Today, I got word that Microsoft has named me into their Most Valuable Professionals program. While I’m completely honored, humbled, and flattered, I’m also a little surprised. Yes, I knew I had been nominated, but I really didn’t think I would be named this time around.

Microsoft’s MVP website says this about the program:

For more than two decades, Microsoft has recognized exceptional, independent community leaders who share their passion, technical expertise, and real-world knowledge of Microsoft products with others. It is part of Microsoft’s commitment to supporting and enriching technical communities.

Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals, or MVPs are exceptional community leaders who actively share their high-quality, real-world deep technical expertise with the community and with Microsoft. They are committed to helping others get the most out of their experience with Microsoft products and technologies.

Technical communities play a vital role in the adoption and advancement of technology—and in helping our customers do great things with our products. The MVP Award provides us with an opportunity to say thank you and to bring the voice of community into our technology roadmap.

When you look at the MVP community, I’m a complete second stringer. This community has some really big names, and these people really are the A team. I tend to think of people who become MVPs as those who write books, speak at big conferences like the PASS Summit, SQL Bits, and TechED. They have thousands of twitter followers and a blog presence that makes the New York Times look like a backwater operation. I’ve done none of these things. Sure, I help with a user group, organize a few big SQL Saturday events, present at a ton of little conferences, speak at most of the New England SQL user groups, do some volunteer work for PASS, and even had an article published at sqlservercentral.com. Still, I’m not a big name in the community.

So I when I found out that I was named an MVP, I was waiting for the “just kidding” email. Seriously, I’m humbled, and I still blame Brent Ozar for sparking my interest in the community.  Thank you to the MVPs who have nominated me for this program, and thank Microsoft for believing in me.

What’s next? I’ve deciced that I really need to step up my game when it comes to blogging. I have a vault of great information that I’ve learned working for a hosting company about managing large SQL Server environments. It’s time to start sharing some of that with the community. I guess that it’s appropriate that my first event as an MVP will be SQL Saturday in my hometown of Pittsburgh, where I will be presenting Transaction Log Internals: Virtual Log Files, and Recovery and Backups for Beginners.