wagnerblog.com

Many years ago Microsoft used to give out Solution Provider memberships like candy. Do a favor for MS and voila you were comped a membership. When I personally experienced that arrangement I began to doubt the veracity of some of the MS driven “status symbols” for lack of better words.

Some time passed and I watched an entire education industry grow around another MS plaque of official competence and acceptance - the MCSE and MCSD certifications. I knew we had reached a peak when I interviewed a gentleman for the position of Systems Engineer of a customer of mine. This gentleman was an a freshly minted MCSE who expected a starting salary of 65K in 1997 - only one problem - he was a forklift driver without any real experience. He had bought into a story that was sold to him by the training organization and implicitely supported by MS So here he was , bless his soul, competing with people who actually had some experience in the field, wanting to jump from 35K to 65K.

Why am I telling these stories? Well, when I read this kind of hairbrained nonesense I can’t help but think that this site is actually a wonderful filtering mechanism that shows what percentage of MVP’s are numbskulls. Maybe MS handed out those titles at one time much like they did solution providerships? Answer a question on a MS newsgroup and here is your MVP status. I wouldn’t be surprised. And all the rest of you guys who happen to have that honorific and actually have some brains, please don’t try to defend those amongst you that left their’s at the door .