The MossyBlog Times Archives 2007 - 2009 : Community

Do we have one site too many?

scbarnes — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 08:06:56 GMT

In the past month if you’ve interacted with via twitter, email, facebook etc you’ve probably been asked by me “How many sites do you visit a week”.

I only ask is that I've got this theory or ill feeling that we at Microsoft are making far too many websites than we need to, but at this point it’s just a theory (i have no evidence or data to substantiate this theory either)

I’ve created some artist mockups of where I’d love to one day position Microsoft and the way in which we interact with the community and potential customers. It’s an ongoing project, one that I’m doing to provoke some new thinking inside the company, but first I at times need to pitch what I think the initial problem is. Have a look and tell me if you agree or disagree?

Slide 1 – What do all these sites have in common?

Slide 2 – They can be quite frustrating to discover and use?

Slide 3 – They require unnecessary persistence.

Slide 4 – They echo the same data at times ..at a rate that makes your head spin.

Slide 5 – They require you to think in multiple personalities.

Slide 6 – They all try and be different, but the end user is usually the same.

That’s the theory anyway. What do you think?

Belong to a Tribe, not a brand.

scbarnes — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 07:31:06 GMT

I often in my travels visit customers who at times present a behavior that at times i can only describe as blind faith towards Microsoft. I’m somewhat unnerved by that and it’s not because i think Microsoft isn’t worthy of faith, it’s more a long the lines of understanding the rules of engagement really. A quote I recently made to a colleague was:

Loyalty to a brand is misguided, as its assumed the brand is loyal to you

Being loyal to Microsoft blindly won’t yield you much, well, not that I can think of anyway. Being a fan of our products will, and it’s not simply because you’re looking to score brownie points with us, no, what it means is you’re more likely to be passionate about a given product(s) than most of the mainstream, so we in turn are likely to cross paths more than those who aren’t. As you present yourself as a fan, who doesn’t like listening to their fans?

Don’t however, follow a brand, follow a tribe. If you like .NET development cool, that’s a brand driven tribe, but i suspect you belong though to a separate niche of developer audience – say web developers unite.

Tribes are in many was a link to our primitive days, but the sense of belonging to a community is and can be rewarding. Provided the community is open to change or can tolerate new ideas. If all you do is sit in a room talking about the same old thing about the same technology, what is the reward other than summarized education?

The best user groups or conferences I've ever been to are the ones that have a mixed breed of developers / designers. You walk in not expecting a defined brand to dominate the discussion, instead it’s open and no conference / user group is ever the same.

I in turn learn more. I also feel like i actually belong to a tribe and not a brand, as for a brief moment – I'm not Microsoft. I’m Scott, the developer.

I don’t think of Microsoft as a tribe, I think of it as a brand, i however think of what we produce contributes to the creation and sustainability of many tribes.

SilverZine.com A Must Read.

scbarnes — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 08:18:13 GMT

Alex Knight a fellow Aussie, has kicked off an online site focused purely on helping designers navigate the trouble waters of Silverlight.

http://www.silverzine.com

To quote:

There is plenty of sites out there dedicated to developers and code related tutorials on how to build Silverlight applications but we wanted to create something specifically directed towards the graphically inclined

I’m hopeful about the project, as I think the market right now is perfectly conditioned to have a solution like this placed online.

I know personally I get inundated with lots of requests from customers of Silverlight asking for a lot of soft skills regarding Silverlight and design. Since I have both design & developer chops, i’ve somehow filled this need but I honestly don’t scale and am terrible in email responses.

Alex is and will be my defer point, and i’ll actively work to support this project from the sidelines.

Check it out, added it to your RSS feeds and please contribute!

http://www.silverzine.com

Where do I go to get the latest movements in Silverlight?

scbarnes — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 04:49:51 GMT

By rights you should be answering that question with sites like Silverlight.Net and if you're not getting that answer, my comments and inbox are wide open for your commentary as in the end our goal is to provide less friction as possible to ensuring you're kept up to speed on the ongoing's of Silverlight.

That being said, Wynapse's "Silverlight Cream" has a great list on what's happening in the overall Silverlight blogsphere. I've use blogs like these many times as it helps me keep track an eye on what problems are customers are facing in the wild (it's good to keep your best ear to the ground)

Silverlight Cream:
SilverlightCream.com

Remember, we don't know what we don't know so if we don't cover something you like, let us know today, so we can fix it tomorrow.

A community is defined by its actions.

scbarnes — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 09:58:32 GMT

I used to play World of Warcraft a lot, and my character lived in the Horde realm (therefore I was part of the Orc Community). I generally preferred to hang out at the Orc City (Origrammar) as to me that's where I belonged. That is until I began to think about online communities in general, in that why didn't I spend time at the Undercity - hanging out with the Undead? What about Thunderbluff where the tauren hung out?

Each type of character is assigned a city of origin and yet this is how I played the game. I logged in last night and went for a walk, and also noticed others following suite.

To me this strikes at the heart of something in which I've been wondering when it comes to Microsoft and it's respective competitors. How is it there is amount of people online right now telling the world why they hate Microsoft. That or why there is a degree of population also telling the world why Microsoft is better.

Answer, we belong to tribes, and at times we get stuck in just the one tribe. This is fine, but how did we arrive at such a point in time where some at times have ongoing tribe warfare mentality?

To illustrate, I at times feel like a Horde character walking into the Alliance realm. I need to at times pick my path carefully and above all keep a low profile as much as I can. Yet, every now and then I come across an alliance character and he/she will ponder - "do I pick a fight, should I pick a fight? should I try and extend the hand of peace?"

The ultimate sad part of all is why should someone from one community feel the need to apologise or defend his/her reasons for being apart of it? If you're a pro-Microsoft fanboi and wish to hang out in the Linux, Adobe, Apple, Mozilla community why must you defend your position?

A community isn't a gang, you can belong to many communities - i do. If you are looking to project your belief onto others and should they reject it, class them as ignorant or something else, then let me be the first to state out loud - you're a fool.

We say this a lot at Microsoft, this is not a zero sum game, and we mean it. Yes, Silverlight will exist and so will Flash, but in the end if we triple our install base and have majority of the world using Silverlight for whatever reason, Flash will also be used as it is today.

As you see, people have the ability of choosing and we or any other person can't force anyone to do anything they simply choose not to do. That is the ultimate power of the Internet, freedom to choose.

If you want to evangelise your chosen community do so, you have that choice but remember not to kick over the beehive to get honey, as eventually you'll get stung.

Ever read a book called Jennifer Government? it's so fictitious and yet so realistic sometimes it's scary.

Get behind the Expression Community Site.

scbarnes — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 08:33:37 GMT

I will admit one thing, we at Microsoft at times have a lot of online brands to cater to the Silverlight, WPF and Expression Studio ecosystem. There are a lot of moving parts to our UX Platform with events, communities etc all having niche requirements.

That being said, there is one that will bring balance back to the force, the new Expression Community Site.

This site is the rally point for all things related to Expression Studio, and if you're not a member yet, become one.

The future plans for this site are big and the team behind the site are working very hard to grow it further and make it into the "MSDN" for designers.

http://expression.microsoft.com/en-us/default.aspx

Why Chad is excited about Silverlight 2.0

scbarnes — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 07:08:12 GMT

I stumbled upon a post by Chad Campbell via my RSS reads (244 down, 9398 to go) and I enjoyed reading Chad's passion and insight into what he's thoughts are about the Silverlight 2.0 journey ahead.

Chad has also written or is writing a book on Silverlight 2.0, so be sure to keep an eye out for that.

This one piece made me feel warm and fuzzy inside. No, not because he read my post (that's 2 people now, mum and Chad) but because it provoked a discussion and that's what I love the most.

Your response to this question will probably determine where you fit on Scott Barnes' RIA Role Spectrum. Personally, I am slightly more to the developer side, however, I would definately consider myself an RIA Architect. Because of this, both aspects are important to me. So, when I'm asked "What is .NET?", I have to have a response that fits both sides of my personality (sounds like a frosted mini-wheats commercial). Well, I believe that .NET is about two and exactly two things.

The more I think lately the more given my role here at Microsoft is to spark adoption in RIA (in general) that my place on the RIA Role Spectrum is more "RIA Philosopher" than evangelist.. hmm.. might be another blog post ;)

http://cornucopia30.blogspot.com/2008/01/why-im-excited-about-silverlight-part-1.html

Nigel shows off our research goodies.

scbarnes — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 04:52:20 GMT

I see at times comments left on forums from folks whom have a beef with Microsoft that we don't innovate. One could respond with the things we do right or you could take a page out of Nigel Parker's book and simply put video where our keyboard is.

Nigel has a great video demo of all of our research goodies as well as present day technology. I was even finding items that I've not seen but didn't know we did.

It's well worth the viewing.

http://blogs.msdn.com/nigel/archive/2008/01/24/it-took-me-four-months-but-here-it-is-thirty-one-demos-in-thirty-nine-minutes.aspx

This is a perfect case of the Blue Monster campaign - Change the world or go Home.

MIX On Campus - Brisbane (QUT)

scbarnes — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 14:37:12 GMT

On Tuesday 20th, I'll be attending MIX On Campus, a concept that our Nicholas Ellery has single handedly worked his butt of to organise (well done Nick)

You can view more details here:

http://mixoncampus.spaces.live.com

This event will take place in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney (Note: Perth is still being discussed).

This is the agenda for Tuesday, if you are keen to pop by.

AGENDA (Brisbane)

9.00am REGISTRATION
10.00am Welcome Nick Ellery – Microsoft
10.10am Opening Keynote: The Future of the Web Bryn Giles – AIMIA / Qantm
11.00am Step Up – the Web Careers Session
11.45am BREAK
12.00pm Web 2.0 and other such Delights Chris Saad – Faraday Media
12.45pm Games Development Research Ross Brown – QUT
1.30pm LUNCH (Provided by Microsoft)
2.15pm Why you should Popfly Nick Hodge – Microsoft
2.45pm The Journey of the Light - the progression of Silverlight
Scott Barnes – Microsoft
3.15pm Closing Address and Giveaways Nick Ellery – Microsoft
3.30pm CLOSE

Web On The Piste (New Zealand).

scbarnes — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 04:48:40 GMT

I'll be attending and speaking at the first "Web On The Piste" in New Zealand next week. This is a conference being organized by both Straker and Gruden, two companies in which I've had a lot of positive dealings with over the years. It's shaping up to being hopefully a permanent fixture on my conference calendar going forward (that and the Queenstown Skiing surely helps the cause).

"..Web on the Piste is scheduled for the 22nd - 23rd of August , 2007 at the ultimate in venues, Queenstown, New Zealand. We are bringing world leaders in Rich Internet and associated technologies as speakers and instructors for 2 days of Flex, AJAX, SPRY, Apollo and Flash as well as covering server-side back end technologies such as ColdFusion, .Net, Java and PHP and some sessions on mobile based content delivery..."

I think I'll be both on a "Panel Discussion" and will talking about how one is able to re-use some of their Adobe Flex skill set with Silverlight (don't worry it won't be a political mess and It's targeted at those folks whom have *already* made the decision to try Microsoft Silverlight but have a Adobe Flex background).

I'm looking forward to meeting some of the New Zealand RIA folks who I met at WebDU early this year whilst also catching up with some of the Aussie Adobe Community folks as well.

Special warm thankyou goes towards Straker & Gruden for making some bold steps towards organising this event for the first time.

We gave birth to RIA.

scbarnes — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 23:32:45 GMT

Adobe's Mike Downey and I were throwing comments back and forth on twitter.com this morning, it was derived from Brad Becker (ex Flash Product guy @ Macromedia and now Microsoft staffer) post on RIA.

Brad posted this a few months ago when JD @ Adobe got all fired up over Rich Interactive Applications vs Rich Internet Applications. Adobe will argue until they are blue in the face that Microsoft are attempting to Hijack the term RIA and .. blah blah blah.

Honestly, whom named RIA (Microsoft or Adobe) has become irrelevant. If you look at the history of RIA overall, it's something that we have always hinted at but never could quite get there.

VRML for example would have to by far my earliest memory of the "RIA" concept. You have a rich 3D world in which you can interact with, but of course in the late 1990's there was only so much you could do in terms of client-to-server side interaction.

In 2000, I remember seeing Erik's attempt at WebOS.com, which was by far the earliest iteration of RIA / AJAX I've seen. You may know of Erik today as one of the brains behind Google Gears, WebFX and Bindows.NET

I was working on Billabong's website's in 2000, when I first started to use Flash + Remote Servers, but it was with Flash 5 and all I could do was bring in variables remotely via PARAM or URL string. RIA was my intent but couldn't execute.

I've been on the Macromedia ride ever since, but like all the previous iterations of "RIA" it just hasn't been executed. There have been success stories of RIA working today, but it hasn't changed the landscape and I say this as if it has we wouldn't be seeing AJAX. There is no need for AJAX if "FLASH" RIA were to succeed? one cancels out the other and many have argued this case.

Silverlight and Flash Player are advanced, no question in this but both Adobe and Microsoft can't own RIA because it's realistically an idea or belief that was first formed many years ago and whilst Adobe will have you believe they are the founders of RIA, they simply built a campaign around it.

It's like saying AJAX is owned by Jesse James Garrett or he invented AJAX? (he did? I'm sure Google and Microsoft both had a large role to play in this, Microsoft with XmlHttpRequest and Google in its mainstream use).

We the community are the ones whom own RIA, not Microsoft or Adobe. They simply enable and market the idea of what RIA should be.

OzSilverlight Discussion List takes form.

scbarnes — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 22:57:00 GMT

The folks at Readify.com have formed a mailing list titled "OzSilverlight". It's something in which I'll obviously be heavily involved if as life in the realms of Silverlight continue.

It's gotten off to a great initial start and if you want access to it, then simply flick an email to:

listserver@ozsilverlight.com?subject=subscribe with the subject "subscribe"

I love this kind of community grass roots creativity.

Catchup time..

scbarnes — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 02:52:50 GMT

It's been a while since I last updated my blog but this is what has happened since I last posted:

My Role within Microsoft just became much clearer, in that I have a renewed focus on what I am to achieve in the upcoming fiscal year and ideas on how to do this. This came from an intense 2 weeks of FY08 planning and majority of my focus is going to be on Microsoft community. Think of me as your friendly Web Developer Evangelist and more on that will follow as I plant some more seeds around Microsoft ;)
Currently sitting in Orlando, Florida soaking in the sunlight and tropical humidity that which is the home of Disney World. My hotel is Buena Vista Palace, which is awesome as it's across the road from Disney Market Place. Think of the most cheesy theme park you've ever visited and now imagine an entire suburb of this.
I've been able to put in some more hours behind some pet projects that I started in FY07 but due to time never got around to finishing. Given I've got a fresh start, I'll be more focused on punching out some demo examples as this is one thing I really failed with in FY07.
I found religion. It's name was Tranformers and I saw a giant sized version of this made out of lego this morning. I didn't have my camera but I will post a followup post on this as it has to be documented.
I'm working with folks internally to polish up a lot of things, namely my presentation skills need more work (I suck, I'm more of quietly scheming guy) and also looking to get some more consolidation around Microsoft properties online. Personally I think we are very disparate and we need to pull our socks up if we want to ensure we are relevant going forward. So, I am campaigning as hard as I can to take the fight to the places it needs fighting.

That's pretty much it, my focus is well - community, community, community...

In Perth.

scbarnes — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 11:09:17 GMT

I arrived in Perth last night and spent most of this afternoon walking around for a bit of a wonder, to check out the CBD and try and absorb as much of Perth as I can (First time here).

I also had the pleasure of meeting up with some of the local User Group leads and we touched on how Microsoft could do better in this part of the region. It left me walking away with a number of ideas that I'll unpick when I get back home next week and see what can be done to do more in this part of the region.

That being said, I was impressed at how switched on these guys were, and their approach by appearance seems to be very focused around driving more awareness around Microsoft's offering through deeper community involvement.

I'm also going to be at Perth Barcamp this Saturday and looking forward to seeing what the Perth Web community has been up to in person, and it looks like a fantastic line-up. I'll be doing my rant on Silverlight and I've worked on a brand new presentation to spice it up a bit more as I got some great feedback on my Spiderman vs Batman (with Yoda) decks at WebJam.

The key for me is to have fun, relax, geek-out with some coders & designers and look at ways in which Microsoft can contribute more to the overall community.

I love my job.