Frequently Asked Questions for the Sitecore MVP application

The MVP application process can be stressful. The categories are open-ended, the possible answers seemingly endless, the combinations of activities nerve wracking. There are often a lot of questions about what types of content count, how everyday work-based activities integrate with community contributions, which social media activities count and which ones don’t. Jill Grozalsky Roberson and I put together a list of tips for the MVP process, and we also wanted to answer some of the questions that surface every year. We hope to provide a bit of clarity and give folks a resource to refer to while refining their application and, ideally, while gearing up in the 10 months that come before application season.

Keep in mind that these answers are guidelines. There are no hard and fast rules about what makes a great application, just as there are no firm conditions for winning a Sitecore MVP award. There are exceptions to every rule and any number of scenarios under which the answers to these questions might change.

?“What information is needed for the Sitecore MVP application?”

The questions revolve around you and your contributions to the community. Specifically, you’ll be asked why you want to be a Sitecore MVP, what your objectives are for the next year, and what you’ve done, both online and offline, over the course of the last year. You can find much more detailed information on Sitecore Stack Exchange.

“How much content do I need to produce to be considered for Sitecore MVP?”

There’s no hard and fast answer to this, but a good rule of thumb is 3 or more blogs a year, and 2 or more presentations. If one of those categories far outweighs the other (if you presented at 11 events but only wrote 1 blog, for example) you’re still in the green zone.

“Do Sitecore lunches count?”

We love them! You should definitely go as often as possible! If you present, that’s awesome and would count in the presentation column. If you’re regularly attending and participating (which again, we encourage) know that that by itself won’t do it because it’s hard to evaluate “regularly attended and participated.” That goes for participation on the community Slack channel as well; we love that, but it’s hard to validate.

“What about customer presentations and customer workshops?”

These are nearly impossible to evaluate because they almost always take place behind closed doors and under some form of NDA. Unless content contributes to the community as a whole it can’t be counted, and it has to be accessible to the whole community for that to happen. NOTE: this answer is a bit different for the Ambassador MVP category as the criteria for evaluating Ambassadors revolves around brand evangelism more than community participation.

“What about attending conferences and working Sitecore booth?”

Amazing! We can’t wait to see you there as in-person events start up again. But that’s also part of your job, and you likely got a sweet trip out of it. If you presented at said conference, that would count in the presentation column.

“What’s a good balance of activity?”

As a guideline, consider the “more than 1” concept - more than 1 blog, more than 1 public presentation. That said, it’s possible to outweigh one category with a huge splash in another; someone who wrote 10 high quality blogs and a 25-page whitepaper but only presented once isn’t going to be penalised for not meeting the “more than 1” rule.

“What is the difference between an Ambassador MVP and Strategy MVP?”

There are a few factors, but one of the brightest lines has to do with community involvement.

Ambassador MVP has a lower content and community participation threshold because it fundamentally relies on the person being a brand ambassador and evangelist for Sitecore. Being a brand ambassador usually means that the value of the activity is less quantifiable, and as such ambassadors are not expected to be as visible in the Sitecore community. They are, however, much more likely to be highly participatory in the wider ecosystem. Ambassadors might also be technical folks; a CTO, a customer-side dev manager taking part in a detailed case study, a solutions engineer who spends time doing customer reference calls and consistently evangelising for the platform. If you’re wondering about specifics of constructing an Ambassador MVP application, you can’t do better than this video Rob Huffstedtler put together.

A Strategy MVP should be a leader in the Sitecore strategy space, which means visible thought leadership and being an active resource and subject matter expert in the community. The “more than one” concept is much more likely to be a hard line in the Strategy category. That said, it’s unusual to see an Ambassador MVP application with no publicly available content or presentations listed. It’s not a deal-breaker, but one of the core requirements for Ambassador MVP’s is brand evangelism and that usually involves content creation in some form.

“What does “evangelism” really mean?”

This is by no means a complete or exhaustive list, but we think evangelism means:

• Being an advocate for the product publicly, not just within your company or to your customers.
• Taking part in external marketing events (either through your company, through official Sitecore events, or third-party events like a CX or DX conference).
• Writing or delivering thought leadership that promotes the value of Sitecore. ?
• Sharing learnings and experiences and diving deep into WHY certain routes were chosen, and how that helped solve specific problems.
• Teaching others the path, illustrating what works for them and why.

We hope this is helpful! And as always if you have any questions at all please reach out to?[email protected]. We’re happy to help!