Becoming a Microsoft MVP
15October 3, 2016 by Kenneth Fisher
I was awarded the Microsoft MVP (data platform) award on Saturday.
On the four days a year (one per quarter) when the MVPs are announced a number of us (wow I can’t believe I just said us) post the fact on twitter, usually under the hashtag #mvpbuzz. This was my first time I got to join in, and I received a number of congratulations.
This is particularly cool because Todd Kleinhans (b/t) takes the time to hand write (I assume?) each of these and send them out. So we will let this stand for all of the congratulations I received and I’ll say one big thank you to everyone, since I would have a hard time naming everyone without missing a few and they were all special to me.
I’ll be honest and say it still hasn’t really sunk in yet. At least in part because I don’t really feel like I’ve done anything special. Mostly I just write a blog.
Here are two of the tweets I received yesterday
That’s the true honor for me. I’ve been helping people. But you know I look around our community and the number of people who organize, volunteer, and speak at various events, who blog, who answer questions on forums, twitter, and other social media just astounds me. They all deserve to be honored for what they do.
And I guess that’s it. We have a community that spends its time encouraging and pushing each other to do more and be better. I can’t help but feel humble to be considered a stand out in a community of standouts. So while I’m saying thank you to Microsoft for the honor (and it is an honor) I also want to say thank you to the community who lift me up and inspire me to do more on an almost daily basis.
SQL Studies 
Congratulations again! Your blog really fills a need and there isn’t anyone as prolific as you. A lot of our favorite SQL blogs are about really interesting advanced niche topics and that’s cool, but those situations hardly ever come up at work. As someone who will never be paid huge amounts of money to be flown to another continent to fix the most interesting SQL problem ever, I really appreciate your blog and its down to earth style.
Well thanks 🙂 It’s cool to think that I’m actually helping people.
Pinal is actually more prolific than I am but he is pretty much in a class all his own.
Congratulations Kenneth, you certainly deserve this. You have been a tremendous asset to the SQL community. Keep up the fine work.
Thanks! That means a lot. I’ll certainly do my best 🙂
Congrats! Please, continue to create new amazing posts!
Thanks! I’ll continue to write posts, it will be up to ya’ll if they are amazing or not 🙂
Wow, congrats man!! You DO deserve it. As others have stated above I’ve used your different tips and tricks many times.
Thanks! I really appreciate that 🙂
Many Congratulations Kenneth. Well deserved!!!
Thanks! Pretty wild really 🙂
I love your blog – just a question, was this really a surprise or did you know that you were going to get it? I would’ve thought that they would contact you prior to giving you the well deserved mvp?
Thanks! I knew I’d been nominated & had to fill out some paperwork ahead of time as part of that process. I wasn’t specifically told “you have it” ahead of time though. Even if I had been I’m not sure I would have trusted it until it was posted publicly. Even so it took me a month or so before it really sank in.
Nice! I know I’m late to this party but congratulations.
Thanks 🙂 2 months later and it’s still a bit unreal so I wouldn’t consider you late at all.
Wow didnt know. Congrats, and well done.