I was awarded the Microsoft MVP (data platform) award on Saturday.

On the four days a year (one per quarter) when the MVPs are announced a number of us (wow I can’t believe I just said us) post the fact on twitter, usually under the hashtag #mvpbuzz. This was my first time I got to join in, and I received a number of congratulations.

This is particularly cool because Todd Kleinhans (b/t) takes the time to hand write (I assume?) each of these and send them out. So we will let this stand for all of the congratulations I received and I’ll say one big thank you to everyone, since I would have a hard time naming everyone without missing a few and they were all special to me.

I’ll be honest and say it still hasn’t really sunk in yet. At least in part because I don’t really feel like I’ve done anything special. Mostly I just write a blog.

Here are two of the tweets I received yesterday

That’s the true honor for me. I’ve been helping people. But you know I look around our community and the number of people who organize, volunteer, and speak at various events, who blog, who answer questions on forums, twitter, and other social media just astounds me. They all deserve to be honored for what they do.

And I guess that’s it. We have a community that spends its time encouraging and pushing each other to do more and be better. I can’t help but feel humble to be considered a stand out in a community of standouts. So while I’m saying thank you to Microsoft for the honor (and it is an honor) I also want to say thank you to the community who lift me up and inspire me to do more on an almost daily basis.

Thank you!

Filed under: Microsoft SQL Server Tagged: microsoft sql server, mvp