On the morning of January 1, 2015 I received notification that I have been awarded my first MVP. Seems to me to be a pretty decent way to kick off a new year.

Microsoft’s MVP program is an award to recognize “exceptional, independent community leaders who share their passion, technical expertise, and real-world knowledge of Microsoft products with others”.  I am honored to join their ranks. You can find my MVP profile HERE (it is also linked off the MVP logo to the left).

It’s been a fairly busy couple of years getting my MCSM and now a MVP, but I’m told there is no rest for the wicked. First of all, I’ve decided that I am going to publish blog posts on a more regular schedule going forward. For the last year or so my goal has been to put up at least one post a week. While I expect to maintain that pace going forward, I am going to try to have new posts published each Monday morning at 10 AM Pacific. I think this more regular schedule will help me to improve the overall quality of posts. Feel free to let me know your opinion on the matter either in the comments or via email.

In addition to my blog posts here, I do hope to continue to write articles for Windows IT Pro. I have no idea what sort of schedule those will be published on, but I’ll be sure to link new articles on this site.

My next project is going to be an Office 365 users group here in Portland. The first meeting will be Thursday January 29th, 2015 at the Microsoft Offices in Portland. If you are unable to attend in person, I’ll have Lync meeting info available shortly. The speakers for the first meeting are going to be Zaltan Dzinic (SharePoint MCM and former MVP) and myself.  I’ll be speaking about identity management for Office 365, and Zaltan is going to speak about deploying SharePoint in Azure. All the details can be found at THIS link.

And finally, being a “what’s the next hill to charge” kind of guy, I guess I need to come up with a new goal. Of course the MVP is a yearly award, so I am going to have to keep plugging away to maintain that, but I need another goal to focus on as well. I would have liked to become a MCA, but it does not look like Microsoft will be bringing that program back. At this point I am not sure, but I think I am leaning toward becoming a Sith Lord in time for the release of the next Star Wars film in December. I would like to think of myself as generally a Light sided fellow, but I’m given to understand that the force chock is Dark Side only and I spend a shocking amount of time in meetings where such an ability would be useful.

All the best in the New Year (unless I find your lack of faith disturbing)

Nathan