Interview with Jordano Mazzoni, MVP: Hyper-V 3.0, Windows Server, WSUS, SQL Server, & System Center

Hi Folks, Yuri Diogenes and Ed Price here, and today’s Monday interview will be with an MVP from Brazil and a well-known face in the TechNet Wiki world. I’m talking about Jordano Mazzoni.

Jordano Mazzoni - MVP's avatar 

Jordano Mazzoni - MVP

Without further due, let’s start our interview:

 

1) The first question that I would like to ask is about community based content. Can you tell me in your own words why you think initiatives like TechNet Wiki are important for the community?

People seek content for several reasons. Some just want to resolve an incident. Other people want a greater volume of information, leaving them technically more comfortable and confident. Others are looking for a career advancement and professional projection. This search can be for content available online and offline. The content items are as different as possible [from troubleshooting to overviews], ranging in complexity and in many different possible approaches.

I thought to myself: Every day I consume information produced by the community. From the beginning I believed in a dynamic format and that people could participate in feeling valued and fulfilled by contributing to content. I see these and many other opportunities in the TechNet Wiki. I see the TechNet Wiki as a legacy we leave to the community. We know how it started, but we can not even imagine where all this will take us. In the near future, survival guides in TechNet Wiki can serve as support for training and may even partly replace training in some cases. It's up to us to make sure this becomes a reality.

 

2) I know that you got your MVP award last year (congratulations for that, well deserved). My question is: do you think your active participation on the TechNet Wiki contributed on your nomination to receive the MVP Award? Why?

I think things happen naturally. Especially in my case, my students are motivation enough. Any opportunity to present the products they know and love is very welcome and I tried this scenario on several channels.

At first I was challenged by my students. I always challenged them and took them to the limit so they could prove to themselves how good they were. I knew all this but they must also believe it themselves. I made a sequence of videos and presented to them, the subject was Domain Migration (2003 to 2008). Some days later it
was their turn to challenge me telling me: Professor these videos are not so
good. I swear I was not very pleased, but they were using my own weapons
against myself: I bit the bait. A few weeks later my content was published in
the Microsoft Training Center site https://technet.microsoft.com/pt-br/gg512011.

Later I had this other series published (MS Project 2010 - https://msdn.microsoft.com/pt-br/hh318511).

In fact my students challenged me so I split making this content with more people, knowing that could help more people too. And so it began.

For the MVP program every form of sharing is very valuable. The TechNet Wiki boosted the visibility of my contributions; I have no doubt about that.

 

3) Most of your articles, I will actually say 90% of those, include a video. Why did you decide to follow this approach?

In the videos, the user has the real dimension of everything that will happen even before performing any procedure.

The text format can not reflect all this realism that the video is proposed. Users want to see how things happen without putting your hands on the products. Later they can decide clearly what should be done.

The videos won me over, and I think I can produce quality content like a teacher who's physically close to their students. I focus on producing content for the training of professionals in their lives, not just to solve one-off incidents. I believe that I'm able to achieve this personal goal.

 

4) Last year you retired your own blog to exclusively write for the TechNet Wiki. Why did you do that?

My blog currently serves as an index for my TechNet Wiki articles. I will not lie, but at first I was resistant to retire my blog somehow. But I realized it was more important to facilitate access to and dissemination of the initiatives that we believe and invest much time and energy into. When you produce a piece of content, you want it to be useful for the greatest number of people as possible. TechNet Wiki brings me this visibility.

I feel very accomplished in positively impacting people through TechNet Wiki.

 

5) You work in a University in Brazil. What do you do to evangelize the Microsoft platform to your students? Do you encourage them to contribute with content?

Within the university environment, many things happen at the same time. Whenever I can I get a chance, I try to motivate everyone, but we know that the priorities of the students are numerous and very different.

At this stage, students are motivated to write scientific articles. They seek a career in a master's or doctoral degree (not all do). There will always be a big step between what the market needs and what the academy can offer. I try to reduce this step by focusing on the products over the market which uses them.

 

6) This month you went to your first MVP Summit in Redmond. How it was? Did you meet any Wiki Ninjas there? : )

That was true. I was really excited about the event and all I could see. I like to find people who often only talk by email or social networks. I met Eric Battalio on the first day of event. We talked a little about the TechNet Wiki, and he asked why the Brazilians contributed so much to the TechNet Wiki. Well, I really can not answer for everyone, but I believe that we are happy to disseminate and share knowledge. Eric is really surprised at all the articles that the Brazilian community has made ??and make on TechNet Wiki.

 

7) What are your plans for 2012 as far as community contribution and how TechNet Wiki is going to fit in your plan?

Well the TechNet Wiki is now my home, Can I say this? <kidding>. All my contributions converge to TechNet Wiki without a doubt. There is no backing out of it.

I consider myself a very versatile contributor. I have 198 videos, which are about Windows Server, SQL Server, the System Center family, Project, Windows 7, PowerShell, and more.

Although many people talk prematurely about Windows 8 (Server and Client), I'm sure there is much to talk about Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2. I have saved some video series, which will still be published shortly. Soon.

 

8) Any final comments that you want to leave for our blog readers?

Feedback is everything. Whenever you are reading or viewing a piece of content, and the content was useful in some way, give feedback to the author.

Think about how long it took to idealize, to build, to write, and finally to bring the community the final product.

Feedback is everything. Do not forget to praise publicly and criticize privately.

Often the content was not the best, but it will still serve for many, many people. Often the answer is not readily available, but remember that there is someone who did not do something to help you voluntarily (and that should motivate you to help others).

To my dear students and colleagues: thanks for everything, and I hope to be an example and be a motivator for your life, just as you are to me. Thank you all, and I will not forget anyone who has ever sat in class with me. You were great, and thanks for everything. You motivate me a lot. Your faces when I show something new is priceless (it is very funny even). That motivates me a lot.

Thanks to my wife, Adriana Andrade, who makes my life wonderful. Soon my family will grow.

 

So, the following are some initiatives that I am engaged in:

My Web Site: https://jmazzoni.wordpress.com/

My YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/jmazzoniaju

My Twitter: www.twitter.com/jordanomazzoni / @jordanomazzoni

My TechNet Profile: https://social.technet.microsoft.com/profile/jordano%20mazzoni%20-%20mvp/

Big Hug

 

Jordano Mazzoni

 

- Special thanks to Yuri Diogenes for interviewing Jordano!