Ok, so that was a pretty geeky title, but somehow seems appropriate for my first blog entry. This is just a quick post to say hello, so here goes ...

Hello, I'm Neil Kidd; I work for Microsoft in the UK as an Architect in the Microsoft Technology Centre (MTC). As part of this role, I get to work with a wide variety of our customers and partners across a very broad spectrum of Microsoft Technologies. Most of this work is done as two different engagements; the Architectural Design Session (ADS) and a Proof of Concept (POC).

Basically, when a customer is looking to develop a new application on some of Microsoft's latest technology we will do a 2 day ADS to review and advise what technologies are useful. If the ADS shows that there is a good match between our technology and the customer's requirements, we will look to do a 3 week POC. The POC is basically a 3 week dev cycle where we will create a team of developers and, if there is a lot of UI work, designers from Microsoft, the customer and some of our partner organisations. During this 3 week period we will develop a prototype application that should prove/disprove the applicability of the technology to meet the requirements. What that actually means for me is that I have to Architect, dev lead and project manage this "Sprint". Needless to say this can be quite an intense experience! Needless to say, during these POCs,we learn a lot about the technologies that we use and I'm planning on sharing that via this blog.

Anyway, that's me and I hope that you find this blog interesting.

Neil