MVP Summit 2025 - My First Experience
Going to Seattle for the MVP Summit is one of the biggest events reserved for the MVP Community, and an opportunity for all MVPs to meet Microsoft product managers and engineers as well as all other MVPs.
This year, for the first time, I have the tremendous opportunity to attend this exceptional event in person, and I tried to share my experience with you.
I can share all the steps I followed to go to Seattle from Montreal, the campus, the people I met, everything I can, while respecting Microsoft's NDA, etc.
Plane and hotel
Microsoft does not provide any discounts with the hotel or flight companies. So, you have to deal with the best price and the best place to be.
In my opinion, for my first experience, I chose to deal with the best price.
- The plane: use your favorite site to find the best price and the best period to travel. I did want to be present from the first day. I chose a night flight with a departure from MTL at 6 AM (alarm at 2 AM), a stop at Minneapolis, and arrived in Seattle at 10:45 AM (noticed that a jetlag of 3 hours minus)
- A place to sleep: I chose an Airbnb mainly because of the price, which is less expensive than a hotel, and because Microsoft offers breakfast (you don't need to prepare it or pay for it). Do you know a better moment to discuss with other people than directly on the Microsoft campus? To be honest, during these 5 days, you spend more time on the campus and with other MVPs rather than at the hotel.
You can find a lot of good places near the campus, or you can choose to take something in downtown Bellevue to access restaurants, bars, etc.
Monday (day 1)
- Arrive on the campus at noon at the 33 building by taxi (~ $60) - the badge recovery that allows you to move and use shuttles on the campus - in addition, coffee and some donuts are waiting for you.
Everyone is very kind, smiling, and ready to help you spend the best moment as many times as possible ❤️ - Start the first sessions of the week. You meet so many people, all of whom you can see on the community group videos, Microsoft events, etc. Meet all these people for real - this is an insane and unforgettable moment.
In addition, some of them recognize you, come to say hello, and discuss with you as if you already met them before - you are directly comfortable and ready to enjoy every day of this event. - Microsoft Store: MVP stuff is limited. If you want some MVP items branded, the earlier you go to get them, the more choices you will have... water bottles, socks, bags, etc. For my part, I ran to the store to take a bottle of water for the week 🙂
- At the end of the day, enjoy drinking and eating with other MVPs, meet them, share your experiences, hobbies, and motivations, and go to sleep to rest for the next day.
Tuesday (day 2)
- The keynote: listen to Father's SharePoint (Jeff Teper) and other big heads of Microsoft products. You are in front of the most charismatic Microsoft leaders.
Before that, you must take a band and make the lineup before entering the room - quite long, but it was worth it. - Campus Tour: take time to visit different buildings and specific amazing areas on the campus - Meet employees who share with you their experience and work of every single day - in some cases, you have no idea of their existence, the work they perform 🫶🏻
- Sessions: too many sessions 😅
Difficult to choose which one you want to be in-person vs watch later. I chose to prioritize the in-person session only and sessions for which I can discuss and meet people.
Breakout sessions are amazing for directly pushing your vision, feedback, ideas, etc. You can bring direct input and have the opportunity to contribute to a better experience - Sharing is caring 🙏🏻
Wednesday (day 3)
- Campus Tour: still discovering the campus, the buildings, and Microsoft employees. I was surprised by the passionate Microsoft employees. They are all passionate (I would like to say lovely, crazy), kind, and they love sharing their experiences and jobs with us. Meeting these people is just a refresh and a source of motivation to go ahead
- Sessions: plan your agenda wisely because of the distance between the building of the campus and keep in mind that not all sessions will finish on time, especially if you have some additional questions and want to speak with the speaker, etc.
- Microsoft Store: because I planned to leave Seattle the next day, I took some time to visit the store to get some souvenirs for my family and enjoy discounts linked to our MVP status 🙂
- 1-on-1: have the opportunity to talk with the Microsoft product owners, managers, and engineers, has no price 🤩 give feedback, take feedback, advice, and have the opportunity to see people that you only saw virtually until yet is very exciting
Thursday (day 4)
This is my last day at the MVP Summit this year.
- Sessions: more technical sessions about Copilot, SharePoint, wireframes, Microsoft Graph, etc. Really useful and interesting to know how Microsoft think about howh they want to manage the services and their vision of the futur and moreother, the interest of the team to have direct feedback on their suggestion. Really appreciated humble attitude from Microsoft to take feedback first and try to included them into their backlog.
- Logistic: you can drop your lagguage into a specific room to do not have to keep them with you all day long 🙏🏻
I recommand to take public transportation to go back to the airport because it is less expensive than the taxi ($3 for Metro and Bus) and it was pretty cool to have time to see the city and I had the opportunity to meet amazing people (bus driver very kind, passengers who shared good tips & tricks, ...)
Conclusion
Even if the logistic (hotel, plane, transportation, etc.) seems expensive, my first esperience is jsut unforgatable. Not easy to go back to the real life.
The opportunity to see the campus, meet people that maybe I will never have another accosaion to meet again, speak to so many people and realized that some people behind the scene produce so many things and have so many impact, it is jsut insane.
The content of the sessions for the first two days were clearly oriented marketing... not really useful because all information is already available through the Microsoft blog and other MVP. The last two days were more productive and interesting because we saw the futur of the services and the vision of Microsoft (all content under NDA).
Do I will reproduce my experience next year if I still MVP? Maybe not, but for sure, as many as I still MVP, I will plan to go to the MVP summit maybe every 2 or 3 years.
Hoping this post will help you 😉
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