Windows Insider MVPs supercharge product influence
This year, the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional award program celebrates its 25 year anniversary. During that time it has seen a number of restructures, keeping the program relevant to the technology trends and product changes especially in the Cloud era. With a focus on IT professionals and software developers, the program has been expanded to include a new category of Microsoft technology enthusiasts – the Windows Insiders.
Criteria
The MVP award program rewards participants who contribute significantly, and voluntarily, to their technical communities. While Microsoft never releases the exact qualification criteria, the nomination process includes detailing your community activities over the past 12 months, including blogging, speaking engagements, social media and contributions to forums or other technical groups (including answers.microsoft.com and techcommunity.microsoft.com).
Still being a fairly new initiative, the Windows Insider MVP program recognises that many Windows enthusiasts are not IT professionals or software developers. This opens a space for hobbyists and consumers who have been active in the Windows Insider communities (forums, Feedback hub and quests included), to be recognized and to gain even closer access to the product group, along with the other MVP benefits.
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Benefits
The Microsoft MVP title unlocks access directly to the Microsoft product groups, via webinars, email lists and the invitation-only annual MVP Summit at Microsoft HQ in Redmond. In addition, Microsoft MVPs gain software licensing benefits to some Microsoft software titles and third-party MVP offers.
At MVP Summit, all content is under a strict non-disclosure agreement. This allows for an incredible level of access to hear about upcoming product changes, influence product strategy and feed back real-world issues. Microsoft places a huge amount of value on the stories from MVPs on what’s working well and what the road blocks are. For Windows Insider MVPs, MVP Summit includes content from other product categories that you may also have an interest in, e.g. Windows Devices and Microsoft Office.
At the recent 2018 MVP Summit, the Windows Insider MVPs felt like a family. The content was presented well, as an opportunity for discussion. There was even time for some social events including dinner and a tour of some special places on the Redmond Campus. Oh, and there was swag!
By far the biggest benefit was meeting Microsoft employees and other MVPs in person. Being able to email people directly having connected at Summit, sets you apart from being just another email address or forum handle. The MVP title and its opportunities super-charge your influence, so it’s great to see that there’s a place for consumers to join the MVP ranks.
Nominate as a Windows Insider MVP
Whether you’re a “fast ring” or “slow ring” enthusiast, if you’re actively sharing feedback via the Windows Insider program and influencing your communities, you may be MVP material. To nominate yourself, click here https://insidersurveys.windows.com/s3/Windows-Insider-MVP-Nomination or to learn more visit https://insider.windows.com/en-us/community-mvp/
To learn more about the Windows Insider program (where you can test pre-release Windows 10 builds), visit https://insider.windows.com/en-us/