Making That Positive Tech Impact as a Microsoft MVP – EMS Route

From time to time, I’ve been asked this question from the community on How do I become an MVP? Can you help me become an MVP? Can I contribute to your ongoing work because I’m keen on becoming an MVP, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. The common theme is How do I become an MVP.

Rationale

Right off the bat, the very first advice I want to give is, there is no such thing as “how do I become an MVP”. The rationale here is not working to become one, but let your work speak for itself.

The “MVP” title is a byproduct, not the goal.

Work? Speak for itself? What?

Let me break that down for you. The work I mentioned here is not the 9-5 work we do. As individuals, we are driven by passion to explore technology and learning new areas of technology as they become available, or work on existing technologies and their features, and find them fascinating as they could do many things that maybe others haven’t considered yet. The idea is to share your knowledge in the areas that you are passionate about to make a positive tech impact. Also, that can be merely providing answers in a tech forum, presenting your knowledge in a blog, or in a speaking event etc etc.

It can be a troubleshooting guide on something that you did and was successful, how to configure or set up a component in a feature, or something like providing an opinion about a new feature. That passion and consistency can go a long way and will benefit both you and the community.

Helping Without Ego

When you share your knowledge, you are actively being a part of the community, because your knowledge is helping someone out there to make their lives easier. Maybe some notes on the hours of troubleshooting you did to fix a problem can help those who are facing the same issue on the other side of the world. Or if you go on to a support forum or on Reddit and post your findings or your experience on resolving that problem will make a heap of good impact.

I mentioned ego in my heading. What I meant by that was not thinking that others should also go through the same path you went through to find answers or fix a problem. I seriously believe that ego, when it comes to knowledge sharing, is a non-negotiable, and it’s not the pathway to be recognised as a leader. Helping with a good heart must be a core value that will help you in your life, which will affect other aspects as well.

Don’t Forget the “Please” and “Thank You”

Of course, the MVPs are also normal human beings, and either you are asking for help to fix an issue or getting some general advice, guidance on something please and Thank You can make a good vibe on the person who is willing to help you and in life in general. Why I’m mentioning this is we all been there where some think it’s a privilege to ask questions just because they can. Little things/ good manners can go a long way.

Reinventing the wheel? Not really

Everyone sees things differently, and if I stick to the technical landscape, there is always an official explanation on how something will work, requirements, limitations, etc. However, when you start working on those, you will see how they can be used in different ways. As an example, PIM for groups in Entra can be used to elevate access when needed for a group of users, also it can be used to add a user as a member or an owner for a Security group that has been given access to a SharePoint document library. Also, you might have seen the same “how to configure XYZ” several times when you search for something on the internet, and it’s always explaining things in your own way with your experience. That exact experience can help someone who is looking to sort out something in the same way. I count that as a win.

Finding Your Niche

The best example I can give is from my own experience. When I started my career back in 2007 as a Helpdesk Support Officer, I had the opportunity to look at many things at the same time. Maybe it was fixing someone’s mailbox issue, resetting a password, or fixing a boot issue on a user computer etc. etc. I was passionate about exploring Microsoft tech, troubleshooting, and helping to resolve issues. This led to doing more exciting projects on Servers after some time and to brushing up my knowledge with Certifications. A lot of end-user management work today is considered Security, as the tooling, concepts are moving from traditional infrastructure-type work to security-type work. As the trajectory changed, it allowed me to learn more about new technology and share my knowledge because the underlying fact never changed – Configuring, helping, exploring solutions. Being nominated for an MVP is NOT unlearning what you know and doing something different. It’s simply doing what you know, sharing what you know, applying the same principles to a new area of tech, perhaps, and giving it “your flair”.

One good example is – Sharing your knowledge on Defender for Endpoint, but you want to automate some stuff. You learn about Azure LogicApps and use that knowledge to achieve the automation goal. Sounds very simple these days, but if you think about it, it will open more pathways, as the same principle can be used in many other instances as well.

When you start contributing, that niche plays a big part, as that’s where you shine, and yet it’s a big tech piece, and you are an advocate of the technology.

Contribution is the Path to Recognition

Contribution is the path to recognition. When you constantly contribute to the community with your knowledge in some way, you will see how the tables will turn and how people will start admiring your work. This is a big blessing when it comes to being an MVP because the community would identify you as a leader, early adopter, and someone passionate about tech. This will lead to more contributions and knowledge sharing. I see this as a win-win. Why? When you contribute, you want to explore more on the subject matter, you want to test it out, maybe in your environment, you will get issues, and you want to troubleshoot and maybe share your knowledge on that too. In the long run, this will make you a pro at those things. Sounds not bad, doesn’t it?

Recognition is the path to being nominated

And once you have solid work in your sleeve and the recognition that the path to be nominated. As I said before, there is no pathway on “how to become an MVP.” The pathway is being nominated as an MVP because you have done some good work to be recognised as a community leader.

This Leads to Brand Building

At the end of the day, you build your brand, and no one else will. Whether you are passionate about being nominated as an MVP or not. When your true passion is in sharing your knowledge on a particular subject matter, it automatically builds your reputation, and you will notice how the community will look up to you and your work. It can be an open-source project where you initiate, and you will see how like-minded professionals contribute to it. The inception of the project was started by you, and basically, that is a building block in your self-branding. There are a lot of resources on brand building. What worked for me was sharing what I know about technology and helping the community navigate issues in the things I’m confident in.

In Closing

The true power of being an MVP is helping the community in the way you know best. Because when you share your Knowledge in some way, there is always, always someone who is looking for the same thing, same experience as you had and the same set of troubles you went through to get something done that will get surely benefited because you are a passionate community leader who has the subject matter expertise, up to date with the knowledge. Which leads to making a positive tech impact.