The 2008 MVP Summit is over. It included some 2000 MVPs from around the world. I didn’t see and talk to most or even a large number, relatively, of the MVPs. Pretty much I stuck to the 40 or so DS MVPs that were present as well as a bunch of Exchange MVPs[1]. There were some security MVPs as well as a single PowerShell MVP (the unknown MVP) I spent time with as well. Nothing personal, you just don’t have the time in the days available to do otherwise, can’t possibly meet and see everyone you want to, the days are very very filled and busy and all of the folks I see are friends from around the world who I usually get to see once or if I am lucky, twice a year. Not every DS MVP is someone I care to see but the good far outweighs the bad.
As mentioned, the days were packed from the moment I opened my eyes until the moment my head hit the pillow again. Consequently as my life moved into last night I was nearly part of the "walking dead" universal group[2] and I didn’t even need the incredible Heavenly Bed of the Westin to let me sleep like a dead man though it certainly was nice. 🙂 If you ever stay in Seattle, I do highly recommend the Westin. Ask for a high floor, you will not be disappointed I expect. I have stayed in enough hotels at this point to know that many if not most seem to have issues with the bed and the shower, at least relative to the Westin. I use the Westin as the standard for what I expect and/or want in those two categories.
Seattle was once again a beautiful hostess to our time to catch up and see what is going on with our friends building the products we work on every day.While it was gray and rainy much of the time, its just something you come to expect out of Seattle if you come here enough. You just look at it and say… "Hey its just Seattle being Seattle."
And when I say our friends building the products, that is something I mean almost without exception. These people on the DS team are my friends. I may beat up on them occasionally but if I am not beating up on them, I think or at least hope they realize that may not be a good thing because my care and ownership in the product has left me if I am not willing to spend the energy to find out what I don’t like and debate it with them. These are people that although I see them rarely in the overall scope of my life, have great impact on my life and I would very much enjoy seeing them regularly. They are very smart people, in some cases they are scary smart people. I greatly enjoy my interactions with them and look forward to any time I get to spend with them or communicating with them.
I would like to say thanks to the MVP program for putting the summit together so I can come out and see all my friends, both MVP and Microsoft. Thanks to Sean O’ for all his work with the MVPs, I wish you weren’t leaving us but do understand and wish you great luck and success. I unfortunately don’t think the new guy will replace you, just take your old job but hopefully I am wrong. Especially I want to thank the DS Team (including the ever growing and incredibly important AD Backseat Architects) for taking time out to spend with us and talk with us and debate with us on what we should and shouldn’t be doing. I want to thank the team for taking time out to see us, trying hard to make amazing products and also for making me laugh. I wish many of the stories we heard weren’t NDA items because they are incredibly funny and it helps illustrate that these builders of the products we load on our computers are people too and make mistakes and laugh at things just like everyone else in the world.
Let me, for a moment, point out the Backseat Architects specifically… I don’t know everyone in that group but I know of at least three and these three are some of the most passionate and well informed people concerned the DS that I know of. How many companies do you know with people who leave a group or maybe never were even officially part of a group care enough about it to establish a DL to discuss the group and products from that group and help the official folks with all of it? I would love to be on that DL so if any of you figure out a way to pull that off, please do.
Overall, the people around the world who rip on Microsoft and say it and the people who work there are evil and looking to do bad things, etc simply don’t know the people inside the company. They are good people, real people, who want to make things better and do so within the confines and boundaries that exist for them. I know of no other company that I have worked with that has such passion for its products and customers. Not everyone at MSFT is like that, but certainly most of the people I deal with in Redmond certainly are and it is extremely obvious to me.
So thanks to those folks so closely tied to the DS… Thanks for seeing us, thanks for explaining things to us, thanks for debating with us, thanks for the hilarious stories we can’t share with anyone, and thanks for being who you are and doing what you do every day… Thank you ~Eric, Brett, Dmitri, Matt, Nathan, Stephanie, Moon, Uday, Dushyant, Dennis, Siddharth, James, Jason, and all of the folks I got to meet on this trip whom I haven’t gotten to know well yet.
Several of you will continue hearing from me regularly, some of you should expect to hear from me more, probably considerably more, so I can make sure I get my input into what you are doing because, well, because I care; I want you to continue to produce products I want to continue to use. :) If any of you need anything from me, you know where to find me. If I don’t respond, it is simply because I am very busy and just behind or Exchange or Outlook ate the message you sent and you know who to go tap on the shoulder about that. 😉
joe
[1] Which seem to, as a whole, like me now – ExchMbx really raised my value in the eyes of the Exchange MVPs I think. I don’t feel this was always the case, there was a time where at least some of them were upset with me because they thought I was just calling their baby ugly because I simply felt like saying it was. Over time they seemed to have realized I had some clue what I was talking about and didn’t just do it to complain, but because I wanted to see the product get better… and again, I don’t think ExchMbx hurt me in their eyes…
[2] Bad geek humour
