MVP

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 times as a result but frankly, that’s been the only downside. For those wondering, this is independent...

This was not what I was expecting earlier this week: I am delighted to welcome you to the Microsoft Regional Director program! More specifically, the nomination I received some weeks back was not what I expected and this week’s message was what I’d dared not get my hopes up too much about. A bit of context first – I’m not going to work for Microsoft and despite the title of “Microsoft Regional Director”, I’m no more an employee than what I was (and still am) an MVP. The MVP title remains and what the Regional Director status does is turns that up to 11. Here’s what they told...

Last year was rather busy. I pushed out 78 blog posts. I had lots of millions of page views with over half a million on the Shellshock bug post alone (and mostly just in September). There were a bunch of conferences both down here in Australia and overseas, a few national TV spots and another 5 Pluralsight courses. And the ultimate endorsement of online success, abusive trolls. It was a very good year :) So per the title of the post, I was honoured to receive my fifth Microsoft Most Valuable Professional award today. The award recognises the things that people like myself have gotten up to over the previous year as it relates to community contributions and of course, doing...

So here’s how it works, for those who are curious: every year on one of four quarterly intervals, Microsoft chooses a bunch of people to give a shiny award to, some of for the first time, some of them who are backing up from previous awards. Much discussion and analysis goes into who should get these (as far as I understand it), but in a nutshell, this is what it’s all about: The Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) Award is our way of saying thank you to exceptional, independent community leaders who share their passion, technical expertise, and real-world knowledge of Microsoft products with others. It is part of Microsoft’s commitment to supporting and...

Despite the anniversary continually falling on that most foolish of days, it appears I have indeed been renewed and will now go into my third year of MVP’dom. For those of you not familiar with the process, every year as an MVP’s renewal date approaches, the powers that be at Microsoft look at what you’ve done and work out if you’ve aligned closely enough with the MVP ethos to deserve a renewal. As part of the process, MVPs keep track of their highlights from the year which is actually a good opportunity to reflect on what we’ve been able to contribute to the technology community. I churned out 59 blog...

Around this time last year I was talking about becoming an accidental MVP. Not this year; instead of it sneaking up on me, I – like many I know – was counting down the days. My now annual April Fool’s Day email made its way through last night: Congratulations! We are pleased to present you with the 2012 Microsoft® MVP Award! This award is given to exceptional technical community leaders who actively share their high quality, real world expertise with others. We appreciate your outstanding contributions in Developer Security technical communities during the past year. The odds of renewal were probably tipped in my favour this year after a bumper blog season, the free eBook on the...

Being awarded an MVP title and attending the annual summit is a little like getting your hands on one of these: Suddenly you feel all Charlie Bucket, ready to gorge on the wonders that exist behind the doors of the mysterious Ballmer Wonka chocolate factory. Whilst an extensive amount of the information shared remains under NDA (more on that shortly), I’d like to share some insight from the program and the event which might shed some light on some of the mystique. The conference that money can’t buy The MVP summit – and the MVP program in general – isn’t something you can buy your way into. You can’t study for an...

Well this was a very nice email to receive: Congratulations on being awarded MVP of the Year based on your contributions in 2011! It seems I must have done something(s) pretty right in my first year of MVPdom and word has it that my free OWASP Top 10 for .NET devs eBook tilted the voting in my favour. So for everyone who downloaded, RT’d, +1’d, liked, emailed and otherwise said nice things about my work, a heartfelt “thank you”! Now I’m not the only MVP to receive this award; there are some other names that also received the same accolade and it’s very illustrious company to keep. I joined...

An unexpected email was waiting for me when I got off the plane from a recent work trip to Thailand on Saturday: Congratulations! We are pleased to present you with the 2011 Microsoft® MVP Award! This award is given to exceptional technical community leaders who actively share their high quality, real world expertise with others. We appreciate your outstanding contributions in Developer Security technical communities during the past year. Given this was sent out on April 1st, one could be forgiven for being a little sceptical. Being loaded up with healthy doses of overwork and jet lag when I read the email didn’t help make things any clearer but a couple of days on, after the dust...