Wrapup : MGB Atlanta 2005

I'm putting down my thoughts following the past few days at MGB here in Atlanta.

It was a 3 day event - I've already covered some stuff about the Big Day, but I failed to mention a few other hilights from the sessions, like MSN Virtual Earth and it's Location Finder feature - this is where I am as I write this

Anyways, back to MGB.

Day 2 & 3 I followed tracks based on my role, which is management with the Developer & Platform Evangelism Team. The key take away for me from the session was that the leadership teams in Redmond really listen to the folks in the field and take the stuff that works in one area, massage it a little and make this available for others to benefit. This is pretty amazing, in that we can act locally, do the the right thing for our customers and our actions are then felt globally. When I first started at Microsoft, I was told that if I wanted to affect change, I needed to work in Redmond -  which I did for a few years. Now, if I want to affect change, I need to go out and do stuff, be successful (or sometimes even fail ) and I can contribute my learnings to the rest of the organisation. This is pretty darn cool.

For me, my focus for this year continues to be the same - we have a major product launch, we have some new products on the horizon to evangelise, we have to continue connecting with the diffferent technical communities - developer, academic and it profession, and most importantly I need to continue developing my team (across Australia & New Zealand) so that they can continue doing fantastic things for these communities as Andrew, Dave Glover, Chuck, Dave Lemphers, Michael, Jeff ,Deeps, Paul, Nigel and Darryl do every single day.

Some days, I really love my job!

[ Currently Playing : Are You Gonna Be My Girl? - Jet - Triple J Hottest 100 Volume 11 (03:35) ]