TechNet Webcast Weblog : Fun Stuff

Aloha TechNet Webcasts and Virtual Labs

technetwebcasts — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 23:09:00 GMT

The one thing constant at Microsoft is change and this past year has seen a lot of change on the Webcast/Virtual Lab team. After many years of stability managing the TechNet Webcast program, Dean Andrews moved to a new emerging media position and Katheryn Baker took the helm. After just a few months Katheryn moved over to MSDN and I took over as the TechNet Webcast/Podcast/Virtual Lab guy. Well, after four short months we're shaking things up again and I'll be moving over the take over the MSDN online media program and Anthony Tsim will be taking over my role in TechNet.

When I took over this blog in May, I laid down a manifesto to help revamp how users consume our media. I wanted to help improve our programs' discoverability, usability and ease of getting into our resources (ie. registration). I'm happy to report we're making advances on all fronts, although they may not be visible quite yet. On discoverability, we added keyword search capability to the "Find Events and Webcasts" link at the top of the left column of our landing pages. That was a no brainer but if you only knew what it took just to get that. The other two are high on our priority list and hope to have some tangible results within the next few months including a wider a variety of online media.

So I'll be picking things up on the developer side of things. Thanks for tuning in.

Scott Lum

Thailand Students Win Imagine Cup

technetwebcasts — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 18:25:00 GMT

Imagine Cup, the world’s premier competition for technology students, gives students the chance to unlock their creative genius and build solutions that tackle real-world issues facing society today.This year's Imagine Cup had 100,000 students from 100 countries participating in this software design competition. The 55 software design finalist teams created applications using the Microsoft platform and Microsoft tools based on the Imagine Cup competition theme: “Imagine a world where technology enables a better education for all.”

“Imagine Cup provides a forum for university students around the world to explore new ways to use the power of software to help address some of the world’s toughest problems,” said Craig Mundie, chief research and strategy officer at Microsoft. “The high caliber of the students and their projects is an indication of their potential to become great business and technology leaders, and a hint at how a new generation of innovations can have a lasting and transformative impact on education and beyond.”

Next year's Imagine Cup will be in France. Imagine Cup home: http://imaginecup.com/Default.aspx

Microsoft Press Pass: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2007/aug07/08-10ImagineCupWinnersPR.mspx

Imagine Cup Promotional Video - Soapbox: http://soapbox.msn.com/video.aspx?vid=fde1c7fa-59c8-4cba-ba4b-10e3d87190a5

Scott Lum

3D View of a NASA Space Shuttle and Launch Site - Microsoft Photosynth

technetwebcasts — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 23:43:00 GMT

Microsoft just announced a collaborative work with NASA to create a 3-D photo experience using a product under development called Photosynth: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/326453_software06.html. Photosynth takes a collection of photographs and stitches them together for a rich, immersive environment. Check out the Space World site which is created in conjunction with NASA, Microsoft Live Labs and MSNBC: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20098402/

There are a bunch of other Photosynch collections worth checking out including a Britain in Pictures: BBC Collection, Gyeongbokgung - a South Korean Temple, Piazza San Marco, Venice, Grassi Lakes in the Canadian Rockies, Gary Faigin Art Studio and Piazza San Pietro, Rome.

As a photographer, I love this stuff! The engaging experience that Photosynth brings to the site is almost as good as being there live - and in many cases it's even better. I've always preferred a good photograph to video because of how it freezes time and tells a story of how the photographer interpreted the moment. Photosynth brings all of these moments together and tells a story and the high resolution images let me explore details that I might otherwise have missed if I was there in person.

I could go on and on about all of the cool things you can discover on with Photosynth but it’s something you’ve just got to check out for yourself.

Happy exploring.

Scott Lum

Farewell George - MSDN Webcast Guru

technetwebcasts — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 03:48:00 GMT

I'm a month late but I wanted say farewell to George Pulikkathara who has been the MSDN Webcast Marketing Manager for the past six years: http://blogs.msdn.com/msdnwebcasts/archive/2007/06/30/good-bye-george-msdn-webcasts-guy-hello-george-mcp-community-guy.aspx . You may be familiar with George who supported the MSDN Webcast Blog, but you may not have known that he was one of the original creators of the Webcast team in the US Marketing team. There had been several groups at Microsoft creating ad hoc Webcasts and George and a few others decided to consolidate the Webcast engine into a single group. Over the past six years, the team has created over 5000 Webcasts between IT Pro and Developers. The team has since grown to include other media such as Podcasts and hands-on Virutal Labs.

George has done a bunch for the Webcast team but my favorite is the creation of the MSDN Webcast Guy. It started off as a single foam character with a red cape. The program has since grown to seven characters as part of the Source Fource: http://msdn.microsoft.com/events/hero/. If you were at TechEd for the past couple of years you may have seen the life size characters roaming the floor and you may even have picked one up at the Webcast station.

George has moved on to promoting the Microsoft Certified Professional program in Microsoft Learning. Best wishes on your new position George. We'll miss you in Webcast land.

Scott Lum