(To quote the bard)

 

Heads up, team! Looks like Trika outed us: we’ve got readers, and better yet—we’ve got vocal ones (my favorite flavor)!

It’s time to open all the windows and doors so our friends can keep us company while we work. Ready? Great!

 

Ahem.

 

Hi! Come on in… it’s great to have you here with us. We’re the Microsoft Learning Communities and Evangelism team, and pretty much everything we do is on your behalf, for your benefit, with your participation, and/or in your presence. (Exception: sometimes we have lattes in the Starbucks in our cafeteria. That’s pretty much just for us. (Although actually, the caffeine makes us more productive, so maybe there’s a community benefit after all (I’m fond of parentheses, you’ll notice))).

I digress. (I’m fond of digressing (and parentheses (did I say that already? (I am, at times, short-term-memory-challenged)))).

Where was I?

Ah. I was about to wonder: do you know what Community Leads (Sarah and Tjeerd (Tjeerd, get up here—we have company!)) and Evangelists (Dana and Joanne) do?

I thought I might explain, since I’ve been doing a lot of that for my colleagues lately (we are a very new team for Microsoft Learning):

My team is responsible for the relationship that we (Microsoft) have with you (you) as a result of your Microsoft certification. There are other groups in Microsoft who plan and develop the actual exams, courseware and certification programs—that’s not us. My team is responsible for answering the question you ask when you pass your exam and attain your certification, and that question is: “now what?”

Let’s back up, and establish some important background information:

You, my friend, are a very important person.

At Microsoft, we know this. We know it because—assuming that you are here either because you are certified or interested in becoming certified—we have lots of quantitative and qualitative data collected over a decade-and-a-half that consistently tells us:

  • Certified individuals tend to be more satisfied with our products and our company than are non-certified individuals
  • Companies who employ certified professionals are more productive with their technology investments as a result, and therefore more likely to be satisfied and make repeat purchases and upgrades
  • Certified individuals tend to be more influential within their organizations than are non-certified individuals.

So for us to issue you a certificate and send you off into the world and never speak to you again would be a HUGE strategic error on our part—you are far, far too important and influential for us not to take advantage of that (hey, I’m being completely candid here). Just like a good university, we want our relationship to go on post-graduation. Just like a university, we want to offer continuing education and degree opportunities; just like a university, we would love your help in recruiting new customers; just like a university, we would love your help in evangelizing the value of your credential… but unlike a university, we won’t ask you for outright cash donations! How cool is that?

Hence my team:

Our Community Leads, Sarah (MCP) and Tjeerd (MCT) are responsible for facilitating and growing vibrant communities. To extend the university analogy, think of Sarah as the director of our alumni association, and Tjeerd as our dean of faculty. Both Sarah and Tjeerd are responsible for ensuring that we extend a valuable set of benefits to you, generating opportunities for you based on your accomplishments, keeping you informed of news we think you’ll want to hear, providing opportunities and avenues to connect with your peers and with Microsoft… all towards an ulterior motive: if we have your attention and involvement on a regular basis, it’ll be easier for us to get your attention when we really need it.

Bill works closely with Tjeerd: Bill is our MCT Readiness Manager, and it’s his job to ensure that our faculty of over 13,000 MCTs worldwide have the tools, information, and resources they need—when they need it—in order for them to provide you with the outstanding instructor-led training you expect from our MCTs and from our CPLS channel.

Our Evangelists, Dana and Joanne, spend part of their time on the hunt for those among you who are as passionate about Microsoft training and certification as we are—and they spend the rest of their time creating new programs for those of you who claim the title of “evangelist” too.

What kind of programs? Well, I don’t want my team to accuse me of spilling spoilers, so I’ll let them share their plans themselves. But I will say that we have over a dozen projects in flight right now, so we will have a LOT of questions for you as we seek to build in your input. (my favorite project? three words: Virtual. Lapel. Pins.)

So once again: welcome! Please subscribe and visit often—the more we hear from you, the better we’ll do. We are truly all about you.

Ken