The MossyBlog Times Archives 2007 - 2009 : Me

I have moved to RIAGENIC.com

scbarnes — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 04:40:09 GMT

Just in case you haven’t realised by the big “images” above, that I’ve now moved over to RIAGENIC.com Click here: http://www.riagenic.com I’ve enjoyed my life at Microsoft Australia and Headquarters and look forward to heading back home to Australia,...(read more)

I hereby resign from Microsoft.

scbarnes — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 05:51:00 GMT

Some internal staff and trusted close friends have known for some time, but I’ve resigned from Microsoft as a Rich Platforms Product Manager. It was a decision that i made simply due to the fact that I just wanted to be home, and as much as the experience...(read more)

Must fight urge to do "year in review 2008" post.

scbarnes — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 09:16:09 GMT

Look, I have lots of regrets and at the same time I have heaps of wins, above all, I did what I could, and where it counted the most.

Going forward, I just want to spend more time working with .NET developers & designers whom want to succeed in WPF & Silverlight more than before.

Twitter me, email me, leave a comment, show me what you're doing with these two platforms of UX. I want to listen to your pain, anger, annoyances all negative emotions around the product - but - i also want to hear how it's saved your bacon.

As I miss talking to the customer 1:1 as I find way more value in that than talking to a fellow blue budge on theories of where we could go next with this platform of choice.

To my Adobe readers, I simply say this. We are approaching Silverlight's 3rd birthday soon, 3 years and we've changed the world and done more for the RIA movement than most in your realm give us credit for. I think it's time we push forward with the next phase, sharks with lazer beams in all runtimes.

You know it's the killer feature most requested, and first runtime to take the hill, wins ;) heh

Good luck in 2009, and keep us all honest and keep the wishlist / requests, they are NOT going ignored!

I get to ride the pony now (new toy).

scbarnes — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 07:42:04 GMT

Living in the US vs Australia has one standout plus, the cars over here are so damn cheap that it makes me angry to think I'm paying almost double to triple for the same models back home.

That being said, I decided my birthday is coming up in October, figured why not get myself a new toy.

I've always wanted a mustang back home and they are worth a mint - eg: Ford Mustang GT (USED) back home you're looking in the ball park of 94k AUD (77k USD).

Here in the US, it's what 15k-30k depending in mileage so far and age?

I also test-drove a few Porsche's and to be openly honest, I wasn't over the moon about them. In that, I set out this morning to buy one and it was only after I got in them and drove around I realize that they aren't that exciting? That and the dealers I spoke to for one of them, just annoyed me to no end (half of them were indifferent to you or the actual car was "in the shop" wtf?).

I guess I'm now the proud owner of one of the most popular selling cars in America, the Mustang.

P.S

I got the "you get to ride the pony" after Mike Harsh once said that to me before giving me a lift into town in his mustang. I still think it's a funny expression :)

Related Post:

New Car..

New Car..

scbarnes — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 02:17:25 GMT

A bit of a personal milestone here, basically we bought a car for the family today. It's a Ford Edge and I think it looks like an angry little "mongrel" of a thing... kind of reminds of this little stocky pit fighting machine for some reason.

It's for the kids etc, as the next toy will be a Cayman S Porsche. Just need to bring some of my Aussie cashflow over to the US first.

Special thanks to the Amazing Autowoman for sourcing the purchase. She got me a great deal - as Frank also got one a while back - and it was above what we asked for and for less price!

Word of mouth is good advertising! (she has figured out some great Microsoft discounts as well)

I have arrived..

scbarnes — Tue, 20 May 2008 09:02:11 GMT

Just arrived to my new home in Seattle. The apartment Microsoft have provided is quite nice actually, roomy, warm and with a nice fast cable modem to cap it all off.

We spent some time prior to arriving in Seattle at Disneyland (Highly recommend folks avoid weekends - I should know better, but it was a schedule thing).

It was great to see Corey interact with all the Disney characters he's been watching on the idiot box for quite some time. The biggest hit for him was when he finally got to see Lightning McQueen (PIXAR).

He was grinning from ear to ear.

Next week I finally move into my new office at Redmond, and it's a nice hurdle to finally jump as there have been many delays to getting us here.

Next, writing a list of items to fill the new house, starting with Computer, TV and Microwave.

p.s

To all my fellow US Citizens what the heck is up with Corn Syrup being in everything. It's an evil ingredient and should be banned@!

Chapter 30, Sleepless in Seattle due to Jet Lag.

scbarnes — Thu, 08 May 2008 17:22:55 GMT

The house is on the market, the cars are being sold and the passports are ready to be stamped with "Welcome to the United States Mr Barnes". The biggest move of my life/career is in full swing, and I'm both SH@*T scared and excited at the same time as this new chapter will be one of my defining moments in this accidental evolution that I call a career.

I'm taking the new role of Product Management seriously, thinking of ways I can bring about change and impact to Microsoft and the customers we have, as cliche as it sounds. In that I'm hungry for change, I want to see the Internet to have experiences that match the visual effects found within movies like IRONMAN ( great movie btw). I want to see Silverlight/WPF become this this rich vibrant exchange of both eye-candy and higher intelligence centred around various buckets of data that are contextually agreeable to our customers.

Next Thursday is my last day here in Australia. Emily is to young to understand what's going on and Corey's more excited about Disneyland, than comprehending that after next Thursday, it will be the last day he gets to hug his cousins and grandparents for quite some time (once/twice year). Corey's mum also has just had her entire life turned upside down in way of supporting my proposed move, and as a result it's going to be tough for her to adjust to this new way of life.

It's a MASSIVE step both psychologically and financially, as in the end there is little margin for error. I have had to weigh up the risk matrix on everything I do from here on out and look at this from a perspective of re-discovering the world again. I've already seen what parts of Silverlight and WPF's future holds, and I can't but help that despite what our critics think, the innovation and brains trust behind this next wave of technology is well simply put, brilliant.

I now get to be apart of that, and yes it maybe massive step but career wise, it's going to be a fun ride to jump onto.

That all being said, I will be going dark for a month or so, given that my stuff will take approx 6weeks to ship over and in which case means access to a computer will be something I'm yet to figure out. If you email me now, chances are I won't get back to you for quite some time so apologise for the delay but you try moving to another country :)

Now to figure out which Basketball, Baseball and NFL teams to adopt, may need to call on my fellow Aussie Microsoftee's whom are in Redmond, especially the men who hired me - Mr Frank Arrigo and Mr Charles Sterling (Chuck's practically an Aussie, despite his heritage).

P.S

I have a new toy, Cannon EOS 400D and loving it. I'm also having some farewell drinks Friday 9th May, Jade Buddah Bar (Eagle Street) @ 6pm. All friends/foes welcome.

I'm on DG.TV

scbarnes — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 04:45:19 GMT

Michael Kordahi - aka DelicateGenius decided to interview me on my last day at Microsoft Australia. It just occurred to me that I've never really done a video interview before (I usually turn them down), mainly because I'm a shy guy when it comes to camera's.

That being said, I'm loving the approach Michael is taking with his project DG.TV as I think he gets not only the technique of interviewing, but from what I've seen does so in a relaxed format. We need more relaxed interviews on the interweb.

http://delicategeniusblog.com/?p=675

I look forward to seeing what Michael does with the Australian Microsoft Web Community in 2009/2010 and the trouble, fun etc he stirs up ;)

I fly home tomorrow

scbarnes — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 08:25:07 GMT

I have spent the last three (3) weeks in the United States travelling around listening to customers talk about Microsoft. I have a lot to say, and little time to type it – suffice to say the overall vibe I am getting is we are onto something big and people are paying attention to our offerings and are backing us.

I had the privilege of attending both MIX08 (Las Vegas) as well as SxSW (Austin Texas), two events which not only inspired me but also gave me a whole new insight into both our strengths and weaknesses. We have a lot of work ahead of us in 2008-2009 and I'm excited to be a part of the solution in my new role – which starts April 08 – (Product Manager in the Silverlight/WPF team).

One thing that I'd like to quickly clarify before I close out this post is that there are millions of .NET developers around the world whom have not used Flash, but are beginning to use Silverlight. We reported that 1.5 million downloads per day are occurring with Silverlight and this is a healthy number given our age in the market since the Silverlight naming back at last year's NAB. A lot of work is yet to be done, especially with Beijing Games approaching in August, an event in which Silverlight will feature quite heavily in – excited and yet terrified! Hehe.

I'll close the post here, as I've got 5 or 6 blog posts banked ready to be published, just need to polish the wording more (bit raw) all outlining the learning's from both SxSW and MIX08 plus more insights into what we are doing and where we are going.

I've had fun being abroad but I must confess, I'm looking forward to spending some time at home in Australia before my move to Seattle in April.

P.S

To Adobe "..Want a job?" – answer "No..got one! But thanks for asking" – Microsoft Employee X

I am now a Product Manager.

scbarnes — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 12:55:00 GMT

I've managed to worm my way into Microsoft Corp HQ, as a Product Manager (PM) on the Rich Client Platform team (Silverlight/WPF etc). This for me is a major step forward in my career, as whilst I've enjoyed being one of the first RIA Evangelist for Microsoft, I feel I can offer more impact via this new role than in the field. I will still in part Evangelise Microsoft's offering in the UX space.

What is a Product Manager?

It varies in definition depending on which company a PM works for and what Product(s) they hold in their portfolio. For me, to keep it simple is that I'll be looking to ensure products like Silverlight out-innovate the competitor, as that's my core intent.

Silverlight & WPF have enormous potential going forward, and I will now be apart of this new wave of Microsoft technologies.

What can I offer to this role..

I offer years of experience in this thing we call RIA firstly, but more to the point I have a wide range of technical skills as well as some basic marketing skills. I also have a design portion of the brain, so blending the entire pool together, well, I hope to offer a colourful amount of expertise to the job ahead and looking forward to seeing what level of impact I can make on the product.

Why change?

I'm going to be working with a lot of really smart people, folks whom I've spent the last year working with in a virtual sense. That alone is the strong motivator as I'll be standing on the shoulder of giants. The three that stand out the most though are Brad Becker, Brian Goldfarb and Pete Faraday. These three are insanely smart, much smarter than me and I'm keen to tap their collective brain power for good instead of evil ;)

Will I stop blogging?

No. In fact I'll have a more focused approach to my blogging and my new team are supportive of my blog going forward. Having a my ear, eyes and voice within the community is critical to the success of this new role.

What will be the direction of the content on my blog?

Still the same, I'll be keen to decompose RIA more so than ever. The market has framed the conversation today under the guise of RIA. I personally think RIA is the wrong worldview, but i don't have an accurate answer on what it should be. Suffice to say, RIA fits and you can call it "Bob" for all I care, provided people are keen to explore the rich experiences associated to RIA.

I'll be also looking to highlight UX within Microsoft more, as I have not only seen but met a lot of creative folks within Microsoft whom far exceed my understanding of UX - yet they go unnoticed. Now that I'm on Microsoft Corp campus, I'll be looking to devote some time unearthing them some more.

What about your current role?

No idea what will happen with it. There maybe a vacant position in Australia for the Evangelism team or they may not. It's entirely up to my peeps in the Oz Team to decide. I will be selling my assets locally, so anyone want a big screen TV? heh. The current team I work with are awesome, and can't think of anyone negative thing to say about them - honestly. At the time of writing this, there is no news about replacing my current role, but be sure to check out Microsoft Australia career page (as this will be the first place to advertise it no doubt - we hire on merit, not who you know).

You're in the US now? Customs allowed this?

Yes. Not sure I'm going to fully embrace Seattle's cold weather, but I'll give it an open chance. Did I mention I grew up most of my life in the Australian outback desert? I've made a lot of new friends in Redmond over the year, so I'm looking forward to listening to their wisdom about all things America (specifically hear Chuck & Frank's thoughts from time to time).

Where to from here?

Well, I have to pack my entire life into a shipping container for one. I'll have to put a lot of stuff in storage and lastly figure out which electrical goods are US friendly vs aren't.

I'm looking forward to moving to the other side of the world. It will be a grand adventure! - in a geeky way.

Now to pack for MIX 08 and SxSW

p.s

Nathan Rothlisberg gave me an awesome URL which I'll no doubt make a lot of use of: http://www.simplyoz.com (I can keep my Tim Tams!!!)

My career is about to take a turn..

scbarnes — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 05:14:12 GMT

Waiting on some legalities, but stay tuned as I have some news that will shock some and have others nodding in agreement.

It's not what you think and it's everything you didn't think.

I will say this, this new career change will have a definite world wide impact.

Scott Out.

Brand, it's deeply seeded.

scbarnes — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 05:23:12 GMT

In my role, I've encountered a lot of interesting behavior associated to the brand. I find it scary in some parts but also interesting in others. I've got friends whom I've known for 5+ years suddenly refer to me "you guys" when talking about Microsoft in general.

I walk up to others and they throw questions at me "In Office, I..." and begin to tell me a story around Office and their pain points associated with it. I also get jokes, like "can't you just ask Bill to pick up the tab, he's rich" (big misconception folks, Microsoft isn't an endless supply of money, we all have budgets to account for, and ROI on how we spend - keep that in mind).

It's part of the game I guess, brands are a funny thing, they are almost religious at times though and I've seen some scary discussions take place over which is better. Last night I did a presentation on Silverlight to a Flash User Group, but I opened up with Batman vs Spiderman (Batman was us, as we have this big Utility Belt of Tools to play with - whilst - Spiderman was Flash, in terms of being everywhere with the Web). At any rate, the two have a fight (i.e. "Flash Killer" arguments online) and mid-way through the fight, up comes Yoda - "that voice of reason you find mid-way through such fights" indicating that fighting is stupid. Focus on shipping, and why can't you both "fight crime" together (i.e. solve your customers problems with your own unique super powers).

That being said, Jorke sent me this website this morning and when I first looked at it I went "woah, I love working for Microsoft but come on, not that much" - yet - I laughed at this as I got it, these guys are having fun with the brand - probably a Jackass moment in terms of watching Steve-o get a tattoo of himself on his back - very funny.

It doesn't stop with Microsoft, I've also noticed an Adobe fan get the logo inked on his forearm.

Point: I love the brands, I think they are great.. would I get inked with one? nope but I do understand others whom do :)

The secret of my knowledge (Books).

scbarnes — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 07:21:21 GMT

I get asked a lot on "how I find the time to keep up with all of this crap" (crap=web stuff). I really don't have one specific answer, except I am fortunate to have the ability of skim reading as one of my skill sets. I can polish off a book in 3xToilet sittings, 2xPlane Rides between Brisbane & Sydney and maybe 1xHour Reading session at my cubicle.

Here are my books that I've kept after a spring clean earlier this year (Jan07) (there is more in a cupboard to the right of these photos, which even have a "BeOS Bible" (that's how far I date back in this here development world).

I never really took stock of the books I've read (I have read them all, sometimes 3 times - I am slow on the uptake at times) and it's an interesting mixture of reading material. On one hand I still favor Java/J2EE foundations but I also loved my journey in Macromedia / Adobe Flash/FLEX. I'm currently enjoying the realm of .NET (C# mostly) and how that all comes together, but overall I can honestly say that I do love programming in languages of all shapes and sizes.

I've found them an interesting hobby to play around in, as each time you delve into a new language, you unlock a new approach to a problem you would of previously solved in another. An example that comes to mind was the way in which I used to write Coldfusion, in that I'd steal a lot of good ideas found in the JSP realm, port them over and apply them to Coldfusion (j2EE Design Patterns are a must for CF developers). I'd then take some of the j2EE goodness and throw them into Flex, as with ActionScript 2.0 to 3.0, we had a lot of OOP in the room (even though 2.0 was just sugar syntax dressed up as OOP). Yet, I loved playing around with C# as this was as close to j2EE as I could get and yet it approached things from a very simplistic attitude.

ASP.NET 2.0 for me is damn basic compared to Coldfusion and requires less fingers on keyboard to achieve the same outcome. Sharepoint 2007 reminds me of a primitive version of Allaire Spectra (back in the day) and so on..

Overall, I have studied a lot of languages and while I haven't always mastered them, I have enjoyed them (favorite overall was Smalltalk - as it was my first taste of OO if that's possible).

I never had much time for Python, PHP or Ruby On Rails as whilst I value their contribution to the programming world - just wasn't for me. As you'll notice a pattern, that I prefer to keep my languages as simple as possible (why spend countless hours writing 115 lines of code for "hello world" when 2 are sufficient enough)

Did I mention I first started out in my career as a Desktop Publisher, where I'd sit in Artland all day designing. As I also have the design part of my brain and spent a few years in VRML / 3DS Max, Illustrator and Photoshop. I've enjoyed them all as for me it's one big ball of clay to play around with.

My newest toy is Silverlight. Tomorrow, who knows.