Talking about the health technology community and the journey of Microsoft MVP creation

On June 5, 2021, the 2021 China Developer Ecological Summit hosted by SegmentFault came to a successful conclusion. At the meeting, Liang Di, the head of the Greater China Region of Microsoft's Most Valuable Expert (MVP) project, delivered a speech with the theme "Talking about the Health Technology Community and the Journey of Microsoft MVP Building". The following is the original text of the speech.

Hello everyone, I am Liang Di, from Microsoft China, responsible for the MVP project, which is the person in charge of the Most Valuable Professional (Most Valuable Professional) project. I am responsible for the Greater China region, including Hong Kong and Taiwan. After listening to the speech just now, I very much agree with many opinions, because I think this era is not the era of playing alone, but the era of growing together.

When it comes to Microsoft, people will jokingly ask if they sell Windows or Office. Do people have other different perceptions of Microsoft? We all know that Microsoft has gone through from the era of Bill Gates, to the era of Ballmer (CEO of sales origin) to the present Satya Nadella (a grassroots CEO). Many people say that I am very familiar with the Microsoft logo. But speaking of it, don't you just sell software from a software company, selling Windows, these software products used in my computer are all Microsoft's. We are also actively transforming. Today, Mr. Gao Yang mentioned that we spent 7.8 billion US dollars on the acquisition of GitHub two years ago. If you are in the industry, you should have heard of Microsoft's openness and transformation. Now we put all our energy on the Azure cloud. Although Azure is very, very difficult to pronounce, it is a French word that means "sky blue". Azure is also Microsoft Cloud, but people say that Microsoft Cloud’s market share in China is invisible compared to Ali, and no one knows. Let me share with you first, Microsoft is now the main force in promoting public and private clouds. If you read the IDC report last year, you will know that Microsoft is already in the others. On the whole, Microsoft Cloud is still doing quite well. of. Having said so much, I am not advertising for Microsoft, I just want to tell you that Microsoft is also undergoing transformation.

But when it comes to the topic of community, Microsoft is definitely not a primary school student. The project I am now in charge of-Microsoft's Most Valuable Expert Project has been in operation for twenty-seven or eighty years, and this concept has been proposed in the era of Bill Gates. Today I see so many manufacturers attach importance to the developer ecology, I feel particularly pleased, because the community is an issue that social scientists are willing to discuss. Then, can I ask everyone, since you have come to listen to this session, you must have a certain concept of community, then what is a community in your concept? Are all aspects of our lives connected to the community? What kind of characteristics can be called a community? The content, the facilities are complete, the common goal, there are actually more, such as hobbies. We at least have the same goal to focus the crowd here, just like today everyone came to C and did not go to D and E. Maybe everyone wants to learn how to run a healthy community, no matter my company To B or To C , How can I operate the ecosystem so that my company’s products can be expressed through the voice of a third party. Let me tell you about the concept of community first.

What is the concept of community?

"Community" is a concept that social scientists are keen to research and explore. In fact, our current concept of community is particularly strong. For example, there are community aunts in your community to inform you about vaccinations, queuing and other information. Our initial concept of community is that these people live together, a physical concept. With the development of the Internet, we now have many, such as WeChat groups, QQ groups, and many virtual space groups. These are the concepts of communities. everyone is coming together because of common interests and hobbies, and the community can bring a larger and broader platform.

Community leader

So, let's talk about community leaders. Let me introduce to you, I am responsible for a global project. I introduced it according to how the United States or the world is going, and how China is going. It may be somewhat different from other manufacturers, such as what Ali introduced just now. In fact, when he talked about it, I was thinking about our differences, and where we could learn, communicate, and learn from. The original concept of "MVP" was in the basketball field. Everyone knows that if you play basketball, we borrowed this name. At that time, Bill Gates put forward the concept, saying: "Little partners who like our Microsoft technology products and services can play with us and provide feedback together. After you use Microsoft products, as users, you can tell us where to do it. What is good, what can be done badly, and where can I improve?” Today I want to talk about what a community leader is.
What kind of people can become talents in the community? Generally speaking, there is a leader in a group. The leader is the most forward-thinking person and stands at the forefront. Our current group can be divided into A, B, inherent thinking mode and growth thinking mode.

Inherent thinking mode, for example, I am immersed in my own academic qualifications, my own work experience, and I am immersed in everything that I recognize. I don’t like to hear what others do not agree with me. I am complacent. I stand on my own inherent thinking. In terms of patterns, for example, when I see the clothes a girl wears, I can determine whether she is a Beijinger or a foreigner, and judge by a certain inherent pattern such as behavior and accent. However, when facing challenges, I feel that this is what I always think, how can I make any changes? People with this inherent mode of thinking are afraid of challenges and failures, stand in their own content, stand in their own experience and feel complacent.
The other is a growth mindset, always curious about things and curious about new things. For example, in the technical community, we encourage MVPs to continue to enrich themselves. It is not that you have learned .net today and there will be no other version tomorrow. You must be curious about better products; be brave to challenge. When you find it difficult, failure is the mother of success. I will stand up again when I fall. I am not afraid of the pain of falling. After the pain, I will know how to avoid falling pain next time; learn from other people to stand up from failure Get up; willing to help others grow, instead of standing there by myself.
So how to self-assess the growth mindset? Undoubtedly, what kind of people are like? I have already given an example just now. For people of type B, our wisdom helps to grow, our curiosity to fight against adversity, and so on. We can see for ourselves what kind of person we are. Most of you here are post-80s, post-85s or even post-90s and post-95s. How do you evaluate your own thinking mode, whether you are willing to stay in the inherent thinking mode, or continue Innovate and constantly change yourself?
In the past, in a working environment or in a large cooperation model, we were used to the boss giving me a project, so I dragged the boss away. Any word the boss said is a wise saying, and I must complete it because he is The person who pays me, I must go and pull him. Later, the model became that we were more equal. The boss took us and everyone forward together, and took the people of our team forward together, and he was the guide. Now, the leader should drive everyone to teamwork together, and he will drive the whole direction. What I want to say is the role of the community.
So, what kind of person the leader of the community should be is to share his knowledge. I don’t know if you felt this way when you were young. Some children will say that I will test the top few after reading the tutorial book, so I can put others aside. But some children not only learned it by themselves, they also shared their knowledge with other students, and finally everyone reached the goal together. We don't mean to hide and tuck, and grow alone, but grow together with everyone. Therefore, the Community Leader we define is to build an ability to allow others to consciously listen to your suggestions and be willing to do it with you. We define these people as Community Leaders, that is, "community leaders."
Learning through the community is actually equivalent to contributing to the community, which can be divided into internal and external parts.

Look inside first. For example, if you want to be a technical community, what kind of contribution should you make? This is more specific, such as translating technical books, writing technical blogs, writing a technical book, etc. These are all internal. From an external point of view, we need to lead or participate in some user groups or meetups, establish personal branding, preach at the conference, and share our knowledge. While you are sharing, other people also recognize you. These are contributions from external and internal technical communities.
From what you just said, you can find that the community is no longer a'nice to have' (no longer a'nice to have'). As I said just now, if you want to build such an ecosystem, you have to go to the upper level and get the support of the big boss. Therefore, when every company in the current ecosystem wants to build and use third-party voices to promote your products and services, it is very important for the company, unlike before.
The core purpose of community building is actually the same. What I want to say is that the community is the center, the community is the community, and the community is not the basis for sales, marketing, or support for any other department. Community is the concept of pure community, that is to say We build community to help the company's product promotion and listen to their feedback, but it is by no means a means of marketing and sales. Then the community and the builders of the community have been given proper attention and authorization, and the existence of the community is also established for the community and other members. In addition, to build a healthy community, I think it is very important that each community must have its own code of conduct, learn to respect each other Our own MVP has a very complete Code of Conduct code of conduct. Only with a code of conduct can a healthy technological community develop. Now not only Microsoft, other factories are also talking about diversity and inclusion . Inclusiveness is the acceptance of different technologies, or an open mind to accept different perspectives.

our team

Now I will tell you about my team. This is the headquarters of Microsoft, located in Seattle, USA. This is our global team. Nowadays, various manufacturers are investing more and more in the ecology. You can see that there are only so many colleagues in the global project that I am responsible for, and there are only 15 roles like me in the world. Today someone asked how many people in your team are in charge of the China region, and I will add an assistant.

Our project has more than 3,600 MVPs worldwide. There are more than 900 people in Asia and more than 160 MVPs in China (including Hong Kong and Taiwan). In the next new fiscal year (Microsoft's new fiscal year starts on July 1st), our growth is about 25%. We feel that quantity is not as important as quality, so we adjust different strategies every year to see how to suit the development of each market. Some of my team’s colleagues are in the United States, some are in Europe, South America, some are in charge of Africa, and some are in Australia and New Zealand.
Tell me about myself. I am a Beijing girl born in Beijing, an only child, and I have been studying abroad since I was 16 years old. During the whole growth process, from going to university to studying for the Master, the tuition fee was all earned by me, and I didn't use a penny from my family. After graduation, I stayed in Helsinki and worked for a telecom company for two years. After immigrating to Canada, he worked in different industries in Canada, such as schools, insurance companies, and telecommunications companies, until he returned to China in 2008. After returning to China, I worked at Cisco and IBM, and joined Microsoft five and a half years ago. Tell everyone about my journey because I feel that I live in a different place, accept different cultures, and accept different perspectives, so that I can become more growth minded and always maintain a curiosity. , No matter what the age, no matter what the course, always remain curious about new things. And I am a person who likes to talk very much, and I like to share it with others. For example, I just heard some information, turn around and add my own thoughts and share it with other people. I think building a community requires curiosity and enthusiasm willing to share with everyone. You may see that Microsoft has done a good job ecologically. When you see the superficial phenomenon of success, you think that Microsoft is a big company, rich, or investing more resources. You can see a project that has been running for 27 years, but under the success seen on the iceberg, we have actually encountered a lot. I don't have the resources of domestic manufacturers just now, although we are also in the stage of drawing a circle. In fact, there are other teams under the projects I operate. For example, today I have colleagues who are in charge of marketing and developer relations. We also have colleagues who run Reactor Center. Everyone knows that Microsoft has a Reactor Center space in Shanghai, mainly to help developers, not only for Microsoft fans, but also for other communities. If you want to use the space, you can apply for it on our website. In Beijing, we will soon have such a space for developers to use.
After talking for a long time, I want to recommend a book to everyone-"Community Leadership". This is a book written by my colleague. She used countless examples to explain why we should live in a community. There is a story like this: her husband does not have a job, he is an unemployed person, but he is an actor. Whenever he has a script, he has a job. The director calls him to have a job. He felt that I was always waiting in my life, very very passive. Later, he read this book. He felt that there are many people in the same situation as me. Can we scattered actors form a group to form a platform? When there is no chance to perform, we will rehearse by ourselves. Everyone is in every party. Play different roles and create space for yourself. And after more and more people gathered, they found that the amount of information was huge, and they could get a lot of performance information through the gathering platform, and there were more and more opportunities for everyone to receive the show. There are many examples of this in this book about the importance of community.

Introduction to Microsoft MVP Reward Program

Having said so much, I will now talk about how the Microsoft MVP project works. Our Microsoft MVP award program is a global award for third-party technology professionals and has been going on for 28 years. The global distribution of MVP is: APJGC has about 900 people, in EMEA Europe and Africa, there are about 1,500 people, in North America, there are about 1,000 people, and in South America, there are about 400 people.

What kind of person is the MVP we are looking for? He is an expert in the community. The most important point is that the first must be very familiar with Microsoft's products and services , and the second point must constantly pursue new knowledge . They have the courage to share and help others . If everyone here knows such people, please recommend them to me to make our community stronger.

The expertise of our MVP is divided into developers and architects. There are a total of 11 different awards. You can go to https://mvp.microsoft.com official website to see more and more detailed technical classifications. There are many small and different technical directions under each technology category. As long as you are in the same technical direction, you can specialize in one or more.

How do we evaluate the community contribution of Microsoft MVP? product are positive, online video, mentor, mentor to young students, open source projects on GitHub, open source projects on Gitee, and social media (such as WeChat, QQ) accounts. Group leader, as well as technical articles, blog writing, forum posts, answering questions, writing, translating bibliography, etc. Lectures and speeches are also very important, because we now value MVPs with 360-degree capabilities. Books, writing, and listening are all included. The last is the organizer or supporter of the meeting. For example, I am not good at speaking, but I am as good at organizing meetings as Mr. Bobo, or having an Idea is all right.

MVP contributions are free. Many people ask, I ask your MVP to give lectures to customers. How much should I give? Sorry, this cannot be counted as a community contribution. We measure whether we can become an MVP, mainly based on their free community contributions. Community contributions are equivalent to saying that they are free, and such contributions will be counted as community contributions. Although all the contributions made by MVP are free, order to thank the MVP for these contributions, Microsoft provides some exclusive rights to the MVP project.

One is the improvement of professional platform capabilities. We know that many people spend an average of 15 or 20 years in the project, and some have an average of two or three years. After becoming an MVP, they leave the project because they have become Microsoft employees. This can be regarded as the reservoir of our Microsoft HR. While everyone is familiar with products and technologies, we have gradually discovered that they meet the requirements of Microsoft employees. There is also that everyone knows each other and connects with each other, there will be more business opportunities. I think the platform is more important than other exclusive rights, and it can enhance personal branding, such as Microsoft's annual conference, Ignite, Build, etc. Take the previous practice, when we still had offline conferences, 50% of the lecture teachers were output from the MVP. The build conference used to be an offline conference. Since the epidemic last year, it has become an online conference. In the past, it was difficult to find a ticket for the build conference. We will give priority to the MVP. Of course, the ticket is not free. This ticket is still very expensive. . We will have financial support every year, as well as travel reimbursement for specific activities. In terms of technology, every MVP in the world has three technical support opportunities provided by global.

The most important thing is that we have a global summit every year, which has been suspended for two years due to the epidemic. We will let all MVPs around the world buy their own tickets from all parts of the world (we are not responsible for the air tickets, but are responsible for accommodation and study, food and accommodation within a few days in the local area). This is actually a very, very good opportunity to let the world have a common hobby The group sat in the Microsoft headquarters office to communicate with the product group. Usually our conference lasts about four and a half days, and there are about 700 technical sessions. In addition to discussing technology, we will also arrange many other different activities to make everyone more familiar with each other. Our ecosystem is more global, because I have personally participated in many conferences, and every time I communicate with different MVPs, I will learn something new. For example, I can clearly feel that Europe and the Americas are different, and the Americas are also different from Asia. Everyone's participation, attitude, and content of discussions are really completely different.

Speaking of MVP projects, we still have Azure subscriptions. Although there are not many people who know Azure, once they become MVPs, such as Developer Technology and Microsoft Azure, we will have 1200 USD/year Azure Credit to use, at least yes. Personal build/test build, etc. are sufficient. This is another form of Microsoft giving back to the MVP.

Then there is the infrastructure. We have the Microsoft office. If you have the opportunity, you can visit the Microsoft office. We also provide some space for start-ups, which provide the foundation for some activities for the MVP, and the MVP does not need to bother to find a venue. Everyone can take a look, this is our happy time with Satya. Back five years ago, when we were at the Ignite conference, it was called Tech Summit at that time, and we gave the MVP exclusive rights in this conference scenario. MVP has an exclusive registration channel. There is also an MVP phalanx at the front of the conference. MVP lecturers are all dressed in uniform. Finally, we will have the opportunity to take a photo with Satya. There are also some start-ups in the MVP, and they also have the opportunity to communicate with Satya one-on-one.

In fact, I have served many different companies, such as IBM and Cisco. I like Microsoft the most. Why? After staying at Microsoft, one is because the project made me feel very, very touched. I have never met such a group of people before, have such enthusiasm, and really do not mention the remuneration and price, and I have no hesitation. For example, like today, all of us did not choose to lie flat. In Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, we are also organized by the MVP to do The Best Build in China activities. Each of them does not work for Microsoft, nor does it take Microsoft's salary. They are willing to promote it because of their common interests and hobbies, because he uses it very well, so they want more people to know. Microsoft’s largest learning platform is now called MS Learn. The MVP is to learn it first. After summing up, I found that this is really a good thing, and then share it with other people in the community, and write a blog post to promote it more. I feel very moved. In addition, Microsoft's corporate culture makes me feel that it is a company that can retire. There is no special hierarchy here. Everyone in Asia also knows that when you work in a company, your boss is everything, because your promotion and salary increase all come from your boss. The boss wants something today, no matter if it is Sunday or Saturday, you must reply to him immediately, right? But I think no one is higher than anyone at Microsoft, no matter the big boss or the CEO, you can discuss and communicate with him when you meet in the elevator. This makes me feel very equal and respectful. Our company has always promoted that everyone should respect each other. I think this is a special concept of echo to the community.

How to nominate a new MVP

who are familiar with Microsoft technology and are willing to contribute to the community, you can ask Microsoft employees and current MVPs to log on to the official website 1615849cca4443 https://mvp.microsoft.com/en-us/Nomination/nominate-an-mvp Make a nomination. Only Microsoft employees and current MVPs can be nominated, and we have strict quality controls. The recommender needs to know the candidate well and know what benefits this person can bring to our project. We want to be more precise, not in a big category, anyone can enter this project. Therefore, the gold content of MVP is relatively high now. Regarding the MVP nomination steps, you can check the official website.
Our selection process is that after being nominated, the nominator will receive an email, and then you can continue to fill in your online and offline contributions in the past 12 months. We will be selected once a month, there are 12 opportunities a year, and everyone who wants to participate will be kept in the system for 90 days. You can edit it if you feel it is not good after you have filled it out. If I feel it is done, I will send it to the United States. How is the selection? It’s not that I think you’re okay. It’s among more than 3,600 people. For example, if we have 11 different technical directions, then our existing MVPs in the same technical direction will make comparisons between them. How much community contributions have been made during the year, then the candidate can be elected as MVP with a concept that is at least similar to him. This is a unified review, primaries and re-elections on a global scale. The election time is the first day of each month to receive notification.

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