Are You Going to MIX10?

Are you Canadian and going to the MIX10 Conference?

If you’re going to MIX10, let me know, either in the comments or via email. A number of us from Microsoft Canada will be there and we’d love to catch up with you!

Among the Canadian contingent going to Vegas are:

• Gladstone Grant, Developer and Platform Evangelism Lead
• Allan Hoffman, ISV Group Manager
• Paul Laberge, Web Platform Evangelist
• John Oxley, Director, Audience Marketing and my manager
• Mark Relph, Senior Director, Windows Ecosystem (and former Developer and Platform Evangelism Lead)
• Jamie Wakeam, ISV Architect Evangelist
• Yours Truly, Joey deVilla, Developer Evangelist and guy with accordion

Hope to see you there!

What is MIX10?

MIX10 is the 2010 edition of MIX, Microsoft’s most “right-brained” conference. Its area of focus is on the web and other technologies that aren’t the desktop, which is traditionally where Microsoft “lives”, as well as on design, usability, information architecture and user experience. Silverlight made its first appearance here, under the less-wieldy name of WPF/E (“WPF Everywhere”), as have improved versions of Internet Explorer. Expect some interesting stuff at MIX this year!

Here’s a list of the topics that will be covered at MIX10:

The Full Monty on Windows Phone Development

Glaringly absent from yesterday’s Windows Phone 7 Series announcement made at Mobile World Conference in Barcelona was the “how”: that is, how do you develop apps for Windows Phone 7?

That question will be answered at MIX10 (March 15th – 17th in Las Vegas) in a number of ways.

If you go to MIX10, you will get the following:

• Access to a track dedicated to Windows Phone 7 Series platform
• An introduction to Windows Phone 7 Series’ development platform
• Tutorials on how to work with the Windows Phone 7 Series’ development tools
• A tour of the Windows Phone Marketplace
• And last – but certainly not least -- access to the Windows Phone 7 Series developer tools!

The Hallway Opportunity

I’ve always believed that one of the marks of a good conference is the hallway. By “hallway”, I’m talking about the opportunities to meet people in those times and places between and after sessions. There’s something to meeting people in person that you don’t get online; hence the often-used saying “you had to be there”. MIX promises to have good hallway, partly because of the Microsoft teams who’ll be presenting some interesting new stuff and partly because the crowd is going to be a mixed bag of developer types, designer types and the type of people who like to straddle both worlds (I like to think of myself in that category).

Go!

MIX10 takes place at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas, from Monday, March 15th through Wednesday, March 17th. If you register before February 21st, you’ll get a $200 discount off the MIX10 admission fee. Do it now!

[This article also appears in Global Nerdy.]