Url: https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/Shawn…

Eight long years ago I was presented with my very first MVP. In those days I was a .NET MVP, the only designation for anyone doing .NET. Yeah, I am getting old ;)

A couple of years later they retired the .NET designation and separated the .NET MVP’s into a number of groups. In those days I was “The ADO Guy” and none of the groups seemed like a good fit so I fell into being C# MVP. I chose C# mostly because I was doing WinForms, WebForms, SOA, Databases, etc. And nothing really crossed all those boundaries.

Of course the last few years I’ve been focused on Silverlight and the Silvelright Tour. I was approached last year to change my designation to a Silverlight MVP but again I was doing so many things that Silverlight felt too limiting…

That brings us to today. Behind the scenes for a few years I’ve been lobbying for a designation for those of us who are like me: we care about data. I have my hands in Silverlight, but my passion in is data (as it relates to Silerlight and other platforms). I write about ADO.NET Data Services, RIA Services, Web Services, etc. This year they’ve finally created our niche: Data Platform Development MVP (which I will just say MVP (Data) for simplicity). This means that while I am no longer a “C# MVP”, I am a “Data MVP” and I am proud to be in this program, again!