Wow, talk about an unexpected, and humbling start to the new year!
Today I received the news that I'm a SharePoint Server MVP for 2009. I'm very honoured to be given this award alongside so many incredibly clever and devoted people, all of whom I have an infinite amount of respect and admiration for.
Thank you to all those in the community, the Christchurch and New Zealand SharePoint User Groups, and in Microsoft who have helped me in my journey to this point. I want to send a special thanks to Chan and OJ who have been incredibly supportive and helpful over the last couple of years, as well as to Darryl and Jonathan at Microsoft NZ, both of whom have been very supportive not only of the Christchurch SharePoint User Group but also of me personally, including the opportunity to speak at TechEd for the first time last year. Thanks so much also to Gary, my partner-in-crime at the C-SPUG.
I'm looking forward to continuing with, and also ramping up my contributions to the community this year. As I'll be out of New Zealand for at least 6 months, I'm going to have to do some of this in different ways to last year - but I have some exciting community projects to ramp up and look forward to speaking at user groups wherever possible. As I also mentioned in the pre-Christmas-post, I'm also looking forward to ramping up this blog with some in-depth content, so please stay tuned :)
I seem to be looking forward to a lot... but I'm also really looking forward to meeting new friends, as well as sharing a drink with a few old ones (watch out Bob and Ben!) at the MVP summit in March. Happy Times!
:) Matt