Building a community
While I have already posted about it on LinkedIn, I haven't blogged about it yet: since the beginning of January 2022 I have been appointed Regional Lead MCT for the Netherlands by Microsoft. You might wonder what a Regional Lead is.
A Regional Lead is a Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) who acts as a liaison between MCTs and Microsoft. They are responsible for helping MCTs with all of their questions and further building the MCT community.
For this reason, I started the Dutch MCT Community which will focus on solidarity among MCTs, sharing knowledge and finding training assignments.
If you are an MCT within the Netherlands, do sign up!
Events
I'm planning on hosting monthly events for the community, which will be partly geared towards learning, as well being networking events. Results from the LinkedIn community have stated the interest in a physical event at Microsoft itself, which should be possible and I'm busy with coming to an agreement on having a conference room available for the community.
When everything is arranged, events will take place on the last Friday of each month from 17:00 (5 pm) to 19:00 (7 pm) GMT+1.
At the first event I will be speaking and explaining all the benefits of the community. I will be joined by Rick Kerssens who will give a tutorial about how to virtually train.
Sponsorship
While I'm sponsoring the event with CloudShift, there has also been interest from other parties, such as Fast Lane Benelux, who will sponsor the events with free MOCs for MCTs, such as the PL-300, as well as tailor-made learning paths for MCTs including the AZ-104 and AZ-204.
Furthermore, Microsoft will sponsor the events with possible Microsoft speakers, merchandise and funding.
What's next?
There are more interesting things to come, stay tuned for next week and I'll let you know!