 Hey everybody, this is Christian Buckley doing another MVP buzz chat and I'm talking today with Samson. Hello. Yeah, hello. I'm Samson. I'm a girl. Great Samson for folks that don't know you. Who are you? Where are you? And what do you do? Okay, so like I said, I'm Samson. I'm a girl and I'm in Nigeria. I'm a Microsoft MVP. I'm kind of passionate about Microsoft technologies, specifically. The net technology C sharp, the desktop framework and also the web framework as well. Well, it's great to have you and I know that I think I'm trying to think back through. I've got through almost 200 of these interviews. I think you're the first from Nigeria that I talked to. So that's exciting. Do you know how many Mbps are in Nigeria? I think it's within around 16 to 19. I'm not sure, but I think it's within that range. Yeah, Microsoft doesn't make it easy to go in there and search for like by country for Mbps. It's, you know, they're so protective of the information, rightly so. You know, so it makes it difficult and less and less every MVP from the region puts the country name in their description. It may not find them. But so, so you're like a brand new MVP to when did you receive your MVP? I received my MVP award some months ago this year. So relatively new. So what was your journey to becoming an MVP? Like, did you hear about it? Were you working towards it? Was it a complete surprise? Okay. It's wasn't really a complete surprise. I, it's not a surprise that I got it, you know, or the so high it's happened was I'm currently a Microsoft Lansing ambassador. So I'm a Microsoft Lansing ambassador in my school. And like in the Microsoft ambassador's program, we have like a group in Nigerian group and one of one of the person pretty pretty says was there wouldn't be there. He was a Microsoft MVP. So at some point I saw a message where I talked about if you're interested in becoming an MVP as you reached out to him and tell him that I'm interested and then, you know, fill us on form. So I did that. And after doing that, you know, I had to also put down all my contributions that I'm aware of, or that's actually always always a painful process to go through that every year. Yes. Yeah, yeah, I could imagine. So, you know, I had to bring down, source out all these links, blogs, articles, events, some events, links, you know, then. And at that time I was also kind of, I was, I got into this. Kind of new, like since last year. So I found the technology quite interesting. The design, the language design specifically, it seems quite cool. And, you know, going through the docs, sometimes I see some errors and I'm like, no, they shouldn't be how they should be written or maybe there's an error. So I'll make a pull request and that's the first one, but I was kind of happy about it, you know, contributing in a small way as I can. So I, at some point I started doing this and it's like one of the maintenance kind of, he's kind of noticed my contribution. And sometimes when there's a need for maybe a little help to do something, it might just put me down, like, like he would just type me to the issue and be like, hey, Sam, can you work on this? And in doing that, I'm not like, I'm not, I'll not call myself a pro pro, but in doing that, I kind of learned more about the dotnet because I have to like look at the issue, research, no one's wrong. So it was kind of, it was kind of like a learning and contribution process for me. So I did this several times and prior to dotnet seven, getting to the GA, the general availability, the first release, the main release, a lot of issues and contributions, I was like that. So I was kind of getting myself up to speed to latest updates in the dotnet space because I have to research from that. I was reading about that future and then make my own contribution to correct some things or write sample code in the new future. So it was really interesting. I was kind of engaged in the production of, or the spin out of new futures. At some point, Rick asked me if I was interested in its recandescent, that is the name of the person. Rick, thank you so much. Thank you so much. So, yeah, I told him yes, I was interested. I didn't, you know, I didn't have into mind that he would reach out to me and ask me if I was interested. So I told him yes and he asked me to put down like some of my contribution, the links to it. And I did that and he also, he also nominated me. So I like two nominations, one for Monday and one from Rick Anderson. So, after a while, one day I just got an email that, hey, Sam, you've been nominated and you're now an MVP. This is a link for it's click to get to know more about the program and I was kind of excited because I didn't really know. I mean, I'm kind of new to this piece, but I think the whole open source. Contribution and engagement kind of, like I was kind of on a faster, faster learning process. Because of the engagement in the new futures and it kind of made me seem like a professional a professional, but I'll not call myself like a professional. But you get that feel. So, yeah, I was very excited about it. And that's how it got to be an MVP. Up to today, sometimes Rick, like I think last week I made a contribution to the dot net documentation. So I'm still I'm still in the next page and the language design is really, really cool. I've, you know, I've had like some experience with some languages, but she seems to really stand out in terms of design. Well, I love the comment that you made to that's like, well, because none of us are experts. Now, I mean, nobody's an expert on everything. And there's obviously there's some things that each of us we have a lot of depth on we're confident in the answers. But I find the same thing like now somebody will ask a question. And I do a lot of AMA so asking anything recordings and videos and and panel discussions and things around that is. But I learned so much by like, I see a question, talk through it logically, kind of break it down into its components and, you know, lean heavily on others and their knowledge. But then I go and do research. I do a little, you know, searches and try to read through and try to understand and try to answer the question. Because a lot of times there might be a technical answer. But the real world, like what the person's actually trying to do might be slightly different than the technical answer that you find. And so trying to put that into real world context. I mean, that's where, you know, like, you know, I don't spend as much time in. I've not, you know, changed any documentation. I do my contributions a different way, but that's an excellent way to get started within the community is exactly what you've done is take that real world learning. Answer questions, fix mistakes, you know, because a lot of that documentation now it's it's crowdsourced. And so, you know, they Microsoft needs the input from people and those real world experiences. Yeah. And I think I think the fact that the kind of open source net that's made it become more popular. And that also, you know, sped development of making this platform. So you can net now in line, you can use it on Android, because it on the macOS platform. So I think, you know, from the onset of making it open source till now, a lot of changes and developments from the community has actually been applied to the net ecosystem. Yeah. And that's really sped that up. So I was, I was at Microsoft a few years back and I remember what some of the pushback internally around the open source movement. And so now as you look at it and Microsoft thankfully embraced it and and started participating in that and that approach. I mean, I'm over in the SharePoint collaboration space and so much of the documentation that's written in the products are modified driven by what happens in those community discussions. And so you have like the patterns and practices, you know, all of the groups, all of the subgroups that are part of that that are working on documentation and solutions and things that are out there. Again, applying real world experience to the products, making them better across the board. It's, I'm glad companies have learned the power of, you know, of the crowd that to crowdsource around solutions and getting feedback. It makes solutions better. Yeah, yeah. And sometimes when I go to some of these platforms like Kora. Yeah, like my system. Some answers. Negating dot net use of net because some people see have this old mindset that net is totally proprietary. And it's not open source. So sometimes when I see those comments, I just commented a little bit say no, there have been changes to the net ecosystem is kind of open source. So everyone is free to contribute and the code is open so you can like go through and analyze the code and the documentation as well. Yeah. Well, as a newer MVP, I mean, I'm sure you've already had people come up to you say, Hey, how do I get involved? What? How can I kind of follow in your footsteps and do that? Any recommendations for somebody that has an interest in doing that? Or what do you tell people? Yeah, yeah. So I've seen that also on our tech schools, tech group, some students have asked such question. And what I'll tell them is to contribute to the net ecosystem. Like the MVP program has lots of sectors like you have the Azure, you have the mobile, you have the AI, you have the platforms. So yeah, like there's a whole lot of categories for it to fit in. But the first thing you can do is to try to, and you don't also have to be like a professional for so long. You just have to contribute in the smallest way as possible. You could write articles based on a particular technology, maybe power platforms or you could host events. Hosting events is also a good way of, you know, contributing to Microsoft technologies, Azure or whatnot. You could also answer questions on some of these questionnaires sites like Stack Overflow or Quora. You could help people out, even on GitHub, you could help people out there with their issues as well. You could also contribute like me. You could also contribute to their documentation or helping to write out code samples for a new future as a release in a new .NET version. And I think these are some of the ways you could contribute to becoming an MVP. And you also have to find out or reach out to an MVP to nominate you or a Microsoft employee to nominate you. Yep, that's the, I know that's hard for some people who are out there contributing. It does have to be visible to somebody. That's why you also need to do some networking and get to know. That's like why I asked that question. Like how many MVPs within like your country, your home country and in the region around you and then start reaching out beyond that is you find an area where you're passionate about. Who are the leading voices, the experts, the MVPs, the regional directors, the Microsoft personnel who are actively writing, speaking, blogging, solving problems, answering questions. And don't be shy. Reach out and connect with those people. Always like on LinkedIn is a great tool to reach out to people and say, Hey, you don't know me, but I read a lot of your stuff. I'd love to connect and stay in touch and that kind of stuff. Like that's the way that you do it. But you have to have those connections. And so as you're then contributing, you can then reach out to those people that you've made connections with and say, Hey, I just wrote this article or I just added this content piece. What do you think about this? Do you have anything to add to that? That's the way that you can kind of gently raise your visibility so that, you know, when they start seeing the volume, the consistency of your contributions. And then you can say, Hey, I really love to get your support and becoming an MVP or they might even reach out without you asking and say, I see this and have you considered this and have those conversations. But it, you have to make those connections. Yeah, exactly. You definitely need to. Networking plays a big role. Networking can, you know, transform someone's life in ways that you can't imagine just by, you know, just saying hi to, I mean, it could lead to a lot of new fields or new outcomes in your life. It's funny that we can get in and dive into all these technical issues, but the hardest part for the most people is that reaching out and making the connection saying hello. So that's what I like to leverage, you know, LinkedIn for exactly that. You know, it's like I reached out to you. I'm saying, Hey, brand new MVP. You know, don't know him. We're not yet connected. Say, Hey, would love to talk to you and learn about kind of your path. It's a great way. This is one of my ways to to reach out and get to know people from around the world and hear their different stories. Yeah, I also see that you're like it's a fine MVP. That's for like 12 years. And that's really a lot. Yeah, I've been doing it. I know. Well, it's all about just covering the white walls because, you know, it's it's that's that's really it's about the decor on the house. No, but it's I'm very grateful to have been, you know, one, the community and a lot of MVP say this and I say this all the time is, look, I'd be doing the stuff that I do, whether I had the awards on the wall, because I'm just I'm passionate about technology. I love connecting with new people learning about new new things. I'm a connector personality. So I will I might be somebody will ask a question and be like, you know, I do know somebody in that region I should I know Samson I could connect you with them. And so I do that all the time. I'm terrible at remembering names. And so by doing something like this having this connection, it helps me as well. I never forget faces though, and once we've connected. But then to make those introductions. So I do that all the time. And so one one thing is that if there's anybody, anybody watching and reach out and if Samson's not responding to you want to connect with them, you can always come to me as well. I can do an introduction. So always happy to do that. Yeah, thank you. Well, Samson really appreciate you taking the time a few minutes to get to know you. Hopefully I hope to get over to your part of the world soon. I'm trying to to get over to Africa and visit a couple different countries this next year. So it was tentatively on the plans. Yeah, but hoping to as things start to open up again. Get back over there. I mean, you could hit me up when you come over to this side. For sure. I will. I will definitely do that. Well, thanks a lot for your time. We'll talk to you soon. Right. Thank you.