I’m now officially a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP)! Becoming an MVP wasn’t a straight path for me: I became an MVP on the second try.
First try
In August 2018, Lars Schreiber nominated me for MVP. Back then you didn’t need an MVP or a Microsoft employee to nominate you, but I still appreciated it: someone thought I was worthy of being an MVP! After I completed my MVP submission, Reza Rad offered to nominate me too, which was nice.
Also, Matt Allington expressed his support in the process. When I told him it’s been several months since I was nominated, he connected me with Chass from Microsoft who told me my MVP nomination somehow got lost:
In the Twitter thread, quite a few people expressed their support. Some were surprised I wasn’t an MVP.
Months went by with no result, and then in March 2019 I finally heard that my nomination wasn’t successful. I was basically told that I didn’t do enough. At the time I said:
I’d rather publish fewer blog posts and keep them high quality than publish filler crap every week that nobody likes or reads just to be an MVP.
I like to think that I kept my word 🙂
Second try
For a while I forgot about becoming an MVP, then in April 2020 Maxim Uvarov said he wanted to nominate me. I was reluctant to accept the nomination but Maxim persuaded me to try anyway. And this time it was successful!
Therefore, I’d like to thank Maxim, Shiva, Chass, Lars, Matt, and everyone else who supported me — I really feel valued in the Power BI community!
Being recognized as an MVP provides further motivation to produce free, high-quality content for the community. I’ve already got lots of things planned!