We at Microsoft have just finished our Fiscal 2007 year at the end of June, and needless to say, the months leading up to that completion were a bit busy.

In my last post, I wrote about the Financial Services Developer Conference that was about to take place in April at the Grand Hyatt in NYC.  The conference was a HUGE success with over 400 attendees and a number of customer and partner speakers (keynotes, breakouts, etc..).  I spoke a few times myself and even in spite of that...things still went well.  :)

In May I had the opportunity to deliver the Keynote speech at the Linedata User Group Conference in Palm Beach, FL.  There were approximately 200 people in attendance and the topic was how user experience is changing the face of business applications.  I covered WPF, Vista, Office 2007 and Silverlight, but additionally laid out the case of WHY user experience (UX) is SO important in software development (hmmm, perhaps I'll write a post on that)...

June brought a Financial Services conference by Forrester that focused on UX in Financial Services (right up my alley!).

The next few months will be crazy with travel; Orlando in July for a global Microsoft meeting, Seattle right after that, then back to Florida in August for an offsite meeting.  The venues are great, my company of peers are always fun and you can't beat the locations!  :)

I will definitely be writing MUCH more this summer.  Allan Da Costa Pinto (blog here) actually threw down the gauntlet and challenged me to write about Silverlight in Financial Services with some specifics...that was months ago, but Allan - I accept your challenge!! 

As I unbury myself from email that accumulated while on vacation last week, I will plan on writing several blogs over the next few weeks.  I hope you all will keep me honest and hold me to it (the FEW of you that actually read my blog!).

Have a great summer everyone and looking forward to a fantastic FY '08!

jc