Mac Forum / Applications / Word / June 2008

Good, Excellent!

The comment wasn't necessarily meant for you. Nor to any particular
individual, MVP's or not.

But there thousands or perhaps millions of people in MS land that have
that feeling stated.

If everyone would get over the notion that any, one, Software company
can do no wrong, and would actually criticize mistakes then and the
companies be made to listen all software would be better.

Microsoft has never described the MVPs like that and I certainly don't
consider myself a *super user.*

I use Apple and Microsoft products day in and day out. For my job I use
Microsoft Office a lot - probably 4 to 5 hours per day. It's a 25 year
old product, and I've been using it daily for about 15 of those 25
years, so I am familiar with those aspects of it that I use a lot.

I'm also willing to help others if I happen to know something about an
inquiry made in a public forum such as these newsgroups, newly
christened "communities" as well as Yahoo answers and random other forums.

A primary aspect of the MVP program is that it is a "thank you" program
- meaning Microsoft says "thank you" publicly to those who it recognizes
as having given their own time to help out in public forums (or
podcasts, books, magazine articles, the web, or other forum).

My involvement is not all altruism. I learn far more from reading the
Q&A in the newsgroups than I give out. So for me it is a learning
experience. But I only represent myself - not Microsoft. Nor my employer.

In the software business there is a constant exchange and interaction
between the company (product managers, developers, sales, etc) and their
customers. The nature of software allows for greater interaction than
might be possible for an appliance such as a toaster, but the concept is
the same - a consumer panel.

MVPs are only a part of the consumer panel. Yes, we get beta versions
and offer our opinions about the software, but we're only one channel.
If there's one aspect of this that I think the MVPs are good at is that
we can explain to the developers what we we want in their own language.
Sometimes we can help them understand what is going wrong or what we
would like to have happen when they "just don't get it."

My experience has been that anyone who is willing to become an active
participant in developing future versions of software can have a say in
upcoming products.

Apple and Microsoft are incredibly open to this. You can always use Send
feedback on any Microsoft product's help menu, and that gets read by
product managers. Apple and Microsoft often have public betas. People
who send good feedback are sometimes invited into private betas (smaller
groups).

If someone is actively participating in positive ways in betas and
public discussion then chances are good they will be recognized as MVPs.

There's still a great need for more MVPs. The Microsoft newsgroups are
fairly well served right now, and there is an Entourage forum that MVPs
participate in. But daily I cringe when I visit Yahoo Answers and see
hundreds of questions posted getting very uneven response quality.
There's a group of people who answer just about every question regarding
Microsoft products with get OpenOffice (and then recommend inappropriate
versions and sites to download it from!). Or they promote their own
products for sale that sometimes do stuff that can be done for free.

I wish a lot more people would pitch in and help out answering questions
from the public at large. We MVPs don't know it all and welcome all
comers who offer reliable answers consistently over time. Those who do
are likely to be recognized as MVPs.

-Jim