60 Seconds with Pinal Dave

60 seconds with Pinal Dave:
MVP award played an important role in helping me chase my passion to make a difference.





VJ caught up with Pinal Dave, MVP in SQL Server, to get his view on the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Program(MVP).


VJ: Please tell us something about yourself.
Pinal Dave: Well, to begin with, I am a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) with over 6 years of experience as a Principal Database Architect, Developer, Administrator, and Project Manager. I specialize in SQL Server Programming. I am also the founder and a prominent author of SQLAuthority.com. Besides, my passion for writing and sharing my knowledge led me to become a writer and a blogger. I have authored over 900 SQL Server articles at SQLAuthority.com, and I am a regular columnist for several prominent IT websites and magazines.

VJ: What motivated you to become an MVP.
Pinal Dave: I have had ardor to make a difference in technology domain since I started my career. I needed a platform from where I can reach out to more and more people and make significant contribution to the technology realm. MVP award played an important role in helping me chase my passion to make a difference. MVPs are easily accepted in community and they are able to help in a better way owing to their MVP title. This was one of the reasons why I wanted to become an MVP. Today, as an MVP, I am actively involved in community service to teach, learn and transfuse technology to niche areas.

VJ: Please share with us your journey of becoming an MVP.
Pinal Dave: I have been writing for my blog http://blog.sqlauthority.com/ since November 2007. The whole blogging thing initially started as personal bookmarks. Actually, I was learning loads of new things about database and SQL Server. I needed to create some kind of journal or diary to store that valuable information. I finally decided to write what I learnt on my blog and that is how the journey started. Since then, I kept on writing down all my learning and observations on my blog. I have been an active member of Las Vegas SQL Server User Group and later on I became the President of Gandhinagar SQL Server User Group and the Leader of Ahmedabad SQL Server User Group. I have delivered numerous technical sessions in tech and User Group meetings. And it was during the course of my journey that Microsoft recognized my community service and awarded me with MVP.

VJ: Tell us about your MVP Summit experience
Pinal Dave: MVP Summit 2009 was one great event! There are several things about the event worth talking about but I think the best part was the opportunity to do networking with the smartest people on earth. Meeting product group and having one-to-one interaction with them is a rich experience. Imagine that you have been working for years with one technology and there are so many concerns and questions that need to be discussed with people who are actually making the technology. The summit was a great platform to meet SQL Server Product Team and intermingle with them. Additionally, I got the chance to meet some of the renowned MVP Fellows from across the world. It is a good coincidence that I had talked about the same subject in MVP Monthly Hour in March 2009. The topics that I covered there are
· Truly Global Experience – Grand Organization
· Meeting Product Group – Learn Inside Story
· Technical Sessions from Microsoft Experts
· Meeting Heroes of your Expertise
· Networking with Fellow MVPs and MVP Lead
· Career Advancement
· Sightseeing in Seattle, USA
· Microsoft Campus, Redmond
· I'm a PC – All MVPs are PC
· Steve Ballmer – an Energizer Bunny

VJ: Any message to the Technologists
Pinal Dave: For me, MVP is a milestone that comes along in the journey to help community. A true MVP works for sheer passion for technology. There is no real plan of action that one needs to follow to become an MVP. In fact, there are numerous ways through which one can become an MVP. But all of this leads to just one purpose - community service, as said earlier. Just keep up with the good work and soon you will be there.

I would like to share the following image that was taken on the very first day outside the Seattle Convention Center with Vijay (my dear friend), one of the top experts of .NET.