I have decided to drop out of Microsoft’s Most Valuable Professional Program. I have decided this for many reasons. Mainly I feel the program has no value to me and that MVPs are of no value to MS.
Experts
MS states how they have these “experts” in the community and that are involved in the products. While I have met some really smart MVPs I have also met some that are so out to lunch on things yet MS still considers them experts. To me this completely devalues the MVP program. I am definitely no exception to this. I am a MVP in developer security yet I don’t consider myself to be an expert. Interested yes. Expert no.
The way you get in is by contributing to the community. I had done lots of this and it was really nice to get recognized for it. Once you are in you are supposed to be this expert that provides feedback to the products that MS is building. Now this is where the program breaks down.
Products
Firstly most products you never hear about until it is too late. I hear about more MS technology from the mainstream media than I do from the MVP program. As a MVP who is supposed to be like an insider I thought that they would be looking to us for feedback on these technologies. But they don’t. They will take it after the product is released though but by then there are usually too many issues with the technology to be overcome.
While some products are great there are a big few that still irritate me:
TFS is garbage if you have used anything else. I should never have to struggle to get things under source control as much as I have with this product. I should never have to struggle for days/weeks to install it. I should never have so much trouble configuring it or applying checkin policies. If any MVP worth their salt was asked about this then MS should know this.
MSBuild is another failed technology to me. It does not come close to the power of Nant so if I am going to pay the XML tax I will pay it with Nant. I will say that it is nice that proj files are msbuild files yet whenever I have had to customize my builds with MSBuild I want to hurt myself. At first I thought it was the learning curve but to me the product just does not meet my needs. Again if an MVP that uses a build technology was asked then MS would have known about this.
MSTest also missed the mark to me when they said it was not geared towards people who do TDD. Really? No one else does TDD? I am the only MVP that does? I think not.
The big one that continues to bug me is Entity Framework. At the ‘08 MVP summit a lot of the MVPs that saw it before it was announced pointed out the serious issues it has. At the ‘09 summit we were excited to see the improvements they had made but instead we were shown the same crap that was the ‘08 entity framework. This spawned off the Entity Framework Vote Of Non Confidence and finally in ’11 we have some of the changes that we said were so needed in ’08. Good job valuing the input of the people that actually have to use the crap you put out.
MS “Listens”/”Cares”
To me it seems that MS having MVPs is a way for MS to feel that they are in touch with the community at large. This is great for a company to do but it seems like the feedback that is given falls on deaf ears for many products. I am not saying that this is for all products though as some do really care about feedback. For the most part though it feels like any feedback given just falls into a void. When I asked for some contacts for TFS/MSBuild/MSTest I was told to send my feedback to my MVP lead and they would forward it on…. Because that is open. You want MVPs to be involved yet filtered (I felt anyways). I have had more interaction with MS staff by tweeting things that I have through the MVP program.
The other big issue I have with MS in general is being treated like we will jump through hoops to help them succeed. There have been a number of “tech x is launching in a few weeks so build something” so we can showcase it emails I have received. Well that is great but how am I going to build a good app on a new technology with little documentation and no access to anyone at MS who can give me some accurate answers to issues? I understand that MS staff are not there to troubleshoot my application but on new/unreleased technology it would be good to have some sort of access if only an internal message board.
There are some internal lists at MS for MVPs as well. I found out about the security one after being a security MVP for OVER A YEAR. Now that I am on it…. Not much happens. There is little in the way of solicitation for feedback and there is little feedback provided. I assume this is because the security space is pretty quiet but then I am surprised to see things at the summit that I had no idea were being developed.
The most surprising thing to me was when I told my MVP lead that I was not interested in participating in the program. The response was: “No problem. Thanks for letting me know Dave. Good luck in the future”. I expected maybe a bit more of a “Why?” response but I am not surprised that MS does not care about what other people think. Maybe, because I have become harder on MS that they are happy to be rid of me. Who knows.
Maybe I am being hard on the program. Our MVP lead is great and tells us that whatever we need he will make happen. Great but how about you let us know some of the things that you can do for us? If you want something like WP7 to succeed get more than 5 dev phones and let us know you have them if we want to build applications. If MS is thinking of a new technology solicit the MVPs for people that use or have an interest in the new tech and get their feedback at the START of development instead of at the end.
Rewards
The MVP award is given to those that contribute to the community. I enjoy doing this and I will continue to do this whenever I can. Unfortunately it costs a lot of time and money to contribute to the community. If I give a talk I have spent 40 to 200 hours preparing (yes 200 hours on a 1 hour talk) plus the costs to travel to another city, food, and accommodation. MS’s reward is a MSDN subscription and half of a hotel room if I attend the summit (there used to be more benefits but they have been rolled back to save costs). It would probably be more affordable for me to purchase an MSDN subscription on my own and stop speaking entirely. I have gained no additional work from the MVP program, no additional speaking gigs, and have not made relatively few connections to others because of the MVP program.
Fin
The program has become a black mark to me. It does not contain just experts (heck, they let me in). It does not certify that anyone has a clue about anything (and some of the MVP only lists prove this). It has not opened any doors for me. It does not help me stop MS from releasing crap that I have to work with. All it does for me is give me an MSDN subscription and another line on my resume.
Great post!
Dave,
Prior to joining Microsoft, I served as an MVP and Regional Director for about 7 years. In that time, I observed many of the concerns you stated in this blog post. For what it is worth, I think this blog post is valuable feedback to the MVP program.
That said, I also believe the MVP program is valuable. You listed only the Summit and the MSDN subsciption as benefits. I think you completely minimized the level of amazing networking that the program brings to the table. Whereas the perception is your feedback is not considered, I know that is not true. The feedback from the MVPs is just one avenue of communication, and Microsoft may or may not *react* to such feedback weighing all other factors. Nonetheless, your concerns do not fall on deaf ears.
The MVPs who seem to thrive in the program also thrive in the activities typically associated with the program. For example, I love speaking engagements, and my prep time for an hour talk is usually closer to 5-10 hours, not the 200 hours (that is over a month of full-time work) that you indicated. If it takes you that long, speaking gigs are not for you.
All things considered, thanks for your perspective, and I hope you continue to work with Microsoft to help shape a better future!
Holy balls did this ever make me laugh out loud in several places! It’s just so blunt. I’m yammering this to my whole company.
Hi Dave,
As a fellow MVP, I think it’s a bit unfair to tar the whole program with the same brush. The MVP program is at times a bloody mess, but I think the real problem is that the level of satisfaction and interaction you experience all comes down to the PG (product group) you are tied to. Personally, I have found the experience extremely satisfying for the most part – granted in some areas it’s not as good as it was four years ago – as the PG I am affiliated with (PowerShell) are extremely open, eager to engage us and they actually deliver on suggestions and promises. In fact, at times they go out of their way to engage us. Personally I have seen feedback triaged and implemented between builds of the product. So while I sympathize with your predicament, it sounds more like the security group is at fault here than the MVP program itself. It really is at the descretion of the PG to decide how much they engage their MVPs. And yes, there are buffoons in all disciplines on the MVP end. Sometimes they are just there to wave the flag and that’s enough for MS AFACIT.
-Oisin
As someone who is trying to get into the MVP program but has not succeeded yet I can’t speak to your comments on that.
However, as a long time TFS user I find it interesting that you say the program is filled with MVP’s that do not know what they are talking about when RE:TFS you don’t know what you are talking about.
First, TFS 2010 Team Build does not use msbuild; it uses workflow to create build templates. Even when builds were implemented using msbuild, I have mentored many co-ops and junior developers on using the msbuild language and find the concepts very easy to understand. After you get over trying to write iterative processes in msbuild you can do some very interesting things.
After trying to install TFS 2008 a couple times I can see how you may be upset at the process, however if you have installed 2010 at least once you should know that it has been vastly improved. It takes no time to go through the wizard and setup even a complex, multi-tier, multi-project collection implementation of TFS. I don’t even keep a VM image of a TFS install because it is faster to just start with a fresh VM and install TFS from scratch.
I have seen EF in some sessions and I think it also has improved recently. Also, I have done TDD successfully on a few projects using MSTest and .NET MVC.
So, that leaves me wondering … how can I read your comments on the MVP program when everything else is so far off.
Again, as someone trying to obtain my MVP I don’t have the illusion that it is some sort of MS magic bullet. That there is this fountain of MS knowledge that they are holding back from the rest of the world so they can feed it thorough the MVP community. I know that I will still need to spend time keeping up with the blogs and tweets that reach the eyes and ears of the common .NET’er. I do think that the MVP program can give you an edge, but like everything else that is not going to be just handed out like MSDN subscriptions and SWAG, it needs to be mined, developed, and earned. Getting the award should be just the beginning.
To end, I have heard from a few people that they don’t like giving out awards for over 4 years anyway so likely they were going to let you go eventually.
-Tyler
I’m a longtime MVP (since 95) and understand your concerns. But what many people miss is that Microsoft is a huge company and each group often times does it’s own thing. Microsoft is not a giant shark, it’s more like a group of piranhas. Each group is out for itself, promoting its own agenda, and often times another group gets eaten.
Additionally, the MVP program is run by Product Support Services, with contact to additional product groups. Some product groups totally value MVPs, keeps them informed, and listens carefully to what’s said. The old FoxPro group was like that. Other groups give mostly lip service. There is nothing the MVP program can do about getting it changed other than trying to open communication channels.
The MVP program has been through many changes over years, some good, some bad, but I still find it valuable. Like you, I learn about lots of things in the press long before I hear about it from MS, but some things are different. I knew about Lightswitch some 18 months before it went to beta. I hear about new Visual Studio and C# and VB features all the time directly from MS. This information is valuable to me, my employer, and it helps make good decisions for our customers.
Just because your experience was different, doesn’t mean the entire program is bad.
I can only speak for myself, but my interactions (as an MVP and ASPInsider) with the ASP.NET team have been invaluable. Sorry to hear that you had a bad experience with the program.
Quote:
There are some internal lists at MS for MVPs as well. I found out about the security one after being a security MVP for OVER A YEAR. ===================================
That is because its secure!
Such a shame that the MVP program has declined to this degree.
I know many MVP’s and most of them do as good a job as they can. But I have heard increasing echoes of the lack of reward … or more accurately … the cost of being an MVP. If the latter outweighs the former, then what’s the point?
I think MS needs to seriously revisit and re-invest in the MVP program.
I couldn’t agree more with everything you said here man; I observed the same things from the outside, which was one of the reasons I never went after one. While it’s nice to know I wasn’t crazy, I’m sorry you had so many frustrations. I appreciate your stand immensely.
Dave,
Sorry you’ve had a bad experience. To me, the MVP is recognition of stuff I do, and I don’t expect much from MS in terms of benefits. The MSDN is nice, but I get that from work.
I’m in the SQL space, and for the most part, it seems we have a good community and a lot of sharing of information between MVPs.
You do raise some good points on feedback and sharing. I have felt that MS hears our feedback, but doesn’t always choose to implement this. That can be frustrating to us.
Good luck in the future in your endeavors.
"TFS is garbage" HA! Love it. Congrat’s!
Thanks for all the feedback. I am not saying the program is total garbage. I am stating that I don’t think it works for me and I don’t work for it. If you are happy. Keep being happy. I am not so I am done with it.
@Tyler:
My point is that MVPs were either not consulted or not listened to in the beginning. It was a crap product to start and only now is it getting to a point where it is useable. I have not used the workflow stuff but from the people I know that have say that it is also not that great. I am not saying that the products are complete failures. I am saying that if MVPs were listened to then they would not start out that way (or so I would hope).
@Oisin:
I never said that the whole program was garbage and I am glad to hear that it works for you. For me it did not and that is what this post is about.
asdfa
@Michael Palermo
"my prep time for an hour talk is usually closer to 5-10 hours, not the 200 hours (that is over a month of full-time work) that you indicated. If it takes you that long, speaking gigs are not for you."
You have to be kidding me! If someone were to put that much effort into researching a topic so thoroughly to present it to me for free then speaking is definitely for that person as they are obviously passionate about it. I feel that someone who only spends 5-10 hours of work either knows the topic very well or is doing a half ass job for their talks.
You say you "never said the whole program was garbage," but you did say: "…that MVPs are of no value to MS."
This is certainly implying the program is garbage. Garbage in, garbage out.
I also want to say that it is good to see comments here about the good experiences that people have had in the MVP program. I am in such a niche, small, and quite product group that it really holds no benefit to me. It is good to see that is not the case with all groups
David;
As a former MCS in the AppDev and IW space, I found what you said about having to build a great app on beta tech with almost no documentation really resonated with me and I think indicative of the "right hand / left hand" syndrome that I believe your post is driving at.
MCS consultants are pretty much viewed as paid MVPs and accorded some of the same "perks". We also get the downside where we’re expected to know how a particular product works when we literally don’t know and there’s precious little documentation that’s provided. And that’s to a blue-badge EMPLOYEE.
I’m hopeful that there are better days ahead, but I’m also realistic enough to know that these things take some time in a large organization.
Best of luck!
Good on ya! Been waiting for someone to make this statement for a while now.
I used to be a WPF MVP and now I am a Visual Studio ALM/TFS/Team System MVP and the two products are very different.
The Visual Studio ALM and TFS products are by far the best at wanting, listening, and responding to feedback. There are certainly some things that are still irritating with the product (like some you mention) but it isn’t because the MVPs in our group haven’t given it or that the product teams haven’t received the feedback… I can’t go into the details about our interactions with the product group (since that is under NDA) but I can say that they have received the highest satisfaction scores across all of the MVP expertise groups at Microsoft. They are definitely doing it right. I hope to see other product teams at Microsoft take more of an approach that the Visual Studio ALM & TFS teams have with interacting with their MVPs…
If you have any troubles with TFS, just let me know. The MVP Leads have sent me requests for help from other MVPs in the past that needed help with TFS. That’s what we are here for.
I have to admire someone who makes a decision about what they stand for and want to be associated with. It would be much easier to just be a collector of abbreviations if this is the way you feel. Thanks much for informing the community of not just your decision but the reasons behind it as well, this was a well thought-out and effectively communicated post. Best wishes for continued success!
Reading these comments I have to say a couple of things:
1) Anyone who takes only 5 hours to prepare for a talk almost guarantees that
1a) their talk will be a pile of trash
1b) *they* are a pile of trash
2) The MVP program is garbage
2a) Any MVPs who deny this are *also* a piece of garbage!!!
@Oisin Yes. That is the way I feel. Either the MVPs MS has for a lot of these groups are terrible developers that take what MS gives them or else they are not listened to. So yes MVPs are of no value in that case.
I do see that several other people have commented about their great experience so this being the case 100% of the time. I still feel that the groups who have put out poor products should either drop all their MVPs or start listening to them.
@david.woods: "I feel that someone who only spends 5-10 hours of work either knows the topic very well or is doing a half ass job for their talks."
I think the above statement is fair. It happens to be that I knew my content well – as many MVPs know their content well. I usually developed my presentations from experience, which gave me an advantage.
I hope you understand that my response was not a personal attack on you. I know many speakers (Tech-ED, PDC, DevConnections) who have a wide range of prep times for their presentations. Some I know take about 20-30 hours of prep per one-hour session. You were the first I heard spending 200 hours to develop a one hour session. Thus, if it took that long compared to those who could do it in a tenth or less of the time, that is why I suggested speaking gigs might not be for you. This however is not a reflection of your capabilities or effectiveness as a speaker, just a perspective as to the practicality of doing it.
Once again, thanks for this blog post. It is stirring up discussion, and that is awesome!
@Olson: I am implying that the program is garbage, and that *you* are garbage for taking part in it!!!
BOO YAH
Great to see this amount of integrity, Dave!
Thanks for speaking out about the snake oil that TFS (and a bunch of other stuff) really is. Bold action is what in the end will save MS from itself.
Many people would keep going just to keep that line on the resume…
All the best to you!
Adam
Don’t disagree at all about the MVP; from what I’ve seen it’s way too easy to "game the system". Do the right things to get the MVP, then just coast for years.
But re: talks – you need 5 weeks of full-time work to give a one-hour presentation?
5-10 might be on the light side, but it’s perfectly feasible. I spent nearly years organizing conferences and seminars, and I know plenty of top-tier technical presenters who could do a superb, engrossing talk with 10 hours of good prep. Given, of course, that they know the subject. (If you don’t know the subject, that’s a different matter. 200 hours might be needed there, but whether you should be accepting speaking gigs on stuff you don’t know is quite a different argument.)
To be honest, if you spent 200 hours on a presentation on a subject you knew well, I’d expect to see it ranked up there with the Gettysburg Address.
As usual when I read a post like that, it confirms my experience that there are huge differences in the way that the MS product teams handle their MVP program. I have been an ASP.NET MVP for a year before changing to Client App Dev (which made sense because of my involvement with WPF). Later, when the Silverlight MVP group was created, I was asked if I wanted to join and after thinking about it, I decided to accept.
My experience with the Silverlight MVP program is fantastic. According to the (many) contacts we have with the product team, they are gaining a lot from our honest (putting it mildly
feedback. It is enough to see how many features put in Silverlight 4, and then 5 were actually requested by the community. The insiders discussion lists are also very lively (and by the way, we get added automatically when we get an MVP award). As for us, the access to very early versions of the platform helps us tremendously. This and the direct feedback to the product team is probably the main advantage of the program for me.
Finally, I have to add that for someone in Europe (I am located in Switzerland), the Silverlight MVP program also gave me the occasion to connect with a large number of great people, and to make wonderful friends within and out of Microsoft. That in itself is already very nice
So in conclusion, even though I am very much aware that the Silverlight team is particularly active with their MVP group, saying that "MVPs are of no value to MS" is quite insulting, frankly, to this particular group of people who is using the program the way it should be.
Cheers!
Laurent
Quick Question, did the MVP have any positive impact on your career?
I’ve been developing on Microsoft C, C++ & C# for many many years. I have recently seen the light, take this one step further & join the Rebel Alliance. Leave Darth Ballmer in his closed source death star.
My observation is that there are people who are professional MVPs; it’s not that they are experts who end up being selected, it’s that they are consultants, writers, and trainers who need the credential as a part of their job.
An example of this is how technologies that are brand new come packaged with "experts" even though they may not have been available for the broader public.
In a place like the open source world (or even other vendor software) because community leadership can’t be monetized as easily it tends to be driven by enthusiasm rather than practical business sense.
This is no knock on existing MVPs, a few of whom I know, and a great many of whom I ultimately respect (case in point: Jon Skeet). I think it just makes the program less organic, less "bottom up."
I am not an MVP nor do I bear that much angst over the program’s existence. I’m just commenting as a guy who wishes he could participate more but my job involves me building things and fixing bugs rather than being as visible in any community. The degree to which I do surface is mainly via personal initiative and always constrained by time. I used to feel like MVPs were somehow smarter or more adept (and many absolutely are) but now I see how a lot of it has to do with the business of having a personal brand or building a community profile to make a living.
Respect!
Seeing as how the 200 hour talk think is becoming an issue I thought I would give some background on it. This was one talk only that took this long. It was a talk about why passwords are dying and their alternatives. In order to give this talk I did the following research:
-Issues with current passwords
-Common passwords used and their complexity
-Alternatives
-Procuring technologies from vendors for demo such as security tokens, smart cards, and finger print scanners. There was a ton involved with researching these technologies
-Configuring a system to use these peripherals
-Writing demo code to show these technologies
-Investigating why some technologies have not taken off (i.e. cardspace) when there is not much data on these things
All of this took a lot of time and a lot of the hardware side was an area I had no experience in. To me I learned a lot while preparing the talk and the talk was well received and well rated. I am unsure as to what the big deal is over something that benefited everyone in spite of it taking a lot of my time.
@Gary
"Quick Question, did the MVP have any positive impact on your career?"
From the article:
"have gained no additional work from the MVP program, no additional speaking gigs, and have made relatively few connections to others because of the MVP program."
I would guess that answer is NADA
"I’m just commenting as a guy who wishes he could participate more but my job involves me building things and fixing bugs rather than being as visible in any community. The degree to which I do surface is mainly via personal initiative and always constrained by time. I used to feel like MVPs were somehow smarter or more adept (and many absolutely are) but now I see how a lot of it has to do with the business of having a personal brand or building a community profile to make a living. "
Exactly!!
I am *loving* this comments thread!
@Gary McAllister
I don’t think so but it is hard to say what impact the program had on my career.
I have a pretty good network of people due to speaking and being part of the Edmonton user group. I am sure I met some new people or strengthened some relations at the summit. I made a few contacts in the security space at MS which is good to have.
As far as work goes it has not contributed to me getting any work. In fact that is the most often asked question I get from employers is "What is an MVP?". Now the answer may convince them but I would hope it is my actual accomplishments and reputation that do that.
To me it feels like it did not have a positive impact (nor a negative one) on my career.
Hi there, I admire the courage you have and it is a good choice but I would say also that this is a personal experience. I am not an MVP but I know some and I can guarantee that there are still very good and skilled people with that award. Unfortunately the MSDN forum is crap and that is one of the reason we are having now all these MVPs that should be even labeled as developers/architects …
Plus, I spend a lot of time for the communities, I wrote two books and one with Microsoft FOR FREE, I talk, prepare slides, open source projects and I am not doing this for getting an MVP awards … I have my BS which is enough to get a job.
HI David…thanks for this post. As someone who ran a "MVP" like program at Sun Micro ("Java Champions") and now at Adobe running their No. American User Group community as a Community Mgr; Adobe has their "Adobe Community Professionals program"…it’s nice to know that other programs are having the same sorts of issues I’ve seen. One of the hardest things as a Community Mgr, is to get the decision makers (Product Engineering/Product Marketing/Whatever) to stand-up and be accountable to the feedback from the experts community or at least be willing to engage in a community dialogue on why or why not a particular bug/pet feature is not being addressed and be more transparent with current priorities without hiding behind NDAs/business stuff… I’ve been interested in these sorts of "MVP-like" programs for awhile now…thanks for your feedback.. Recommend a book for you all: "The Art of Community" by Jono Bacon (ubuntu) http://bit.ly/fwoShy
I’m in my second year of MVP award in the Visual Studio ALM section, and I agree with Ed, we have an incredible excange of ideas and informations with the team. It is true that the level of satisfation changes greatly from an area of expertice to another one, but the MVP program in the whole is good.
I really think that communites are one of the best places to grow up and become a better programmer/architect whatever else. I would spend time for communities even without the MVP award, but being an MVP permits me to know in advance direction of MS product, and since I’m a consultant, this gives me a little bit of an advantage, even in my professional career.
Alk.
David:
What you have said is both correct and incorrect? in that it suffers from the it depends. If your an MVP of a product that isn’t in a heavy competitive situation (ie ASP.net for example) the program is pretty much a case of whether the product team can be bothered to care or take time out to listen. If they disclose or give MVP’s a heads up on vNext features, its a low risk level of information.
If you’re an MVP in the Wp7 space, then your information is going to be pretty scarce and it would really come back to your individual relationship with the product team. If they like you / trust you, they’ll give you some snippets of heads up etc. If you just turn up to an annual summit expecting state secrets, probably not going to happen.
MVP isn’t about "experts" its really about influencer’s. Having been someone who’s filled out a few forms for MVP nominations as both an Evangelist / Product Manager for Microsoft i can tell you that in the process i really couldn’t care if you knew the product like the back of your hand – or you knew enough to do a good demo.
My main thinking was "can this person influence others into becoming experts" and if that tick box was checked, you got my attention and i’d in turn help others lobby on your behalf internally.
Influence can come from a number of factors, but it really is just that – even now your blog post is considered an influencing focused outcome.
MVP Program is flawed, it really has lost its way from its origins and its not about having a group of fans tell you how good your doing? its more about people telling you both good and bad at the same time helping product teams not only shape where the feature vNext bets should be laid but also how does one scale the information and evangelism (street and corporate) for the said products.
Its about arming MVP’s with data / resources etc so they can go off an Evangelize the product in a contextual way for the community. It’s about taking the data learnt from doing that and using it to bring about change within the products.
This is the theory anyway, the reality is the product teams aren’t making at times decisions on features off quality data its basically a case of executive / large brand feature demands through to low hanging fruit / shiny toy feature win selections.
I fear also that there are folks who seek out to be an MVP for the sake of being an MVP. An MVP nomination should be a surprise, not an expectation.
Anyway, I just wanted to say posts like these are useful – it puts dialog into the community around the MVP merits – pro’s and con’s.
-
Scott Barnes
Once a Prod Mgr / Evangelist for Silverlight/WPF
Dave,
I wanted to congratulate you on joining the hallowed ranks of the ex-MVP.
At the same time, I would like to point out that you perhaps haven’t attained your new status legitimately. The truly great ex-MVPs are people who make rash and inexplicable statements in public about their opinions of Microsoft, Bill Gates, et.al. Alternatively, there are also the ones who simply reveal NDA information they have received — thus making product teams, we are told, less inclined to reveal truly NDA material to MVPs in the future. There are the ones who simply get drunk and do crazy things at Microsoft sponsored events — and then get labeled as not acting according to MVP standards of decorum. There are the idiots who make silly comments on public blogs. There are sad cases like the farewells we see on the insider lists where someone’s last email is "I’ve lost my MVP though that wasn’t a surprise since I’ve been fighting prostate cancer for the last year and haven’t had time to blog much or go to conferences…" There are cases like mine — I lost my MVP in January — where the competing demands of work, family and the MVP program made me realize that I was never going to advance to the 80th level in World of Warcraft if I kept spending so much time blogging about technology. Such existential crises occur all the time and we are forced to make hard choices.
And so, forgive me if I am a bit dismissive of you simply "deciding" that you are now an ex-MVP. Quite frankly, I’m not sure anyone should really be able to one day decide they deserve to be an ex-MVP, ask for it, and then expect it to magically happen. You have to earn the right to be an ex-MVP, ser, IMO. You are only an ex-MVP when Microsoft … and your peers … "say" you are an ex-MVP.
That is just my first impulse, though. At the same time, I realize it is not my place to say who does and who does not deserve to be an ex-MVP. In the broad scheme of things, perhaps there is a little bit of the ex-MVP in each and every one of us, and that deserves to be acknowledged. I salute you, ser. However you got there, you are now one of us.
P.S. — though I hope you’ll come to the MVP summit this year all the same. We can get hammered on some free Microsoft booze together.
James
Hi David,
I am sorry you’re dropping your MVP. I know others who have made the same decision – some for noble reasons, some not.
I will echo Steve Jones above and say the SQL Server MVPs – and the SQL Server community – are thriving. If a SQL Server MVP doesn’t interact with the product team it’s not due to lack of opportunity. Having learned more (by this interaction) about development life cycles within Microsoft, I understand some of the source of your frustration.
*Could* things be different? Absolutely. *Should* things be different? Probably. *Which* things? I am not sure.
I believe the program is administered – and likely valued – differently by different PGs. In the end, the MVP program belongs to Microsoft. I’ve been honnored to participate in the MVP community for four years now. If I lose the privilege (and I consider it a privilege), I will be sorely disappointed. But the MVP status is Microsoft’s to award, and not award, as they ultimately see fit.
I’d like to believe I will continue to speak and blog and give back to the community if I’m not renewed. I’ve gained an awful lot from the community, it only seems fair and right to share the stuff I know that may benefit someone else.
I sincerely hope you continue to share.
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Hi!
I’m not and I have never been a MVP. I have used the advice of some MVPs and I’ve found them helpful.
Microsoft’s support to the Mac office developer community is non existent. It is totally in the hands of MVPs and they are doing a great job. It has not helped me however since I am writing Office Add-ons and those are not officially supported on the Mac.
I could not agree more about the TFS. I was working for a large financial company that ditched TFS for subversion. It was the first version, but anyway, it completely screwed our build and test process. It works well I guess if you are in a complete MS environment but if you have Unix/Linux/OpenVMS systems that need to participate it screews up badly. Insert a BOM character in a unix shell script and you know what I mean.
Snake oil is the right phrase. Uses SQL server underneath, SOAP, web services and what have you buzz word. But in the end. Utter mess.
Despite my bitter taste, been doing development for 20+ years I’m sure that some souls may find your advice as a MVP helpful.
Anyway, enough of this. Back to work.
Take care.
/bjorn
Hi Dave,
it’s a pity you want to drop the Award but of course it’s up to you. I won’t comment your thoughts about technical stuff but I would like to share something that is in contrast with what you said in this post.
Experts. the Award is a mixture/balance between quality and quantity. The value of the Award goes to the ones who really shares good stuff. There are surely plenty of great and probably more qualified people out there, but if they don’t share, what’s the benefit for their peers and the commmunities at large? It seems very 80′s when people was tending to keep their knowledge by themselves because of the uncertainty of the job (to be sure not to lose their jobs). The meaning of the Award is this: it’s a Thank you for what you did in the past, from a voluntarily standpoint, on a specific expertise.
And yes, we makde mistakes in the past, but we as MVP Leads try to get the best people who qualified for it keeping in mind the 2 criteria.
MS Listens: you have to keep in mind one thing: Microsoft is made by people. And people sometimes are busy/not focused or make mistakes so you enter in dead-end holes. This happens sometimes: all the BG Leads and MVP Leads do their best to accomodate almost ALL the requests coming from the MVP Leads but sometimes we (as Microsoft people) are not heard. I think this is a problem for all the big Companies where you can find very collaborative people and "uncollaborative ones". Also, there are projects that are led by other teams in which it is requested an MVP involvement (of course, if they want to) and most of the times they go through. But sometimes MVP Leads are stuck as these people dropped these projects or are very slow in replying or for any other reason and the project’s gone.
Benefits: From an Awareness standpoint, and I tell this as an "experienced" MVP Lead (a.k.a. been doing this job for several years) and, if I think about the past, the "MVP as a Brand" is more recognized by the IT Industry than in the past. I’ve seen several MVPs hired by Microsoft, I’ve seen several MVPs that, just because they were MVPs (and of course not only for that) they got a job as consultants, beating the competition. But I’ve also seen people who got several engagement opportunities but they didn’t use it. So, in short, the MVP Award Program give you chances to be more visible and, if you are a private consultant, it’s a great form of rewarding. But if you are not interested in that, than it’s ok if you don’t want to apply to them. But several MVPs had the chance to become very visibile in the IT Industry but they didn’t. My comment is: "use us"
If you want, I can send you so many speaking engagement and so many other short-term project engagement opportunities you’ll be overwhelmed !
That said, I’m sorry for your decision but bear in mind my little tips. Maybe you’ll change your mind
Sincerely,
Alessandro Teglia
Being MVP from past 6 years, I have seen lot of changes in the program. The only benefit we get from MVP is MSDN Subscription and Global Summit, interaction with the product teams. Considering the previous MVPs I feel that this program is losing Quality of the MVPs. This Blog post can be taken as best feedback to the MVP Program. I can agree 50% with you. I enjoyed being MVP and part of it; this helped in networking with lot of others who are now very good friends to me. This program is valuable but I feel need to be revamped with better benefits and valuing MVPs.
After all why we are Blogging? Speaking? Helping Others? We are not doing all these for the awards. I do these things because I love doing and it’s my passion. Sometimes I go and refer my own article or blog post for the reference as it becomes a database of content.
When I first awarded as MVP I did not know what this award is. I request you not to stop writing or speaking. Finally If MS reads this I personally love company store benefit $150 purchase benefit which is no longer available now. But it would be good if they can bring it back and limit the order to single order.
As an MVP since 2000 I can fully understead what you are writing.
So one more an critical MVP get lost in the overall MVP-community. Very sad!
Yes, the MVP program changed a lot. May be that there are product groups that have a real good communication with their MVPs.
But seeing it on the long term MVPs turn more and more form "tech-guys" into "community-guys" and the communication from the product group is more and mor on a "community-guys" level and no longer on a "tech-guys" level. In other words: we here more and more words from marketing and less and less facts.
PS: I don’t share your meaning about TFS
Sorry to hear about your experience! This my 3rd year being an MVP and my experience has been good so far. The interactions in the mailing list with the ASP.NET team, the Global summit, Mvp open days, Consulting and Speaking opportunities as well as a lot of other benefits associated with the MVP program, has been an invaluable experience to me. We do get involved for a feedback/suggestion/poll for new features that are introduced in the product and that makes us a part of the product development cycle. I hope this happens with the other groups too, however I speak for the ASP.NET MVP group.
But I am a strong believer that there is always a scope for improvement and I hope the MVP program owners consider your feedback!
Do yourself a favor and drop Microsoft altogether. You spend as much time working on their stuff as you do using it? (Imagine changing to water pump or alternator on your car daily just to get to work.)
I am a german Exchange MVP and I think it depends on the product and the MVP Lead. All five german Exchange MVP are experts. Maybe the are some more and maybe the are some more with greater skills but the current are the Experts in the german Exchange community.
There is a Exchange-NDA-DL as well. You need a lot of time to read. In four month I received more then 2.500 mail on that DL. Mails from MVPs, answers from MSFT, informations from MSFT, questions from MSFT. We were indeed invited to participate in the design process of the next Exchange Server version. The value of the DL for me is priceless.
So I think it really depends on the product. The Exchange prduct group is general very community friendly (you need a lot of time to read the Exchange Team Blog).
Gosh, I so completely agree with your post that I can hardly add any more!
I stopped being a MVP in 2007, but was really just going through the motions for two years before then. When I said I was going I got an email from a lead on the C++ team who asked me why I was going, and from the discussion I had with him it was quite clear that I had been "awarded" every year on his recommendation (because I was rather prolific at writing C++ articles for coding magazines) rather than for the voluntary community work I did.
I suffered all the other stuff you mention: MS not wanting to listen (even though I pointed out things that had they listened they could have avoided problems in the future), and being used as a free resource (I was even told at one conference "you’re an MVP so you are expected to work for us for free"). But the thing that really pissed me off was their expectation that I would be a cheerleader. If I had turned up at a conference and they had handed me a short skirt and pom-poms I would not have been surprised.
Wow. You’ve certainly created quite the stir. Anyway, my prediction is that come April 1, 2011 that Edmonton will have a dearth of MVP’s, one way or the other
Kudos! Just want to say I think this is one of the best actions I saw in a long time from an MVP. You got balls
Blimey all of a sudden all these MVPs suddenly appear out of the woodwork, some in technology areas I’ve worked in a lot. The conclusion seems to be as with all things Microsoft, inconsistency, obfuscation and confusion. The original post I think is largely spot-on as far as my experience has been in various product areas – and even amongst them it can vary. As for whether it gets you work or not, I think that might be more from the unquantifiable networking point of view – certainly if I was recruiting or looking to give work to someone, MVP Status would NOT in itself swing me in that person’s favour – writing non-production code samples and endlessly replying to newsgroup posts to tell the O/P that they’ve posted in the wrong forum a good programmer doth not necessarily make. Saying that I have listened to talks and read posts by some truly awesome MVPs who provide the missing link between those holed up in the MS developer pits and us earthlings who have to make things work in production without the benefit of a direct to line to someone who has a direct line to the person who wrote that bit of the product that didn’t quite get documented properly and may not even work properly.
Sounds like the only problem here is that MS let you into the program.
Take your toys and go home. Maybe you can join the Eclipse MVP program.
Now that is a real statement! Great job!
Mike: This is eerie. I have a friend who wanted to renounce his US citizenship and the response he got from whatever government department he talked to was almost word for word the same one you just gave.
TFS is crap. Use SVN/GIT/Mercurial with Team City and save yourself a maintenance nightmare.
Silverlight is crap. I would rather use Flex, and even then, Flex sucks, too.
Biztalk is crap. Look at NServiceBus or Rhino Service Bus. Get away from the stupid hub and spoke model and the need for specialized (and costly) resources.
Webforms is crap. MVC should have been the first, and only, design pattern for ASP.NET web development. Webforms support should be completely dropped.
Entity Framework is crap. Use NHibernate.
MVP is crap. 99% of you MVP guys have got your heads up your ass.
Don’t bother responding, I just came across this at random and won’t be returning.
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Man, you have guts, that’s for sure. As an ex-MVP, I can not help but say that you are making excellent points! However, one thing is not clear to me: what is the purpose of this communication? You have spent considerable time writing this thing up, and answering questions, but why?
What are trying to accomplish by this post?
AlexK: People wanted to know why I was not interested in the program. This post is explaining my reasoning.