Contagious Curiosity : Travel

SoCalDevGal interview Bart de Smet and Mwansa Lumpa at TechEd Africa 2009

llangit — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 06:36:56 GMT

Enjoy - (can you tell I was a bit jet lagged?)

first Bart on his work with .NET 4.0 Framework

then Mwansa on his work developing SmartCare in Zambia

Welcome (back) to the Hotel California after speaking in Europe

llangit — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 06:51:46 GMT

After three weeks in Europe, SoCalDevGal is back home…”you can check out at any time you like, but you can never leave” and is thinking about the parts of the EU I visited and differences.

First from a professional standpoint, European audiences, particularly developer audiences, are notoriously demanding. As this was only my second time delivering technical presentations in Europe, I can’t say that I am an expert, but I did notice a couple of things.

All sessions were delivered at a 300 to 400 level. European audiences are attentive (no talking and don’t leave early), and demanding – they prefer depth and detail – jokes, stories and distractions aren’t expected. Also, it’s rare to be asked a question during the presentation. Many attendees take detailed notes. Use of social networking during the presentations, such as Twitter, doesn’t happen. Most presenters showed a small number of slides and spent a good amount of time talking to each slide. If I had to summarize, it seems as the expectation is to gain knowledge – US audiences prefer actionable information. Another difference I noticed, is the interest in Green IT from Europeans, particularly around data centers. I learned quite a bit about what Microsoft is doing in this area from attending other presentations at the various events I spoke at.

Other than work, I noticed some other interesting differences too. I know I am over-generalizing a bit here….first Europeans seems to really separate work and play. That is when working, they deeply concentrate on work and aren’t really interested in playing around or being entertained. This contrasts with the US, where I find that audiences increasingly want to be presented with edutainment. Don’t get me wrong, when Europeans do play, they play hard, it’s just that a more definite separation between the two aspects of life seems in evidence.

Also there is a maturity around health, aging and social responsibility that I find refreshing. I had a great discussion about the Swedish social support system with a couple in Stockholm. There is more naturalness about accepting life’s stages. Of course, I live near to Newport Beach, the botox capitol of the earth, so the contrast is more pronounced.

On the other hand change comes more slowly and there is a generally more conservative and skeptical attitude toward newness in most areas of life.

Digging into the minutiae of life, I got frustrated by overly complicated plumbing controls (I prefer our one-button showers, especially in the morning!), I envied the incredibly fashionable boots in Stockholm, I missed the bold, athletic colors worn by Americans (particularly in London, where drab khaki and green seem to be the colors of the day), I could pick out US or Japanese tourists by the size of their suitcases, I was happy to see that there are finally some restrictions around smoking in European bars and restaurants and I think I started to understand that self-irony is most acceptable type of humor in Europe.

In all I had a wonderful trip, I definitely believe that travel enriches and our world in general would benefit if more of us traveled.

Oh, here are links to my pictures

Vasteras, Sweden – here
Stockholm, Sweden – here
Antwerp, Belgium – here
Brussels, Belgium – here
More Brussels, Belgium - here

So, where should I go next? What do you think? What are your favorite places and why?

SoCalDevGal is heading over to Europe

llangit — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 08:37:34 GMT

Yup, I am taking a little work trip - leaving shortly for 20 days in Europe. During this time I'll be speaking at TechDays Belgium in Antwerp, TechDays Sweden in Vasteras and more. Although I've been to other European countries in the past, this will be my first trip to both Belgium and Sweden. I'll be taking a bit of a break from blogging, other than to post my slide decks after presenting for this month.

Catch up with my European adventures by following me on facebook or twitter.

Big shout out to my counterpart in Belgium, Microsoft Developer Evangelist Katrien De Graeve (whom I met in person at PDC08 in LA last year) and who was kind enough to get my trip approved.

I have to say the conference logos are pretty cool too - first for Belgium

then for Sweden

Oh, if you are wondering just what topic(s) I am speaking on - here's the list:

1) SQL Server 2008 New Features for .NET Developers

2) SQL Server 2008 SSAS Data Mining

3) Using Kodu to Introduce Programming to Kids

4) Best Practices around DigiGirlz Events

5) WomenBuild SeriousPlay - new directions in Women's Networking events at Microsoft

I also have some tentative talks setup with customers and more. So it will be a busy and fun trip! Immediately after I return, I'll head up to Microsoft's SVC campus in San Jose, to teach some classes for their DigiGirlz event on March 24. Then I'll be heading over to Tuscon to record some presentations on SharePoint and SQL Server 2008 Business Intelligence integration for the SSWUG (SharePoint Virtual Conference).

Get on the bus for 'The Code Trip'

llangit — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 23:28:43 GMT

SmartCare in Zambia

llangit — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 14:11:02 GMT

At TechEd Barcelona this week I had the privilege of interviewing lead developer from the SmartCare team (electronic medical records tracking system being implemented in Zambia) Irene Pathy.

Regular readers of my blog may know that I work with a world-wide team of developer and technical trainer volunteers in support of the local Zambian team's development and implementation of SmartCare. The system is moving from pilot to nation-wide deployment now. SmartCare is also being reviewed by several other countries, with Ethiopian developers starting work on an implementation now.

If you are interested in learning a bit more about the application, you can access a technical overview on this site.

Virtual TechEd from Barcelona starts Nov 5

llangit — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 08:00:18 GMT

Many of you have sent mail saying you 'wished you were here too'. Now you can be, kind of - starting tomorrow (well, today where I am - jet lag is really got me!), you can catch some of the conference on Virtual TechEd. I am scheduled to record on Tuesday and Wednesday - so, check it out!

Getting ready to speak at TechEd Developers Barcelona next week

llangit — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 00:19:00 GMT

I am super excited to be speaking at TechEd Developers in Barcelona next week. I am delivering a session on Monday, then leading a panel on Wednesday, and then delivering another session on Friday. In between I'll be hanging out at the Business Intelligence booth - stop by and say 'hi'!
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Here's the abstract from my Monday session

TLA08-IS Saving Lives with Visual Studio Team System (on Mon Nov 5 16:00 - 17:15 Room 133) presented by Anton Delsink and Lynn Langit - also we'll have Irene Pathy the lead developer from the SmartCare team in Zambia there with us!

In this interactive session, Anton and Lynn will present interactive demonstrations of Visual Studio Team System (VSTS) as it is being used by a geographically distributed team which they are a part of and will give you the chance to discuss the presented approaches with Anton and Lynn. The project is called SmartCare and is being run out of a base location in Lusaka, Zambia. The project is funded by the US CDC and the Zambian government. Its goal is to implement a comprehensive electronic medical history and treatment tracking record for every Zambian citizen using SmartCards as a primary storage device.
The discussion will include the following topics:

Implementing your particular software development lifecycle methodology (i.e. MSF, CMM, etc...) as a standard for your entire organization using VSTS.
Gaining visibility into your project metrics using VSTS monitoring capabilities, for example estimation, quality and progress reporting.
Flexibility of deployment scenarios, including constrained bandwidth and geographically distributed teams.
Strategies for educating teams about process methodologies and effective use of the entire VSTS toolset (i.e. VSTS code repositories, reports, SharePoint interface, etc...)

Here's the abstract from my Friday session

BIN06-IS Understanding the Data Mining Add-Ins for Excel (on Fri Nov 9 15:15 - 16:30 Room 125) presented by Lynn Langit

This interactive session will feature BI author, MSDN presenter and BI architect - Lynn Langit, answering questions and demoing aspects of Business Intelligence in SQL Server 2005 as accessed via the Excel 2007 Data-Mining Add-ins. In this session, Lynn will demo the functionality of the add-ins, taking your questions about which features of SSAS Data Mining are supported directly, and what features are supported in a different way. She will also cover advanced configuration options that are available via the Add-ins and will clarify the use of mining on Excel data as well as on native SSAS data (both OLAP cubes and mining models).

Premier Walking - Golden Gate Bridge

llangit — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 08:54:38 GMT

Although I am quite busy this week, when I travel I always try to do at least one thing that has nothing to do with work. Even though I've lived in California for years, until yesterday I'd never walked across the Golden Gate Bridge. For me, it's quite vital to feel the air and the wind and to see the color of the sky, no matter where I am and what has caused me to be there.

I'm in NorCal next week == busy!

llangit — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 08:04:52 GMT

Monday / Tuesday, I am scheduled to do something really different for me - attend a technical conference where 'no boys are allowed' - it's called She's Geeky and will be held at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA. The attendee list is pretty darn interesting. I think I'm going to have fun at this one!

Wednesday, I am off to an internal meeting north of San Francisco, so I can enjoy my new Foo Fighters CD as I drive up there from SVC. Because of this, I'll miss this week's geekSpeak - Glen and a substitute co-host will talk with High-Performance Compute Clustering expert (and recently hired Microsoft Developer Evangelist) Dariusz Parys from Germany.

Then back to SVC (Microsoft campus) on Th/Fri to speak at the internal Microsoft Women's conference both days. My session is called 'Curiosity will get you Everywhere' and will be available on the post-conference DVD for Microsoft employees. Depending on how it goes, I may start presenting a variant of this to external audiences as well.

It looks like I am getting interviewed for Channel9's WM_IN (Women in Technology) series while I am there too, so I'll post that link once it's available.

I'm still at it on Saturday, speaking at the SVC code camp on SharePoint for Developers -- looks like a good crowd too, with nearly 70 people indicating interest already. Again, it will be interesting to meet SharePoint developers from a geography other SoCal.

After this whirlwind week, I'm home for a couple of days, and then off to TechEd/Developers Barcelona - where I'll be speaking on VSTS in Africa, Data Mining in Excel, and will be moderating a panel of Women Developers.

Microsoft Live Labs: Photosynth

llangit — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 20:46:31 GMT

Something fun for those of us unwilling to travel to Orlando. My favorite general tool is the 'fly around' view. I particularly like this view as well.

Microsoft Live Labs: Photosynth

Perfect Code -- from Wolfram MathWorld

llangit — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 23:03:00 GMT

Does is really look like this?

Although always interested in math, I've never had the opportunity to have a formal math education. I have been kicking around the idea of going back to school to pursue an advanced degree in math, because, well..math just really interests me. I mean, who else do you know who actually reads stuff like this for fun?

There are also other ways of thinking mathematically that have always appealed to me. For example, I find myself being fascinated by beautiful patterns - whether man-made, or in nature. And then there's the musical connection too...ah so, little time, so much to see; I guess that's why this blog is called 'Contagious Curiousity', right?

Traffic Gadget for Vista - I LOVE this one

llangit — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 07:49:00 GMT

Cool Zurich Airport XBAP application

llangit — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 06:43:00 GMT

What's an XBAP application you might be asking? Well, it's a WPF application that runs in IE 7.0.

Here's a cool example - Zurich airport.

Why am I so easily distracted?

llangit — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 20:49:00 GMT

I am trying to work, but keep thinking about more interesting things like this....

Music is essential, lately it's j-pop

llangit — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 23:01:00 GMT

Lately, I've been listening to Grapevine - picked this up in Tokyo. I really just couldn't even work if I didn't have music. It seems that my tastes are becoming increasingly eclectic. This year's finds includes the newest from Tom Waits, something extraordinary from a country singer (I normally can't stand country music), the always sardonic Sparklehorse, and the plain old fun Arctic Monkeys.