Microsoft MVP Award – How do you become an MVP?

Hi folks, on the 1st of August I was lucky enough to achieve the MVP award from Microsoft Azure. A number of people have contacted me asking for some guidance and this post will cover that.

Let me start with a bit of background, I started the MVP nomination process back last November, at that time you could self nominate and due to the sheer number of people self nominating this had to be changed to give the team who run the program a chance to review each nomination.

Now that the process has changed, you need to be either nominated by an fellow MVP or by a current Microsoft employee.

Once you have been nominated you’re asked to fill out a form which is used to collate what community activities you have been involved in for the previous 12 months. If you don’t have 12 months previous contributions then personally I would wait until you have a solid 12 months.

Ok, so you’ve filled out your form and you have the contributions added, now you have to be very patient, it wont happen overnight, but your form will be reviewed within 90 days of submission, so you will hear something from the designated person who covers your part of the world.

If your looking for ideas of contributions then I will list a few of mine below and I’ll also say this, your already a community star if your helping people.

Here are a list of some of the things you can do to help the community: –

• Start a blog, writing about topics people will find helpful
• Start a User Group or ask to get involved running an existing one
• Give a talk(s) at local User Groups
• Help organise events that help the community
• Share code on GitHub or elsewhere that showcase’s examples or helps people in some way
• Network on social media with people who you may be able to help, join forums like Microsoft Tech Community where you can ask and answer questions
• Create a YouTube channel or join Techsnips.io and record videos demoing your knowledge to help others

You need to be active in the community, you shouldn’t be trying to become an MVP, you should want to be contributing to the community first and foremost.

If, like me, one of your goals is to try to help people in the community then you might be lucky enough to be nominated for the award.

I have been an MVP now for 2 weeks and all I can say is that there a lot of benefits to being an MVP, the number one for me is access to a lot more information which means I will hopefully be able to help even more people going forward.

To end this blog post I would say do as much as you can, help as many people as you can and you’ll be on track, talk to existing MVP’s, find your local Community Progam Manager and I wish you all the very best.

Get in touch in the comments below or get me on twitter if you have any specific questions.