Renewed as Office Servers & Services MVP

With the Microsoft MVP Program moving all program renewals to July 1st, you may have seen a crushing wave of social media yesterday as many MVPs received their annual renewal emails from Redmond letting them know that they have been recognized with the 2018-2019 Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award “in recognition of your exceptional technical community leadership” and outstanding contributions.

This is officially my 7th award, but 8th “slider” on my award due to my original award happening in January 2012. The program shifted from quarterly to annual renewals last year….so this is actually the 7.5 year mark for me. My official MVP profile has finally caught up with my claim since January of being a 7-time MVP…and in January 2019, I’ll start claiming 8 years to match the number of sliders on my MVP award. 🙂

During my tenure, my inputs have primarily focused on the Office Servers and Services category, which covers SharePoint, OneDrive, Teams, Yammer, Exchange, and the entire Office 365 platform. Of course, with more and more of my time focusing on the Azure and Azure Blockchain space, this could shift over the next year or two — however, my core passion will will remain collaboration, and I don’t see that changing any time soon. With so much innovation still happening around the SharePoint space, I certainly don’t see myself moving away from the technology any time soon. When providing a quick intro, I, like many of my peers, still refer to myself as a SharePoint MVP 🙂

And then there’s that other recent award…..Having earned the Microsoft Regional Director (RD) award earlier this year, I’ve had a number of people ask about the differences between the two programs. The primary difference is that while MVPs are awarded for their community efforts for the prior year, the RD program is about supplying future help, with RDs providing non-paid advisory help to Microsoft leadership. Of course, there is an even more rigorous selection process for RDs, who participate in 2-year terms, with mine kicking off in April this year. You can find my profile here.

I am incredibly grateful for inclusion within both of these programs, for the many friendships and work opportunities that have opened up because of them, and for this wonderful community for the shared passion and sometimes crazy antics, all of which keeps me engaged and participating.

Here’s to another great year with lots of announcements, blog posts, and events around the world! Looking forward to it!