I assume everyone currently living in North America reads Mo Khan's blog.  I also assume that anyone who *doesn't* read Mo Khan's blog is a total loser!    Then again, I also assume that D'Arcy Lussier shooting up with horse steroids twice a day is going to have *no* side-effects whatsoever so you can take my assumptions for what you feel they are worth.

Anyway, if you have been reading Mo Khan's excellent blog (or seen the reference to him on the Caffeinated Coder) you would know that Mo has nominated me for a Microsoft MVP award.  I am flattered by this considering Mo's posts are always among the most intelligent and insightful on the web, which means that to post something like this means he no longer *cares* about having credibility.  That's a sacrifice only true friends make. 

It's unfortunate that Mo makes this recommendation at a time when the Microsoft MVP Program has almost zero credibility itself. 

Yes, that's correct.  You see, there are several fantastic leaders in our industry right now who are *far* more deserving of the MVP on *all* scales and measures of community involvement and technical credibility, and none of them currently have a Microsoft MVP designation.

I'm going to pause for a second while you all pull your jaws back up from the initial shock of my statement.

The people I am thinking of are far too humble to realize that they are being ripped off by the almighty MS.  Fortunately,  as any reader of more than one post on this blog can attest to, excessive humility is certainly not a problem of mine.  I'm going to drag this conspiracy into the light by naming all of these exemplary people and giving you a brief run-down of their background so that you will know as well as I do why the MVP program will never be able to hold itself as a bastion of the best of the best until these people are all MVPs themselves.



Tom travels pretty much all over the place spreading the good news about Test-Driven Development, Refactoring, and various other practices that pretty much everyone with a lick of common sense should know about.  Last year he presented at no less than six separate speaker engagements, will have done another two or three by the time February is over.  He has been running a technical blog that has consistently poured out excellent information for several years.   Why Tom is not an MVP already is quite possibly the second biggest mystery facing the technical community today.


Again we have someone who has tirelessly worked his @$$ off, presenting all over Western Canada and (once again) running a blog with fantastic articles yet with nothing to show for it.  I'm not sure whether it is his previous association with this blog through Hot Developer Corner or his ribald domain name that is keeping Microsoft from giving him the recognition he deserves as one of Western Canada's top technical talents.  David: if you are listening, perhaps changing your domain name to DavidWoodsEnterpriseSuiteForDevelopersExtensiveEdition.com will get Microsoft's marketing division to stand up and take notice.

You let me know how someone can:

• post amazing educational (and more importantly, readable) content for about 2-3 years that manages to educate while not also putting its readers to sleep
• be presenting along the Eastern Coast of the United States
  
• be considered good enough to join the gang at CodeBetter
• have an amazing sense of style

yet *not* be considered for a Microsoft MVP.  I presume there's just residual jealousy over Kyle's chosen location because my brain cracks in half every time I try to piece this together in a logical manner.


I can't figure out for the life of me why someone who tirelessly tours around the entirety of Texas talking and blogging about MVC, NHibernate, TDD, and looking good to anyone who will listen doesn't have some sort of recognition for his efforts.  I am presuming that he is also a victim of jealousy over his "Potential Friend of Justice Gray" certificate.  Microsoft MVP Program people: if giving you a certificate of your own will get you to cast aside the green-eyed monster for Ben Scheirman, I will do so.

Here are some choice quotes from Microsoft's MVP site.  First from the overview:

"When a community participant sees an MVP in a technical community, whether in a newsgroup, as a user group host, a conference speaker, or a respondent in forums, that community participant can be confident that the information shared by the MVP will be of the highest caliber and will help every user make the most of the technology."

Then from the FAQ:

"Individuals are nominated for the MVP Award by their peers or by Microsoft, based on their contributions during the previous year to offline or online technical communities. Each nominee's contributions are then compared to the other candidates' contributions for the same year to determine who will receive the award.

Nominees are chosen from traditional and emerging community venues, including public news groups, forums, third-party Web sites, user groups, book authors, event speakers, Web boards, blogs, and wikis."

Microsoft - I plead with you publicly, let this statement mean something again by putting these men in the spotlight that they truly deserve!!