During the last month I’ve been in dialog with Kevin Schuler regarding joining the Microsoft Regional Director program. Yesterday everything fell into place, and I can now announce that I’m onboard the program. I’m up for a two year period; 2009 and 2010.

It’s an honor for me to join the program. There are about 120-130 Regional Directors worldwide. In Norway we are now 4 Regional Directors – my friends Jonas and Sondre, Trond Brande and me.

Like Jonas said when he joined; it feels strange to become a member of such a highly qualified and experienced group of people. Many people in this group are well known technical speakers and book authors. I’m sure I’ll grow with the new responsibilities, and that I’m able to contribute to the group. I’ll continue to work hard on evangelizing Microsoft technologies and software development best practices to the community. This is definitely a motivational boost for me!

I would like to say thank you to Microsoft Norway and Rune Grothaug for making this happen.

What is a Microsoft Regional Director?

“The Microsoft Regional Director (RD) program is a community of independent developers, architects, trainers, and other professionals who form a vital link between Microsoft and the developer community. These technical experts provide insight and informed perspectives about Microsoft software development tools and technologies. Regional Directors are not Microsoft employees, nor are they monetarily-compensated by Microsoft. They are recognized by Microsoft for their technical expertise. Many Regional Directors are also Microsoft MVPs.” – Wikipedia

About a month ago I got some really good news. Microsoft had awarded me with the Most Valuable Professional (MVP) title. My title was in the Client App Dev category. And it’s a perfect match for me, since I’m into several kinds of technologies in the user interface area; ASP.NET MVC, Silverlight and WPF. I got the award for the community work I’ve done during the last couple of years. This work has consisted of technical presentations at user groups, and commercial conferences like the Microsoft MSDN Live road show. I’m also active in the local .NET user group in Trondheim, where I help out organizing and executing the monthly meetings.

I’m humbled to be recognized and awarded with this title. I have to say thanks to the former Community Manager at Microsoft; Rune Grothaug. Without the help and support from him, I wouldn’t have gotten the award. While he was working as a Community Manager we did many things together, for instance MSDN Live. He organized, and I contributed with technical presentations.

In the future I plan to keep on doing what I’m already doing, but I will make some adjustments. I’ll try to contribute more to the global community through online forums and my blog. This will both give me more visibility and reach. I’ll continue to focus on Silverlight and WPF.

Since I’ve become an MVP, I’ll hopefully be invited to Redmond for the next MVP Summit. I’m looking forward to this!

I’m proud to follow in the footsteps of other Norwegian Microsoft MVP’s;

• Einar Ingebrigtsen
• Jonas Follesø
• Joar Øyen
• Pål Fossmo
• Lars Wilhelmsen
• Sondre Bjellås – not an MVP, but a Regional Director. Had to mention him, because he is a great contributor to the Norwegian developer community

What is an MVP?

“The Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) is an award presented by Microsoft for the employees or individuals or consultants working outside Microsoft. Microsoft MVPs are exceptional technical community leaders from around the world who have been awarded for voluntarily providing technical expertise towards technical communities supporting Microsoft products or technologies. An MVP is awarded for contributions over the past year.” – Wikipedia

What does it take to become an MVP?

“The MVP Award recognizes exceptional technical community leaders from around the world who voluntarily share their deep, real-world knowledge about Microsoft technologies with others.

Potential MVPs are nominated by other technical community members, current and former MVPs, and Microsoft personnel who have noted their leadership and their willingness and ability to help others make the most of their Microsoft technology.

To receive the Microsoft MVP Award, MVP nominees undergo a rigorous review process. A panel that includes members of the MVP team and Microsoft product groups evaluates each nominee's technical expertise and voluntary community contributions for the past 12 months. The panel considers the quality, quantity, and level of impact of the MVP nominee's contributions. Active MVPs receive the same level of scrutiny as other new candidates each year.

MVPs are independent of Microsoft, with separate opinions and perspectives, and are able to represent the views of the community members with whom they engage every day.

Click here if you would like to nominate an outstanding community leader, or an exceptional contributor to the technical community, for consideration as an MVP.” - Microsoft

During the MSDN Live event this September I got to know Børge Hansen, which works as an Architect advisor for Microsoft Norge. He is a great guy and a software developer at heart. I’ve not known him for a long time, but I’ve already had some really good conversations with him regarding problems around software development and architecture. I think Børge is going to make a difference for the Norwegian Architect community in the near future. So dear reader, if you are interest in software architecture please visit his blog: http://www.borge3000.no.

“I am a softwaredeveloper at heart, and my job is to work with and contribute to helping devs and architects to do a better job, do not hesitate to get in touch.” – Børge Hansen

Last week, Jonas an old friend of mine blogged about something he called Circle of Interest, and he encouraged a group of people to do the same. This blog meme was originally started by Paul Stovell.

“As individual developers, we face the same problem. Every day new technologies arrive and new information is published. How do we decide how to allocate our time?” – Paul Stovell

Great question! It really made me think about how I’m allocating my time, which technologies I care and don’t care about. I spent a few minutes to create my own Circle of Interest. Stovell group the interest in three areas and he defines them like this:

• Core
  “These are things I enjoy, care about, and follow as much as I can. When news breaks in these areas, I try to stay on top. I like to think I’m an expert in some of them, and have strong opinions on the rest.”
• Non-core
  “I find myself working with these things, or have a minor interest in them, but tend to follow announcements occasionally. I have opinions and will probably complain if I don’t like certain aspects of them, but I’m not about to start evangelizing them.”
• I don’t care
  “The only time I spend in these things is to decide whether I care or not. I created a Twitter account, for example, but I don’t really use it nor do I read anyone I subscribe to. I don’t pay much attention to the Live space, except by using Live Writer and MSN Messenger. I prefer not to work in any of these areas.”

I ended up with this

I will pass this blog meme on, and encourage all my readers and my fellow bloggers to do the same:

• Tore Vestues
  New friend, colleague from Capgemini, active blogger and a fellow .NET developer. Strong engagement in best practices within programming. In January Tore held a great presentation about how to write quality software at NNUG
• Pål Fossmo
  Friend, former colleague from Abeo and a fellow .NET developer. An active contributor to the .NET community in Trondheim, often speaking at NNUG
• Hans Olav
  Friend from the university, .NET geek, highly respected programmer and fellow Image Cup participant. He had two internships at Microsoft in Redmond. His main focus in on SQL server. I’m very curious about his Circle of Interest!
• Fredrik Kalseth
  One of the most active Norwegian .NET bloggers and delivers great content. He has posted god stuff about ASP.NET MVC and AOP. I’m enjoying myself when reading his blog
• Per-Ove Joakimsen
  Friend, former leader of NNUG in Stavanger, great .NET enthusiast and a fellow blogger. Currently travels the world with his girlfriend
• Jon Torresdal
  Got in touch with him at MSDN Live in Bergen. Jon is the leader of NNUG in Bergen, generally a great guy and an active .NET blogger
• Christian Schiffer
  Got in touch with him at MSDN Live in Oslo, LINQ enthusiast and a fellow blogger
• Morten Abrahamsen
  Active in the Norwegian .NET community, Regional Director and a WCF enthusiast
• Sondre Bjellås
  Old friend, colleague from Capgemini, Regional Director, love Robotics and the Norwegian geek of the year
• Håvard Sørbø
  Friend from university, detail centric, .NET dev and a highly respected geek. Lots of knowledge about open source, operating systems and other geeky stuff. I’m curious about his Circle of Interest!