Even the New Year, astronomically, is nothing more than a formal start of a new circle of one globe around another bigger and glowing one – I’d like to wish to all passengers of this smaller globe (and specifically those who read my blog) all the best in this trip! :)

This year was challenging, but very interesting! And interesting it was because of you, my dear friends and colleagues!

I wish you all a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year!

Whatever you’re celebrating or just going to celebrate – all the best wishes from the team and myself personally! This is the first holidays season for me in this role and the area.. and you know what? Each and every day I’m getting something new and interesting from the community – this is the best New Year gift, but all the year long :) Thank you very much! Happy holidays!

P.S. Sharing the postcard that my friends from Russia sent me :)

Is Windows Server a complex product? Of course it is! But with Silverlight Deep Zoom you can explore it through 1 poster :) Click here to see that super-cool poster - http://seadragon.com/view/hid

Got another portion of eye-opening questions this week. Our MVPs and User Group leaders asked me few times – how can we get content and support for running our local events?

Just 1 click away - Community Launch. What is the Community Launch? Content + trainings + some free goodies available for your events directly from Microsoft Corp. Sometimes we don't do a good job informing the community about what we have for you..But we’re committed to improve!

More over, right now User Group Support Services (UGSS) is working on improvements to the UGSS to make this a more valuable tool for you. My friends in Corp are collecting feedback from UG leads and MVPs on what exact type of support is more valuable for you:

1. Do you need more offline content?
2. Do you need more free goodies and souvenirs?
3. Do you need some speakers?
4. …

Just let me and corp guys know about it by responding on this very simple survey at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/VG5ZQWN by 4th of Jan 2010!

Ok, I confess I just a newbie in Yahoo Pipes. But due to unstoppable desire to introduce you to other Microsoft colleagues who are online on their blog and twits I created 2 pipes that could be useful for you:

1. Microsoft Middle East and Africa Bloggers Feed
2. Microsoft Middle East and Africa Twitters Feed

You may want to subscribe for those to stay in direct touch with Microsoft employees across Middle East and Africa Region. I understand that Press Releases could be more slick, politically correct and really have less grammar mistaikez, but if you want to know what real MSFTees are about these days – you can just be in touch with them directly.

And yes, I really proud that I work with all of those people behind URLs, RSSs, twits and posts.

Do you know other MS guys who are not in these feed yet? Thanks for sharing their contacts with me!