Meeting the Mobile Team

Today we got all got on busses bright and early and headed off to the Microsoft campus at Redmond. It was quite a nice morning, and on the way we saw a rainbow which seemed to have its roots in the middle of Microsoft, which I thought was interesting. Unfortunately by the time I got my camera out we had driven past it.

The rainbow is about 20 feet to the right of this picture.

We had a bunch of presentations from product team members. I hope they found our comments useful. After that it was time for more mingling, and then a bus back to the hotel.

I remembered my camera this time.

MVP Summit Opens

Toby Richards gets us all fired up.

The MVP summits happen every year or so. Microsoft invites all of the 4,000 or “Most Valuable Professionals” they have recognised for efforts in their field to come to their headquarters and meet with the teams that actually make the products.

It still amazes me that Microsoft organise things like this. It must cost them a fortune, and in these cash-strapped times they might be looking at other things to spend their money on. Quite often, when things get tough the on of the first things to go is events like this, where the benefits are very hard to put directly onto the bottom line.

Each MVP is awarded in a particular specialism. I began in the area of Mobile Devices (search for “Smartphone Cheese”) to find out how I got started. More recently I’ve done work with XNA and the .NET Micro Framework, but I’m still very interested in device development, and so that is what I was here to find out more about.

The summit began with some welcome presentations, starting with Toby Richards who manages the MVP programme. It was rather nice to have someone stand at the front and tell us all how important we are (although I always feel a bit guilty at this point as I’m never quite sure what it is I have done to merit the attention). Then we had a talk from another Microsoft bigwig, as Rich Kaplan told us lots of interesting things about the future that a Non Disclosure Agreement that I’ve signed prevents me from writing much about. Suffice it to say that things are going to be interesting.

Then it was outside for food and mingling. I’m not a great mingler. I tend to stand there like a lampost with a drink, whilst everyone mills around me. But I did meet up with a few people that I hadn’t seen for a while, and I even remembered some names, which is nice.

Then it was back to the hotel and a meal in the lounge right at the top. This has some amazing views. I’ll take the camera next time.

The summit starts proper tomorrow, with meetings with the product teams. Can’t wait.

Seattle Space Needle

This morning it wasn’t raining, which for Seattle is supposed to be surprising. So we went for a walk up to the Space Needle. I took my camera…

Cool Sign

View from the top

Genuine Bonafide Monorail

And So to Seattle

The MVP Summit is next week in Seattle, and lucky old me is going, which is nice. Set off today from Humberside, my favourite airport.

We had a very smooth journey, and I took a few quick pictures on the way.

Obligatory Taxi Shot

Night Traffic. (I just wish the hotel windows were a bit cleaner)

Doncaster Meeting and Programming Puzzle

Went to Doncaster for an exam board today.

The meeting room had this very impressive chandelier, which lent a lot to the proceedings.

Spent some time chatting with Colin, the external examiner, about programming matters. We were talking about good practices, properties and get/set methods and the like, and a question occurred.

“Why do some types in C# have a Length property (for example String and Array) whereas others have a Count method (for example List)? Both of them do the same thing, so it seems to be silly to have different names for them.”

Colin and I think we know the answer. But do you?