I haven’t blogged for a long time. But it wasn’t a case that I simply ran out of ideas, or gas. Rather, I needed to let it go for awhile. And what I remember distinctly about that period (around the last MVP Summit back in March) was that I had reached some sort of inflection point. For a few years previous I had so much going on in my community life over and above my corprate one, it wasn’t atypical to be doing thirteen, fourteen hours days. Weekends. Holidays. This was all on top of my personal responsibilities. Being a husband. A father. Taking care of the house. The dog. The car. You name it. However, at the same time I also felt I was doing ok averaging six hours sleep a night. I continually seemed to weather what needed to be done, managing to even squeeze in an hour or so a week for something like a documentary so as not to lose complete sense of what was going on in the world. So whilst it’s easy to imagine that burnout might have been inevitable given such a prolonged state of time poverty, overload, and almost-zero scope to pursue things above and beyond the demands and totality of family, work and community, thankfully – I never reached that point. Yet what did occur is that I started to seriously revaluate all the activities, events, programs and initiatives which had accumulated over the last several years. And as part of that, I began to recognise the risks of living so functionally and intensely over a long period of time. From my own experience this included one-dimensionalness, neglecting other activities such as hobbies or social relationships, difficulty remaining present, and sometimes ressentiment against the situation in which I found myself, all whilst still pushing through in the hope that things would naturally subside or ‘work out’. For sure, I couldn’t recall the last time I had checked in or devoted time to my own welfare. I guess things were as they were because this was never in question. And having a family, dependents, things such as your sense of self, your identity, health and happiness are incredibly important – as much for them as opposed to oneself.
At the time, I came across a particularly thoughtful blog post by another MVP, Jukka Niiranen, which I felt was a bit of a ghost of Christmas future. Niiranen, as a thinker, asks several big questions about community and the MVP program given his own experiences. Could our passion for technology spill over into addiction given the wealth of resources, access and opportunities available to us? Can we ever truly be happy within a asymmetrical relationship where there is no objective set of criteria for success? When do we ever know when enough is enough? And in the end, what ultimately becomes more important? The technology and the solutions ensuring real outcomes for real people? The program, the badge, and being seen to contribute which is the currency for continued participation? Or us? There were two points in particular to which I found myself strongly agreeing with him. The first was what Niiranen terms ‘danger’ – the level of risk, or risks associated with almost unlimited access to knowledge and opportunities to participate, lies with us. Within a program which compels us to self-regulate – a panopticon of sorts – it is the participant’s responsibility for their level of engagement, compliance and how they use their given access in order to maintain it. For me, it’s similar conceptually to a computer, or an alcoholic drink. One ought to engage with it responsibly, but there is nothing ultimately stopping us bending or going way beyond the recommended limits. And with no objective criteria, or set limits, it can be expected that some will do significantly more than what is neccessary. And it isn’t difficult to imagine personas who would: those who are completionists, those anxious they won’t do enough to renew or lose their status, those who wish to challenge themselves or who are seeking recognition or validation for their performance, those who have addictive personalities, those you have a high-risk, high-reward mentality, those who want to outcomptete others, those who have a surplus of time or who wish to use it as an escape, and those who equate success to ‘growth’, surpassing past performance. Secondly, by participating in such a program which measures the contributions and impact the participant has upon their respective communities, where the evidence is subective and having no transparent objective critieria, they are left to interpret and strategise accordingly. How can I make an impact? Niiranen identifies and frames this as quantitative output as value – ‘more is better’ which can ultimately lead as he notes to diminishing returns, disassociation and burnout. This is an important insight – not just because it raises questions on sustainability and longevity within the program and wider community. Do we give any thought – are we even aware of potential long-term risks and potential impacts associated with the strategies we use to make our mark? Beyond contributions themselves and volume – what about overreliance on relationships with decision makers? Or pinballing between services, always skating-towards-the-puck to stay current? Or evangelism to the point the participant and the program become indistinguishable, or binding oneself to a product? Or replicating what others do who we perceive to be successful? Or using social media with choreographed content to heighen personal brand, and synonomise it with the success of the org or an idea? When you begin to unpack them, any one could involve some degree of long-term risk that we may have not yet considered.
It would be wrong to think that this is a critique – towards the program or its participants. Like Niiranen, I strongly believe that there are significant benefits, way beyond the tokenism of badges, or rings, or a gazilion followers on whatever social media platform is in vogue. The program has been designed the way that it has because how participants contrubute and make an impact can vary considerably person to person, across thousands of people. And after all, the choice to participate and continue to do so is always solely our own. We are not held hostage. We were not forced into it. We can leave at any time. What I never did, considering the investment of resources such as my personal time, my energy, my emotions, taking onboard opportunity costs, the potential to impact others lives apart from our own, is make revaluation and risk assessment a neccessary part of it all. I didn’t even think about it. Does what I am doing still make sense for where I am in my life? Does this continue to bring the level of value I am expecting? Does this mean as much to me now as it did a year ago? Do I feel there are things outside of this community which are more valuable which I need to explore? Is this heading where I want to go? Do I experience situations because of this which keep me up at night? Do I think about these activities all the time? If I do this specific things, how much more of my time and I committing to? These are all healthy things to ask, but understandably they could equally be complex or difficult to answer when we are thinking about the future. For Niiranen, his experiences over the years led to him ultimately leave the program. Not knowing him personally, I can only hope that he is well and happy in what he is doing now.
In my own case, it is through thinking about these things I decided to refactor my community work. Here are a few decisions I have made:
I have decided to end my tenure as a Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) Regional Lead
I was a Regional Lead for five years (2020 – 2024), or what was three terms. For anyone who doesn’t know what that was, a Regional Lead was a liaison between the MCT Program and trainers in their respective regions. But they also acted as representatives and as a sounding board for the program, engaging and helping to shape initiatives and changes. So over that time I was involved in – and had input into – many good things which enhanced the program including the move to Microsoft Learn, the transition to free exam renewals, the creation and testing of applied skills, the introduction of breaks within exams, alignment of Microsoft Learn with Metrics That Matter as well as the ability to issue achievements for Learning Partners.
As a part of the ongoing changes, Microsoft decided to rename the role of the MCT Regional Lead to MCT Community Lead at the start of 2025. This reflected their desire that leads should focus on broader global support of MCT’s through it’s new authoritative home on the Microsoft Tech Community, as opposed to being siloed regionally. This made sense because of the geographical range of leads, and patchy experiences MCT’s in certain geographical areas had faced historically. Now, whilst I could have applied for, and probably would have been awarded for 2025, I came to the conclusion that three terms was more than enough. It felt like time to let it go. Somebody else should have the opportunity to bring their ideas to the table.
I will continue to be an MCT for a while longer. I don’t think I’ll ever lose interest in teaching or wanting to improve outcomes for trainers and learners considering I have been a qualified teacher for nearly 20 years almost half of my life. If I have some hopes and aspirations for the program in the years ahead, it is that it focuses on the quality of the content, the opportunities and competitive advantages it can give to MCT’s who wish to make a living from it, as well as continue to develop the integrity of the program. I hope the MCT registration fee is restored to provide much needed funding since it is in desperate in need of it. I hope that those who backdoored into the program when it was abolished during Covid whose motivation was to gain a badge and IUR, hence doing it in bad faith, are phased out. Finally, I hope we can see the reintroduction of courses for things like SharePoint and Exchange, some really fundamental services which organisations use every day, but were shelved during my time as a Regional Lead because clearly, the program was under pressure to funnel learners into courses for topical subject matter related to sales priorities.
I have decided to not re-apply for Microsoft Teams MVP in March 2025
One of the best things I ever saw on LinkedIn was back in 2023 and Megan Strant posting that she has decided to leave the program. Of course, not because she was actually leaving. But because knowing Megan, and how she was from our time in the program and working on Teams Nation, it was a real class act. She is someone who is incredibly authentic, and at a time where I knew many community members who were desperate to get onto the program, and were tapping up people like myself and Vesa Nopanen left right and centre, here was someone who said this was great and I’ve enjoyed it, but I’ve moved on and you know, things are going to be ok.
And so it is with me and Teams. I was incredibly priviledged to have been a part of the program in the days throughout Covid when Teams was at the epicentre of the Microsoft universe. I was in Vegas when they announced it had overtaken Slack at the Inspire pre-day back in 2019. And when it grew 12 million MAU in the space of a week and they had to throttle the actual platform. I was there when they added private channels, and the modern meeting experience, and the Power Platform integration, and Mesh, and Operator Connect, and SIP Gateway support, and background blur, and hard mute, and Teams Premium with the Defender XDR integration.
You see – I still love it. I was in the Teams admin portal yesterday when I was playing around with the unified policy experience. Last Friday I was deploying an agent made in Copilot Studio into it. But time moves on. People move on. Organisations move on. It is an undeniable fact that Microsoft’s interest in Teams is now secondary to that of Copilot. Laurie Pottmeyer, who really was the heart of the Teams MVP community, moved onto Microsoft 365 which, as well deserved as that was, she was always going to be impossible to replace. And my guys? Like one of those bands who go on an indefinite hiatus after their last studio tour, we’ve all headed off in our own seperate directions. Vesa Nopanen does a lot now with AI and Copilot. Adam Deltinger Microsoft 365 all up, and Chris Webb? He’s in and around the Power Platfrom Communty. Me? My time the last year or two has been in Security. This is where I see myself mid-term. I didn’t want so many happy memories to be tarnished by riding it out for years just to inflate the numbers. It would be in bad faith.
So I would like to thank everyone I have worked with in the Teams MVP community. There are far too many people to mention here having been in it for five years. And until now I never ever mentioned this to anyone, but the long running blog I did called Teams Real Simple with Pictures – I called it that as a reference to the film Any Given Sunday, and in particular a scene where the coach is drawing pictures on a blackboard. You’ll know what I mean if you see it: but also because I always used to write blogs on a Sunday night.
With the end of Teams MVP, I’ll be ending my involvement in Teams Nation too
Teams Nation was the annual virtual event that Vesa, Adam, Chris and I used to run alongside Matti Paukonnen and Paul Dredge. Many know the history. Once called TeamsFest, once called Oktoberfest. It was dedicated to Microsoft Teams, and covered all aspects such as productivity, security and compliance, meetings, calling and devices, and so on. It was incredibly successful given we never had any budget, did everything on propritary technology and relied on acts of mass volunteering. Just look at the metrics for our penultimate conference in March 2022. We had over 3000 attendees, 5000 registrants, 140 sessions and averaged a 4.81/5 session average, 4.75 conference average and an NPS of 87%. That is a gaudy set of numbers. It is something we can be proud of. But even though we were likely helped by the popularity of Teams coming off the back of the pandemic, we went to considerable lengths to ensure it was a conference that we ourselves would want to go to given that we used to attend events all the time. And maybe we managed to get the speakers we did because people knew that we were legitimately interested and involved in what we were doing, much like the guys at Commsverse and TeamsDagen. What you saw is what you got. There was never any alternate agenda. We didn’t want to sell you anything, or try to put you in front of several ISV’s on the way into to session. And we always had this epic moderation team too, many of whom came along with us for the ride: Michael Plettner, Sharon Sumner, Chirag Patel, Sara Fennah, Peter Rising, Raphael and Jennifer Kollner, Juan Carlos Gonzalez Martin and Thomas Stensitski. I mean, these are all top of the bill speakers in their own right.
With such massive numbers, and with a line up which I would still argue to this day was the one of the greatest line ups speaker for speaker in the history of the Microsoft Community, I didn’t think we could top what we did in 2022. Because of this, I ended the conference which I came to regret doing because I never really talked to the guys about it, especially Vesku who had put so much into it with his videos and running the show on the day. But like family we managed to eventually patch things up, and so we ran one last conference, an epilogue of sorts at the beginning of 2024. It was a decent size. It had a great line up. It allowed us to really go through the motions in a cathartic way and finish things on a positive note. More importantly, we broke that trap thinking that things always had to be bigger. We were just as proud of what we’d done in 2024 than what we did in 2022.
Whether the conference continues? I don’t know. We missed the window for 2025 given that 2024 had been a punishing year and we needed the rest. If it does, I am sure that Vesku and the team will continue it to the same high level as Metaverse One. They all know that if they really needed me then for sure I would jump in to help out and lend a hand. But my thoughts? Maybe we’ll find a another way to collaborate – one that fits what we all want to achieve. Should Vesku and the team decide not to continue – and I would fully understand this given the many other commitments they have – the community is still well served in Commsverse, CommsVNext, TeamsDagen run by Amanda Sterner, Linus Cansby and Marten Hellebro, or Teams Community Day run by Raphael and Jennifer Kollner. I’d recommend all of them.
So what’s next?
I’ll still apply to renew with the program as a Security MVP. Most likely, I’ll still be writing blogs involving Teams and l’ll be doing things that I enjoy such as testing within my means. Refactoring what I do within the community was a result of revaluating what I have been doing over the past few years. For some things, if I continued doing them – which is what I could have done – I felt it would simply devalue much of what I had done previously. Their greatest value was now as a part of my past – as memories. Given where I am, what currently interests me, as well as my desire to rationalise, it didn’t make sense to continue. I would be doing them in bad faith. Why continue holding out in Teams when I am now focussed and all in on Security? Why continue for a fourth term as a Regional Lead, when I had already done three where someone who wanted the opportunity and could bring fresh perspectives had none? 2024 was the year I found I needed to let some things go and move on. Holding onto them just increases the scale of my community commitments and it elevates the risk to the finite resources that I have. I didn’t want to end up going through what Niiranen did. He made his choice to leave the program and I sincerely hope it has proven to be the right one where he is once again thriving, making the impact he wants to make on his own terms. Leaving a program doesn’t mean leaving a community or the relationships we’ve made, just as doing the same things for many years doesn’t mean they lose their value if they align to where we are, where we are going, we are happy, healthy and they get the best out of us. Through my own experiences, I found growth isn’t about doing more. Scaling is about doing more. Growth is about development. For our own development circumstances may require us – or we may choose to scale up, or scale down, or sometimes even do nothing at all. It is about learning from our experiences, and those of others, getting better at assessing risk, and getting better at making the right decisions and choices which aim and are informed by the things which are most important to us such as safeguarding our health, enriching our welfare, and leading a meaningful life – for others, as much as ourselves. And we may not always get things right, or there may be things we haven’t identified or anticipated. In fact, we should expect that. We are imperfect. We have imperfect information. And that’s ok. Besides, in my life, few decisions or choices have ever been absolute. We have the freedom and agency to change our minds, or later in time make better informed decisions. Some things may become right for us once again. I may be a Teams MVP again someday. Maybe Niiranen may choose once again to apply to rejoin the program.
So how do I make an impact? – Is this the right question? Maybe – what contibutions am I prepared to make in good faith which could make an impact without elevating risk to myself, or compromising what is important to me? Niiranen helped me remember. To think. To ask and reframe questions. I should have made the time to do these things a long time ago.
I look forward to seeing you in the community in 2025.
@Microsoft365Pro 