This morning I shared the fact that I received a pleasant email early this morning indicating that I have been awarded the MVP Award for Connected Systems Developer for my contributions throughout the 2011 award year.
It is hard to believe that this is my 5th consecutive award. The last 5 years have been filled with new challenges, roles and lots of excitement.
Five years is a significant timeframe in IT because historically, technology shifts pretty dramatically about every 5 years. I mused about the impact of HTML5 in my recent post, and how just 5 years ago WCF, WPF and Silverlight were brand new, bleeding edge technologies which were Microsoft’s response to a pivotal shift that was taking place in UX, design technology and service composition. Together, each of these technologies and other disruptions have served as a perfect storm for spawning the next major shift in technology: HTML5 and Cloud Computing. The interesting thing is just like 5 years ago, these technologies are still in their infancy. As I shared yesterday at HTML5 Web Camp, we are all getting in at the ground floor, and just as nothing remains constant but change itself, in another 5 years the technology landscape will look quite different than it does today. …And, just like the last 5 years, it will all happen in the blink of an eye.
There was a blog post earlier this year by a Security MVP who had renounced his award shortly after receiving it because he didn’t see the value in the award and thought that the program was asking too much. Surely, he had done all of the right things to get nominated and was even accepted, but yet (as the comments/feedback from other MVPs confirm) he completely missed the most valuable thing about the program: relationships. Over the last 5 years, I have made some great friends both in the community and the industry as a whole including Microsoft product, business and field groups, and content publishers like Microsoft, EPS/CODE Magazine, Pluralsight and SSWUG which have enriched my career and provided me with new and exciting challenges and opportunities. Most of all, over the last 5 years, these relationships have resulted in new, long-lasting friendships (you know who you are 
) and this is truly the reward that transcends the award because it keeps on giving long after the champagne for a new award or re-award has been uncorked.
I have always felt that sharing and teaching is a privilege that comes with great responsibility and this another things that makes the MVP Award so rewarding. There is no question that I would have an impact in the community if I wasn’t an MVP, but equally, there is no question that the program has served to amplify my reach beyond what I could accomplish individually, and it continues to do so. The reality is that being an MVP in and of itself really means nothing. It’s what you do with it that counts.
So, I think it is fitting to take this opportunity to announce that I have just signed a book deal with Packt Publishing. I am honored to share this title with Hammad Rajjoub, fellow CSD MVP and now Architect Evangelist for Microsoft Singapore who really did all of the heavy lifting and was kind enough to present the opportunity to me. Hammad and I both share a passion for Connected Systems and community, and this is a great opportunity for us to share our experience, thoughts and learnings for how the capabilities provided by Windows Server AppFabric can benefit architects and developers building distributed systems today using WCF and WF on the Microsoft platform with an eye towards Hybrid architectures. We will be sharing more details as the shape of the book starts to take form, and if you would be interested in being a technical reviewer, we would be very grateful.
Needless to say, it’s going to be a very busy fall/winter, but I wouldn’t have it any other way!