You could be a Kentico MVP!

Some history

I don't know if you've heard, but Kentico has been building amazing technology for 20 years!

Our MVP (Most Valuable Professional) program has been around for almost as long. It was first announced in 2010 and has been an important part of our community strategy and support ever since.

But wait, what is the Kentico MVP program?

Back then

Here's how it was described in 2013.

Innovative people that participate and contribute their time, ideas and resources are the cornerstone of the worldwide CMS and .NET communities. This spirit has played an important industry role and Kentico wants to help continue to foster this type of community spirit. The Kentico MVP Award is designed to recognize individual who are part of this community. A Kentico MVP is an engaged community advocate who listens and promotes CMS and.NET

To me, the key parts of that summary are:

• The program awards people who are part of the Kentico community
• Those people know a lot about Kentico and .NET
• They are also engaged in and support the community

Today

As a comparison, this is how we describe it today.

The Kentico community is made up of enthusiastic members who are passionate about Kentico and helping others. The Kentico MVP Award is designed to recognize individuals who have been active members of this community for the past 12 months. Kentico MVPs are representatives of Kentico to our partners and end-clients. They know our products and services and are engaged community advocates who actively share their knowledge with others.

Again, the key parts here are:

• The program awards people who are part of the Kentico community
• Those people know about Kentico's products and services
• They are also active in the community and share their knowledge with others

Wow, that's basically the same idea more than a decade later!

So, it shouldn't be a surprise that Kentico's first MVP, Jeroen Furst, is still part of the Kentico community and still an MVP!

Could you be our next MVP? Yes!

The biggest difference between the program 10 years ago and today is that our audience has broadened. While technologies like .NET are still an important part of Kentico's DNA, we use those technologies to help marketers excel at their jobs. This means our employees, partner agencies, and customers all have one foot in technical implementation details and another in big picture marketing strategy.

In the past the MVP program's requirements included open-source code contributions, answering questions on Stack Overflow, and software development skills.

But not anymore! We also want marketers, project managers (helping build Kentico solutions), content modeling specialists, and business strategists to apply to the Kentico MVP program.

Two of current MVPs, Wesley McChristian and Roel Kuik come from a strategy and marketing background - not a technical one - and their unique perspectives are invaluable. We are hopeful we can continue to diversify the MVP program going forward.

For the question "Do I need technical knowledge to be an MVP?" we have this answer:

The only technical knowledge you need is what most people in the digital marketing and marketing technology (MarTech) world are familiar with - topics like:

• Taxonomy
• Data privacy
• Accessibility
• Customer journeys
• Content modeling
• Email marketing
• Personalization
• GenAI
• Marketing automation
• SEO
• Digital experience platforms (DXP)
• Content management systems (CMS)

If you also understand technical topics like web development, systems architecture, CI/CD, and programming languages like C# and JavaScript, awesome - we want technical focused MVPs too!

We want our MVPs to represent the entire spectrum of digital marketing enablement - programming to personalization 😉.

All that said, when we consider the MVP awards at the end of each year, we really look for these qualities:

• Interested in and knowledgeable about Kentico, our products and services, and digital marketing topics
• Excited to share that interest and knowledge with the rest of the Kentico community
• Friendly and inclusive
• Honest and trustworthy
• Motivated and engaged
• Active and visible all year long

Are you interested?

Hopefully I've made it clear that you, yes you, could be a Kentico MVP. But, I suppose I haven't explained why you would want to be one. Here's some benefits you might be interested in.

Anyone receiving the Kentico MVP award has these benefits:

• Global expert recognition and career growth
• Direct Slack chat access to Kentico product and commercial teams and other MVPs
• Complementary ticket to annual Kentico Connection conference
• All expense paid week-long Kentico MVP Summit at Kentico’s headquarters in Brno, Czechia
• Complementary full-featured Xperience by Kentico license for personal site

Are there benefits for your employer to justify your time spent fulfilling MVP responsibilities? Yep, you bet.

• Market your company as an expert in Kentico’s products and services with an MVP on staff
• Early insights into Kentico's strategy and roadmap allowing you to be ahead of your competitors
• Direct access to Kentico teams and the ability to influence the products development through your Kentico MVP
• Faster solutions to problems thanks to the connection to other MVPs
• Recognition of your company at Kentico organized events, conferences, and social media through your Kentico MVP

Your next step

So... what are you waiting for? Today is the best day to start working towards becoming a Kentico MVP because now you have all the information you need to take that first step. Head on over to the Kentico MVP Program page on Kentico.com for all the details.

You can also reach out to me with any questions or contact one of our current MVPs to ask them about their experience in the program.

Of course, you don't have to be a Kentico MVP to be welcome here. We're happy to have anyone be a part of the Kentico community 👋!