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!

The main keynote at Remix UK today was delivered by Bill Buxton who is Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research. He started his speech by saying that "Not Everyone was a Designer". He also praised Apple for it’s design and raising the game in the technology sector. Apparently this competition is helping to drive and motivate Microsoft to do better. The whole keynote had been started by the Bill/Jerry Ads and Bill Buxton commented that Bill Gates could be a stand up comedian. I’m not convinced on that one!

Luckily, I found Bill Buxton’s talk more compelling and his focus on "Industrial Design" was interesting. He contended that people didn’t buy the end product of the design but the whole experience from the packaging to the support to the reliability. He highlighted Jonathan Ive, the lead designer at Apple who has apparently been at Apple since 1993, well before Steve Jobs arrived. At that point Apple was on a downward path and Ive had not succeeded in delivering for Apple. When Steve Jobs joined he decided to reinvigorate the company through "Industrial Design" and everyone thought he was crazy and this was no strategy. The rest as they say is history and under this new culture Ive started to deliver. The same people who before were losers suddenly became winners. I guess it says a lot about Steve Jobs and the culture he created. Bill Buxton asked the question "could company culture change?" and answered it by saying that it could in the same way societies cultural norms change over time.

The other interesting points he made was that small consultancies would be the driver of innovation out of the bad economic times were having and pointed to a number of designers who started during the last depression in the 20s and which are still in business. His other contention was that larger companies inevitably always acquire their innovation through acquisition.

I had hoped he was going to tell us how Microsoft was changing its culture but that never came. It’s a question that a lot of people ask and seek to try and find clues to. I’m not sure Microsoft is able to give that "total experience" that you feel with someone like Apple. You could see people at Remix proudly carrying their Macs and showing off their iPhones, whilst people like me opened our laptops secretly and felt very inadequate with our Windows Mobile Smartphones!

I did go on to see some very cool stuff during the day such as Silverlight Media Support, Deepzoom using the Seadragon Technology and Photosynth but how do you get people to have the "total experience" with these.

I’m booked to go to Remix UK 08 on 18/19th September at the Brighton Centre. Apparently, this isn’t an event in its traditional form its a "48 hour conversation". Not sure what that actually means but it sounds good. Attendance at this event highlights the changes happening in what I’m doing. Remix is about Microsoft’s Web technologies and is aimed at Designers and Developers. The keynote speakers are :-

• Scott Guthrie, Corporate VP, .NET Developer Division
• Bill Buxton, Principal Researcher, Microsoft

The site for Remix says that Brighton is a "…really chilled out place that has a unique creative buzz about it, and if you’re from out of town you’ll be able down tools completely and just lay back and enjoy…"

The only problem is that it won’t be the usual crowd that I know, so means I’ll have to talk to people I don’t know …arrgghhh!! But, I’m really looking forward to it and if you are going let me know.

Is that the right phrase to use “Twittering”? Who knows and who cares! I signed up for Twitter quite a while back but I’ve just got back into it and I’m liking the Micro-blogging stuff and seeing how you can actually interact with people on it. Interesting stuff.

If you want to have a much more lucid reason for using Twitter then check out Confused of Calculatta (aka JP Rangaswami).

Check out My Twitter Page and if you get into it or already doing it let me know so we can “follow” each other. Blog technorati ranking is so 2007 and Twitter Followers is so 2008

Thanks to Matthew Stibbe’s blog, I found that Blogstorm has published the top 100 UK Blogs. No, mine isn’t on it but Matthew’s blog comes in at 79 which is pretty impressive. He’s writing up some case studies for Microsoft on some customer’s of iQubed and he’s got some great posts on his blog on “Technology, Business and Marketing”. Also, Gaping Void comes in at number 10.

Just saw that Hugh is becoming a regular contributor to The Register.

…well, it’s actually hitting a few places and the Facebook group has grown to 170 people.

The Leicester event is on Wed 26th September at 10.00am - 12.00pm at Ritazza, which is at the De Montfort University Campus. You can check out the CreativeCoffee Club website.

See you there.

Think informal atmosphere talking about Web 2.0, Business and ideas on how you can make effective use of Social Networking technologies in your organisation over some coffee. That’s what the CreativeCoffee Club is and it’s coming very soon to Leicester. Yes, Leicester that bastion of the knowledge based economy and home to the greatest thinkers in New Media stuff!! Seriously, this is going to be good, mixing academic thinking with business pragmatism and coming up with some interesting and exciting outcomes. I’m hoping to be actively involved in linking the local business community to these events. There’s a great bunch of people behind this, who are very passionate and stimulating to be with. What more could you ask for?

Andy Parkes just reminded me about MIX UK 07 event down in London on 11/12th September. Maybe not quite as cool as the Las Vegas event where they had the Pussy Cat Dolls! But you still get to see Scott Guthrie, Microsoft’s GM within the Developer Division. Unfortunately, I can’t make it but at £199 seems a bargain to me.

I think one of the successes of Facebook is that they’ve opened up the platform to developers.

I spotted that Miguel had highlighted some Mono based application work with Facebook.

Nice work and well worth a looksey!