Well the Czech Republic now adds a third Dynamics MVP to the list.
Welcome Petr Sodomka. (Sorry this is the Czech Profile). Now we just have to get him active on this forum [:D]
OK, Welcome! Congratulations. [:)]
Maybe he can make a short introduction in english?
We have to get him here first!
Nice to see the Czech Republic being the centre of NAV MVP’s
And of course congratulations and welcome Petr.
Well very good. David do you know this guy? Where has he been active before?
He’s active only in the Czech Republic from what I can gather, but I will find out more.
whaaat - You can be a MVP and NOT be active in this group - that’s is disturbing [:D]
Nah - Just kidding
Congratulations from me also - I’m sure he devserves it…
It’s always good to see Microsoft giving out kudos of any kind to people focusing on Navision. I’d be interested in getting a list of these MVPs, where they are located, and their contact information.
Any ideas on where this information would be available?
Click here. The new guy’s not in there yet, so this must be inside information.
Or click on the link in my first post. [;)] but as I said he hasn’t put up an English version yet.
My point Dave…is simply that Navision isn’t just a European product. All I see on this list are Europeans. Until MVP is made up a token number of us Americans, it’s still going to be a second class product in their eyes.
Two of us are in the US. You don’t need to be an “MVP” to have superior Navision Knowledge. There are plenty of Navision Guru’s in the US.
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/communities/mvp.aspx?product=1&competency=Microsoft+Dynamics+NAV
I have to disagree with you Bill. 2 out of 8 (or 9 now I guess, I can’t even see the new guy in the private MVP site) NAV MVP’s are in the US. You shouldn’t read anything about the validity of the product based on the number of MVP’s there are in any country, that is really not what the award is about. Nobody is going to think something is a second class product if there are no MVP’s for it in a certain country. If anything, I don’t even think many people even know about the program.
Hey and don’t forget about that MVP who moved from the US to the Czech Republic, thus tipping the balance [;)]
PS I think in total we are 10 now.
Bill, its important to understand that there is not necessarily a link between MVP and superior product knowledge (but please don’t tell my cleints that [;)] ) the MVP is all about a willingness to share and help fellow users of Microsoft Products.
I look at the MVP as another selling and marketing tool. Any type of awards that Microsoft puts in place are there so that they can publicize them at some point. As Navision has always had a tough time here in the US being associated as the European product … and Great Plains as the US. I know…it’s ridiculous that this is still going on, but I’ve heard this 3 times from people that I’ve met since I’ve left the consulting world…namely in the past month. Perception is everything…
Bill…
I’m not going to argue with you, since you’re probably going to do what you do regardless. The MVP award is NOT a marketing tool for the products for which it is awarded. Go to the MVP website and read what it is for. The conclusion that a product has validity in a certain market because the manufacturer of that product has an award in that particular market makes absolutely no sense. If there are people out there that think this then it is a misunderstanding that you should rectify, not take advantage of.
MVP as a marketing tool or not? Of cause it’s a marketing tool for Microsoft - have a large and effective user community is worth gold when they are trying to convince both new customers and partners to “join”. Microsoft don’t do anything if they don’t expect to be benefitting themselves in the end.
But I think it’s worth looking into what countries the MVP’s comes from (both for Dynamics NAV and the other Dynamics products) and the compare to the size of the usage of the product in their country.
If the demographics of the MVP community would say anything about the actual product usage maybe, but it doesn’t. Look I don’t think I will dissuade anyone to use the MVP program like that, I am just trying to inform people about its intentions.
I don’t think MSFT’s benefit of the MVP program is marketing, or to show potential customers that there is a healthy user community. Personally I think the biggest benefit is the free testing and feedback that they get through the community.
If you want marketing material, there is plenty of it available through MSFT, and there are plenty of reference sites.
Of cause testing and feedback is important to Microsoft in general. But if you look at their take on the Dynamics area, then you really don’t get a chance to do this as an MVP. Especially not after they have pulled out all MBS/Dynamics Knowledge Base articles for the MS Knowledge Base, as well as updates. Now you need access to their PartnerSource site to get any new versions and updates… [:@]
It’s even worse than that, because the non-Navision MVP’s (at least CRM and GP) have had access to betas and more access to the product team for a while now. For some reason Navision is the strange one in that we’re not getting access to beta product, even though the product team members that I’ve spoken to are very excited to interact. I think it’s mostly a political thing.