MVP

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. 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 to one all of us were in back then, I still find people unable to grasp why I and so many of my friends and peers would want to do what we do: "You...

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, the recognition is particularly significant this year. Thank you to everyone who reads what I write, listens to what I have to say and engages with me on social media. Without an audience, I simply wouldn't be here....

I've become especially reflective of my career this year, especially as Project Svalbard 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 Accidental MVP. But I also think that's the best way to earn any of the awards I've since received; not by setting out with the award as the goal, but rather focusing on the activities for which the award is granted. I wrote a blog people...

Back in 2011, Microsoft gave me the rather awesome (IMHO) Most Valuable Professional Award 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, a 10-part epic blog series that set me on the path to where I am today. Speaking of today, I awoke (exceptionally early!) to another very welcome email from Microsoft: I woke up at 1am unable to sleep with all these coding ideas for @haveibeenpwned in my head. Eventually just decided to get up at 3:30 and start work on...

Just over 6 years ago, I received my first Microsoft MVP award. 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 — Troy Hunt (@troyhunt) July 1, 2017 All these years later, I can tie a huge amount of what I'm doing today back to that original award. It gave me the confidence to expand my writing and speaking, the credibility to access...

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...

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...