Wow! I had no idea it was the time of the year MVP’s were being (re)awarded. Somewhere in the past year I heard I was nominated for MVP and to support my candidature I filled in some docs but the mail I received yesterday came as a complete surprise.

Dear Thomas Vuylsteke,

Congratulations! We are pleased to present you with the 2011 Microsoft® MVP Award! This award is given to exceptional technical community leaders who actively share their high quality, real world expertise with others. We appreciate your outstanding contributions in Identity Lifecycle Manager technical communities during the past year.

The Microsoft MVP Award provides us the unique opportunity to celebrate and honor your significant contributions and say "Thank you for your technical leadership."

Toby Richards
General Manager
Community & Online Support

Special thanks to Markus for coaching and supporting me on the FIM TechNet Forum & Wiki. Thanks to Glenn Zuckerman & Anthony Ho for helping me out every once and while.

Thanks to the people of MCS Belgium for giving me opportunity to get to know FIM and be part of a great project/team. Thanks to my company RealDolmen for providing me with interesting projects again and again.

Thanks to everyone in the FIM community for all the knowledge sharing and troubleshooting help.

And of course, most of all thanks to my wife Stefanie for just letting me do what I do.

Let’s keep up the good work for another year!

When I opened my mail today I was glad to see I got awarded with the Microsoft Community Contributor Award for 2011. It’s great to be recognized for my blogging, TechNet forums & wiki efforts. Thanks Microsoft! Thanks Community! Participating in this community is about giving and taking. I’m more than glad to do my fair share of sharing information!

For those that don’t know the award: Microsoft Community Contributor FAQ