I'm giving a talk next week at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC). I happen to be in the fun position where I'm directly following the keynote. I've sat in on content reviews and keynote writing sessions so I know the messaging from that talk and the overlap that there will be with my session.
One of the services that they offer to their speakers is a speech coach. It's the first time that I've worked with one one on one. I sat through a class offered by a different conference a number of years back. It was fairly useless so I didn't have high hopes for another speaker coach. Boy was I wrong.
More on my blog at Public Speaking - Great Beginnings.
Writing good error messages is an art form. It's important though because the error messages are often the only communication with the user in an already frustrating situation for said user. More about this sensitive topic on my blog at Solid Error Messages.
I've been at Microsoft a little over a year and a half. I'm very excited about a number of the new technologies that are here and on the coming roadmap. Microsoft is at a point where it's more open than it's ever been. The level of community involvement in projects like the ASP.NET MVC framework, IronRuby and much more has been historic.
I get that it could always be better. But don't (as Joe Brinkman put it) throw a brick through my window to tell me that... More on my blog at Ranting and Raving or Getting Results?
A few weeks back John Hopkins forwarded me a video from TED. Specifically he sent me a talk by Clifford Stoll called "18 minutes with an agile mind" that he thought reminded him of me. Not because of the brilliance that he showed but because of the ADD nature of the speaker. I was blown away. Much more on my blog at My Daily TED.
Jeff Blankenburg called me out with his Software Development Meme. It's actually a funny thing that he did because I have a much different background than much of the industry. My undergrad is actually English with a minor in Drama and a minor in Communications. When others are talking about programming outside of the box, I ask the really simple question of "What box? - nobody told me about a box..."
More on my blog at Software Development Meme
As I've started writing about public speaking, I have started getting great questions that lead to more blog posts - keep those coming! I was talking to a fellow speaker (who can identify himself in the comments if he so chooses) and they brought up the fact that it's hard for them to prepare a demo. So I've tackled this tough issue on my blog at Doing a Demo while Public Speaking
In my ongoing series about public speaking, I'm writing about preparing for a presentation. Preparation is key in giving a great presentation. More on my blog at Prepare Yourself To Give a Great Talk.
This weekend I have the pleasure to participate in a very unique event called RIAPalooza. More on my blog at Riapalooza.
This is a conference that I'm not going to miss this year. At MIX08, Ray Ozzie laid out early glimpses of what we're going to see the rest of the year leading up to PDC. Not long after, the Live Mesh Community Technical Preview was released. It's the beginnings of the realization of Ray's S+S vision and the future direction of Microsoft.
More on my blog at PDC2008 Professional Developers Conference October 27-30, 2008