The Master Blog

New Kid on the Block!

boB 'The Tool Man' Taylor — Tue, 29 May 2012 13:30:23 GMT

Last week was my first week as the PM for the SQL MCM / MCA program. I am digging out from a large backlog of emails. Please be patient with me as I come up to speed.

Watch for an announcement soon about the return of the MCM Community Calls.

Till next time,

boB

Seven Skilled @ SharePoint... Congratulations to our latest SharePoint MCMs!

Brett Geoffroy — Wed, 23 May 2012 04:24:55 GMT

We recently completed the first round of exams for our first "hybrid rotation" - our alternate delivery model where we do one week onsite in Redmond followed by ten weeks of Lync-based remote training delivery - and we've had outstanding results with the new model on many fronts. I'm very happy to say that these results extend to where it counts most to many of our candidates - certification. Please welcome the following new Masters from "R11":

Hannes Gfrerer is a Senior IT Engineer at Lam Research, where he architects and implements SharePoint solutions for the Intranet and Extranet. He is based in Austria and works with employees and partners in Europe, Asia and the US.
Jojo Koshy is a Senior Consultant with Microsoft Consulting Services specializing in SharePoint and is based in India.
Markus Hintner (www.entos.at) works as an independent trainer and consultant helping companies to master the complexity of SharePoint and BI projects.
Olli Jääskeläinen works as a SharePoint Architect at Innofactor Plc. He has built many complex custom solutions on multiple versions of SharePoint.
Paul Pascha works as a SharePoint Lead Developer and Solution Architect for Wortell. He has a background as a Developer on ASP.NET and Microsoft Content Management Server.
Sowmyan Soman Chullikkattil is a Senior Premier Field Engineer at Microsoft, based in the NY Metro region. He provides proactive and reactive support and advisory to Premier customers, helping them to remediate the hassles in design, development, implementation and operations.
Yuri Burger is a SharePoint Architect working for Delta-N based in the Netherlands. As business unit manager of the SharePoint group he keeps the focus on delivering high quality solutions.

It was an excellent experience working with all of these folks through the late winter and early spring on our first of what we hope to be many of our hybrid deliveries (our second hybrid rotation is a little past the halfway point as I write). Fantastic job - congratulations!

Please welcome our newest SQL Server Certified Master Li Xiaozhao

Robert L Davis — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 13:24:24 GMT

Please welcome our newest SQL Server Certified Master Li Xiaozhao. I was fortunate enough to get to greet one final Master on my next to last day at Microsoft. Welcome to the community.

Li Xiaozhao is a SQL Server/BI consultant with Microsoft Consulting Services in France. He has been working with SQL Server since 2003 and specializes in database design & architecture, query optimization and SQL Server performance tuning & troubleshooting.

No April Fools here... Congratulations to our latest SharePoint 2010 MCMs!

Brett Geoffroy — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 15:24:00 GMT

We wrapped up our first "hybrid rotation" last week, and R11 candidates are busy completing their exams - I look forward to more announcements for newly-minted MCMs in the near future. During the second half of R11, two candidates from past rotations completed their retakes and achieved the SharePoint 2010 MCM certification. Here are the most recent additions to our community:

Andy Daniel (R8). Andy Daniel is the lead collaboration platform engineer for General Motors. He comes from a Unified Communications and Collaboration consulting background.
Zewei Song (R9). Zewei Song is a Senior Consultant with Microsoft Consulting Services (MCS) focusing on SharePoint and related products based in New York state.

Excellent work, Andy and Zewei! Congratulations to both of you!

Accelerate Your SQL Server MCM Training

Robert L Davis — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 12:40:30 GMT

Starting May 8: SQL Server 2008 Microsoft Certified Master
(MCM) Accelerated Exam Preparation Program

Our popular live accelerated training program for SQL Server MCM returns with another session starting May 8, 2012. Whether you're preparing for SQL Server 2008 MCM exams, or just looking to take your SQL Server skills to the next level, don't miss out on this unique training opportunity.

Accelerate your path to SQL Server MCM

This series of live online sessions with a SQL MCM presenter offers a low-cost and convenient solution for MCM exam preparation, or for those looking for advanced training around MCM topic areas. In seven weeks, with two weekly sessions of two hours each, the focus each week will be on one of the exam topic areas. There will be time for Q&A after each session. You can benefit from the input of other participants -- even form online study groups to enhance the learning experience. Plus, we offer practice lab subscriptions with twenty labs and two months of lab access, providing an easy to use, anytime access lab environment in which you can practice the required skills associated with the weekly session. The sessions start May 8, so Enroll Now, as places are limited in the weekly sessions.

BONUS: All paid program enrollments by April 25 will receive a $1000 Discount for the SQL MCM Lab Exam!

Available today: Hands-on Practice Labs for Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server 2008

The hands-on labs used in the Accelerated Prep training series are also available any time in one week or one month increments. The labs cover advanced SQL Server topics geared to helping you prepare for the pursuit of advanced certification. This is a great alternative for those who may not need the time commitment of two months of lab access. Here’s what one of our new MCMs in SQL Server 2008 had to say about the practice labs:

The MCM Practice Labs were instrumental in my passing the MCM lab test. Not only were the lab documents and demos useful, but they are very easy to build onto. I highly recommend the MCM practice labs for anyone looking to take the MCM Lab test.
Eric Strom
Digineer
www.digineer.com
Minnesota, USA

Learn more about the Microsoft Certified Master Program.

Follow the Master Blog for future announcements on SQL Server MCM programs.

Congratulations to our newest SQL Server MCM Nicholas Cain

Robert L Davis — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 19:55:59 GMT

I want to congratulate our newest SQL Server 2008 Certified Master, Nicholas Cain. Nicholas is very well known by most of us here in the Redmond area, and he is a frequent participant in our local #SQLNomz get-togethers.

Here is brief introduction to Nicholas:

Nicholas has been a SQL Server DBA since the turn of the millennia. He got his start going through a 7.0 to 2000 upgrade and has worked with those editions as well as 2005 and 2008 in critical highly available production environments. In 2010 he started on a new aspect of working with SQL Server as he gave his first SQL Saturday presentation. Since then he has spoken at several other events including the 2011 PASS Summit.

Nicholas blogs at http://sirsql.net and can be found on Twitter as @SirSQL.

Congratulations to Wictor Wilén, Our Latest SharePoint MCA!

Brett Geoffroy — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 01:57:00 GMT

We held our most recent SharePoint MCA boards just a few weeks ago, from February 29-March 1 at the Microsoft Technology Center in Reston, VA. Please extend your congratulations to one of our candidates who successfully achieved the Microsoft Certified Architect: SharePoint 2010 certification - Wictor Wilén!

Wictor Wilén is a Microsoft Certified Master in SharePoint and works as SharePoint Solution Architect at Connecta AB. He has worked in the portal and web content management industry for more than 14 years for consulting companies, founded and sold his own software company and saw the dawn of SharePoint back in 2001. Wictor is an active SharePoint community participant, writer, tutor, frequent speaker at local and international conferences, and author of SharePoint 2010 Web Parts in Action. Since 2010 Wictor has been awarded the SharePoint Server MVP title by Microsoft for his community contributions. He can be found online at http://www.wictorwilen.se/. Wictor is based in Stockholm, Sweden.

Well done, Wictor! We're proud to have you as one of the very first SharePoint MCAs!

Live Webcast with SharePoint 2010 MCM Program Management: Friday, April 13

Brett Geoffroy — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 16:39:00 GMT

Our second quarterly webcast for SharePoint 2010 MCM will be held in just a few weeks on Friday, April 13 at 9AM Pacific Time. We'll provide a detailed program overview, share updates on program schedule, and set aside plenty of time for live Q&A. If you want to learn more about our program from the folks who run them (and are all MCMs themselves), sign up today!

You can register for the SharePoint 2010 MCM webcast here.

Links to webcasts for all upcoming MCM program webcasts are always available at this search-driven link.

As always, if you have additional questions, feel free to reach out to our team at mcmprog@microsoft.com for MCM questions and mcap@microsoft.com for MCA questions.

MCM Directory R14 Complete with Several New MCMs!

Ryan Conrad — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 22:15:35 GMT

We recently completed our most recent MCM Directory rotation where we had 23 participants. The largest in several years!

Please congratulate the following individuals who have successfully completed all of the required exams during the rotation:

Sean Metcalf - Metcorp Consulting
Adrian Corona Temores - Microsoft
Allen Ho - Microsoft
Dorin Minghiris - Microsoft
David Gregory - Microsoft
Eric Hall - Microsoft
Mark Renoden - Microsoft
Serge Evseev - Microsoft
Sean Ivey - Microsoft
Vlad Tomsa - Microsoft
Willem Kasdorp - Microsoft

There are a few others whom need to retake one written exam to successfully complete all required items.

This will bring the number of individuals in our Directory MCM community to over 100. Congrats to all!

Ryan

Uwe Ricken Shares His Story: The Path to MCM Certification

Robert L Davis — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 20:50:38 GMT

Uwe Ricken shared his story of his path to SQL Masters certification on the SQL Server Central forums. I am reposting his story here with his permission. Thanks for sharing your experience, Uwe!

Hi all,

I've just got the information that i have finished the 88-970 successfully with the second try. So - if anyone is interested I want to share my experiences with my MCM roadmap with you :)

I'm working with SQL Server since 1998 and most of my experiences with SQL Server is from the dev side.

In October 2008 I've got a call whether I would work in a team in a bank in Frankfurt as a dba. Since this call I'm working as a freelancer for this bank for administrative jobs concerning SQL Server. My experiences with the developments with SQL Server did help me very much to improve the daily work but I had to learn really much about security and high availablity.

I've decided to achieve the MCM SQL Server in September 2009 when a colleague told me that he has passed the MCTS. I searched for the roadmap and saw that MCM would be the cap of the certification.

OK - I wanted to become a MCM.So I started with the exams to become a MCTP for database admnistration and database development

The MCTP for SQL 2005 was earned on November 2009
The MCTP for SQL Database Administration 2008 in November 2010
The MCTP for SQL Database Developer was finished in February 2011

All of the above certifications have been passed with the first try and - from my point of view - were not really sophisticated. I bet that everybody who's dailly business is SQL Server can pass these exams with the first try.

OK - the base for my target was finished. What do I have to do for the preparation? First I downloaded all videos from SQLSkills. Allthough I knew much of the things the authors explained I was really horrified about the wide range of possibilities what SQL Server supports. For me the most interesting videos were the indexing and performance tuning videos from Kimberly Tripp. She's great and I like the way of demonstration.

The second source for my studies was "SQL Server 2008 Internals" from Kalen Delaney. The third source (experiences) is the Microsoft Forum for SQL Server. I tried to answer as much as possible of the questions because ... - it is daily business.
As more you get into the deep of sql internals by investigating the problem analysis of the requestors you get more familiar with SQL Server and detect many new things within SQL :)

I've got my first try in Oktober 2011 and registered in Berlin (Germany) for the exam 80-970.Unfortunately in Germany we have only Berlin as certified test center and I had to arrive by train from Frankfurt (app. 3.5 hrs).

First of all I had to identify myself and all private issues (clock, bag, keys) have to be dropped into a locker.Than - after taken finger prints - I have been guided into the test room.

I've got 3,5 hrs for the test and - allthough I thought, I knew much - the questions were really hard.

I failed with 672 pts

I registered again for January 2012 and since yesterday I know I've passed the exam. Now I'm preparing for 88-971. The exam will be taken in April 2012.

I keep you informed when the test has been done.

Best, Uwe Ricken

Welcome to Our Newest SQL Server MCM Eric Strom

Robert L Davis — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 00:46:03 GMT

Please join me in welcoming our newest SQL Server Certified Master, Eric Strom.

Here is a brief introduction to Eric:

Eric Strom is a Database Consultant with Digineer, Inc, a business and technology firm in the Twin Cities metro area. He has been working with SQL Server for over 10 years and specializes in performance tuning, database design and architecture. He served on the PASSMN executive board from 2009-2010. While a board member, he presented at and helped plan the first SQL Saturday (on a Friday) in Minnesota.

Eric lives in St. Louis Park, MN with his wife Lori and 3 children. He enjoys camping, hiking, biking, gaming with friends and spending time with his family. Eric can be found on Twitter at @CoveringData.

Congratulations to our latest SharePoint Masters Community Members!

Brett Geoffroy — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 10:43:00 GMT

It's mid-winter and also the midpoint of our first hybrid rotation delivery, with the "R11" candidates working hard at attending remote instructor-led training, remote office hours, and doing LOTS of lab work and study. Six weeks down, six to go...

While R11 has been underway, we've had the great pleasure of adding to the SharePoint MCM ranks while several candidates from past rotations completed their certifications. Here are the latest members of our community:

Bill Ayers (R6). Bill is a consultant specializing in software architecture and development on the Microsoft SharePoint platform, particularly around web content management and collaboration.
Mark Priem (R7). In the past 10 years Mark has worked at several enterprise sized international organizations. Currently he works at Microsoft, and delivers pro-active support services to customers in the EMEA region. In his spare time he tries to spend as much time as possible with his two kids and loving wife.
George Wilburn (R8). George is a Senior Consultant with Microsoft Consulting Services based in the United States. He architects and implements SharePoint and SharePoint Online solutions for Microsoft's Enterprise customers.
Jacob Wilson (R9). Jacob is a Principal Consultant working for Neudesic in Denver, CO. He is responsible for architecting and delivering SharePoint enterprise solutions across Neudesic’s 18 locations in the United States.
Bram de Jager (R10). Bram works as a SharePoint architect for the Information Worker Solutions Center of Macaw in the Netherlands with portals and collaboration as main areas of expertise. Bram contributes within the community by speaking at conferences and user groups, blogs at http://bramdejager.wordpress.com and publishes articles for different magazines.

Tremendous efforts, and equally tremendous achievements! Congratulations to all of you!

Congratulations to our newest SQL Server MCM Argenis Fernandez

Robert L Davis — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 22:37:22 GMT

I am delighted to introduce another new SQL Server 2008 Certified Master to the MCM community. Please join me in welcoming Argenis Fernandez, our newest SQL Certified Master.

Here is a brief introduction:

Argenis has been working with SQL Server for around 14 years. An active member of the SQL Server community, he has presented at multiple SQL Saturday events, and also at the PASS Summit 2011. His main areas of interest are SQL and OS internals, scripting and HA/DR. He loves making things run fast(er).

Argenis is a Sr. DBA at Coinstar. He blogs at http://www.sqlblog.com/blogs/argenis_fernandez/ and can be found on Twitter as @DBArgenis. If you are on Twitter and in the local Redmond/Seattle area, you may want to also keep an eye on the #SQLNomz hash tag. This hash tag is used to schedule impromptu get-togethers, usually instigated by Argenis.

Congratulations to the Newest SQL Server Certified Architect Benjamin Wright-Jones

Robert L Davis — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 18:09:48 GMT

Please join me once again in congratulating Benjamin Wright-Jones (blog|@superlatch). Benjamin was already a double SQL Server MCM (2005 and 2008) and is now the newest SQL Server Certified Architect (MCA).

Here is a brief bio of

Ben has worked at Microsoft (UK) for nine years specialising in data solutions; specifically large relational databases, high availability, performance tuning, benchmarking and scalability. Prior to Microsoft, he worked at various services and ISV companies using SQL Server 6.5 and onwards. More recently, Ben has started to focus on business intelligence solutions using Microsoft technologies (using Integration Services, Analysis Services, Reporting Services, Performance Point and even ProClarity!). With Denali on the horizon, Ben is focusing on workshops for customers and partners to demonstrate some of the new capabilities and is engaged with early adopters so hopefully lessons learned will appear soon. Ben is half way through a two year post graduate degree in Business Intelligence which focuses on the Microsoft and Teradata platforms; he is enjoying every minute of it but consequently he is now spending evenings working on assignments and reading papers. He likes to stay in touch with the communities and has recently presented for the British Computer Society, demonstrating real-world application of SQL Server for mission critical solutions. Ben was originally on the Masters beta rotation and he testifies that it was one of the most intensive but valuable experiences of his career. Outside of work, Ben likes to travel, read (non-fiction), play football (soccer) and support Aston Villa.

Benjamin blogs at http://blogs.msdn.com/benjones and can be found on Twitter at http://twitter.com/superlatch.

Congratulations to the newest SQL MCM, Gavin Payne

Robert L Davis — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:39:00 GMT

Please join me in congratulating our newest SQL Server MCM, Gavin Payne. I met Gavin at the SQL PASS Summit last year and knew he would be joining our ranks very soon. Here is a brief into to Gavin:

Gavin (blog|@GavinPayneUK) is a Senior Consultant for Coeo, a Microsoft Gold Partner providing SQL Server services for mission critical environments, where he architects, implements, troubleshoots and optimizes SQL Server environments to meet the performance, scalability and availability requirements of their clients. Additionally, Gavin organizes the SQL Server in the Evening community event in the UK and speaks about SQL Server at conferences and user groups.

Back by popular demand: SQL Server 2008 Microsoft Certified Master (MCM) Accelerated Exam Preparation Program

Robert L Davis — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 18:27:00 GMT

Back by popular demand: SQL Server 2008 Microsoft Certified Master (MCM) Accelerated Exam Preparation Program

Our first online live accelerated training program for SQL Server MCM was such a hit that we’re bringing it back starting March 6. Whether you’re preparing for SQL Server 2008 MCM exams, or just looking to take your SQL Server skills to the next level, don’t miss out on this unique training opportunity.

Starting March 6: Accelerate your path to SQL Server MCM

This series of live online sessions with a SQL MCM presenter offers a low-cost and convenient solution for MCM exam preparation, or for those looking for advanced training around MCM topic areas. In seven weeks, with two weekly sessions of two hours each, the focus each week will be on one of the exam topic areas. There will be time for Q&A after each session. In our first series, participants even formed online study groups, which enriched the experience even more. Plus, we offer practice lab subscriptions with twenty labs and two months of lab access, providing an easy to use, anytime access lab environment in which you can practice the required skills associated with the weekly session. The sessions start March 6, so Enroll Now, as places are limited in the weekly sessions.

BONUS: All paid program enrollments before February 22nd will receive a $1000 Discount for the SQL MCM Lab Exam!

Available today: Hands-on Practice Labs for Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server 2008

Learn more about the Microsoft Certified Master Program.

Follow the Master Blog for future announcements on SQL Server MCM programs.

Welcome to our Newest SQL MCM, Sean McCown

Robert L Davis — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 17:10:14 GMT

Please join me in welcoming our newest member of the MCM community, Sean McCown.

Here is a little info about Sean:

Sean McCown is a Certified Master in SQL Server 2008. He is also a SQL Server MVP with over 15yrs experience in databases. Sean is also founder and co-owner of the renowned website MidnightDBA.com where he records free SQL Server training videos and co-hosts the popular webshow, DBAs@Midnight.

Sean blogs at http://www.MIdnightDBA.com/DBARant and can be found on Twiiter as @MidnightDBA.

Live MCM Program Overviews by the MCM/MCA Program Managers!

Brett Geoffroy — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 11:01:00 GMT

We're kicking off an initiative to conduct regularly-scheduled LiveMeetings on Advanced Certification offerings. These will be hosted by the program managers and include detailed program overviews as well as time for live Q&A. You can find them here on MS Events - if you want to learn more about our programs from the folks who run them (and are all MCMs themselves), sign up today!

And for those of you who can't attend the live sessions, they'll be archived in MS Events for your asynchronous viewing pleasure. As always, if you have additional questions, feel free to reach out to our team at mcmprog@microsoft.com for MCM questions and mcap@microsoft.com for MCA questions.

How to Pass the SQL MCM Exam

Robert L Davis — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 03:01:00 GMT

SQL Server 2008 Certified Master (MCM) and SQL Server Most Valuable Professional (MVP) Brent Ozar (blog | @Brento) offers up his advice on how to pass the SQL MCM knowledge exam. Sorry, Brent doesn't give out the answers, but he does give a unique viewpoint on studying your tail off versus diving right in. Check out the blog post here: http://ozar.me/2012/01/how-to-pass-the-sql-mcm-exam/

Brent Ozar (blog | @Brento) is founder of Brent Ozar PLF.

Remote Delivery Options for the SQL MCM Lab Exam

Robert L Davis — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 22:20:11 GMT

Looking for options for taking the SQL Server Certified Master lab exam? For a limited time, Microsoft Learning will be offering remote delivery of the SQL Server Certified Master lab exam for a reduced price of $2000 US (normally $2500 US). Remote delivery allows you to take the exam from a quiet location of your choosing and saves you the cost of travelling to a distant testing center. Remote delivery requires a working webcam, the full Microsoft Lync client, and a reliable internet connection.

Some restrictions apply. For details or to schedule remote delivery of the SQL MCM lab exam, contact mcmsqlexam@microsoft.com.

Learn more about the Microsoft Certified Master Program.

Our Newest SQL MCM is Qikan Fang

Robert L Davis — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 17:23:34 GMT

Please join me in welcoming our newest SQL Server 2008 MCM Qikan Fang. Here is some info on him.

Qikan (@qkfang) is Chief Developer at Health-e Workforce Solutions (www.healthewfs.com.au). His experience focuses around SQL Development, Data Integration, Performance Tuning, BI and Security. His career started as a R&D developer in China using SQL Server 7.0. After a few years work and study in Melbourne, he published a paper about biometric authentication and was fortunate to present it at SAM 08. As a senior analyst developer and team leader now, he usually works in complex financial consultancy projects for Australian and New Zealand public hospitals. His recent work in HWS has been devoted to designing and implementing a unique and innovative budget modeling product for health-care and is funded by Australian Government. He enjoys his life in Sydney with his wife Wendy and naughty bird Bobo.

New SQL MCM Study Group Started

Robert L Davis — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 22:49:51 GMT

SQL Server MVP Jason Strate (blog|@StrateSQL) has started a SQL MCM study group on Yammer.Yammer is free to join So check out the new study group and get involved.

Head over to Jason Strate's blog post to learn more and join: http://www.jasonstrate.com/2011/12/sql-mcm-study-group/

Welcome to our newest SQL MCM, Martin Cairns

Robert L Davis — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 21:31:02 GMT

Please join me in welcoming Martin Cairns to our community of certified Masters. Martin is very active in the SQL community, and I think we will definitely benefit from having him join us.

Here is a brief bio about Martin:

Martin Cairns, Senior BI Consultant (blog | twitter). Martin is a consultant with Purple Frog Systems a Business Intelligence & Data Warehousing Consultancy. He provides expertise for some of the UK's most prestigious clients including ASOS, AOL and Tesco. Martin has been working with SQL Server since 1998 and currently is specialising on data warehousing projects incorporating SQL Server and Analysis Services. With extensive experience designing and optimising multi-terabyte data warehouses, he particularly enjoys troubleshooting problems that occur at high scale, having successfully delivered a variety of BI projects across sectors including Banking, Insurance, Media and Retail. Passionate about the SQL community Martin can often be found shaing knowledge on the forums, on Twitter and is a regular face at community events.

So long and thanks for all the fish....

Adrian Maclean — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 18:16:00 GMT

After nearly four years I'm moving on as the PM of the Lync and OCS MCM programs. It has been quite a ride.....

On January 12^th 2009 the first rotation of OCS MCM kicked off in building 11 on Redmond campus.

Almost four years later we have achieved the following…

Run 12 rotations
Moved classrooms once
Revised the content 7 times and gone through one complete rewrite
Made 4 people sing ‘I’m a little tea pot’ for being late to class (you know who you are)
Delivered 32256 slides (really)
Imaged 2088 laptops/workstations
Spent 1020 hours in class
Run 816 hours of labs
Spent 828 weekends away from home
Had one car towed away
Had one massive power outage (respect to rotation 9!)
Eaten 720 bags of crisps (chips)
Had 1 'Tanjay' hardware failure
Built out 150TB of virtual machines
Had 2 laptop hard drives fail
Delivered 660 exams over 1320 hours
Delivered 240 qual labs over 1680 hours
Moved the date of 1 babies delivery (Mohammad - I will never forget your dedication to the cause!)
One case of swine flu
Contributed 21 authors and reviewers to the Lync 2010 Resource Kit
One heart attack (he's fine now and certified!)
Made a material difference to the quality of OCS and Lync skills around the world

You don't often get to start something entirely new and this has been a fantastic experience for me. However, there is no doubt in my mind that although I may be the PM for the program it is the passion, dedication and sheer quality of the instruction team that I've had the good fortune to work with over the past four years that have made all the difference. My most sincere thanks to all of those that have made the program what it is today - the list of names is incredibly long but you know who you are. For those of you that have attended I thank you each for the effort and dedication that you put in as I know full well the personal sacrifice that is required and to those that will attend in the future I wish you well - you are in good hands.

Speaking of which - Microsoft Learning is hiring for my replacement. See here for more details (https://careers.microsoft.com/JobDetails.aspx?jid=69685&lang=en)

Long live Lync MCM!

Adrian

PS! If you've never read The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy....shame on you

Kicking off the Holiday Season with new SharePoint MCMs and an MCA!

Brett Geoffroy — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 02:17:00 GMT

We wrapped up SharePoint 2010 MCM R10 (AKA R1010 for all you binary folks out there) a little over a week ago in not-so-sunny Redmond, and I'm very pleased to announce a number of additions to our community and new certifications for current community members.

We have four new SharePoint 2010 MCMs from our most recent rotation:

Anthony Wong (R10) is a Senior Premier Field Engineer at Microsoft based in Hong Kong. Specializing in SharePoint, BizTalk and .NET application development in general, he provides proactive and reactive support and advisory to Premier customers, helping them overcome challenges in design, implementation and operations.
Brian Cartmel (R10) is the development manager for Advanced 365 and has over 15 years’ experience in the consultancy world with the last 9 or so being SharePoint focused. Clients include Fortune 100 organisations, financial services and retail companies many of which have deployed SharePoint as a key platform for collaboration or as an Internet facing presence.
Oliver Zeiser (R10) is a Senior SharePoint Engineer with MondayCoffee, a leading Swiss Microsoft Gold Certified Partner specializing in comprehensive collaboration solutions based on SharePoint, Lync and Exchange.
Shannon Bray (R10) is a Microsoft Certified Trainer and the Chief Architect for Planet Technologies. He lives in Denver, CO and is heavily involved with the SharePoint community. He regularly speaks at many Microsoft conferences and co-authored Automating SharePoint 2010 with Windows PowerShell 2.0.

Two current community members completed their SharePoint 2010 MCM Upgrades:

Mario Fulan (U2) is an Account Technology Strategist for Microsoft in Ohio. Mario works with large enterprise customers to design and architect their solutions on the Microsoft suite of products.
Russ Houberg (U2) is a Senior Technical Architect working for KnowledgeLake out of St. Louis, MO. He handles the architecture and deployment of enterprise class document management solutions.

Last, one of our current SharePoint 2010 MCMs, Wayne Ewington (R5), achieved the SharePoint 2010 Microsoft Certified Architect distinction during our Beta boards following SharePoint Conference 2011! Wayne is a Principal Consultant for Microsoft Consulting Services based out of Auckland, New Zealand, where he works with clients and partners assisting them with their successful SharePoint deployments.Stellar job, Wayne!