Asia MVP Summit day 1
Yesterday was the first full day of the Asia MVP Summit, which is the event I am here in Singapore for. The Asia MVP Summit is an event that brings together Microsoft MVPs from across Asia-Pacific (including Australia and New Zealand). The summit was kicked off by Sean O'Driscoll who amongst other things manages the MVP program for Microsoft. Sean gave a great talk (accompanied by some great drumming!) and spoke of the value of a strong and vibrant community. He talked about his own experiences with a newly acquired Barbeque and how he is using the community around this particular manufacturer to get more out of his Barbeque and how it makes him feel connected with other users as well as with the manufacturer. This got me thinking a bit. We (Microsoft) talk a lot about maximizing potential, and I believe that MVPs and other community leaders are key to unlocking a lot of the “hidden” potential in our products. Our products are complex and sophisticated software and sometimes it takes the efforts of community leaders like the MVPs to maximize what you can do with them.
In general, MVPs are super important members of our community, not just for SSIS (more about our MVPs later) but for all of Microsoft Products. MVPs are leaders in the community who not only provide great technical expertise to other members of the community, but also echo back to the product teams the feedback from the community at large. To learn more about MVPs go to: http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/
Talking of MVPs, for SSIS our MVPs are: Darren Green and Allan Mitchell. These are two of the best MVPs (if not the best) Microsoft has and we all are very lucky to have them focused on SSIS. They run the great http://www.sqlis.com site which is a wealth of information related to SSIS and DTS. They have been focused on DTS and SSIS for a long time now and are an invaluable resource to everyone related to SSIS. Thanks Darren and Allan for all that you do for us.
Here in Singapore, I have had the pleasure of meeting MVPs from many different countries focused on many different Microsoft technologies. It is very interesting to hear the sorts of things they are working on and their feedback on our (Microsoft) products. Their depth of experience is truly amazing.
More on this soon…