I don't have a secret. I actually didn't picture myself as an MVP until
I got an email from Microsoft telling me that I had been nominated. It's
an award, meaning that someone thought I was doing interesting/good
stuff in the community and nominated me for it.
When I first started to become active in the community, I looked up what
an MVP was, because I didn't understand what the little MVP tag behind
people's name meant. But that was it. I never had the desire to become
an MVP. I just wanted to do what I was doing (helping people in general,
becoming an expert on something and then helping people with that). I
enjoy doing that, and someone apparently thought I am good at it and
deserve recognition. So I became nominated.
How did I pick my "expertise"? I didn't really pick it. During the
private phase of the Office beta, there was a lot of discussion about
customizing the Ribbon UI. The users were complaining while Microsoft
kept pointing at RibbonX and saying that everything can be customized
with that. But no user gave RibbonX a shot, because while RibbonX is
rather easy, loading it into Office is a pain. Eventually, I figured
I'll try it and that's how I became an expert in that.
The same kind of thing happened over and over again. For example, there
were a bunch of important issues that came up with B2TR in the first
hours, but they were diverse and there wasn't one list for them.
Instead, some were only available in the private beta groups. Some of
those issues were rather severe, and I felt users should know about them
right away and before they install it. So I started a B2TR list on my
website. I didn't start the list because I had been told the same day as
B2TR was released that I had been nominated for the MVP Award. Rather, I
just wanted to make sure users wouldn't get themselves into massive
trouble with B2TR. I thought it was the right thing to do, and I did it.
Now, more than two weeks later, that particular list is a rather popular
site on my website with ~300 page views daily. I would do the same list
again, irrespective of MVP or no MVP.

Would you love to be helpful or are you helpful there?

Patrick Schmid [OneNote MVP]
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http://pschmid.net
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Office 2007 Beta 2 Technical Refresh (B2TR):
http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/09/18/43
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Customize Office 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/customize
OneNote 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/onenote
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Subscribe to my Office 2007 blog: http://pschmid.net/blog/feed