EPISODE 13 - Career: How to become an MVP

Michael Seidl: Welcome to a new episode of the Get Shit Done in IT podcast. My name is Michael Seidel and today we have the question, how to become an MVP? So first, I want to start with what is an MVP? And you might notice in your social media feeds, because we are now recording on the 23rd of July, that recently, I think a week ago, that all the MVP's are the illegal MVPs got renewed. So your social media feed was MVP bus and lot of photos of emails and MVP logos and so on. So it was that time every MVP was waiting for if he gets renewed or not. So that was the reason why I choose that topic to talk about how to become an MVP. So what is an MVP basically? MVP means Microsoft valuable professional and besides the...

Michael Seidl: MVP means Microsoft Valuable Professional. The myth says that they are all technical gurus and we know everything about our technical topic. Basically, the Microsoft MVP is not about technical knowledge. It is, in the definition of Microsoft, an award for people who are active in the community. What does that mean? So, MVPs do a lot of work for the Microsoft community, the tech community to share the knowledge, to teach other people any specific topic, to share any insights, to share any code examples, whatever. So MVP means you are highly active in the tech, in the Microsoft tech community and give away your knowledge without receiving any money. other people. So that's basically what an MVP is. Of course, if you share your knowledge, if you teach others, if you do sessions, you do blog posts, if you do code snippets on GitHub, whatever it is, might come in place or it might include that you know a lot about that topic. That's for sure. On first side, Microsoft MVP award is an award for community work. So that's to make it clear. And what does that community work mean? You can write blog articles, can write video, you can record videos, can do sessions, technical sessions. You can write scripts and share them on GitHub. You can do mentoring. for other people to teach them something. You can do conferences. For example, in Europe or in Austria, Germany, there is a very popular conference of experts life. Europe experts life, Germany, Austria and cafes in every city, a lot of cities. Those people also are mostly MVP because they do that for the community without getting any

Michael Seidl: payment for this. And that's the main spirit of being an MVP. And how to become an MVP is to do your community work and other MVP's will nominate you if they see that you work a lot in the community, that you share a lot of knowledge, then another MVP has to nominate you as an MVP. Then if you're lucky, Microsoft contact you and ask you to provide all the information you did in the last year, what they call for community. So you have to send them a list of all information you did for the community. all your blog posts, your video, costs, your sessions, your communities, your GitHub reposts, whatever everything what is done for the community. And then if you're lucky and after some time. Microsoft is sending out every first day of every month, newly MVPs.

Michael Seidl: So Microsoft is sending out every first day of every month to newly awarded MVP, so people, and send them an email, hey, you are now an MVP. So every first of month, if you see your social media feed, you should see a lot of newly MVP's. And of course, if you don't do the community work, you will also lose your MVP. So one thing is to become an MVP. The other thing is to stay or to keep the MVP award. So if you're in the program, then every year you have to reapply to be an MVP. And of course, have to reapply or you have to send the information to Microsoft again. What have you done for the community in the last year? So it's not one time an MVP, always an MVP. Every year you have to apply and prove that you're still illegal to an MVP. So, and that's maybe the most important thing. It shouldn't be a decision that you want to be an MVP. It should be more you want to do community work and on top of that, you can try to get an MVP, but don't get the MVP because you want to be an MVP. Okay. So it always should be the community. And if you like the community work. if you like to do the sessions, the blog posts and everything else, then the MVP will come on top sooner or later, hopefully. But don't do it for the MVP title. example, today it is nearly 8 o 'clock PM on the 23rd of July. In seven hours, I have to stand up again, so 3 a .m. in the morning, drive to to train station, go to Vienna airport for two hours, then catch my flight two hours later to Frankfurt, then fly to New York, do my session on Friday and Friday evening home again. So this is a lot of time investment. Nobody is giving me one dollar, one euro of money for this. So everything is paid by myself.

Michael Seidl: This is nothing you just do for the MVP. This isn't something you enjoy doing. Yeah, it's cool to be in New York. Yeah, it's cool to do a session, but there is a lot of time investment to do the session, to prepare the session, to fly over there, to fly back. So you will have to invest a lot of time to be an MVP. So make sure you like to do that stuff. You love to do that you love to do the community things and not only the idea or the dream to be an MVP. So that's for sure. The community should always be on the first and then on top. You might get lucky and you might be an MVP. Okay, so keep that in mind. Don't try to be an MVP because it's cool. And when you're an MVP, as I said, you have to reapply every year. You have to do your community work every year. So during the year and continuously. And for those who watching me on YouTube, on the left or right, it depends on if the video is mirrored or not. That's what you get. You get an MVP banner. and glass trophy and those glass rings you see here. for every, so the trophy you get once and for every additional year you are nominated and elected as an MVP, you get those glass rings or discs you can put on each other. So this July, it was my ninth year. So I will soon hopefully get my ninth disc. So that's what you get. You don't get paid by Microsoft. We don't get any money. We have contact to the product team so we can interact. So we have a better direct connection to Microsoft. mainly and very important, Microsoft MVP's do not get a single euro from Microsoft. So this is everything for free, everything out of our pocket. So every travel,

Michael Seidl: I don't know equipment to record this podcast. This video is paid by ourselves. We don't get anything from Microsoft besides what you see here in the video. And of course the fame and the glamour. No joking. we don't. Yeah, it's a free decision. There's no financial background, no financial stuff behind. We're just happy to work for the community. I enjoy doing blog posts. I enjoy doing sessions and conferences. And on top, of course, I love to be an MVP. And I still try to do it. I still enjoy it very much. And until I do this, I will try to apply to an MVP. that, we are now at the end of this podcast. I hope you enjoyed the journey on the Microsoft MVP stuff. If you have any questions for this podcast, please send me a message on LinkedIn. a text message or a voice message on LinkedIn. And I would be happy to answer one of your questions in the next episode. And at the end, want to say thank you for listening and enjoy your week. Stay productive and bye