Last week (yes, I've been quite busy), I received an email from Microsoft announcing that I had been selected to be a Microsoft MVP for Team System. w00t! I am super excited as this is certainly a product and a product team I am very passionate about. My hope is that by receiving the MVP award I can do more of what I've been doing, because as a lot of you know I am somewhat of a community junkie <grin>

Thank you Dani

First and foremost I have to thank Dani Diaz, my Microsoft Developer Evangelist, who was instrumental in helping me focus my energy, providing mentoring, and in supporting my community efforts. He also nominated me for the award.

Thank you others

There are plenty of others who have helped me get here (and I'm sure I'll miss some): all the user group leaders who let me speak at their events, the Philly .NET User Group, Jason Gaylord, Don Demsak, Grant Holliday, Kevin Goff, Chris Love, and John Baird.

How?

The most common question I get now is how does someone go about getting the MVP award. There are a few points I'd like to make on this topic. First, the MVP award is given "to thank individuals for their exceptional contributions to technical communities". In essence, it has to be earned through community participation. This includes stuff like helping out in the newsgroups, speaking, and writing. Second, there are no hard and fast criteria to build an MVP plan off of.

What's Next?

I certainly have no plans to slow down. I'd like to maintain pace of about 3 presentations a month, as well as to start speaking at larger conferences. I am also talking to an online publisher about having a weekly column loosely focused on Team System and ALM. Who knows, maybe even a book is in order?

But for now, who needs an MVP speaker to talk about Team System and ALM?

P.S. - Congrats to all the other MVPs awarded this round, especially John Baird!