MVP Summit 2010, Welcome MVP's - Part 1
[The series index can be found here.]
The welcome banner goes up at the MVP Summit!
“Remember, this is NDA—no talking about it, posting on the internet, tweeting, or sharing in any way”—that message is almost the MVP Summit slogan, as it was told to attendees so many times, and for good reason. MVP Summit, for those who don’t know, is an invite-only conference that Microsoft runs yearly at its headquarters in Redmond, Washington (near Seattle). The conference attendees consist of Microsoft staff, MVP awardees, and regional directors, meaning the depth of knowledge is massive. I was comparing it to TechEd, except every session is interactive and starts at least at level 300 (Advanced)—and most of the audience has the knowledge to present it themselves. I can’t go into the details of the sessions due to the NDA, but what I can say is that all the sessions were marked by direct, open, and honest communication between MVPs and the product teams.
This is what a session looks like at MVP Summit. Plenty of MVPs in front and the product team toward the back.
Stepping back for a moment, let me explain how I got there: Traveling with fellow MVPs (and coworkers—yes, BB&D has three MVPs), Rudi Grobler and Zayd Kara, we left Johannesburg to go to Atlanta (a 15-hour flight), and what should have been a 1-hour stopover in Atlanta turned into 5 hours—thanks to Zayd’s bag losing its boarding pass, meaning we missed the flight (admittedly, a heroic run might have made it, but that sealed it). Unfortunately, Rudi couldn’t get a seat on the next flight and ended up in Atlanta for 8 hours! We (Zayd and I) touched down in Seattle very late, raced to the hotel, and then raced to our first dinner.
Why are South Africans always the last to arrive at the pub?
The summit was tiring enough between jet lag, getting up early to eat, catching the shuttle to the Microsoft campus, spending the day trying to keep my brain from exploding, and catching the shuttles back—but the limited time there also meant using evenings for special dinners. So I had dinners with MEA MVPs, product teams, and gatherings with all the MVPs, where plenty of networking and side conversations took place.
Ruari, our fearless MVP lead, giving me the evil eye for disturbing his pool game skills (which, by the way, didn’t help our team win) at one of the dinners.
What I take away from MVP Summit is twofold:
- Relationships – meeting people I’ve only known via email, meeting new people, and catching up with old friends.
- Guidance – A lot of the content focuses on the why rather than the how, meaning I now better understand Microsoft—and that helps me position myself more effectively at work and in the community.
It’s truly in the interest of companies to send their employees who are MVPs to the summit (with conditions to safeguard them from leaving if that’s a concern), because what they bring back—even if they can’t articulate it—will help in the long run.