The Sikh Geek

I’m back now from the Microsoft RemixUK 08 Conference in Brighton and what a great experience it was. It is focused on Microsoft’s web technologies. It described itself as a "48 hour conversation about the Next Web". The sessions were split into the following tracks :-

• More developer
• More designer
• User interaction/business
• Beyond work

There were a range of people including developers, designers, advertising agencies, so an interesting mix of people who probably would otherwise not come together. In fact Arturo Toledo of Microsoft in his Expression Session said that Designers should team up with Developers and that is something which I believe is a great opportunity.

Check out the site Web Harmony for tools, resources and training.

It was good to be at a Microsoft Conference where people were coming out of sessions visibly impressed. Could Microsoft actually be this cool?

The technologies on display were

• Silverlight
• Photosynth
• ASP.NET MVC
• WPF (check out the new WindowsClient site)
• ADO.NET Data Services (Project Astoria Team Blog)
• Virtual Earth
• Visual Studio
• XNA Games Studio

As part of attending the conference delegates will received a copy of the Expression Subscription.

One insight I got was Microsoft’s focus towards Advertising in David Pugh-Jones session entitled "Digital Advertising: Now and the Future". It’s clear that Microsoft is keen to use these new technologies to drive digital campaigns and to be a key player in this market.

The other highlight was seeing Scott Guthrie code on the fly!