Microsoft Dynamics Profile: New Zealand AX architect turned MVP gets to know elite program

Unlike many Microsoft MVP candidates, New Zealand Dynamics AX MVP Tim Schofield wasn't all that impressed when he was notified that he had won the award.

"[A former colleague and I] were in a pub one day and he said he was going to put me up for an MVP award," he recalls.

Schofield, who currently works for Intergen, a reseller in Auckland, was named an MVP in April. Although he knew there was such a thing as an MVP award, at the time he really didn't know all that much about it.

Coming around to MVP honors

"I thought if I got it, that would be nice, that would be cute. To be honest, I didn't think it had a particular cachet," he says. "Eventually, somebody made a mistake and gave it to me. But I wasn't that impressed when I got the letter. Obviously, I was pleased as punch. I thought it was really, really nice because it's somebody from outside my company, who doesn't know me, who recognized the quality of what I do. That was great."

However, it wasn't until Schofield went to the MVP Global Summit at Microsoft headquarters in November that he realized just how big the MVP program was and how important it was to Microsoft.

"Intergen was very supportive of the award and they were nice enough to pay for me to go to the MVP Summit," he says. "There are five or six MVPs, CRM MVPs and SharePoint MVPs, within Intergen. And it's recognized within Intergen that it's a very important thing. But for me, I didn't realize ...