So my meetings in Europe continue...

I was in Munich from around 8:30 AM until 6:30 PM flying in from Paris and out to Warsaw the same day. Minor case of the sniffles showing up.

The German team was a lot of fun. Again, I'm just floored at the level of understanding in the subsidiaries -- well ahead of most of Redmond. I was feeling so good about the whole thing I shared the definition of community we'd come up with and have been working against for a couple of years now. I've blogged about it before. I usually don't bring it up, eyes just glaze over and attention wanders. I've learned to keep it out of the conversation unless it's clear we just can't make progress otherwise. 

Anyway, these guys are all over it sharing examples I hadn't considered, mapping it to opensource development scenarios, and generally expounding with gusto. They immediately understood the idea of helping people into weak-tie communities and why that was so important. Anyway, all we needed was a few pilsners and a little more time and I suspect we'd have made the news. Oh well, next time. 

The other thing they're into is the local Codezone site. It seems the site is due for some renovations, and so we're talking about incorporating some of the community services into the mix.

Very cool.