What the heck are DPEs and TSs? I know those names, but not those acronyms.

M.

1. Staying away but not “ignoring” the community activities.
2. Providing constantly higher quality information.
3. Supporting in the backstage community leaders: hosting, etc.
4. Identifying and motivating new community leaders.

Microsoft should take the role of a facilitator. Not necessarily a sponsor.

Remember that the opposite of love isn’t hate, it is indifference.

I’ve been told ad lib by countless people that Microsoft doesn’t put any focus on business user needs because it doesn’t sell licenses. I must respectfully disagree with that if it is true, because us business user evangelists get business users excited about their jobs and the technology and get them to use it every single day. This gets licenses renewed and upgraded in the long term because the people on the ground then refuse to live without it.

So my only little request would be to PLEASE PLEASE give more support for users, vendors, consultants and communities driving business user adoption. It is all about the techies 99% of the time, but there are over 100million non techies out there that are desperate for our help – and it’s near impossible to get community support in this space. I just don’t understand it.

IMHO.

I totally agree that the community benefits Microsoft as much as it benefits the community membership.

However I am hesitant to involve ‘reward’ or even ’supportive’ finances of any kind from Microsoft (specifically if they are substantial). I just fear that when money starts exchanging hands the focus begins to change. This goes for monetary rewards too in my humble opinion.

Big Note: Prizes for conferences, facilities, or free licenses etc are all totally cool in my opinion. I just mean literally cash/liquid funds.

Here’s what I would like to see more of:
1. Microsoft needs to encourage/actively support their staff participating at these events more (money can totally change hands here!).

I absolutely agree that we need more presence at the community events. People have Microsoft questions all the time! In fact even have some sales guys there to answer licensing questions and I bet it will return value for the business.

2. Microsoft needs to publically acknowledge the community on a more regular basis. At Conferences, at events, in news, honestly even press releases and everywhere. Why? Because this reduces your support costs, leads to higher technology implementation satisfaction levels and encourages participation and awareness of the communities (which Microsoft technically does support quite actively).

3. I think the MVP process is an effective one (though I admit I have never been involved in it) in that it rewards technical proficiency and helpful community contribution. I am not saying it’s perfect (nothing really is) but it’s better than many other systems I have seen and have yet to meet an MVP I didn’t really admire for their knowledge, skill, or contribution.

To the general comment that it doesn’t apply to non technical people I also agree.

Overall not sure where I stand with whether it should/shouldn’t apply to non technical. I <3 non technical contributors (which is where I spend most of my time contributing) but at the same time MVP's are expected to know a fair amount about the product (not the MCM level but certainly quite a bit) so… I find it difficult to say MVP is the right reward for non technical contributors.

I am super curious to understand what other people think though.

Lastly a point to all communities around reward structures…

Communities: You can reward contributions too! At the Toronto SharePoint User Group as a group we decided we would create the "Community Contributor of the Year" Award or something like that which could be voted by the community and acknowledge the amazing participation great members make.

Earlier when I talked about the non technical we could always band together and come up with interesting ways of voting and creating new structures for acknowledging awesome people (especially as we grow/mature as a community).

Hopefully this made sense – Just thought I would toss out some additional input as I am absolutely loving how much attention we have been bringing to the community recently. :)

Dave