Archive for the ‘Mix08’ Category

What if Robert Scoble interviewed Ballmer at Mix08?

Thursday, March 6th, 2008

I’m looking forward to Guy Kawasaki’s onstage discussion with Steve Ballmer today, but I can’t help but think how much “cooler” it would be if Robert Scoble would do it. Why? Because I can imagine Robert not only asking questions, but holding up his Nokia N95 videostreaming live via Qik and taking chat questions at the time time. It might be a bit disconcerting to Ballmer, but it sure would be a cool ”community” demo. Of course, it wouldn’t exactlty be leveraging Microsoft technology on the production side, but it sure would be cool–and interactive. Robert’s gotten qiute good at doing interviews this way. It sure would “mix” things up a bit. And isn’t that one of the goals of Mix08?

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Watch Mix08 live keynote at 9:30AM PT

Wednesday, March 5th, 2008

Microsoft is live streaming the Mix08 keynotes at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/events/mix/default.mspx. If you want a direct link to the video for Ray Ozzie’s and Scott Guthrie’s keynote this morning click here. It should start at 9:30AM Pacific Time.

Looks like you’ll need Silverlight to watch it the virtual pressroom ;-).

(Aside: Hey, is there a way I can embed/mix the video in my blog??)

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Silverlight and Nokia team up

Tuesday, March 4th, 2008

With Mix08 right around the corner, Silverlight is in the news. This morning Nokia and Microsoft are announcing support for Silverlight in S60 on Symbian. That’s great news for mobile phone and Nokia Internet Tablet users. It also breathes a little more life into Silverlight, which needs it.

If Silverlight is going to grow where the markets are growing–online and mobile–it needs to be supported in more browsers, OSes and devices. This is one more step.

In other Silverlight news, CNet is reporting that Silverlight will eventually support offline scenarios. Makes sense, although broad deployments are probably more important at this time.

What other Silverlight news might we hear today? More Silverlight dev support? More about Silverlight 2? Looking forward to Mix08. The keynotes will be streamed live tomorrow starting at 9:30 AM Pacific time.

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Mix is sold out

Tuesday, February 19th, 2008

I see that Mix is sold out. That solves that “problem.” There are other conferences to go to and besides, like I mentioned the other day I’m not sure if I belong at a conference like Mix anyway.

The consolation prize? I’m trying to collect up a few friends to go to BIL, for instance.

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Tracking the conversations of Microsoft-focused devs

Sunday, February 3rd, 2008

What’s a developer to do when there’s hour after hour of red-carpeted SuperBowl pre-game shows? Code, of course. Well, kind of. This afternoon I started building up a database of Microsoft technology-focused developers-slash-bloggers for the conversation tracker service Bob and I have been working on. I got only as far as 74 entries, which is only a drop in the bucket. I have a couple hundred (my guesstimate at this time) of high-quality bloggers to add, so this is going to take awhile.

The micro-conversation among these bloggers though is beginning to reveal itself. Here’s a snapshot of what the first 74 bloggers were talking about this afternoon:

microsoftdevelopers200802031630partialsmall.png

And scanning through this list I see that I need to decide if I’m going to sit in the hallways again at Mix or try to get in as a badged attendee. Scott Guthrie has more here.

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Mix08 conference is evidently about the best hipness there is

Wednesday, December 12th, 2007

This video tries to explain why Mix08 is the conference for web designers and developers to attend. Apparently it has a lot to do with being hip and swearing. If I get this right, Mix08 is trying to be somewhere between a PG-13 or R rated conference this time around. The big difference the video says: more focus on designers.

So I ask: To be design-focused you have to mix in even more coolness? Who ever said engineers can’t create cool things? This is creating a division that’s silly. The answer to me is to enable more people to do more. Enable designers to do even more “coding.” Enable developers to create even better designs. I still don’t get this split strategy.

Someone needs to go to SIGGRAPH.

Here’s another suggestion I have for the Mix08 conference organizers. Read up on Randy Pausch, a Carnegie Mellon professor that’s done more than most to bring designers and developers together. Better yet, watch his “Last Lecture.” There’s a great line in the video that goes something like this: Randy said he could often tell if a team of designers and developers were going to come up with a great project by looking at how close they stood together when giving their presentation. Get it? How close they stood together. There’s no “throwing the project back and forth across an arbitrary wall.” It’s one team. One effort. One inspiration.

Again, don’t believe me. Go to SIGGRAPH.

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