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Sandy's Orlando Bloom -- my first event as the community dude

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Ahh, it is that time of year again. TechEd is upon us. This is the event that Microsoft usually talks about year-round in terms of getting a chance to talk to customers face-to-face. This year, it's in Orlando, which means a longer flight--but it's definitely worth it. This will be an especially exciting event for me since it is my first since moving over to the community space. As I’ve been ramping up over the last three months, I haven’t spent as much time with customers as I’d like. It’s time to change that...  

I’ll be spending lots of time in Community Lounge #16, getting a chance to speak to the community and, more importantly, listen to what they have to say. Jim Newkirk and I will be trying to get feedback on the things to do around Workspaces to make it something .NET developers would want to use. We hear a lot in the blog world, but it’s more interesting to have a live conversation about it—online communities are great, but there’s nothing like a face-to-face conversation.

Meanwhile, I have to do a little advertising on some cool ways to connect with us if you are planning to attend. We’ll be running a few “focus groups” for some of the work being done by the Microsoft Communities team. On Monday, Josh Ledgard will be running a private session to get feedback on forums.microsoft.com , a site that was launch in April for people using the VS 2005 Beta 2 drop and will continue to be the premier place to get answers to questions straight for MS employees as well as top community players. Separately, Dave Morehouse, a teammate of mine on the community team, is going to be running a private session to share plans of their design of a central RSS directory for Microsoft.com. He’s looking for 10-15 participants who are up for an active, open-ended discussion on what would be the best customer experience of an RSS directory, in terms of content offered, features, and UI design. With RSS gaining momentum (especially here at Microsoft), this is a really exciting project and for many of you that are reading this inside Newsgator, JetBrains, etc., you surely have opinions. I’m planning to sit in on both sessions and I am looking forward to hearing what people have to say about each.

The Forums discussion is on Monday at 2pm while the RSS discussion is Tuesday at 3pm. We’re giving out free four-port USB hubs—all we ask is your “two cents” on what we are working on. That’s a great bargain. Josh has his blog, so you can always contact him through that if you want to be a part of the Forums discussion. If you’re interested in talking about RSSDave, contact Dave directly (dmoreh AT microsoft.com) or swing by the booth Monday to reserve a spot. Space is limited, so act now!J.

Hope to see you at the lounge or the sessions!…

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