What it takes to be a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional

The Microsoft MVP Award gives us the unique opportunity to celebrate, honor and say thank you to top-notch technology experts who make outstanding contributions to their communities. These technology experts have an unstoppable urge to get their hands on new, exciting technologies and love to share their knowledge. While there is no single way to become an MVP, we have some great examples that showcase our MVPs and the passion, community spirit and leadership they have exhibited to earn the MVP award.

The MVP Summit brings together people from around the world who are passionate about learning, growing, sharing, blogging, speaking, answering questions and finding solutions.

I am grateful for the opportunities Microsoft has given me. It goes beyond interacting with developers. I've been part of challenging conversations that have opened my eyes to the complexities of:

Although not officially called that, I have essentially been mentored by people in the organization through many lenses. I've listened to their perspectives. It has changed the way I approach my own role as a teacher leader and helped me to see education in a new light. I wrote about one kind of perspective shift after the Learn What's Next Event in New York. The MVP Summit provided yet another experience to add on.

Being part of the Microsoft Innovative Educator Expert community, a MCE, Surface Master Trainer, and leading a Microsoft Showcase School not far from Headquarters, I've had the chance to experience many facets of the organization and be on campus more than people who aren't local. That has given me on-the-ground insight into the organization. I've learned to approach and offer feedback in a more effective way, while taking into consideration the many audiences Microsoft is reaching. It's not just about the perspective of an educator in the Pacific Northwest.

What they create is adaptable for a wide variety of applications from 5 year olds in a classroom to executives in corporations and governments and medical fields who need high levels of functionality and security. I've challenged myself to go to IT Developer Camps in the past so I'd have a broader perspective of how the pieces fit together. I wanted to learn things outside my domain and that feel foreign to me. If I teach, I want to know what my students will need to be able to do in the real world someday. That includes teaching them that what they see, is not the totality of what exists. Being aware is an essential step in that process.

It's one thing for Microsoft to Award MVP status and recognize, and listen. However, by bringing MVPs together from around the globe, under one roof, it allowed us to hear and see different challenges and how different countries access, use, see, and interact differently in some ways, and in other ways, the interaction with the product or device is identical.

I watched my OneNote MVP team, lead by William Devereux, shift from wanting specific things to realizing how complex the system is they are working within. I watched the process change the way people saw and offered feedback. I kept hearing things like, "I had no idea how complicated this was."

As a teacher, I see the same shift happen in students when I've given them more responsibility to take the lead on learning, designing learning to meet end goals, or teach content through mentoring to another student or group of students. In mentoring with little buddies, older kids frequently say things like, "Now I know how my mom must feel with two of us and we don't listen. It's way harder than I thought."

With older students co-designing learning and aligning to end goals, I hear things like: "I didn't know how much work it took to build all this and all the things you have to think about." In adults as educators who create and design learning, or take teacher-leader roles, they start to realize the challenges of managing, taking responsibility for larger collective outcomes, and how you can't make everyone happy.

I watched the same shift happen in MVPs under William's leadership. People can be absolutely brilliant and leading experts on something. But once our eyes are opened to a different realm of complexity, we realize how little we actually do know. It decreases absolutes or assumptions. It decreases a "right" to tell someone else what they need to do, once there is a realization that there may be something bigger or more complex that's not visible from one perspective. It builds a level of empathy and a new understanding of how to approach a challenge. It builds an awareness that the time it takes to thoughtfully consider all options and perspective is balanced with deadlines of getting things out and balanced with innovation. Innovation is juggled with knowing people, by nature, feel jarred by change - even if that change is an improvement. It is balanced with an emotional component.

The MVP Summit has the ability to do in person what can't be done over announcements, blogs, or calls. It's different grappling with a challenge with a room of people and seeing first hand how difficult some decisions are. I imagine other teams had similar experiences, but I know that William put a lot of thought into the design of the experiences for our OneNote MVP team. He showed patience and intentionality. He anchored the conversations and components in a direct purpose and ensured follow-through. He demonstrated that he trusted us as MVPs to see the broader picture. He ensured our MVP Summit experience was a professional development experience.

The same value William gave our MVP OneNote team, he also gave to elementary school students. He has visited the students at my school and spoken to them as people with value, listened to their ideas and encouraged them. They literally looked up to him and others on his team.

He is one of the many people who have demonstrated strong character in a large organization. He has demonstrated a humility and honesty. He is one that I point to my students as a role model.

As we become more knowlegable, it is easier to think we know more. We don't start really beginning to know until we have a realization how much more there is to know.