What is a DNN MVP?
DNN MVP stands for:
DNN
Most Valuable Person, DNN MVP is a reward for individuals for contributions
to the DNN community, is it a reward for people in the community
and selected by people from the community.
There are about 30 DNN
MVP's worldwide, it is a selected set of individuals. I am lucky to be one of the
DNN MVP's and have been rewarded by the community for number of years. I am proud
of that!
What is the responsability of a DNN MVP?
Well, that is a bit difficult to answer, since there is no finalized, hard coded
set of rules related to becoming or being a DNN MVP. And as such, that is not a
real problem since you can only become a DNN MVP by the things you do: sharing your
passion, by contributing to the community, by submitting code and enhancements,
by giving presentations about DNN, etc. And if those contributions are valued by
the community, you can be nominated by the community and in the end selected as
DNN MVP based on that nomination.
Apparently, the DNN community values the contributions
that I, as a motivated DNN individual, have done over the past years.
Being rewarded as MVP has some advantages. You are informed in an early stage
about the new developments and plans for DNN, for the platform. And if you want
to, you can influence these developments and plans. In order to do that, there are
several direct ways of communication, such as email, Skype, discussion forums, etc.
But the most important way of communication is a monthly webmeeting with all (30)
DNN MVP's, a meeting that is also attended by key figures of DNN Corp, like
Joe
Brinkman,
Bob Kruger,
Cathal
Connoly and
Charles
Nurse. And sometimes, program management of the Evoq product team attend the web
meeting as well. So we are in good company, the right audience will attend.
DNN MVP's are located all over the world, so there is no timeslot that is most
appropriate for everyone. The monthly DNN MVP webmeeting is, for me, on every first
Thursday of the month in the evening 22:00-23:30hr. Yes, you have to sacrifice some
to be an active MVP, but that should not be a problem for real DNN addicts, should
it?
What were the topics of the last MVP webmeeting (July 2)?
To give you an idea of the topics covered in the monthly meeting, a list of the
things being discussed at the meeting of July 2:
DNN Release 7.4.2: The exact release date has nog been finalized
yet, but all features are finished. There are about 150 (!) fixes and enhancements
implemented in this release. An overview of the DNN release can be found in the
DNN
roadmap, the list of fixes and enhancements in the
DNN issue tracker on Jira. An impressive list of fixes, we are looking forward
to a great release!!
DNN Release 8.0: This release is planned for October 2015, with
at least 2 CTP’s (Community Technology Previews) and 1 or 2 beta's till that
time. Important changes for this release: the separation of the core DNNPlatform
and (old) admin modules, such as Sitelog, Newsletter, a new module for Dynamic Content
Creation (DCC), implementation of oAuth 2 and HMAC authentication, support for MVC
and SPA modules, a new standard responsive skin, performance enhancements, replacement
of Telerik controls by lightweight JS client controls and more, much more. A lot
of work has still to be done, so feel free to contribute! Look at and pick one of
open issues and solve that. Open Source exists because people take and
give back.
Community Hangouts: the planning of
hangouts
for the upcoming months and an invitation for new contributions.
Virtual Conference: the announcement of a virtual DNN conference
worldwide.
DNN 7 book: have you seen the new
book on DNN 7 already?
And this is only a limited summary of the meeting. Apart from the topics there
is enough room to have a discussion, make jokes, talk to each other on a one-to-one
basis. This has some consequences, since some of the MVP's have become friends,
just due to the fact that we have meetings like this. And if you meet each other
live, that adds up to our friendship.
Does it pay off to be a DNN MVP?
For me, MVP meetings are useful and a time to learn. Not every item and piece of information
is useful, but being informed in an early stage about the development of the platform,
assisting in forming new releases and the giving feedback for the direction of DNN,
helps me, helps us at XCESS and thus our clients to make the right decisions today.
And tomorrow.
Apart from that, talking to other DNN'ers (DNN addicts) remains fun.The time that
I have to allocated in order to be a DNN MVP, is worthwhile for me, for sure if
you take into account the friendship that is the result of being one of the MVP's.
I am happy and proud to be a DNN MVP!
This blog is a translated version of
my blog in Dutch on our company website
www.xcess.nl.