{"id":30,"date":"2008-11-21T15:43:00","date_gmt":"2008-11-21T22:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/todd_wp\/sharepoint-certified-master-an-inside-look\/"},"modified":"2013-07-01T14:04:39","modified_gmt":"2013-07-01T20:04:39","slug":"sharepoint-certified-master-an-inside-look","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/toddbaginski.com\/blog\/sharepoint-certified-master-an-inside-look\/","title":{"rendered":"SharePoint Certified Master An Inside Look"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 10pt\"><font face=\"Calibri\" size=\"3\">As you may have seen, Microsoft recently announced <\/font><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.msdn.com\/sharepoint\/archive\/2008\/11\/10\/introducing-the-microsoft-certified-master-and-certified-architect-for-sharepoint.aspx\"><font face=\"Calibri\" size=\"3\">a pair of new certifications<\/font><\/a><font face=\"Calibri\"><font size=\"3\"> for SharePoint Products and Technologies.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">\u00a0 <\/span><\/font><\/font><a href=\"http:\/\/www.harbar.net\/archive\/2008\/11\/21\/Microsoft-Certified-Master-for-SharePoint.aspx\"><font face=\"Calibri\" size=\"3\">Spencer Harbar<\/font><\/a><font face=\"Calibri\" size=\"3\"> and <\/font><a href=\"http:\/\/www.andrewconnell.com\/blog\/archive\/2008\/11\/20\/Microsoft-Certification-Master-for-SharePoint--My-Involvement-in-Helping.aspx\"><font face=\"Calibri\" size=\"3\">Andrew Connell<\/font><\/a><font face=\"Calibri\" size=\"3\"> both have blog posts which describe the new certification programs and provide additional information that is not found on the official Microsoft site.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">\u00a0 <\/span>I encourage you to read their posts to learn more.<\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 10pt\"><font face=\"Calibri\" size=\"3\">As Andrew mentions in his blog post, the course authors and presenters include SharePoint Rangers, CAT team members, PFEs, MCS personnel, several members of the SharePoint product team and two SharePoint MVPs.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">\u00a0 <\/span>Andrew Connell is the content owner, author and instructor for the WCM portion of the course and I am the content owner, author and instructor for the Business Data Catalog (BDC) portion of the SharePoint Master Certification course.<\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 10pt\"><font face=\"Calibri\"><font size=\"3\">Last week I presented the BDC portion of the course during the alpha delivery and I can definitely say that the training sessions are unlike any I have ever seen or presented before.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">\u00a0 <\/span><\/font><a class=\"\" href=\"http:\/\/blogs.msdn.com\/mitchp\/\" mce_href=\"http:\/\/blogs.msdn.com\/mitchp\/\"><font size=\"3\">Mitch Prince<\/font><\/a><font size=\"3\"> also contributed content to the BDC portion of the training and presented some if it last week as well.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">\u00a0 <\/span>Between now and the next time the training is offered I will be incorporating Mitch\u2019s content into the BDC portion of the curriculum before I present it again.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">\u00a0 <\/span><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 10pt\"><font face=\"Calibri\" size=\"3\">Hopefully this post will help provide some insight into what the course is all about and give you an idea what the classroom atmosphere is like.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">\u00a0 <\/span>Like any training course there are slides, demos and lab exercises, however the discussions that take place during the sessions go way beyond your typical training course and provide a tremendous amount of value and insight into the SharePoint platform.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">\u00a0 <\/span>Imagine a training environment where you are not only learning from highly qualified and experienced instructors, but you are also learning from the experiences the entire class brings to the table.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">\u00a0 <\/span>Couple this with the fact that every person who partakes in the SharePoint Master Certification program has passed a stringent set of pre-requisites, exams, and personal interviews and you quickly realize that the depth of the training and the subject matter is incredibly valuable.<\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 10pt\"><font face=\"Calibri\" size=\"3\">The content presented in the curriculum is constantly evolving and being updated to incorporate student feedback.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">\u00a0 <\/span>During the alpha delivery of the program last week I collected several interesting and helpful pieces of information from the students which stemmed from the real world experiences they had with the topics at hand.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">\u00a0 <\/span>The information I collected will become part of the curriculum going forward.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">\u00a0 <\/span>This open and iterative approach ensures that the certification always includes the most up to date information and tips from not only the instructors, but from students\/experts from around the world.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">\u00a0 <\/span>Essentially, every time the class is taught, it is better than before!<\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 10pt\"><font face=\"Calibri\" size=\"3\">Since the program was announced many people have asked me what I believe the true value of achieving the SharePoint Master Certification is.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">\u00a0 <\/span>Based on the session I delivered and the other sessions I sat in on later in the day, there is no doubt in my mind that the true value of the certification is that it ensures those who attain it know the SharePoint platform inside and out, from top to bottom.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">\u00a0 <\/span>I believe that you can certainly hire a person with this level of certification and have complete confidence they are capable of properly and successfully implementing a multimillion dollar infrastructure with SharePoint Products and Technologies.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">\u00a0 <\/span>I\u2019m not trying to knock the existing SharePoint certifications, I\u2019m just pointing out that if you can pass the SharePoint Master Certification exams and hands on lab tests then you have certainly proven you know your stuff.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">\u00a0 <\/span>To say it another way, this certification proves you can walk the walk and not just talk the talk \u2013 not just from a technical point of view, but also as a true consultant who knows how to work with the business to implement solutions that solve their problems and meet their needs quickly and effectively.<\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 10pt\"><font size=\"3\"><font face=\"Calibri\">In the future I hope to not only continue presenting the BDC portion of the course, but to also achieve this level of certification.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">\u00a0 <\/span>It\u2019s a tall mountain to climb; but as you may know, I love to ski and it\u2019s another mountain I\u2019d love to summit.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">\u00a0 <\/span>Speaking of skiing; I\u2019m going to go hop in the FJ and head up to Breck for my first turns of the year! <span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">\u00a0<\/span><\/font><span style=\"FONT-FAMILY: Wingdings; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings\"><span style=\"mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings\">J<\/span><\/span><font face=\"Calibri\"><span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">\u00a0 <\/span>Pray for snow!<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As you may have seen, Microsoft recently announced a pair of new certifications for SharePoint Products and Technologies.\u00a0 Spencer Harbar and Andrew Connell both have blog<span class=\"excerpt-hellip\"> [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[97],"tags":[19,18,7,21,20,17],"class_list":["post-30","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sharepoint","tag-mca","tag-mcm","tag-sharepoint","tag-sharepoint-certified-architect","tag-sharepoint-certified-master","tag-sharepoint-master-certification"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbaginski.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbaginski.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbaginski.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbaginski.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbaginski.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/toddbaginski.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":839,"href":"https:\/\/toddbaginski.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30\/revisions\/839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbaginski.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbaginski.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbaginski.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}