My journey with the Sitecore MVP Mentor Program Part 1

So you want to be a Sitecore MVP ? Welcome to the Sitecore MVP Program

The MVP mentor program provides guidance to those in the Sitecore Community who want to become an MVP. Join this program and gain new experiences, skills, knowledge, support and more.

I’d like to share my experience with the program so far, and hopefully continue sharing my journey as I progress to the goal of becoming a Sitecore MVP.

Like most fellow Sitecore Platform Engineers (using the term “engineers” to cover the spectrum of  technical, non-technical, newbie and experts of the platform), my goal is to eventually be recognized as a Most Valuable Professional in the Sitecore Platform. Someone who loves the Platform and Community to the extent of contributing their knowledge and time to helping both developers and clients utilize the full potential of what Sitecore has to offer. And like most of us, I find it hard to find the space and time to actually do what is required to qualify for being elected an MVP, while juggling the many other responsibilities on our plate.

So, to me, the MVP Mentor initiative by Sitecore is really a progressive push to help ones such as myself along to road.

Getting started as a Mentee for me was as easy as sending an email to mvp-program@sitecore.com . Kudos to the Sitecore team (special shoutout to Nicole) for promptly responding to me within a few days. Although it took a few weeks to pair me up with my current mentor, the team periodically let me know that they were working on pairing me with a Mentor close to my time zone.

Finally within 2 months, I was paired up with my current mentor Jean-Nicolas Gauthier. Again the team did an excellent job of connecting us in an introductory email and brief Mentor/Mentee notes about the program and expectations. We quickly connected via LinkedIn and started talking. Jean-Nicolas was a perfect fit for me, as someone who was well connected in the MVP community and who heads the Montreal and Quebec SUGs. He works hard to push me to get stuff done (more on that later)

Expectations must be set, agreed and followed between yourself and the Mentor. Remember, this is a voluntary exchange of time and effort, and not to be taken for granted. The effort is really on you, so make the best of it.

Now that we have an agreed time and schedule, the real work starts. Jean-Nicolas, was very up beat about getting me doing things. Doing a presentation, writing blogs on something you found interesting in the platform. Many of us have heard that prolific blogging and helping out on Sitecore Slack is how MVPs are made. I would definitely agree with that, and more. He was adamant about getting me in-front of people.

Our scheduled weekly meetings (about 15min -1hr) would often result in key action items to work on for next meeting.

That being said, we’ve only been meeting for a few months so far and most of our agreed on items are work-in-progress.

One of the things I appreciate about the Mentor Program, is the benefits to my professional and career growth. Conversations with my mentor, is not just about becoming a Sitecore MVP, we also shoot the breeze about life, current events and whats happening in the technology space. We also discuss about challenges faced in our current jobs, and my mentor was instrumental in offering very good professional advice at the right time.

So that’s my experience so far in a nutshell. Looking forward to doing presentations at Sitecore User Groups and get a few blogs in before the MVP application period closes. Hopefully in part-2 of this blog series, I’ll share about some of the presentations I did, and lessons learned.

Till next-time, keep engineering