From the comments (thank you) I received from the community about the changes we are making to User Group support, it's obvious that Brazil has been a shining example as to how we should do this.
The purpose of this post is to allow the Brazilian user group leaders to define what exactly it is that has worked well for them.
If you are in the Brazilian user group community, please comment here and let me know what has been so good about your experiences....
As you may know, I'm a senior marketing manager at Microsoft and I focus on technical communities and how Microsoft can support them better. I want to give everyone a heads-up on some important changes we are making in conjunction with Culminis which are designed to bring improvements across the board in how Microsoft supports user groups and how user groups and their members interact with Microsoft.
First, let me make it clear: Microsoft regards the “grass roots” User Groups as a core community in the development and delivery of our business software and development tools. No community is more important. We engage with literally millions of User Group members around the world on an ongoing basis. This gives us invaluable insights into what IT Professionals and Developers really want and really think. That, in turn, helps give you great software and resources, not to mention great times at events like TechEd!
We are always thinking about how to improve the ways we work with and support communities around the world. In that light, we are excited about some changes we’re making with Culminis that I believe will help the community tremendously. I’d love to hear what you think, so please comment away…
Culminis has been a tireless champion of the IT Pro community for several years now. INETA has done the same for the developer but with a purely volunteer organization. We think that each model has its benefits, and together with the Culminis management team we have decided to make the following specific changes: -
- Culminis will become a volunteer-based organization, very similar to INETA, with regional boards.
- The initial board appointments will be selected by Microsoft and the Culminis company.
- The initial board will be in place for only one year, and will then be replaced by members elected by the community.
- Microsoft will directly provide the following “core services,” many of which are currently delivered by Culminis.
- Event Support
- Community Development
- Content Delivery
- User Group recognition and reporting
- Newsletter support.
- The core services will be available to the new volunteer Culminis community and INETA as well as other associations such as PASS. We think this is particularly advantageous to the community as a whole, as it ensures that Microsoft support is available to all User Groups and not just IT Pro groups.
These are some fairly significant changes, and they aren't all going to happen overnight - we expect it to take a couple of months or more before the new structure is fully in place. Please watch this blog for updates as things progress!
And don't forget - I really do want your feedback on this - please feel free to either add a comment to this blog or to email me directly at graham.watson@microsoft.com
I've been at Microsoft for 15 years now. A lot of things have changed in that time, for example the whole social network thing, blogs - heck even to some extent the internet.... But with the benefit of hindsight, I wonder how much of it couldn't have been predicted? For example: -
- Current machines seem incredible when you compare them with what was available 15 years ago. Their size, power, functionality and cost would all have amazed me in 1993. But really, it's just the effect of Mores law in action, and that was well known in 1993.
- The web is something that at first glance would never have been expected, but 15 years ago, although most people were either not online at all or were using BBS systems over modems, the internet did exist - I was using it at Xerox - as did the work of Tim Berners-Lee which really started the whole thing off. Although what the web turned into would have been hard to imagine in 1993, it's not so hard to see it in retrospect.
- The pervasiveness of computing is to my mind one of the REAL changes - 15 years ago, computers were really only used by businesses and geeks. Now they are everywhere, everyone has one*, and everyone uses one to stay conencted socially. For example, my daughter spends her entire life (it seems) text messaging her friends on her mobile phone. Compare everything about that scenario, including the size of the device, it's connectivity, the fact that all her friends are also texting each other with what the world was like 15 years ago... But again, these are all largely incremental changes, with a clear path from 1993 to 2008.
- The merging of entertainment with computing is also an interesting trend, and perhaps less obvious in retrospect than most of the above - but again, once you add in the digitization of media, it's fairly simple to connect the dots from the cassette walkman of 1993 to the Zune of today, and even the VCR to the Media Center.
- A change which I think is likely to cause real problems in the years to come is the perception of the computer industry as a whole. 15 years ago it was still considered to be an exciting career, but I think that is changing now, and this is born out by the reduction in the numbers of students taking IT related courses in university. Given the overall changes in demographics as well, we may be in for a rough time as far finding the IT skills needed to run the world!
So, after a quick look back at the last 15 years, what could we reasonably say could change in the next 15? Here are a few thoughts from me - I'd be interested to hear what you think?
- Perhaps we might get to the point of a single "ID Card" - one card on which you can keep all the info you need, and which can be used to replace all the cards currently sat in your wallet (go on - count them!), your passport, your access to computers etc. I can see some people wanting this as an embedded chip, but I think the majority would still not be happy with the required surgery or even injection. Of course, this would require real advances in security over today, where issues are in the news all the time - even though usually caused by human error.
- Ubiquitous computing is a possibilty - at least the ability to walk up to any computer anywhere and get access to your information, files etc. Of course this requires significant progress on a number of areas, but I don't see anything needed which would require technological miracles.
- There has been recent talk of dramatically increasing the capacity of batteries. Add inductive charging to this, and perhaps we can at last past the tyranny of the power cord?
- The web is obviously going to get bigger, better, faster, more accessible and just cooler. I'm waiting for FIOS where I live, but in some parts of the world it appears that they are jumping straight to wireless (cell phones) without stringing up loads of copper. I can see the web and the personal computer melding into a single system where logic and data sits wherevere makes best sense, and the user (and possibly even the developer) doesn't really care. Again imagine being able to go to any machine and do anything you need to.
- As far as social is concerned, I think this is one area where that are still real opportunites for development. To take a really bad example, think of the Borg from StarTrek. Completely connected to each other. Now take a better example - you've got a widget you don't want anymore, and would happily give it to someone else if you could only find them or have a question which you don't even know how to go about finding the answer to. Imagine simply being able to say "Does anyone want my widget" or "What's the meaning of life" and the systems would find the right person to talk to. No more advertising on eBay or Craiglist and just hoping that the right person is actively searching for your widget during a one week period, no more trowing questions out on odd forums, resulting in long discussions on if the meaning of life really is 42 or not....
Anyway - a few random thoughts from me - what do YOU think will change in the next 15 years?
* Actually, "everyone has one" is a complete lie! It may be largely true in the developed world, but the truth is that over 30% of the earths population still doesn't even have access to electicity, never mind computers.
I just watched a really cool video that the Vista team I used to be a part of (I've got a long and checkered career!) put together. Featuring Mark Russinovich (you DO know who he is, right?) and several other "names" from the industry, there are lots of good tips and food for thought, especially if you are in the middle of or about to start any scale of VIsta deployment.
This video (https://ms.istreamplanet.com/events/event.asp) is highly recommended, and well worth an hour of your day!
It's not all about Windows Server, Vista, Office, VIsual Studio. We also make some pretty cool things that affect your average consumer. I really can't understand why we don't run more adverts like this -
http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsmobile/archive/2008/03/02/microsoft-video-your-digital-lifestyle-girl-from-mars.aspx
Great song as well, although I must admit I'm not too sure about the bright green cardigan!
I've just been building a new server so I can play with Windows Server 2008 and associated goodies. Brand new motherboard, only been on the market a couple of months at most. No, I'm not going to say which one. I decided to upgrade the BIOS, as I've heard of processor related issues with anything other the latest version. I go to the manufacturers web site and find the BIOS, read the instructions and it turns out that the only way to update the BIOS is from DOS - either a floppy or FAT hard disk. WHAT? When are we going to get to the stage that I can do BIOS updates from CD or even better USB key. The floppy has had its day - it's about time to put it behind us!
By the way, I then decided to update the BIOS on my RAID controller card. Floppy only again. :-(
The dev teams signed off on Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista SP1 this morning. Now all they need to do is make millions of shiny silver disks....I guess there will be a few people "worse for wear" from the celebrations later on this week.
There is a PILE of training material available here - http://www.microsoft.com/learning/windowsserver2008/default.mspx - including free courses and discounted books.
Now that it's just about to RTM, it may be time to start investigating what's new in Windows Server 2008, if you haven't done so already. I mentioned a few days ago about Self-Healing NTFS, but you can find a comprehensive list of the new functionality in TechNet here. A few items to wet your appetite: -
- Server Core
- Various Active Directory roles such as Certificate Services, Domain Services, Federation Services...
- Network Policy and Access
- Powershell
- ... and much more....
Tech Ed season starts right now - this is only for the US TechEd, but the others will be spinning up shortly - The Birds of a Feather sessions and TechEd connect let you participate and contribute rather than simply listen...
Birds-of-a-Feather Sessions – Submit at topic idea today!
Birds-of-a-Feather (BOF) sessions are open discussions on developer and IT topics of mutual interest to Tech·Ed attendees. They give Tech·Ed attendees the opportunity to meet with people of similar interests and challenges in an open-forum environment that promotes discussion and interaction.
Anyone planning to attend Tech·Ed Developers who is willing to moderate a discussion is encouraged to enter a BOF topic by completing the survey on the submission page. Discussion topics submitted are then reviewed by INETA, and the best are made available for everyone to vote on at the BOF voting site. The discussion topics receiving the most votes are then considered for sessions at Tech·Ed 2008 Developers.
Anyone planning to attend Tech·Ed IT Professionals who is willing to moderate a discussion is encouraged to enter a BOF topic by completing the survey on the submission page. Discussion topics submitted are then reviewed by Culminis (IT user groups) and the best are made available for everyone to vote on at the BOF voting site. The discussion topics receiving the most votes are then considered for sessions at Tech·Ed 2008 IT Forum.
Tech·Ed Connect – Opt in after you register!
The innovative and intuitive Tech·Ed Connect lets those registered for Tech·Ed 2008 proactively network before, during, and after the conference with speakers, Microsoft staff, partners, and other attendees. After you register, opt in to Tech·Ed Connect and create an online profile, and then use the matching, searching, and visualization tools to find and engage others with similar interests or professions, both virtually and in person at the conference. Don’t forget to add your picture!
As I'm sure you know, everyone at Microsoft spends all day writing code for our large number of products - at least 1000 lines of C++ a day each. Not! Like most large organizations, most of us spend large portions of the day in various meetings and so forth. As we are such a large and global company, most of these meetings have at least a few people who dial in to a conference call. I've just seen a video some people from Microsoft put together which I think will give you all a good idea of how my average day goes.... Check it out here -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUSJiI4L5lw
As an IT Pro of sorts, I should have known better! I have a server at home on which I keep all my important stuff - in particular thousands of pictures going back years and years. All this stuff is on a RAID 5 array. A few months ago a drive failed, and whilst replacing it I somehow or ever managed to trash another drive - or perhaps it was due to fail anyway. Anyway, a RAID 5 array is just a set of blank disks once two drives from the array have failed, so everything was lost. Fortunately, I'd sent a DVD with all the critical stuff over to my father in the UK for safe keeping and also so he had access to all our pictures etc. Of course, it was several months out of date, but by getting the DVD back, looking on the various memory cards from the cameras and grubbing through various machines and email accounts, I managed to get just about everything back.
This little lesson made me think though - and now I'm much more rigorous about backup at home - the sort of planning any business would (hopefully) go through, I've now done at home. For reference, here is how I protect my systems at home...
- All PC's use Windows backup to backup to a share on my server.
- The share is on a RAID 5 array.
- Every month I copy the critical data (not the backups) onto DVDs and store them "offsite" - out of my home.
- I've also signed up for an automatic "over the internet" backup service (www.carbonite.com) so that I've always got the latest data squirreled away just in case... There are a number of these services available from different companies, for me this seemed to be the cheapest reliable service, but if you want to do this I'd spend a little time looking around for yourself.
Of course this does still leave me with a few holes - for example, I run an Exchange server (just for my family and just to keep my hand in) and Carbonite isn't going to help back that up, and it also doesn't back up videos and files over 4Gb in size unless you force it to do each one.
Home Server is obviously a better solution for the average home, with it's automated backup and "put in a CD and walk away" recovery, but for those of us that just aren't happy until we have a full server rack in an air-conditioned room at home with Active Directory, SQL Server, Exchange Server, SharePoint ....
Peter Eberhardy, a Microsoft colleague just made an excellent point - it's also very important to regularly check your backup process is working properly by performing a restore on the odd file or two. I'd even go to the extreme of performing a full bare metal disaster recovery if I could, but I don't have enough hardware lying around for this....
There are so many cool things in Windows Server 2008 it's hard to keep up with them! I just found out about the Self Healing file system ... http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/library/6f883d0d-3668-4e15-b7ad-4df0f6e6805d1033.mspx?mfr=true
From the documentation - "The file system is always available, NTFS corrects all detected problems while the system is running, and Chkdsk.exe does not have to run in its exclusive mode except in extreme conditions."
I'm not sure I want to deliberately check this out on my "production" server I have at home, but I'll definitely keep an eye out to see if it even kicks in.
I've been playing with Visual C# 2008 Express Edition, writing a little gizmo to allow me to bulk add organizers to Live Meeting. I'm REALLY impressed with this tool - especially considering that it's free. You do need to register after a couple of weeks to keep using it, but there is no money involved. In addition to the tool set itself, there is incredible support available online.
You could probably learn C# (or Visual Basic or C++) from scratch using the stuff that's available here. For example, I'd never worked with programmatically sending and receiving XML before, nor had I done anything programmatic with Live Meeting. However, one week later I've got working code, and I'm anything but a professional developer.
If you have any interest at all in programming, check out Visual Studio Express at http://www.microsoft.com/express/product/default.aspx
So my readers (Hi kids!) may have noticed that I've not posted a single thing for weeks. I've been on a grand tour of Europe, trying to get a better understanding of the state of the community space in Europe. Over the last few weeks I've visited Barcelona (for TechEd Dev/IT Pro), Moscow, Paris, Reading and Amsterdam, and have met with both the local Microsoft community people and more importantly some of the user group leaders within each country. I've learned a lot, had many things confirmed and also had a few surprises - for example it appears that the way the Developer and IT Pro communities work is very different to each other in France - not unexpected - but that the same communities work exactly the other way round in Germany. Over the next couple of weeks I'll post on some of the key factors relating to the community, and I'll also talk about some of the plans I have,
As a starting point, one of the things we are working with Culminis to do is to find local volunteers to become a countries contact point. These people will get to work very closely with the local Microsoft community folk, and will be drawn from the Culminis user group leaders in that country. If this sounds like you, contact Culminis and let them know you might be interested.
By the way, I've just started to use Windows Live Writer to post blog entries. It's a free download from live.com, and from what I can see so far it's very adaptable to different blog engines, makes writing a post as easy as writing an email, and works offline (I'm currently sat in Amsterdam airport without a wireless connection, and will actually publish this when I get back to Seattle). Oh - a complete aside - I saw a billboard on the way into the airport which says that Schiphol itself employs over 50,000 people. Wow! Microsoft only employs about 80,000 worldwide!
