The Problem With MVPs | Hacker News Reader

The Problem With MVPs

steverb.com

24 pointssteverb14 comments

Probably unrelated but...

I was fortunate enough to attend an event recently that a very well know MS superstar was presenting at, I arrived slightly late and the only seating room was in the front row with about 8 others. So I quietly sat and enjoyed the excellent presentation.

At the first break the MS hero took his microphone off and 6 of the other people in the row stood up instantly and quite literally skipped towards the podium forming an MVP wall of knowledge around the hero. On their way back I could see several of them proudly sporting MVP shirts and one of the others I recognised as another MVP that I had some knowledge of.

At the time I cringed a little, these guys were all blatantly trying to befriend this poor MS superstar as well as try to outsmart him on several topics that were unrelated to the presentation. The introductions that went along the lines of "Hi, I’m John Smith, MVP of XXX" accompanied by the longing look of "Please please know who I am" made me smile inside.

Next break arrived, MS man popped his microphone down again and... yup, the same six jumped up again along with another couple of folk.

The Most Valued Phanboy program is an excellent way of rewarding the good in the MS community, but after witnessing this I have to say that I was a little bit disgusted at the behaviour of these MVP’s. Rather than make it look like a fantastic gang of helpful product experts they succeeded in making it look like a really unwelcoming clique.

Obviously this is my view of one event and undoubtedly not representative of the community as a whole.

> If you want attention in the open source community you write code and you release some projects. You do stuff. If you want attention in the Microsoft community you talk.

I think you can garner just as much attention in the open source community by just being a talking head. It's sort of the whole "squeaky wheel" phenomenon. These guys aren't helping Microsoft as much out with free technical support as they are helping them with grassroots PR.

See: ESR

Crap. I totally forgot about ESR. He completely screws up my pithy "compare and contrast".

I think ESR is respected more in the "philosophy of open source" department than for being a real developer. Kind of like the way I respect PG for his startup philosophies more than I do for being an actual Peter Thiel-style genius. There's room for both and I don't think it screws up your point.

A post a while back about the MVP program elicited some interesting comments from a former MVP lead - specifically discussing the pressures on leads to drop people who don't follow the company line: http://codebetter.com/blogs/karlseguin/archive/2009/02/03/wh...

From my experience with MVPs and also developers with many MS certifications, they tend to over engineer. They add complexity ahead of its need (like Factory classes when there is only the requirement for one implementation, Visitor pattern when a simple builder will do, etc). The point seems to be to stroke the programmer ego with execution on fancy technical requirements, with a complete lack of care to the experience of the end user.

It's a bit of a strawman he sets up.

(...) the work of another developer, a Microsoft MVP. The code (...) stunk in a strange way. (...) The MVP program does not recognize technical ability. It’s possible to be awarded an MVP in a development related area and not really be able to write code. (...) Mind you, there’s nothing wrong with doing any of those things and a lot of reasons why we should encourage the behavior. (...) there isn’t really a problem with the MVP program. (...) There’s really no reason for Microsoft to change things on their end.

In the end, it's a warning that holders of a recognition that doesn't have anything to do with programming, might not be good programmers.

Yes, but the problem is that most people don't realize the title doesn't have anything to do with programming. They assume the MVPs are great programmers who should be looked to for general guidance on programming technique. At least I have observed this kind of thinking at places where I have worked.

Truth be told, the blog post started as a straight off rant, but over the week it took me to finish it I came to that realization.

I got excited in the hopes that it was an article on model-view-presenter (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model-view-presenter)

I thought it was going to be an article about creating Minimum Viable Products (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_viable_product)

How about a "ShipIt" reward given by the open-source side of the Microsoft organization - CodePlex: http://www.codeplex.com/

To make matters worse, part-way through the interview the candidate starting listing their “requirements”, which conferences they’d be attending, which technologies they would use, etc.

I was flabbergasted. Granted, my friend was glad the candidate was so forthcoming with his lack of professionalism.

How in the hell does it reflect a lack of professionalism to expect to be sent to conferences? To have the company invest in one's career is a natural right of the employee, and companies that don't respect this right end up bleeding talent and becoming shells.

It just sounds like he's being honest about his expectations. If the company doesn't have the resources to send him to the conferences, then they shouldn't hire him, but that's not a lack of professionalism.

This bit was just flamingly offensive, even though I agree with the rest of the OP.

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