I am delighted and overwhelmed to announce that Microsoft have given me the gift of ‘Most Valuable Professional‘ Award. If you are reading this blog, it’s because I have wanted to say ‘thank you’ to you, in a way that’s communicates more than a 140 character tweet 🙂 If you don’t know what an MVP is, my thoughts on this follow directly, and I look forward to your opinions.
I am overwhelmed by the kind responses from the SQL Server community. I wanted to say how grateful I am for the welcome that the SQL Server community, right from the start. I have commented previously about the SQL Server community being a great community, because of the ‘helping hand’ we all give one another. The number of good wishes by tweets, emails, phone and text messages have been testament to that, and I’m delighted to be part of this community.
What is an MVP? In my opinion, the MVP Award is, for me, a focus on ‘other’ people – helping people in the community, and helping individuals at Microsoft to be clear about users’ opinions. In my opinion, the MVP isn’t a career ‘goal’, which necessarily focuses on the ‘self’ rather than others.
In my opinion, being an MVP is a focus on helping members of the community. For example, assistance can be offered either directly by offering advice and technical expertise via blogs, speaking, twitter, forums for example. It can also be done by taking customer and user perspectives back to Microsoft, and ensuring that the users’ voices are ‘heard’ in the direction of the Microsoft product range. I will be interested in other people’s thoughts on this, and please do leave feedback on my site.
Since we are a community, the MVP Award isn’t a sole achievement. So here are a few examples:
– Thank you to the SQLBits team for allowing me the opportunity to speak. If you are debating over whether to submit a session – please do. You won’t be sorry. Being part of the SQLBits community has given me many friends, and speaking has meant that I can reach out to people.
– Thank you to the SQLPass team for giving me the opportunity to do the SQLPASS 24 hour hop webinar. Again, it brought me in touch with many people in the community, and gave me the experience of doing a webinar.
– Thank you to Microsoft for offering the MVP Award program – for me, it shows their interest and emphasis in community, and in what users’ think.
– Now it’s ‘big lump in throat’ time – I have to thank the many people I’ve met in the community at User Groups, community events and whom I’ve met remotely over twitter. There are too many to mention. Some of my best friends are in the community – I hope they know who they are!
I am looking forward to contributing to the Microsoft community now and in the future. I’ve had a fantastic time being part of the community, and look forward to even more!
Hey Jen,
It feels a little old skool to be leaving a blog comment rather than congratulating you through the world of social media but I just wanted to say that you have made a wonderful, uplifting contribution to the whole SQL Server and data visualisation community. You also didn't melt in the furnace whilst presenting your maiden pre-con at SQLBits which was also quite some achievement. Well done and continue to enjoy the moment – I know I did when I first got mine. Cheers, James
Just wanted to add the congratulations of the FlyingBinary team to those already sent via the social networks and GMail.
Our industry is in the midst of enormous change as a result of some of the new tools available. We are all having to reassess how we deliver all types of IT services. The most successful businesses will be those who have a strong community involvement. This has always been important, however I believe it will make the difference to success in the future, as collaboration becomes our main way of working.
Programmes such as MVP have always been important to highlight those individuals who can connect with the community, and represent that community when products are developed. Awards like the MVP programme signal the thought leadership for the forward roadmap of IT services. In your case Jen you have worked tirelessly to provide insight into the key changes which the community you are a part of needs to embrace. Congratulations and well done. Jacqui
Congrats Jen, You've deserved. See You soon 🙂
Congratulations!
I like the Microsoft community sharing to produce more.