OOPS, he did it again!

mmmake Sitecore architect Dirk has gone one better: He has also been named one of Sitecore’s Most Valuable Professionals (MVP) in Technology for 2022 – the second year in a row.

For Dirk, that’s more than a prize. After all, he not only invests his working hours in this personal award, but also a large part of his free time: Sitecore Community, Sitecore Stackexchange, Sitecore Slack – to use the words of Britney’s Spears: He was born to make you happy! This was confirmed by the Sitecore Community honored again in 2022. Last year we interviewed him about his first time, now we want to know: What’s life like as an MVP?

Since he first became a Sitecore MVP in 2021, secret doors have opened for Dirk: For example, he gets earlier insight into Sitecore releases, got his own Sitecore license, and access to a secret MVP Slackchannel. “That’s where the high-level repartee happens,” he laughs.
This can only be topped by his presentation at SUGCON 2022 in Budapest at the end of March – Sitecore’s largest user group worldwide. “That will be the accolade,” says Dirk. He will be accompanied by our Sitecore colleague Kamil, who will give the talk with him. Dirk has big plans for him: “That’s where the MVP Mentor Program comes in. That’s where you can help other people become MVP and that’s what I want to do with Kamil.“
Wow, that’s right Sitecore!

What has been the cherry among all the highlights? “The best part for me was actually always the MVP lunches. This was the monthly exchange via teams. Sitecore employees also participated. You really got the important info there.
But my absolute highlight was being able to speak with Adam Najmanowicz, Sitecore’s Senior Product Manager. Najmanowicz put an appointment in directly for me – that doesn’t really exist like that. I was able to tell him about the accessibility in Sitecore forms.” He thought it was really cool and said “that they want to take it to their next release.”
What the TEC? Shouldn’t he take it down a notch? Absolutely not! For him, it’s now full steam ahead: “Of course I want to defend my title. Accessibility is at the forefront of my mind this year. After SUGCON I will publish my 6-part blog post series and of course my presentation from SUGCON. Then there is also my own module that I have developed. This needs to be maintained and updated to the latest Sitecore version. Not to mention the Sitecore learning platform: MVP status gave me an all-access pass for it. That’s where I’m going to do all the certifications. And of course the mentoring program, that’s also on the schedule.“
Sitecore awarded a total of 235 MVPs in 2022, around 50 fewer than in the previous year. Only two of them are from Germany – one of them is Dirk. “I find it sad that with me only one other person has become MVP from Germany. Sure, it already eats up a lot of my free time, but I’m lucky that my wife is behind me. She also kicks me in the butt and says that I should do MVP things now, because she knows how important it is to me.“