me most is the care for dietary restrictions, and the thoughtfulness put into this process.
The Swag
Swag, and nostalgia... how much I miss INETA!
Yes, as MVPs we do get some swag and perks! For all this hard work, we get some cool software and magazines subscriptions. Yup, we are spoiled 🙂
One great perk is being able to ask for software trial licenses, books (now mostly ebooks), and cloud subscription for user group meeting giveaways. Using the "MVP card" helps finding giveaways.
Did I mention I miss INETA?
Prestige or Labor of Love - the Elephant in the Room
Last but not least, I would like to clear up this myth that being recognized as MVP is a feather in one's cap, or something to brag about; nothing can be further from the truth.
Most MVPs I know have been doing community speaking, running user groups, working with open source projects, providing feedback to teams long before being recognized as an MVP. I personally ran Pasadena .NET user group for almost a decade, various code camps, authored books and articles, mentored developers, build open source projects, and engaged with community before being recognized as MVP.
In a nutshell its a labor of love. Being recognized feels great, helps with user groups, and code camp organization, getting speakers and swag for community etc, but it is never an end goal. The desire to work with community and being passionate about products has to be genuine and organic, you cannot fake it for long.
In Conclusion
The Microsoft MVP Award is established to provide an opportunity to celebrate, honor and show gratitude to technology experts. I truly enjoy my time in the program -- if you have any questions, please check out What it takes to be an MVP and drop me a line if you have any questions or comments.
Happy Coding!
