Posted on by Liz Spranzani

Tips and Tricks to Attain Sitecore MVP

The 2019 Sitecore MVPs were just announced, which means now is the time to start planning and setting yourself up for an award consideration in 2020.  It may seem a long way off, but in order to compete for this highly coveted honor, you have to start immediately.

This is not only my 5th consecutive year of receiving the MVP award, but it is also the start of the 6th year I’ve helped my organization run a program that enables Sitecore developers/strategists to succeed in the achievement.  In that time, the program has helped 11 different people reach MVP, 6 of them women!

If you need a refresher about the details of the MVP program, my fellow WoS (Woman of Sitecore), Una Verhoeven, has written a blog article about it. 

The gist is this though: ” Sitecore MVP is an individual with expertise in Sitecore who actively participates in online and offline communities to share their knowledge and expertise with other Sitecore partners and customers.”  Additionally: “Sitecore MVPs are awarded for the quality, quantity, and level of impact of the contributions they make by sharing their product expertise and mastery of the Sitecore platform with other Sitecore partners and customers.”

To make the cut is not any easy feat.  It takes time and persistence.  Many MVPs (including myself) can tell you frustrating stories of being passed over during the first couple years of submission.  As mentioned above, a baseline requirement is having mastery and expertise in the Sitecore platform.  For MVP, you need to go above and beyond attaining that knowledge, and additionally become an active community member who is recognized by those who first must recommend you before you can even submit a nomination form (Sitecore employees and current MVPs), and then those who sit on the selection committee (Sitecore employees). 

Most people who would like to try for this are working at partner organizations and client companies that already have high demands for their time in building Sitecore applications.  This means you have to carve out this extra time in your personal life: nights, weekends, holidays.  The good news is you can timebox and hone in on the important types of activities that will give you the biggest bang for your buck.

My hope here is to impart what myself and my colleagues have learned over the years in order to help you to reach for and achieve this goal.

  1. Have at least one Sitecore certification in your resume. It isn’t necessarily required for MVP, but certainly does go a ways towards gaining and proving your expertise.
  2. Start actively participating NOW and make sure to do a minimum amount of activities that gain you recognition monthly. Keep this up right until the nominations open up around November. This is critical so that you stay relevant and maintain a presence throughout the year.
  3. Create a point system for different types of valuable activity and try to hit a minimum number of points each month. I’ll give you some examples of that in a moment.
  4. Compete with friends/colleagues who are also vying for a spot, maybe set up a prize for the end of the year as a reward for the person with the most points. This will keep you all motivated to keep going.
  5. Don’t let busy months at work get in your way. Make a concerted effort to carve out some time every single month! As little as 5 hours per month can be enough to write a few blog posts.
  6. Keep a log of your activity.  Sitecore is going to want you to regurgitate all of this information in your nomination form, so make it easy on yourself!
  7. Reach out to both MVPs and Sitecore employees. Make real relationships with them.  They will be able to recommend you come nomination time.
  8. Blog about topics that don’t already have posts out there! Writing another article on how to install the latest version of Sitecore is redundant.  Did you do something super interesting recently that was a challenge, that you could find no helpful information on in the community, kept you working all weekend, and you feel great joy over finally figuring out?  Then blog about it ASAP!  Be the first one out there.
  9. Become a subject matter expert in something within the Sitecore platform, especially good is a topic or enhancement that is new. Write a blog series on the topic. Present at a Sitecore User Group, and submit a presentation paper on it for Symposium.
  10. Take part in the Sitecore Hackathon, You can register for it through Feb 15th!  Not only is it a lot of fun, but it’s a sure way to get noticed (especially if you win!).  Note that although this seems like a developer only activity, you can get creative as an Ambassador or Strategist and join a Hackathon team as well!
  11. Share everything you do on social media especially Twitter and Facebook. Join the Sitecore Slack and Facebook groups, Sitecore Stack Exchange, and update your profile in the Sitecore Community.
  12. Do NOT plagiarize anyone else’s thoughts, blogs, tweets.  You will be found out, and exposed publicly šŸ™‚
  13. For those going for a Technology MVP, it is important to share code, for example on github or Stack Exchange, otherwise you are likely falling into more of an Ambassador category.

In my company, we have tiered activities in the following way, with the higher tiers getting more points.  Note that some of these are more developer focused.

  1. Speak/Present at a conference such as Symposium or SUGCON, Participate in the Hackathon
  2. Speak/Present at a SUG or other smaller event, present a webinar (that people attend).  Note, these are GREAT practice for the larger events and having these on your resume give you a better chance of being selected to speak at Symposium/SUGCON.
  3. Attend a conference like Symposium/SUGCON (but make sure to interact with community members there!), Post a blog series (3+ posts, video or written) on a topic to help you achieve subject matter expertise recognition, create an open source module and share your code, attend a training that results in a new certification
  4. Attend a Sitecore a User Group in person, write or record a single blog post
  5. Attend a SUG virtually, attend a webinar (don’t depend on this though or overdo it), participate in Slack/Community discussions, answer questions in Stack Exchange, post in social channels

There are four types of MVPs. The activities for Technology and Commerce MVPs are more straightforward and some may find it a bit easier to engage in the Technology community (for one, it is a lot larger community than the others).

Important to note about Commerce is that you really do need to be focused on Commerce. Some that were Commerce MVPs last year have been switched to regular Technology because their involvement wasn’t focused enough on Commerce. In the past that could mean anything commerce that integrated with Sitecore, but likely going forward Sitecore will be looking more and more for the Sitecore Commerce product.

For those looking to achieve Strategy MVP, Stephanie Allen, a new Strategy MVP this year, recommends that you consider partnering with a Technology MVP and solving problems together on projects. You will gain important knowledge, including platform gotchas and sticking points, that you can include in your nomination form. In addition to writing your own blog articles around strategy themes, you could also partner with a Technology MVP to co-write articles together. Focus on attending events and applying to speak.

Jaina Baumgartner, another new Strategy MVP, shared the following list of activities which helped her:

  • Contribute to the #digitalstrategy channel on Sitecore slack
  • Write blog posts
  • Present in webinars and at events, especially around a specific topic (becoming an expert in it)
  • Provably show how you have optimized business value for a real company/client (you can share this in your nomination form in your best Sitecore Anecdote!)
  • Attend/conduct SBOS/Strategy workshops

Ambassador is the newest category and was made for really anyone else who is an evangelist of the Sitecore platform that bring value back to Sitecore and doesn’t fit into any other category. This could be executives, sales people, or leaders in the community who perhaps don’t code as much anymore but are still very involved. Many of the same activities listed above will work here, but you’ll have to rely more on blogging and speaking rather than code sharing.

To be well prepared, here is what Sitecore looks for in the nomination form (this has been consistent for a couple of years now).

  • Motivation, why you deserve this/want to be an MVP (don’t be afraid to BRAG about yourself, you deserve it!)
  • Objectives for next year within Sitecore Platform and Community (can’t hurt to mention some of the new bells and whistles on the platform roadmap)
  • Community Activity:
    • basic information: your blog url, Sitecore community profile url, stack exchange profile url, twitter handle, linkedin url, github url
    • Summary of online activity: Reported Bugs/Fixes, Slack, Marketplace Contributions, webinars, articles, blog posts, whitepapers, online discussions, comments on articles, Facebook/LinkedIn group activity, product feedback, influencing decision maker, etc
    • Summary of offline activity: Sitecore User Group Attendance, Presentations/Trainings (that Sitecore provided), Symposium, SUGCON
  • Work Experience
    • Best Sitecore Anecdote (keep this in the back of your mind and look out for interesting Sitecore experiences that come up during the year!)
    • Live Projects: URLs and your role on the project (even include the projects you or your company no longer maintain!)

For first time MVPs, as mentioned above, you need a current MVP or Sitecore employee to first recommend you, before you can even get your hands on a nomination form. Recommendations/Nominations usually open up around the beginning of November and close towards the end of the month. Sitecore then deliberates for two months, announcing the winners at the end of January.

Are you ready to take on this challenge? If you are and would like more advice or are looking for comradery in the process, join the WoS (Women of Sitecore) slack group and reach out to any of the current women MVPs directly or in the general channel. We all are looking forward to helping you!