It’s not every day that someone proclaims a life goal to make the human race more productive.  With a little help from his PC, that is exactly what Dallas resident Ed Blankenship hopes to do.  Blankenship is excited by the power of technology - how quickly it connects people and information. With one click of a mouse, people all over the world can be more productive. 

 

Blankenship’s passion for technology extends beyond his job at Infragistics, where he works remotely from his Dallas home as a release engineer manager, into his role as a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP).  The Microsoft MVP Award Program honors non-Microsoft employees who are outstanding members of the technical community.  Blankenship’s two-year status as an MVP comes to him thanks to his dedication to technology, and the support he gladly gives to the local and global technical community.

 

As an MVP, Blankenship provides the Microsoft product teams with critical feedback, speaking on behalf of the technical communities he represents.  He also has access to unreleased software through beta testing programs; this privilege allows Blankenship to test future products and offer feedback on how to make the product better before it goes to market. 

 

Microsoft recently hosted its 2009 MVP Global Summit at the company’s headquarters in Redmond, Wash.  During the Summit, hundreds of MVPs meet with the product teams, reviewing and analyzing the company’s latest innovations.  The Summit also allows MVPs to meet with their global peers to discuss technology topics, from social media and Xbox to servers and code. 

 

The feedback provided to Microsoft by its MVPs often plays an important part of the product development process.  “Our MVP Award Program includes a unique way to gather feedback, and we are proud to award approximately 4,000 people, out of the 100 million users in the technical community, with this recognition each year,” said Toby Richards, general manager for Microsoft’s community and online support.

Microsoft not only listens as it takes in feedback from its thousands of MVPs, but it also responds.  The company makes direct changes to products based on MVP feedback.

 

“The product teams are extremely interested in what we have to say, even if it means pointing out bugs or other challenges in the product,” Blankenship said.  

 

Richards reinforces the importance of feedback, remarking that, “several MVPs can cite changes they recommended in our products, which is something we are very proud of.  As third parties, the feedback our MVPs provide is essential to Microsoft’s ultimate goal of providing our customers with high-value, low cost IT solutions.”

 

Through the MVP Award Program, Blankenship has also had the opportunity to speak at several IT-focused conferences throughout Texas, as well as in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and in Princeton, New Jersey, where his company is headquartered. 

 

 

“Being a Microsoft MVP has opened so many doors for me, allowing me to bring something extra to everything I do,” Blankenship said.  Through the feedback and support given by the MVPs to Microsoft and the global technical community, technology will continue to change and shape the way people work, play, and communicate.  While there is still some work to do in making Blankenship’s dream of global productivity a reality, he may be a little closer thanks to innovations in IT and his passion to continuously raise the bar.

 

To learn more about the Microsoft MVP Award Program and the latest on all the MVPs, check out the MVP blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/mvpawardprogram.