Amy Sorokas blogged about SAMS author Stephen Walther becoming a software legend a few weeks ago. But I totally missed the fact that Rocky Lhotka was also acknowledged as a Software Legend as well. I know – big shocker, right? Rocky is a definitely a legend — there is no doubt about it.

And he has been doing a little blogging – so stay tuned to this spot for future enlightenment.

Congratulations, Rocky!!

It looks like, thanks to INETA and help from MSDN, I will be going to TechEd this year. The key of going is the User Group Leader meeting on Sunday but I will be staying for the whole week and running another Women who Code BOF (go vote!) and hopefully a Tablet PC BOF. (Brad McCabe from Infragistics is already doing one, so maybe he’ll let me help…)

But what is most exciting to me is that a few folks from my user group are going. Roman Rehak, who works at MS Gold Partner Competitive Computing (“C2”) – where there are a few job openings right now and Ali Aghareza – our local “plumber” – who works for Green Mountain Power, a local utility that is VERY advanced when it comes to technology. I also know that a few of the guys from the UVM Business School (they work for the woman who is a hard core TabletPC user that I frequently write about) will be there. I am thrilled that these guys will all be there. We will have a blast and I am looking forward to showing them off.

Well, I think that we pushed Arin Goldberg over the edge at the MVP Summit because today he started a blog! Yippee. Arin is the architect of the TabletPC SDK as well as the Technical Evangelist. I had a bunch of fun crashing his TabletPC MVP dinner at the Rainier club (in my jeans and Tevas – oops) and then hanging out with him and a bunch of other Tablet folks including Chris de Herrera on Thursday. It was amazing to hear Arin and Chris comparing notes on the gazillions of mobile devices they have owned through the years. I don’t think either of them has missed one that ever came on the market!

yeah Eric and company!!

Toronto is a BIG city and there are a few user gruops in the area, though they are all many many miles (and sometimes hours) apart.

Kate Gregory, who has been instrumental to the Toronto .NET User group has started a new group called “GTA East .NET” (Greater Toronto Area East). They will have their inaugural meeting on April 20th.

Knowing Kate (who is an MSDN Regional Director, a prolific writer and speaker, a woman with boundless energy that I can NEVER get over – her energy or the gal herself who I adore), this will be a wonderful addition to the INETA community.

I still can’t get her blog into my aggregator. I have the same problem with my own blog – they are both dasBlog sites. I have a number of other dasBlog sites in my aggregator. What gives?

Although there is another discussion of the MVP program going on over at Roy Osherove’s blog and is continued elsewhere, this is a topic that I was thinking about before that all started.

While I was at Seattle, I found that a few of the developers who were new MVP’s didn’t fully comprehend the MVP program, though they were all deserving MVPs. I think that this has a lot to do with the fact that many of these developers are so used to their (our –if you are talking about .NET) community – within the blogs, at conferences like TechEd and PDC  – that I think this seemed to them as one more extension of that.

Having most of the developers in the same hotel didn’t help this situation I think.

So why am I saying that I don’t think some of them understand the program? Because of some of the things that I heard. For example, at the end of the summit – I was talking with an MVP and mentioned something about the TabletPC MVPs. I had to explain that some were developers, like Loren Heiny and some were more geared towards the end users, like Lora Heiny and Peter Rysavy. The response of this person I was talking to was “but they aren’t developers. How can they be MVPs?”. It wasn’t a criticism of Loren, Lora or Peter in anyway, only a misconception about the MVP program.

Another case in point was hearing someone say, upon meeting another MVP who has been an MVP for a LONG LONG time and very deservingly, too – that the long time MVP should not be an MVP. The person making the statement was using their own opinion of the other’s “level of expertise” as the reason. 

And I hear over and over comments about XBOX MVPs or FrontPage MVPs, etc. with respect to the fact that they don’t have the same merit as a developer.

All of this really bugs me. I am not saying that those who are expressing this lack of comprehension of the program don’t deserve to be MVPs – all of them do. But I think that there are a lot of people who really need to understand more fully what the program is all about.

I think it levels the playing field. It is not about being the smartest person in your field, though it is about being a very knowledgeable person in your field. But the community aspect of it is being forgotten. And many people have a hard time defining it. It used to be based on newsgroup participation, because that is something that can be counted. But now there are so many venues for participation, that Microsoft has redefined how they look for MVPs. And it is not just ONE thing.

Just as an example, I have very different levels of community involvement. I have never been a newsgroup person (well, only minimally) though I did spend an enormous amount of time answering questions on the aspadvice lists. Currently I am not spending a lot of time on those lists but I participate in the community heavily in other ways (my blog is only a small part of that). I became an MVP in June – before the big wave – and because of my lack of newsgroup participation, was very quiet about it. I wasn’t sure how the other MVP’s would react and I was sure that other people would make an assumption that it was because of X or Y, though in fact it was the combination of many things that drove my original MVP lead, Emily Freet, to pull me into the program.

But wait , now I sound like I am justifying my own MVP status, which is not where I meant to go with this.

I thought it was VERY cool to be among so many other types of MVPs. That is what we all had in common – that we were MVPs, regardless of our technologies. BUt that we all were the type of people who love what we do and like to help other people. Yeah, yeah – I’m sure there are some rolling -eyes, ‘get off the pulpit Pollyanna’. But sorry, that IS what the MVP program is all about. A willingness to take time out of your day to help others without expecting anything in return.

here from the MVP site:

• Recognized: Microsoft MVPs are acknowledged by peers and also by Microsoft for their active participation in Microsoft technical communities around the globe.
• Credible: Microsoft MVPs have demonstrated practical expertise providing the highest quality information and content.
• Accessible: Microsoft MVPs are active technical community leaders sharing their experience with peers.

ok – now I have to go do something where I do get something in return – not just gratitude but some funding as well.

This official press release from Microsoft makes the Libra in me VERY VERY HAPPY! [by way of Robert Scoble as I would have otherwise thought it was yet another april fool’s joke]

It’s hard to ignore the cost of this: a $1.6 billion payout…. egads! Wonder what’s happening on the stock ticker this morning.

(note the category I chose for this post! :-))

Kate has a blog. She already has a bunch of posts in it and all are fun and interesting to read. Hooray for Kate!! I highly recommend subscribing to Kate’s blog. If you don’t know Kate, just do a search right here on my blog as I have written about her plenty!

I found Thea by way of my comments and have been pestering her to write a little “about me” on her weblog. Thea is going through the .NET learning curve and is sharing her discoveries. Keep an eye on her!!

(LOL – I interpreted Surfing as riding a surfboard on the ocean waves – but she’s a WEB surfer chick!)

thanks to Liz Lawley for pointing out this wonderful profile!!