Tech Nerd

Hello my dear Sitecore Family (heard this somewhere, well, read this fully and you will know 😊),

This past year is full of new beginnings, learnings and experiences . As I look back, I am so happy with this journey, that it feels like a beautiful story that I had to share with all of you as my fellow Sitecore Community members.

Where do I start?

Well, let’s start with the absolute beginning; where I was looking around, in Horizontal, and saw a number of developers around had submitted their MVP Application. I was so inspired by their expertise in Sitecore and technology overall and their contributions towards Sitecore community. Now, I have completed 3 years in Sitecore although, I wasn’t sure about whether I can go ahead and apply for Sitecore MVP. So, I started discussing this with a few team members around. One of them was Varun Shringarpure, who gave me a lot of details about what Sitecore MVP is and what are the things that require to be done. His thought was pretty clear, just go ahead and help out the folks in community, and Sitecore MVP will follow. I liked the thought, because I have a similar thought process for life, that helping people around, comes out naturally. Well, its always good to stay with like-minded people; hence I ended up requesting him to be my mentor in the journey. He not only accepted it graciously, but also informed me about Sitecore MVP mentorship program. And there we were, we reached out to Nicole, and got registered as Sitecore MVP Mentor-Mentee in the Mentorship program!

Well, my Mentor Varun Shringarpure, I idolize him not just as a technology enthusiast but also as a good leader. He always inspires people to learn more about technology. This is not just about project-related or work-related topics. He also discusses how the Sitecore world is evolving with headless, and SaaS and now with AI.

A bit about Sitecore MVP mentorship program. It is connects aspiring professionals with experienced MVPs to guide and support their growth in the community. This program focuses on Mentor and Mentee both as Mentor is getting experience of Leadership while Mentee is get to know more about Sitecore technology and how to effectively engage with the Sitecore community and share and gain knowledge. When we register, the Sitecore team also provides some documents to set the framework right, for both to work along and keep necessary status checks.

Varun and I started by creating a plan, on what we want me to achieve at the end of the year, as in, what technological learning will I do, how many blogs should I write, how can I engage with other fellow Sitecore Community members, whom to reach out to for webinars in user groups etc. Next, we divided the whole plan, and set goals for each month. To make sure we stay on the actual plan, Varun and I met weekly. We did the necessary status checks.

I joined the Sitecore Slack channel as part of this program. I connected with many professionals on LinkedIn . I learned many tips and tricks of Sitecore technology through Sitecore Stack Exchange.

There is a channel in Sitecore Slack for Mentor and Mentee. In that Lisa Saltsman asked if anyone wants to join. Her mentee was giving a webinar. It was a virtual event in a time zone very different from mine. I wanted to try but I had never presented in any of this situation before. Hence, I talked with Varun about my nervousness. He gave me confidence that I can do it. We decided on a topic and created a presentation. We gave that webinar, and to my surprise, it was well received. I was pretty excited at the response that I got in the session. This was one my biggest High moments of the MVP Journey, there are other nice High moments as well, like I got in a discussion as a Podcast with my Mentor, again, my first podcast and the nervousness of having a camera in front of me. But when the community members gave me positive feedback about it, I was very happy that the end goal, of helping them out is achieved.

A journey is never complete, till there are setbacks because they provide good learnings! Well, in my journey for first year of Sitecore MVP Mentorship, there are some low point as well. Sometimes I missed timelines due to project demands or personal occupancy. There were times, when I had a mental block and I wasn’t sure if what I write is going to help anyone; is it worth it. However, being in contact with Varun helped me in all these situations. He tried to encourage me that I can do it. When I look back to these times, I can very well say, if Sitecore MVP Mentorship program wasn’t there, probably, I would have left the journey halfway, and not have got back on the saddle, to share my learnings with the community! Thank you Sitecore team, for thinking forward, and having this platform, this framework in place, where I am able to be here till the end of the year.

Overall, one thing I have learnt from this journey is consistency and discipline. Even though I missed it sometimes but Varun never missed any meeting and always used to be there to discuss updates and motivate me. Yes, sometimes he used to be strict and I was annoyed whenever he was strict, but I know it wasn’t personal, but rather it was for me to not lose consistency or give it up altogether.

This journey is much much more than dreaming about becoming a Sitecore MVP. It is about upgrading yourself. It involves becoming a better professional; a better human being.

Well, I would love to get the Sitecore MVP status, although, as my mentor says, “Sitecore MVP is a by-product of all the contributions you do, to the Sitecore community, to help people out and make their lives better“, so even if I don’t get MVP status, I will feel sad, but I’ll still continue to be an active member of the Sitecore community and keep doing my thing. This has given me a lot of meaning professionally and personally, and I not ready to let it go.

Thank you Varun Shringarpure for guiding me in this journey and encouraging to become better professional.

I also want to Thank Nicole Montero  and Tamas Varga for keeping us motivated through the Slack group as a part of Sitecore MVP Mentorship Program.

Lastly, I would like to thank and wish all the very best, all the Sitecore MVP Mentorship program Mentees – and specifically, my fellow colleagues who were mentees of Varun – Chirag Khanna, Devanshi Kakade and Meenakshi Gour!

Happy Progressing in Life!