This the time of the year when usually member of the Microsoft community post about becoming Microsoft MVP or having their status renewed for another year. I also did that for 8 years, first on my blog since I was first awarded in 2008, in 2009, then when I became a Belgian MVP in 2010, and then on social media when blogging became slower.

But this year, instead of announcing my renewal as MVP, I’ve to announce that I’m not being renewed.

The reason is simple… during the last year, apart from presenting ASP.NET Core at the Umbraco CodeGarden, I mainly worked on my upcoming book, which is not released yet. So no real tangible contribution.

Also last year they put together many expertices into one, so from being MVP on ASP.NET I became an MVP in Visual Studio and Development Technologies, together with MVPs from .NET, ALM, Security, IE and C++, so basically the “generic” Microsoft developers group which do not focus on Azure or devices. This meant more people to be compared with, and with categories that are usually more prolific in community contributions.

At first I was kind of upset and annoyed, but after some hours of introspection I remembered that being an MVP for me was a way to get into closer contact with the product groups I care, which are ASP.NET and Web Tooling. But I’m an ASP Insider, so I can still do that.

The only thing that affects me is that I’d lose my Azure credits, so I’ll move my blog away from Subtext and from Azure (the use I do wouldn’t justify the 30-40 Euro per month that I’d pay).

So, you’ll still see me this year at the MVP summit, and probably also in the years to come.