Issue 21: MCTs MVPs and Wannabes Episode 1

Tonight Matthew Browne, Mica Hanson, Joseph Barnette and Frank Falvey joined together to discuss the Microsoft Certified Trainer program, Microsoft Most Valuable Professional award and people that aspire to one or both of these.

We talked about how the MCT credential is something you earn and the MVP award is something that rewards some community members (if it rewarded all community members that give back on their own, there would be a lot more MVPs!).

You can’t win an academy award if you aren’t nominated. Great point that made sense to me. You also can’t win an academy award this year if you were nominated last year!

In the case of the MVP award, you are eligible for consideration for 3 months. If you haven’t heard back, you have to be renominated and document your community contributions in the past year. If you don’t have any new contributions (or only a couple to list), that’s likely not going to stand out.

The other aspect of being an MVP is giving Microsoft feedback on their products. I found a #bug in Teams screen sharing when you duplicate your screen and then extend it. Reporting issues like this and ideally how to replicate the issue so the product group can look at it is another thing MVPs do for Microsoft and the community.

It’s an award but not for a single event, contribution or podcast/virtual webinar/keynote. The nomination is easy - you have to provide what you did, links to that (photos from event, the event website, a recommendation or article written, others involved *** or statistics. Running a user group or event monthly (12 contributions) or better yet weekly (50 or more contributions in a year!) is great, but who else did you meet, showcase, collaborate with? They don’t have to be MCTs or MVPs, but no one knows if you or others don’t say anything. You never get considered for a Grammy if no one knows you wrote a song (or if you perform the song for your company).

Technically your day job doesn’t count for MVP even if your job involves external communications. That would be a huge advantage to someone working for a Microsoft partner and doing webinars once a week as their job. I am a Microsoft Certified Trainer, so I can’t count the classes I teach or a daytime webinar that I get paid for (I can list it, but I believe contributions should be above and beyond).

I’ve spent YEARS building a Twitter list of MVPs. I have followed attended, spoke, collaborated, written and shared about many different Microsoft features in Office Products. Not just shared the Product Group or blog post about something new - used it and shared that freely.

I built a 325 page PowerPoint of #PeopleYouShouldKnow in the Microsoft Teams community. Found out the LIMIT for documents on LinkedIn is 300 pages! So version 1 is pinned to my LinkedIn profile and version 2 is already in the works with at least some new profiles of people I just met!

Finally if you are looking for the MVP, it’s harder than if you let the MVP find you. Collaborate, meet, discuss, do good things because you want to not because you want the MVP. I invited two young female professionals to the CommsVNext conference in Denver, CO. One happens to be my niece, but this year I’ll likely look for at least one other young professional to join us in Denver because that’s not only giving back but helping someone get into an industry. It’s easier once you have become a MCT or MVP (MCTs have access to every Microsoft Official Course so you can learn anything! MVPs have access to NDA Roadmap information so it’s easier to give feedback to the product group!) but we are all here to help others, so reach out, connect, offer your expertise, bring in and showcase others and don’t be afraid to ask. Their are thousands of MCTs and MVPs (some are both - many are one or the other) here to help.