Posts tagged conference

Before I get started, I’ll just say that if you are here to read about things I learned or saw at the summit you will be disappointed.  Most all of what I saw and learned was under NDA, so I won’t be talking about any content.  What I will talk about is the experience and my thoughts around the MVP program and my first summit.

As a new MVP I had heard a lot about the MVP summit and what goes into it.  Actually being at the summit truly opened my eyes to the depth of the MVP program and the people who are working hard everyday to build products for Microsoft.

The Summit

The summit has evolved over the years, but the basic idea is to get all the MVPs together to network and link them with product teams to provide real feedback that makes it into products we use everyday.  One of the best parts of the summit was being on the campus at Redmond with the 18,000 people who work there everyday.

Bellevue, the Sights & Sounds

This year’s summit was centralized in Bellevue, WA which is just a few skips down the highway from Redmond.  Bellevue has underwent a lot of updates in the last several years and is one of the cleanest and most attractive towns I’ve been to in a while.  Most MVPs were at the Hyatt or Westin which is attached to the Bellevue Square via a few sky bridges and walkways.  There were almost too many good food choices and an unbelievable amount of shopping available. 

Clint Edmonson, Chris Sutton and I even managed to squeeze in a late night showing of Avatar in Imax 3-D which was phenomenal. 

Product Team Interaction

Meeting with the product teams was a great experience.  Some of the smartest people in the world are working in Redmond and they have a lot of tough choices to make.  All of the product teams have trade-offs to make in terms of balancing the features and delivery times as well as limitations on what they have to work with.  It is hard to articulate what a tough job the teams have without going to specifics.  My respect for the product teams increased 1000-fold, and believe me, those teams know when something isn’t what it could be and they will work to get it there for V-next.

As users of their products it is easy to think that these people have no idea what they are doing, but the fact is I heard many of the teams say they knew something was not what it could be or that they were in situations where they didn’t know what the best choice would be.  Those teams face the same choices us “normal” developers do  except they have the scrutiny of developers across the world when something isn’t perfect. 

Breakout Sessions

I was able to attend several of the breakout sessions which covered various products & technologies.  The largest session I attended was the Developer & Platform Evangelism Session where all the US MVPs met with the evangelism teams that work throughout the United States.  We all received a very nice jacket for our participation.  Thanks DPE!

Overall

Being an MVP is a huge honor.  To be included with some of the most passionate and outspoken technologists is an amazing experience.  Seeing MVPs who I only know via Twitter and Blogs and reading about their accomplishments just shows how much MVPs live and breathe technology and making it work for people. 

There are a lot of exciting developments coming in 2010.  Rest assured that as soon as we can, MVPs from all over the world will be sharing those insights with you!

To see more about my MVP Summit experience, check out the Flickr photos.