Congratulations to many Southeast MVPs on their awards!

Today, several folks in the Southeast received notification that they have been renewed as Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs). I just wanted to take a moment to recognize many of them that I know personally, and thank them for all their help, because my job would certainly be much harder if these guys weren’t around.

• Jim Duffy, up in Raleigh, who in the dual role of MVP and Regional Director (RD) has the challenge of digging deep into technology AND having conversations across all technologies at a high level. And he does it so smoothly, you have to admire him. And of course there’s his awesome taste in music!
• Keith Elder, who is way down in Hattiesburg, MS. Keith and his pals are known for the Deep Fried Bytes podcast series, which offers refreshing perspectives on diverse technologies. He also got a new user group rolling down there and helped us coordinate our MSDN Southern Fried Roadshow stop. In his spare time he contributes to Witty, a WPF twitter client.
• Shawn Wildermuth, right here in Atlanta, who really has really dug into Silverlight lately, even shunning his solely data-focused ADO Guy moniker. But Shawn really articulates well the principles of getting Silverlight connected. Check out his international Silverlight Tour, which even has a stop in Atlanta this month!
• Jim Wooley also here in the Atlanta area. Jim’s an author and LINQ dude extraordinaire. Most recently, Jim braved the gas shortage to come give a LINQ deep dive at the experimental Chalk Talks we did for Atlanta TechDays. Jim’s always willing to help out!
• Rob Zelt in Raleigh who has been steadily moving up the community involvement ladder, starting his involvement with TRINUG and extending all the way up to his leadership within INETA.