 Hey everybody, this is Christian Buckley doing another MVP buzz chat and I'm talking today with Eli. Hello. Hey Christian, thanks for having me. Well, thanks for staying up late. A bit of a time difference on your travels now, but for folks that don't know you, who are you, where are you currently and permanently, and what do you do? Yeah, so as we start, thanks for first of all, thanks for having me. My name is Eli coffee. I'm 35 years old and originally I'm from Lebanon, but I work for a company headquarters in Dallas, Texas. It's a company called amp you solution. We focus on technology solution that have the organization and provide the technology that run on their business by simplifying the software implementation and then the solution is a Microsoft partner as well. So, back to me now, I'm a senior solution architect was more than 12 years of professional experience and in depth experience and Azure cloud cloud security messaging and collaboration and infrastructure. So, and currently I'm a new and or actually recently I'm in new MVP for the security category. Congratulations. Yeah, thank you. I always like to ask that, like, you know, what was your journey to becoming an MVP like what, what was the path what was the process. How long was it something that you pursued or is it something you just kind of fell into. But actually, if I need to get back into the day when I thought my journey into it. I used to join a company after my graduation, or as a senior system administrator, where I have to deal on the basis was active directly to start to working on active directory went to 2003 or two. I was supporting all the creation user flow and all the group policy. So, from that date, I had the passion about identity. And then after discovering that, and as you know, we're introduced to Azure, the first time. At 2014, because, as you know, historically, I just started to show up in 2008 but was named as a red dog project. I didn't remember that project and by the name of 2014 to windows Azure then in 2015 they name it Microsoft Azure. Where in 2015, they introduced the first time the Azure AD connect. And since I, I was working in the Middle East area and most of the companies was on dealing with their private infrastructure. And the Azure AD connect came and we saw thinking how we're going to sing and move to a hybrid environment using the Azure AD connect by thinking of the identity. And for the my individual names actually started by coincidence. I used to like to when I'm into troubleshooting something during my work. I used to use back home in Microsoft back home. And one day, I was searching for a couple of. Solution related to my work and active directory. And I was scrolling down with all the discussion raised by the tech. And I found out that I know a lot of answers, I could answer. So I decided to create my own profile on the tech community. And here I start grabbing accepted solution, talking with the tax private messages and by discussion. And here I found out, okay, what is the next step now, what I should do. I need to see more about this or just like doing some, some social engineering at my free time. So I just, okay, identity access, what else I need to start dealing with some cloud security, nature and capability. And then I decided to, I decided to do in the defender capability. And all the cloud security, let's say ecosystem that Microsoft provides. So I decided to join the customer connection program where I became that member of a of those private community. And, you know, when you want to be an MVP, you want to be in direct contact with all the product team from Microsoft to introduce yourself. Let them know you and talk computer being like, have a good contribution. Don't miss any survey, don't miss any private feature, don't miss any feedback. It shades every one to one focus meeting with everyone and Microsoft. And that's how it starts. Well, that's a great point because it's, because I think for a lot of people that asked that question like, you know, what is the process becoming MVP and, and there's no that's why I like to ask the the origin story question. Because there are, you know, patterns there that are there. One of them is, you know, anybody can go in and get involved in tech community or any other forums and there's other locations as well. To just start answering questions and sharing and maybe you somebody's already answered the problem but that you have a slightly different perspective you for that's that's related to your industry, for example. But to share regardless of whether a question has been answered or not to join in on the on the discussions. I know that there are stories of MVPs who have kind of fast tracked that process that you went through like years of doing that, where they. And I think that the deciding factor was that somebody from Microsoft just happened to be there at an event, like it is somebody who got fast hacked very quickly they got brought up on stage at a small regional event. But the Microsoft people were there. And so here was somebody who answered a question there and so very quickly got that visibility. If you don't have that benefit. You're right. I mean it's it's building the relationship with the Microsoft personnel find out who the Microsoft people are in your region. Even if you don't have people that are on the product team on the engineering side, like here where I live in Utah, there's a sales office and there's technical people there's engineers and things that are there. But it's predominantly sales people that are out of this regional office. And so you could go get to know those folks as well. That's a great way to to start developing those relationships. To be honest, at my first journey in the MVP, it was very tough for me, because I didn't have anyone mentoring me to know what I'm doing right what I'm doing wrong. Things get easier when I joined the customer connection program where I met a lot of the CCP lead there. And also I met some of the MPP, such as Chris Ford, for example, I became friend friend with him, and he started giving me advises and encouragement do that do that don't do that. And also what I did, I decided to turn on every use case in my word as a blog. You know, so every use case that happened with me because we deal with a lot of companies that are small and mid-sized businesses and those small companies don't know the important of having a cloud data security or any cloud security capabilities for their environment because I always tell my customers that it's good to have the latest technology and messaging and collaboration and the latest innovation of all the apps with Microsoft, but without protecting your data, it's mean. So, yeah, always is good. And also there's there's from a, so I always like to kind of follow up the origins story question with like what are what are your primary contribution types like you talked about taking your use cases converted like creating blogs. That's something that I know it's it's difficult for a lot of people I had to make that change years ago to to I always refer to it those of us in the collaboration social collaboration side call it you're working out loud. It's how do you make your contributions more transparent without be like hey look at me I'm doing all these wonderful things for the community. No, don't don't do that. Yeah. But you want to raise awareness of that. Well, some of it is like you're doing the work with customers in the background. Go and summarize those things share what you can obviously anonymize customer data without permission. You know, don't know, don't name brands. Yeah, but blog about it right about it to share what your experience was, you know whether it was a novel approach something that was unique and knew that you went and created, or it was an implementation of something that's been done a million times out of it share your experience, your learning path. Again, work out loud share share that your your journey on those things and that that content is valuable. It could reach people that in your industry with similar background or in your region or wherever that like your voice like your tone. If I start communicating with you you're you're going to help an individual. There's value there. You know all we have to do is help one person. It's, you know the values there. Yeah, actually, um, I believe to be a great MVP. We follow what we say sharing this game so it's all was a good thing to share, even a use case with your client converted to a generic use case and posted whether on the tech community, let the people that suffer on their daily basis finding solution to their problem. That would be the one that would solve their their day or their weeks. So, for a certain problem, you know, and that's how I work because I spent a daily daily hour on tech community. I also, for sure, I don't miss any private preview in the customer connection program because I'm the I'm ranked second on the M 365 defender community. And also I'm a rock star and the entra community as well. And for those that's a title folks he's not just calling himself a rock star so. Yeah, it's a title given by Microsoft. I'm not giving myself actually MVP for me is not a title and it's not about equal for sure. And not like putting badge on your shoulder. It's a passion of what I'm doing and what I love to do. And when people got MVP they believe that they want to sit back and relax and that's it that the end of story. Now I would say it's just the beginning of more contribution and more responsibility towards your community. To keep helping people. Well, and there are, and for folks that don't understand that too it's that it's a, it is an award, given for the previous years contributions. And there are people that, you know, jobs change, passions change and, and so they just kind of drop out and and so again leave the community they don't get renewed as an MVP. But you're right, the majority MVPs once they receive the that award, and there are perks we get, you know, deeper connections with closer connections with the product teams with the marketing teams inside Microsoft. We get NDA previews of things we get to see the roadmap we have to provide our feedback into that I mean there are huge benefits to being in the program. And that generally inspires MVPs to do more, which makes it tougher for new MVPs to come in. Yeah, not that I don't think there's a, like, I don't believe that there's a fixed number of like Microsoft says no we have enough MVPs therefore someone has to leave to come in, it kind of ebbs and flows like the total number of MVPs. I think we're around somewhere in the 3500 to 4000 globally across all the different areas. So there's plenty of room for new people coming in. But that is something that you need to look at, like what are the other MVPs doing, I need to at least be on that level to be considered. So I always say that, you know, obviously it's the quality of the contributions, but there's something to be said about volume of contributions as well. I don't know what the right number is. Yeah, there's no fixed number. I don't think so even on a, like, from the CCP itself, like, go go and test private preview each day and filling survey, and it's all count as a contribution, but dealing with your job and the Microsoft private community at the same time if require a lot of effort. And because you need to provide a valuable feedback to make the Microsoft product well known, and also which month, which more important is to let the Microsoft product knows you and trust you being an MVP. It's not something unachievable. And it's not easy. You need to work hard. That's how I believe. Yeah, I think you're right because it's a lot of a lot of the calls. I mean, there's so many different calls that we could participate in the NDA calls that I just I can't my job. I'm, you know, I'm on the board of another company. I advise a couple other startups. Like, I've got meetings standing meetings that overlap every month, the regular calls but what I do is I try to go back and watch the recordings. And I'm the other thing that I do is when there are other when product team members reach out, like you say with with surveys or if they're looking for help for guidance and something people that have experiences if I if anything overlaps. I respond to all of those things. I think I have more interaction with Microsoft personnel that are not part of those scheduled monthly calls and each of the different categories that I do inside those those meetings. So, yeah, it's you need to find that balance but I think it comes back to kind of what you said it's it's, you know, surfacing those right things finding what you're passionate about. And I always, and so actually with those I don't know if you're aware of this Eli but so Sharon and weaver and I, we started up last fall we actually run a mentoring group for people that are interested in becoming MVPs. We've now had two people within our cohort that have become MVPs. So if anybody out there if you're interested if you're thinking you're doing enough in the community, you'd like to participate we're doing a monthly call. It's the first Tuesday or Wednesday I think it's Wednesday of each month. Morning, you know, in the US. So, you know, might have to adjust your time accordingly, but you know just you can reach out to me on LinkedIn or out on Twitter or something. But yeah, I mean that that what we talked about is building healthy habits. Yeah, if you're in there doing blogging about use cases sharing out loud your experiences and you don't enjoy that process, then being an MVP is probably not for you. Yeah, definitely and it's required based on my experience or so it requires the support of the people around you, like your family, your family because I'm a married person require, because you need to have a quick education, sitting on your desk doing a lot of testing, searching, and also it require also the support of your colleagues. And I believe I'm a lucky person because my president at the solution. Joe Halaf is an ex Microsoft employee for 25 years. So he knows what is MVP. Yeah, and he knows about my passion because he's a passionate person as well so. Yeah, it's about, I believe it's about dedication and set a goal and work hard to meet that goal. It's not only about the title to be an MVP it's on it's a payoff. And for sure Microsoft will give you a lot of exposure. So I advise all the people that want to become MVP whether to contact you because having like a mentor during the journey. It's absolutely a great way to make the road more easier. Because getting an MVP alone is tough, you know, you need the mentor. Well, plus now you do need to have an existing MVP or a Microsoft employee has to submit your name for consideration for it as well. So developing those relationships are key so I mean that's why I would say there's a an MVP nights not just getting to know the Microsoft people within your region within your town, but also go and look and see if there are any MVP's if you're not aware, if you go to MVP.microsoft.com, you can search by region by category, you can find people that are around you, reach out and develop relationships with those MVP's we all MVP's love connecting with people and building our networks. So if you come and express to us, you know your interests and get to know us then that's something that we can definitely talk to you about and help you along that path as well. Yeah, definitely. I'm always good to stay humble after getting an MVP. Yes. Well, that's an interesting topic we could talk about for a while but yes I agree. Yeah, it has I actually have a sticker that I created based on some not so humble MVP's and and community people where it's a it's a big joke where I have a sticker that's a meme and has it's like, don't you know who I am. And you think you know that well actually there's a story behind that but somebody actually was at an event didn't get a somebody who had always spoken at this event and but didn't get one of his abstracts accepted so it was not a speaker and he was angry at that he didn't get accepted for this free community focused event because he submitted one topic and they already had that topic covered. He didn't submit any other abstract so they rejected him. And he was just angry and uttered those words don't you know who I am. And I just thought it was the just kind of that peak of, you know, a vanity of the roles is like hey you need to have humility like we're we're we're just individuals we're doing our best, you know, the creators of that event the organizer that that event did their best to to pull together an event that made sense for everybody there, but I don't get angry, I don't get upset if I don't get selected I look at it every time when my session gets a session gets selected. I'm honored that it that did that I'm glad that it fits in that I could add value to that event. Yeah, and I'm just happy to be there. Yeah, that's correct for me also for example being an MVP and the security. That's good. Doesn't mean that I know everything in the security, we are learning every day we are learning something every day every second. So, yeah. Yeah, but no, I would completely agree. I don't know everything. I might know somebody that knows the answer I'm, I'm pretty good at connecting people to others that's that's another benefit with having a relationship with the with the MVP. Exactly. And people will accept your what they're only in or people when they thought that you are MVP. They will be aware of you, you know, and that will reply to you directly because you're holding that title. Yeah, that's good. Well, I really appreciate your time and getting to know you today for folks that want to connect with you reach out and find you where are you most active in social. I'm most active on LinkedIn on my page. I post all my blog and post there and also on Twitter as well. Excellent. We'll have the links out on the blog posted on YouTube and appreciate your time. Thanks for having me and I appreciate all the hard work that you are doing. And that's great.