{"id":1064,"date":"2013-09-09T12:05:31","date_gmt":"2013-09-09T19:05:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/3.209.169.194\/blogs\/joe\/?p=1064"},"modified":"2013-09-09T12:06:51","modified_gmt":"2013-09-09T19:06:51","slug":"we-can-handle-the-truth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/joe\/we-can-handle-the-truth\/","title":{"rendered":"We can handle the truth"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Today I attended the MCM call with Microsoft Learning (MSL).<\/p>\n<p>I won\u2019t get personal here, because in spite of everything, I do imagine that the folks in MSL are under quite a bit of stress right now (yes \u2013 so is the community, but more on that later).\u00a0 I myself remember getting chewed out back in November of 2010 when we announced that SQL MCM was removing the training requirement.\u00a0 While I received some support, I received a good share of hate-email and comments &#8211; and I cannot recall a more stressful period of time in my career.\u00a0 Communicating change is tough \u2013 and there is definitely a right way to do it and a wrong way to do it.\u00a0 I think the first mistake is to think your audience can\u2019t handle the truth.<\/p>\n<p>With that said, here, in my dream world, is what I <em>wished<\/em> MSL would have said on today\u2019s call.\u00a0 They might have expressed some variations on a few of these items \u2013 and I\u2019ll save it for MSL to communicate \u2013 but otherwise this is just an imaginary list of talking points:<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">&lt;<strong>imaginary<\/strong> MSL talking points&gt;<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I\u2019m sorry about <em>how<\/em> and <em>when<\/em> we communicated the program cancellation.\u00a0 It was incredibly ungracious and we really regret it.<\/li>\n<li>For anyone who has invested in the program in the last X number of months, we\u2019ll be providing full refunds and will work through each scenario on a case-by-case basis.<\/li>\n<li>We will extend the ability to take exams for X number of months.\u00a0 We agree it was unreasonable and unfair to give a 1 month notice.<\/li>\n<li>We ended the MCM program because we never really knew how to make it work.\u00a0 Our organization isn\u2019t structured to support programs like this \u2013 programs that are strategic but don\u2019t generate direct-revenue.<\/li>\n<li>We wanted to model the programs after what Cisco does, but we didn\u2019t actually do much of what we should have to make it more like Cisco.<\/li>\n<li>We wanted MCM to have industry-wide recognition, but we didn\u2019t invest in long-term marketing.<\/li>\n<li>We don\u2019t really plan on making an MCM\\MCA replacement, hence the cancellation.<\/li>\n<li>When we say \u201cpause\u201d \u2013 we mean cancel and retire.\u00a0 There will be a new \u201ctop\u201d tier certification, but a much broader audience and it will not resemble MCM.<\/li>\n<li>Even if we ask the product team to protect these programs, they have other priorities right now and aren\u2019t in the certification business.<\/li>\n<li>We will move all distribution lists and NDA-access related benefits to someone on the MVP community team to manage.\u00a0 They have budget and know how to handle very large technical communities. They will manage this moving forward and you will be a member of the community and will be grandfathered in as appreciation of your time investment.<\/li>\n<li>Business is business, but we\u2019ll throw in what perks we can to soften the blow (MSDN subscriptions, PASS tickets, we\u2019ll use our imagination).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">&lt;\/<strong>imaginary<\/strong> MSL talking points&gt;<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Now back to my own, non-imaginary voice for a bit.\u00a0 A few thoughts and opinions:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I do really hope that anyone in the pipeline gets a chance to complete what they started if they choose to do so.<\/li>\n<li>I do also hope that people are reimbursed according to each situation.<\/li>\n<li>I hold out a very, very small hope that the various product teams will re-adopt each MCM\/MCA program.<\/li>\n<li>I hope that everyone will be civil and not resort to bullying the people in MSL.\u00a0 Be tough.\u00a0 Be honest.\u00a0 Be vocal.\u00a0 But don\u2019t be vicious or get personal please.\u00a0 Keep perspective.<\/li>\n<li>I know we don\u2019t need an acronym to be masters with the product.\u00a0 The biggest benefit of being an MCM was the community and also the process of achieving it.<\/li>\n<li>We\u2019ll all be okay.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Lastly, I of course remain fiercely loyal to SQL Server.\u00a0 It is the horse I bet on 16 years ago and I have no regrets.\u00a0\u00a0 But as for the SQL Server certification program, quite a bit will need to happen before I would feel comfortable advocating for them again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today I attended the MCM call with Microsoft Learning (MSL). I won\u2019t get personal here, because in spite of everything, I do imagine that the folks in MSL are under quite a bit of stress right now (yes \u2013 so is the community, but more on that later).\u00a0 I myself remember getting chewed out back [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-off-topic"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.9.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>We can handle the truth - Joe Sack<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/joe\/we-can-handle-the-truth\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"We can handle the truth - Joe Sack\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Today I attended the MCM call with Microsoft Learning (MSL). I won\u2019t get personal here, because in spite of everything, I do imagine that the folks in MSL are under quite a bit of stress right now (yes \u2013 so is the community, but more on that later).\u00a0 I myself remember getting chewed out back [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/joe\/we-can-handle-the-truth\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Joe Sack\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-09-09T19:05:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-09-09T19:06:51+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Joseph Sack\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Joseph Sack\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/joe\/we-can-handle-the-truth\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/joe\/we-can-handle-the-truth\/\",\"name\":\"We can handle the truth - Joe Sack\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/joe\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2013-09-09T19:05:31+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-09-09T19:06:51+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/joe\/#\/schema\/person\/533eb0113a15fb5a6e8067a49e4ae648\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/joe\/we-can-handle-the-truth\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/joe\/we-can-handle-the-truth\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/joe\/we-can-handle-the-truth\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/joe\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Off-Topic\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/joe\/category\/off-topic\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":3,\"name\":\"We can handle the truth\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/joe\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/joe\/\",\"name\":\"Joe Sack\",\"description\":\"SQL Server Performance Tuning, High Availability and Disaster Recovery Blog\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/joe\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/joe\/#\/schema\/person\/533eb0113a15fb5a6e8067a49e4ae648\",\"name\":\"Joseph Sack\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/joe\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a4b39a7719a6bfff1add3ec00527810734579ee114d6d983e8e68f937b77be96?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a4b39a7719a6bfff1add3ec00527810734579ee114d6d983e8e68f937b77be96?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Joseph Sack\"},\"description\":\"Joe Sack is a Principal Consultant with SQLskills. 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