What It Means to be a Sitecore MVP

It's All About Dedication

Sitecore's MVP program (that's "most valuable professional," not "minimum viable product") is a yearly award that goes out to a select group of individuals througout the Sitecore developer community. Sitecore's own description of the MVP Program:

The Sitecore MVP Award celebrates the most active Sitecore community members from around the world who provide valuable online and offline expertise that enriches the community experience and makes a difference.

As it turns out, that summary of the MVP program is somewhat contentious. Sitecore MVPs are not awarded on technical merit or professional achievement! Because the MVP award lacks technical merit, some people question the value of the program altogether.

It's true: being a Sitecore MVP doesn't mean someone is a "Sitecore ninja" or expert on every aspect of the platform. Sitecore is a huge product with many moving parts - it's generally too big for any one person to have perfect mastery of every feature.

In reality, being a Sitecore MVP can be distilled down to one simple idea: dedication. If nothing else, Sitecore MVPs demonstrate a clear dedication to the Sitecore platform. The amount of work that goes into becoming an MVP (blogs, videos, community events, user groups, modules, mentoring, etc.) requires significant investment in ourselves. Considering that several thousand people across the world develop exclusively for Sitecore, recognizing just a couple hundred at a time is a big deal to the developer community.

MVPs almost always spend an extra 10 to 20 hours per week creating content for the Sitecore community. No matter how experienced you are with Sitecore, spending so much extra time studying the platform is a great way gain a deeper understanding of it. Being a Sitecore MVP doesn't make someone a technical wizard, but it does mean they are all-in on Sitecore, and that will always be a good bet in the long run.

Do you have questions, comments, or corrections for this post? Find me on Twitter: @BrandonMBruno