Upgrade Yourself: Becoming a Microsoft MVP

7 min readMay 14, 2018

I’m often approached by people online (or after talks) that ask a common question.

How can I become a Microsoft MVP?

The answer is rather simple, do what you love. If you love software development and you have a passion for sharing your knowledge and experiences, there is a chance that you might be able to earn this recognition.

I had a conversation where someone told me that they spoke at a meetup once and they were disappointed that they didn’t become a Microsoft MVP for doing so. That is not what this recognition program is about…Let’s discuss what it means in more detail, yeah?!

TL;DR

Dark Matter Developers

Scott Hanselman had a post all the way back in 2012 about “Dark Matter Developers”, this was a great post because it still holds true today! Here is a description of a Dark Matter Developer.

They don’t read a lot of blogs, they never write blogs, they don’t go to user groups, they don’t tweet or facebook, and you don’t often see them at large conferences.

I’m certain that you know exactly who we’re describing here, am I right?! As a starting point to becoming a Microsoft MVP, don’t be a Dark Matter Developer — because I promise you that there has never been nor will there ever be a Dark Matter Developer who is recognized as a Microsoft MVP.

Developer Community

I became a Microsoft MVP because I immersed myself in the developer community. You must do a lot of community facing activities to be considered for the MVP award. These activities are referred to as “community contributions”. Microsoft has an MVP website that discusses “what it takes to be an MVP” and it is a great start, but there is so much more that can be done. It is not always so simple.

MVP Award Categories — “The Strategy”

Depending on the award category you best align with, it is important to know your competition — for example, I’m in the Visual Studio and Development Technologies award category. At the time of writing, there were 3,764 MVP’s world-wide based on a blank search. My award category literally makes up nearly 30% of the total, with 1,039 people. This means that you’d REALLY have to stand out to get recognized for contributions in this award category. It might be wise to select a less densely populated / saturated award category.

Knowledge Sharing

Every developer has knowledge and the ability to share said knowledge, even the most junior developers…this is something that cannot be taken away. However, the willingness to share knowledge is a different story. Parallel to this is an individuals unique perspective as it pertains to problem solving with applied software-related logical thinking. Simply put, everyone on the development team has a slightly different view of the best way to approach development — regardless of standardization, coding rules, agreed upon best practices, etc. What separates a “good developer” from an “amazing developer” is the realization that knowledge sharing is vital to the growth and success of the team and ultimately the project.

Knowledge sharing can lead to becoming a Microsoft MVP, but it’s not always easy. You must interact with “other people”, and often that isn’t easy for developers. I believe that you must know yourself before you can know anyone else.

Know Thyself!

DiSC

One step that I took several years ago to know myself better was the DiSC behavioral assessment. It taught me a lot about myself, but more importantly it taught me how I interact with others. DiSC stands for:

Dominance
Inducement
Submission
Compliance

Here is where I landed on my assessment.

(iD) Rating Explained

In terms of behavior, I’m an extrovert, direct, assertive and charming. I’m motivated by achievement, success and recognition. If you know me at all, you’d know that this aligns VERY closely with me! Your rating will be different and that’s okay. After the assessment there is a summary of how you can successfully interact with others of a different rating — which is immensely beneficial. This is just one tool that I’d suggest.

Open Source

There are Microsoft MVP’s that have only done open source contributions, but a staggering amount — such that they’re influencing entire projects. I recall a time when I shared with a Product Owner on our agile development team that we were using a third party NuGet package for a specific task — they were shocked, they assumed we wrote all the code! That was a good laugh… but it made me realize that there are so many people who simply do not understand all aspects of software development.

I love that open source software exists — I’m a HUGE fan of GitHub! It is such a simple concept, but so powerful. Open source allows developers to learn from each other much more rapidly, with a seemingly immediate feedback loop in the standard GitHub pull request workflow. Furthermore, it allows everyone to see the inner workings of the project — this allows for an expansion of knowledge. Developers are free to observe various design and architectural decisions through the implementations used.

Blogging

One of the easiest ways to start sharing knowledge with the developer community is to do so by blogging. It is very simple to start a blog, for example you could easily create a WordPress account and immediately start establishing an online presence for yourself. Again, this could be a starting point — and you could build out from there. I started on WordPress but I’ve grown out of that. I prefer static site generation and fell in love with Hugo. My friend Steven Hicks has written a blog post about “Static site generators being considered the new WordPress”. I still update my WordPress site with links to posts on my static site as I want those subscribers to be notified when I publish something.

Additionally, there is a great site for blogging as well — that is even easier than WordPress… it’s called Medium (.com) and you’re reading a post on it right now. Blogging can lead to other opportunities for guest authoring online articles, magazines and even books. A lot of Microsoft MVP’s maintain a blog.

Speaking

Public speaking isn’t for everyone, but I believe that you should at least give it a try. Start small. Speaking at a local meetup or even to a small group of co-workers that you’re comfortable with. Solicit feedback, and know that you’re going to be terrible at first — it’s part of getting better. If you would have asked me back in the middle of 2016 how I felt about giving a presentation, it would have been a very awkward conversation… I was terrified. I got so nervous just talking about giving a talk. I felt sick to my stomach. Overcoming this is huge, in 2017 I gave 22 talks that changed my career forever!

However, impostor syndrome still stops by to say hello — the innate fear that everyone in the crowd will discover you don’t know what you’re talking about. Your mind races, your heart pounds, your temperature rises… then you do it and realize that you feel amazing. You teach someone something, you see their eyes light up when you share an experience — you make a connection and that feels awesome!

Here is a list of well established speakers with some resources for getting started or taking your speaking game to the next level:

Jeremy Clark — Next Speaker, You!
David Neal — Public Speaking without barfing on your Shoes
Cory House — Speaker Starter Kit
Troy Hunt — Speaker Bingo
Scott Hanselman — Speaker Hacks
Steven Hicks — 10 Tips for writing conference talks

Speaking can take you places, I would never have experienced a journey of a lifetime in Serbia if it weren’t for speaking.

Mentoring

Early in my career I would have loved having a mentor. Simply having someone who could teach me, someone who I could ask stupid questions to and they wouldn’t shame me for asking them. A good mentor could be the difference between a successful career and one that lands you as a “lifer” at someplace where you feel undervalued and okay with it… I believe that mentoring someone can be beneficial to both the mentee and the mentor. Microsoft believes in this philosophy as well, and there are contributions that fall under this specific sub-category.

Misc. Contributions

One common theme through this post has been the willingness to share knowledge and experience. With this comes to mind Q/A sites like Stack Overflow. These are not for everyone, yet another way to help out the developer community. Likewise, in addition to attending conferences you could help organize one, or even a local meetup. All this leads to strengthening the developer community through sharing what you can.

Conclusion

I would like to leave you with one final thought, please feel free to quote me on this — since I believe it is one of the few things I’ve said that is quote worthy.

Be the greatness that you seek in others.

Rather than sitting around and waiting for some amazing blog post or tech talk or inspiring developer story, take the initiative to do something amazing. Don’t be afraid to fail, for every non-successful attempt is a lesson learned.