renewal time again. and i'm extremely happy to say that my new MVP award category is Office Communications Server! i was really scared that i wouldn't be renewed this year. the main reason is because i spent last year specifically targeting the short-lived Speech Server MVP category ... which was created about a year ago, and then removed at the end of last year. so i was thinking that my Speech Server concentration might be too specific to get me into the Office Communications umbrella. didn't know if the MSN bot contributions would help out or not? anyway, i really like the concept that communications is now mostly a software problem, and cant wait to play around with what is possible through the vision of Unified Communications. with the main goal always being to push for the most powerful developer platform.

really enjoyed being a Media Center MVP last year. the group is primarily consumer focused, as it should be, but its awesome that they'll allow developers in (Tablet PC group was the same way). the best thing about mixed consumer/developer groups is that the developers get to hear about upcoming features and what features the other MVPs think are missing. for upcoming product features, i get to brainstorm what apps that feature might enable ... and i get to sound like a broken record, asking if 'we get an API'? :) and the MVP feature requests give me tons of ideas of apps that i can write to explore the power of the platform for developers.

this also ends a 5-year goal, to get 5 different award categories in 5 years : tablet 03, embedded 04, web services 05, media center 06, office communications 07. this goal was made 5 years ago when i really bought into the vision of 'pervasive computing'. the problem with pervasive computing is that it requires knowledge of many different computing technologies. other technologies including : location based, AI, security, etc ... which i targeted as well. anyway, i'm really glad that the MVP program humored me and allowed me to keep jumping groups.

that was the good news. the bad news is it marks a failed goal to become a regional director in 5 years. never figured how to pull that off, and when it comes to it, i'm probably too irreverent to make a respectable RD. did think i had a bit of a shot in Wisconsin, since we don't have an RD. the excuse has always been that our RD representative is out of Chicago, but i've never actually met those people in my community involvement. our community mostly doesn't even know what an RD is. from my nomadic wanderings to other cities, i found that knowing an RD was very valuable. so on the off chance somebody sees this, Wisconsin could use some RD love.

now it's time to come up with a new 5-year plan. it's highly doubtful that this will include pursuing a 6th award category. reason being is that actively pursuing specific award categories each year is a double edged sword. on one hand it forces me to focus on a single technology, but it also keeps me away from other technologies. right now i'm feeling more flooded with new technologies than ever before : AJAX, WPF/e, .NET 3.0, LINQ, MicroFramework, XNA, ... instead of picking one to concentrate on, i'll probably just start picking them off one by one. plus i've got some nonsense articles i want to write for fun ...