MVP

I often wonder how much people in other professions genuinely love the industry they're in to the point that they'd do it regardless of the money. I'm sure there are examples, but I wonder how many lawyers look forward to doing something in the legal space on their weekend, or a shoe salesman wanting to, well, it's hard to imagine anything too exciting there. For me, it's stuff like this: Rack upgrade day! Some new @Ubiquiti goodness to consolidate things, pics and details coming… pic.twitter...

Just over 13 years ago, Microsoft gave me my first "Most Valuable Professional" award. Out of the blue, as far as I was concerned. It wasn't something I'd planned for and it certainly wasn't something I'd expected, but it has become a cornerstone of my professional identity. Indulge me while I go off on a bit of a tangent here: like the other things in my professional life that have turned into a success, the things I did to earn that first MVP award were things I was going to do anyway. Things...

Each year since 2011, Microsoft has sent me a lovely email around this time: I've been fortunate enough to find a passion in life that has allowed me to do what I love and make a great living out of it all whilst contributing to the community in a meaningful and impactful way. In last year's MVP announcement blog post, I talked about one of my favourite contributions of all that year being the Pwned Passwords ingestion pipeline for the FBI. This year, they sent me something nice in return: Thi...

11 years now, wow 😲 It's actually 11 and a bit because it was April Fool's Day in 2011 that my first MVP award came through [https://www.troyhunt.com/accidental-mvp/]. At the time, I referred to myself as "The Accidental MVP" as I'd no expectation of an award, it just came from me being me. It's the same again today, and the last year has been full of just doing the stuff I love; loads of talks (which, like the one above at AusCERT, are actually starting to happen in front of real live humans a...

A little over a decade ago now, I awoke from a long haul flight to find an email I never expected to see: my first Microsoft MVP award [https://www.troyhunt.com/accidental-mvp/]. I earned the award by doing something many people couldn't understand, namely devoting a bunch of my time to creating things for the community. Not for money, not for glory, but for the love of technology and for the joy of seeing it make a difference to people. All this time later and in a fundamentally different world...

Last week, I received my 10th Microsoft Most Valuable Professional award. Being recognised as an MVP was a pivotal moment in my career and to continue receiving the award all these years later is an honour. Particularly given recent events that have made it exceptionally difficult to sustain community contributions [https://www.troyhunt.com/sustaining-performance-under-extreme-stress/], the recognition is particularly significant this year. Thank you to everyone who reads what I write, listens...

I've become especially reflective of my career this year, especially as Project Svalbard [https://www.troyhunt.com/project-svalbard-the-future-of-have-i-been-pwned/] marches forward and I look back on what it's taken to get here. Especially as I have more discussions around the various turning points in my professional life, there's one that stands out above most others: my first MVP award. This is not a path I planned, in fact when I originally got that award I referred to myself as The Accid...

Back in 2011, Microsoft gave me the rather awesome (IMHO) Most Valuable Professional Award [https://www.troyhunt.com/accidental-mvp/] for the first time. This is Microsoft's award for community leadership within a technology discipline which for me at the time, was developer security. I'm confident that award came largely due to the work I did on the OWASP Top 10 for .NET Developers series [https://www.troyhunt.com/owasp-top-10-for-net-developers-part-1/], a 10-part epic blog series that set me...

Just over 6 years ago, I received my first Microsoft MVP award [https://www.troyhunt.com/accidental-mvp/]. It was unexpected, in part because I'd only started doing anything community facing 18 months earlier. But it rated - people were finding what I was doing genuinely useful and that award was an absolutely pivotal moment which helped define what I do today. This weekend, I got the (still) eagerly awaited email for the seventh time: > Giddy up! 7 years running ? pic.twitter.com/okTP6GTk5n [...

Each year since 2011, on April first (yeah, I know…), I’ve looked for one of these to land in my inbox and fortunately, this year didn’t disappoint: The MVP program has been an enormously fulfilling thing to be a part of these last five years. It’s been great for the connections I’ve made, the access to folks in Microsoft and the community engagements it’s lead to, particularly in my post-corporate life as an independent. Now yes, I’ve been misquoted as “Troy Hunt from Microsoft” many, many t...