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Januaries Monthly Windows Phone 7 Roundup

Don't Code Tired — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 09:40:22 GMT

Januaries Monthly Windows Phone 7 Roundup

re: How I Lost, Regained and then Turned Down an MVP Award

Tony — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 02:43:20 GMT

@Rick Strahl, I've always admired you for how prolific you were, but I think you completely missed the point of Rob's post. You scorn Rob for posting his thoughts publicly, then you do exactly the same thing. How is your criticism of Rob more worthy or constructive than his? Frankly, I'm disappointed in you. In any case, I'm sure Rob can feel somewhat vindicated because you definitely seem to represent the minority (a minority of one from what I read here). It isn't necessarily whether there is any merit to your points; you lost your credibility when you did the same thing to the person you accused him of doing to Microsoft. You could have sent him a private email....

re: Boo-yah!!! Caliburn.Micro v1.3 RTW is Here

Leo — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 21:24:14 GMT

(Sorry for my bad english)

Rob, thank you for your amazing work. I cannot imagine have to program in silverlight without CM. It changed my life :D

re: How I Lost, Regained and then Turned Down an MVP Award

No Integrity — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 01:28:25 GMT

I was awarded as an MVP 8 times for the period between 1999 and 2007.

Many years ago the MVP award was for answering questions on Compuserve and then NNTP newsgroups. Nothing else. If you happened to like answering questions and knew what you were talking about you might get an MVP award.

If you had a website/blog or http forum, good for you, but you wouldn't get an award.

It was about answering the direct posts of people who needed and answer.

So things change, but we don't have to like it.

Today any douchebag with a blog could get one.

Marketing is king.

See how MS bought a domain for an MVP reward and some other goodies!!!

www.pcworld.com/.../microsoft_gains_control_of_windows_domain.html

MVP leads are just employees with the extra unpaid duty of MVP lead, somne are great, some are useless. Just like life.

re: How I Lost, Regained and then Turned Down an MVP Award

Reality Check — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 05:28:02 GMT

(intentionally waited until well after this was posted to keep from sounding like 'me, too!')

(also, yes, posting anonymously mainly because I'd rather the below be discussed as-is)

One of the things that strikes me as odd is the view of the MVP award, and specifically why Microsoft has it and continues to fund the program.

Your description of the 'Technology X' MVP is the real key, IMHO, to getting a real understanding of the program. The reality isn't that it's a "reward" for helping out in the community or anything of the sort. That may have been an attempted 'cover' at one time, but I think that's long since gone.

The MVP award is, quite simply, about ***marketing***. It's always been about marketing, but it was arguably less obvious in the past.

***

Each day she would scan her RSS feeds and post about 8 - 10 links on Technology X. That’s why she had her MVP.

***

Ever heard the term 'Microsoft shill'? So has the rest of the industry, and Microsoft has a long and colorful history of hyping products and then failing to deliver. What to do? Well, get some people that at least appear to be unbiased (at least less biased than MSFT employees).

How to decide how many people? Simple enough, it's a marketing effort, so tie it to the marketing budget for the group (either directly or indirectly, depending on the level of effort to 'hide' the link).

How to decide on the actual people? I actually had 5 paragraphs detailing that, but I killed it and decided to leave that as an exercise for the reader. :) Just make sure any theories map to reality, including the 'Technology X' people. :)

re: Boo-yah!!! Caliburn.Micro v1.3 RTW is Here

jdn — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 05:37:39 GMT

Yeah, but are you a Microsoft MVP? I can't use it if you aren't.

I KID, I KID, SUCH A KIDDER I AM.

Seriously, awesome stuff.

re: Boo-yah!!! Caliburn.Micro v1.3 RTW is Here

Timothy Corey — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 03:13:38 GMT

That's awesome! Thanks for all the hard work Rob (and others). CM has made my life a lot better and it makes my code that much more extensible. I feel like I get two or three times as much work done when I use CM. Keep up the good work.

re: How I Lost, Regained and then Turned Down an MVP Award

Lance Wen — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 01:20:45 GMT

I don't see values of being a MVP since I have met some MVPs who just don't have enough technology skills. they have lack of community activities and values. They are far cry from the words have been posted on the MVP website. I don't understand how they became MVP just as the fact that I don't understand why some people contribute a lot but can't be a MVP.

It's shame on MVP program if they cannot truely identify talents who have really contribute a lot to the community.

re: How I Lost, Regained and then Turned Down an MVP Award

Chris Pietschmann — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 14:55:27 GMT

I recently recieved the same Excel spreadsheet form to fill out for my MVP Award renewal consideration. They are still not asking for any Open Source contribution information. I though they would have learned from your experience. I emailed my MVP Lead about this, so we'll see how they respond.

re: How I Lost, Regained and then Turned Down an MVP Award

Chris Pietschmann — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 14:53:05 GMT

I am up for renewal of the Microsoft MVP award now as my award cycle is April 1st. I just recieved that same Excel spreadsheet to fill out; which still asks nothing about Open Source contributions. I thought they would have learned something from your experience. I emailed my MVP Lead about it and we'll see how they respond.

re: How I Lost, Regained and then Turned Down an MVP Award

evan larsen — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 14:41:24 GMT

Wheres the like button? :)

re: How I Lost, Regained and then Turned Down an MVP Award

Jtr — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 21:44:08 GMT

Hi,

Another anecdote on how the MVP program works. I started working with a company that lost two good people, one of which was MVP. He was hired by Microsoft, so had to abandon his MVP-ship. The director of the company told me that Microsoft promised that we could keep the MVP-ship, so it was offered to me. I declined, because I felt not worthy, certainly because of the work I see others do in the (open-source) community, that would deserve it much more. Just saying, this also made me understand that the value that the title MVP adds for someone is Nihil. Sure there are good MVP's, but they are just good developers and community leaders, not because they are MVP. It doesn't mean anything.

Don't get me started on the value of the MS Certification tracks, and how meaninless and hollow that is :-)

re: How I Lost, Regained and then Turned Down an MVP Award

Steve Jones — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 19:10:54 GMT

Disclosure: I have been a SQL Server MVP for 5 years.

Interesting take, Rob. I thank you for the work you do for the community and I'm sure your user base appreciates your efforts with Caliburn.Micro.

I have had some similar experiences with the MVP program as you, and many dissimilar ones. Overall I think the MVP program is better for MS than for the recipients, but I don't think it's horribly broken. It is inconsistent and a little random at times, but I'm not sure an "open" program that said you need to do xx to get an MVP would be better.

I would like to talk about a few things you brought up. The MVP leads are just employees, they rotate too often for me, and I don't expect them to know me. They work in a region, not a technology, and even if they worked by technology, I'm not sure they could know most of their MVPs. I have no idea how the other product groups work, but in SQL Server we have 250+ MVPs, and many more candidates, and it's hard to know who is contributing the most.

As far as the spreadsheet goes, it's a low tech way of assessing contributions. Not sure if a web form is better, and I think MS could do a better job, even having an "MVP candidate" or intern build something. That is silly, though asking candidates to fill one out isn't. I fill out the relevant pieces, take guesses where I must and let it go.

If I get it, fine, if not, no biggy. I do what I do for community because I enjoy it, not for an award.

As far as feedback and interaction with product groups, it varies. Even in SQL Server, some PMs like exchange things with the MVPs, some don't, but in the end it doesn't matter. You get to give an opinion, but it's just that. If they don't want to hear it, or don't want to follow your advice, so what? Who says you're smarter, or more right, or even making a suggestion that is better for their business. In my mind, I give them feedback that I think is warranted and then move on. I can't control what they do with it and I don't expect to be able to make a decision for me. If enough MVPs share the opinion, and they get support from the community , things can change. Not always, but don't forget MS is a profit driven company, not a community driven one.

In terms of expertise, MVPs tend to know more, but I wouldn't blanketly assume they are experts. Like any other measure, it's imperfect. It should be a reason to look further into someone's expertise, but it's just one part of your judgment of their skills. It certainly isn't a reason to *not* hire someone.

Lastly, some MVPs shill for MS, some don't. Lots of them are very critical of MS, often more so in the private lists than publicly. Judging MS, the MVPs, or really any group by some stereotype is prejudicial and a little silly. Take it for what it is, a recognition by some group at MS for someone's work in the community. Promotional, technical, whatever. Dig in further before you assume it means anything specific.

re: How I Lost, Regained and then Turned Down an MVP Award

K Rome — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 18:42:54 GMT

I also lost MVP status a few years back under similar circumstances. Your descriptions of the MVP program resonate strongly, and while some here have attacked you for expressing your thoughts - I agree with you and a part of me wishes I had also been vocal about it back when it really mattered to me.

I was in the C# group for two years, and we went through at least three different MVP leads during that time. It may have been four. I honestly don't know who it was half the time. And I certainly didn't know them well enough to care at all about the concerts they went to that week and how much fun they were having going hiking in the Cascades or how great it was to get a job a Microsoft (I think he was fresh out of college?). That was pretty much the majority of the content of those weekly "newsletters" from my leads.

When it was renewal time the website you use to update all of that information wasn't even functional. I tried repeatedly to get it working, with zero assistance from Microsoft on it. The application would simply crash (500 error) whenever new data was submitted. Eventually I gave up and just typed it all up in a Word document in the same format from the web site, and sent that to my MVP lead. A week after the renewal cycle I hadn't heard either way so I contacted him again via email... only to recieve a response from someone else saying that he was no longer the lead (!?) and they would check into my status. Two days later I got the form letter for non-renewal. Upon follow-up with that person I came to the conclusion that my information sent to the previous lead had simply gone ignored. I guess he was too busy planning his next hike to be bothered with it.

That year was my most active ever in the community. I spoke at numerous user groups and mini-conferences (and helped run them), blogged, contributed to a few small open-source projects, etc. On average I dedicated probably 20 to 30 hours per week. All in support of Microsoft's products. Losing the MVP renewal in that way left a very bitter taste in my mouth, and led me to reassess what I was doing with my spare time and what I was actually gaining from my community activities now that the MVP award wasn't a part of that. I realized that I was gaining nothing tangible from those activities any longer, and neither was my employer. And those who know me have noticed that since then I have not spoken a single time in a free public settings, and I almost never blog/tweet.

I would rather enjoy my spare time instead of giving it away to support an organization that prefers to treat me as a commodity. Maybe that MVP lead was onto something with all the hiking and concert-going.

And also, I can now use that spare time to build knowledge and experience around non-Microsoft products. WP7 isn't doing so hot, SL is on a death bed, and with Microsoft's track record on tablet/slate devices I am not holding my breath for W8/Metro to be successful except as "an upgrade to W7". I am getting too old to place my bets on a wounded horse.

re: How I Lost, Regained and then Turned Down an MVP Award

Tim — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 18:29:25 GMT

The MVP program is an extension of microsoft support and is how microsoft scales their support services. That's another reason it's broken into product groups.