Happy new year and welcome to 2024! In less than 11 months the MVP contribution timeline will end, so don’t wait 10 months to start thinking about contributing valuable content to the community – now is the time to start!
As a quick recap of the MVP timeline
- The MVP community contribution timeline is from December 1st through November 30th of the following year. MVP applications are typically due the last day of November and span the 12 months mentioned.
- The MVP year (being an MVP) is from February 1 though January 31 of the following year. New MVP announcements are typically on or around Jan 31st/Feb 1st for the next year.
While I have been a Sitecore MVP for many years, this past December was my first year that I volunteered to be an application reviewer, an option that current MVPs get. I learned a lot going through the review process and have observed many traps that applicants fall into, so I’d like to go over some recommendations and tips for MVP aspirants planning to submit applications in the future.
Recommendations when submitting community contributions
Screenshots
Many of the tips below recommend you take screenshots to show something happened (Slack messages, emails etc), especially if there is no URL like a blog post to link to. A few ways you can accomplish this:
- Take a screenshot and upload to a Dropbox / Google Drive / One Drive and get a sharable URL. Use that URL in your application contribution link. This was an excellent tip I got from Rob Huffstedtler a few years ago.
- If multiple screenshots show what happened for a single contribution (I had a meeting about this product feature with Sitecore then sent a follow up email with my feedback), paste them into a Word doc and export that to a PDF, then drop that PDF onto a Dropbox / Google Drive / One Drive.
Make it easy for reviewers to verify your contributions!
If you are worried about access to the asset links on shared drives, you can even set the links to expire after the application review period, so set an expiration date for early February for the following year. Also note: current MVPs that may review your application are under NDA.
Video/Podcast Content
If you are sharing a video link (e.g. YouTube) or a Podcast (Apple, Spotify, etc), if your portion talking about Sitecore is a subset of the media, please indicate at what timestamp you are speaking about the relevant content. It’s not fair to a reviewer to listen to or watch a video for 40 minutes to hunt for what your Sitecore community value-add was, if there was any at all. Obviously, if the entire topic was presented by you all about Sitecore you don’t need to do that. Make it easy for reviewers to verify your contributions! More information is better than less.
Public Speaking in Person
If you presented at a user group or some sort of event (Sitecore conference, industry conference, etc), take a picture of yourself there, or have a screenshot of your name on the intro slide and a screenshot of the official invite (an email blast, a meetup.com event page, etc). Just do something to show you were really there AND you were speaking. Make it easy and 100% clear to the reviewer you were there and you presented. Don’t make reviewers go hunting for proof. Make it easy for reviewers to verify your contributions!
Public Speaking Virtually
If you are speaking at a user group or conference virtually, obviously if you have a recording of the event, simply share that. But if you don’t, similar to above, take a screenshot of you speaking on screen with the content showing. Maybe a screenshot of the title/intro slide with your name and 1-2 more screenshots showing detail content of your presentation to show real content. If you are concerned about taking screenshots while you are presenting, if a video was recorded you can take screenshots from that recording after, or ask a friend or attendee to take screenshots for you. Make it easy for reviewers to verify your contributions!
Organizing Events
If you [co]organized an event, please describe what you specifically did. It’s understood that it’s a group effort sometimes, but make it easy for the reviewer to know what you were accountable for and contributed. If we are guessing and don’t know, it’s basically like you were not involved. If that means you need to take a screenshot of emails with sensitive data blurred/redacted, do it. For example, coordinating the facility, setting up a meetup.com page for the event or similar, email blasts or marketing. Prove what you did, more information is better than less. Make it easy for reviewers to verify your contributions!
Collaboration/References/Feedback with Sitecore
If you collaborated with Sitecore by providing value back to influence the products (either with the sales team or directly with product), find a way to SHOW that happened. Don’t say “please speak with so-and-so” – instead show a screenshot of an email showing the value you are providing back. If there is sensitive data such as client names, blur/redact it. Make it easy for reviewers to verify your contributions!
Common traps to avoid
Client Project Work vs. Published Learnings from Project Work
Don’t share links to client projects you worked on and claim that as a community contribution. It’s not. It’s great that you are a practitioner of Sitecore, but developing the site for your client provides no value in of itself for the community. Instead, if you learned new things during that project, find a way to share that with the community – a SUG presentation, or a blog post with redacted client data. Take the project experience and bring value to the community from it in a responsible way. A significant number of Sitecore blog posts out there are based on real-world project experiences practitioners have. In fact, if you spent all that time working on a project, for a small amount of incremental time you can document key things you learned and provide a lot of value back to the community. So, the math says…. you should do this. Don’t forget, make it easy for reviewers to verify your contributions!
Event Attendance vs. Event Contribution (Organizer, Speaker)
Attending events such as a local SUG, SUGCON, DX, Symposium, etc in of itself is not a value add to the community. You ARE the community at this point. To be considered as an MVP, you need to provide value back at these events via speaking engagements or organizing the event. Please don’t list event attendance on your application unless you presented or [co]organized.
Sitecore partner marketing vs. individual community value-add content
If within your role at your company you publish materials on Sitecore services your company provides, such as service detail pages, bespoke workshops, and generalized marketing material that promotes Sitecore services, this content is primarily promoting your company and its services, it’s not thought leadership. Instead, in addition to doing your job by creating this content, provide your personal take and opinion on the topics of Sitecore products, capabilities etc. You’ve already come this far by talking about why your company is in a prime position to implement Sitecore products, so take it a little further and give your own personal commentary. Why Sitecore? What do you believe differentiates its portfolio and why should customers pick Sitecore?
Supporting MVPs vs. Contributing as an MVP
If within your role at your company you manage a group of Sitecore practitioners (developers, architects, strategists, content designers, etc) and you carve out time for them and promote the concept of community participation, that’s excellent. Please keep doing that. But that itself is not MVP community contribution. Please understand the difference between leading by example and making community contributions as a potential MVP vs. enabling potential MVPs to thrive on your team.
One last tip for you
The MVP Application is open most of the year on the MVP website. So as you are making contributions you can already be documenting them on your application throughout the year.
Thank you for all that you do and may the community thrive!
That’s all for my MVP application tips! If you have any questions about the MVP program or contributions to the community, there are many resources out there to help. Please visit the official MVP website or ask any direct questions in the Sitecore community Slack.
