BehindtheScenes :: Microsoft PDC10 | October 28 — 29

Countdown to PDC09: Steve Marx on Cloud Development

amyrc — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:07:38 GMT

One of our most popular PDC speakers, Steve Marx, joins Jennifer and Mike to talk about Azure and the cloud, as he reveals some hints about his PDC sessions. Think there isn’t much new in the last year, or that the news around Azure is purely going to be about the business model? Think again, and let’s get nerdy!

Watch the latest Countdown to PDC 09 video on Channel 9 >>

And don’t forget about our LIVE Countdown to PDC09 Show on Friday, November 13th at noon PST. We’ll be taking your questions from Twitter…live!

Countdown to PDC09: Big Brains Descend Upon PDC and Teach Us How to Dream

amyrc — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:16:09 GMT

Charles Torre joins Mike and Jennifer to discuss the Technical Leaders series to be held at PDC. For the first time ever, you’ll get to participate in a perfect storm of intelligence, imagination, knowledge, and vision as we bring together Microsoft’s Technical Fellows for the Technical Leaders sessions at PDC09. These are the big brains that develop and drive technical strategies for Microsoft and the industry; if you want to be inspired, this is a series you won’t want to miss.

>>Watch the Countdown to PDC09 video on Channel 9

>>Browse PDC09 Technical Leaders sessions

Countdown to PDC09: Monkey == TRUE

amyrc — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 21:48:31 GMT

This week, Thomas Lewis (a.k.a. The Spider King) co-hosts with the always loveable Mike Swanson to talk about From The Labs which will debut at PDC09. It kicks off with Mike talking about the $300 discount (you have already registered haven’t you?) and how INETA is “bringing it” with Birds of a Feather (known as BOFs) which are opportunities for attendees to present topics of interest to them in an open way at PDC09. Then Mike and Thomas get brutal talking about From the Labs, a track that focuses on projects and prototypes that are incubated from various Labs around Microsoft (Live Labs, DevLabs). Of course, Mike and Thomas make computer science history declaring that Monkey are immutable.

Watch the latest Countdown to PDC09 video on Channel 9 >>

Countdown to PDC09: This is Your Brain on Puzzles

amyrc — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 17:15:38 GMT

In this episode of the Countdown to PDC09 show, Mike talks with Kenny Young, an architect on the Expression Blend team, and Josh Benaloh, a senior cryptographer in Microsoft Research about the puzzles they plan to inflict on our PDC09 attendees. These are the guys who have been providing the puzzles that we’ve been tweeting recently, and they brought their own Hard Hat Challenge. Mike also reminds everyone about the caption contest at www.nxtgenug.net for a free PDC09 pass, and talks briefly about the Visual Studio Documentary to be shown at the event, including a Q&A panel after the show.

>>Watch the latest Countdown Show on Channel 9

Countdown to PDC09: Coding4Fun Meets PDC

amyrc — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 21:11:35 GMT

Clint Rutkas joins just Ritzy this week (Mike wasn’t allowed out of his PDC09 keynote cage), to discuss some of the fun we’ll be bringing to LA! The Coding4Fun apps will be on display, including one serving up drinks (really!!). Clint and his crew will be in the Big Room at PDC, showing off their latest innovations that combine both interesting technologies and entertaining hobbies . . . not everything one codes has to be for the man! And speaking of ‘the man’, or rather ‘the guy’….what did the Channel 9 guy say to the MCP guy? No it’s not a joke, it’s a chance to win a FREE pass to PDC09! Provide your winning caption by Oct 23.

>>Watch the video on Channel 9

Countdown to PDC09: Da Cloud! Da Cloud!

amyrc — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 22:44:17 GMT

Meet the owner of the PDC cloud services track, James Conard. Yep, it’s true, general availability of Azure will be announced at PDC (buy a datacenter in the cloud, if you will) but don’t think that’s all we’ve got up our sleeves! The Windows Azure Platform has come a long way in the last year since it was first announced at PDC last year, and we have a lot of progress to talk about, plus new innovations that we’ll unveil at PDC this year – listen to James as he drops hints as to what those announcements will be. And speaking of hints, don’t forget, Mike’s last HardHat Challenge remains unsolved. He drops another clue in this show, so listen carefully!

>> Watch the latest episode on Channel 9

Countdown to PDC09: The Client Track Unplugged

amyrc — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 16:27:17 GMT

Did you really think we were going to have a PDC without a boatload of new Windows content? Puhleeeeeze! Meet Tim Sneath, the manager of the Client track, who is guiding and overseeing sessions to make sure we really get in there and make your brain hurt, as the PDC likes to do. And while we’re at it, why not throw in a whole other day of Windows 7 training with the recently announced developer boot camp that will happen on November 16 at the PDC. Whether you are going to the full conference or not, you can attend this day long training for . . . wait for it, wait for it . . . FREE!

Watch this episode of the Countdown to PDC09 show on Channel 9 >>

Countdown to PDC09: Office, SharePoint, Free Win7 Boot Camp, and Turtles

amyrc — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 18:36:32 GMT

Developers scoffing at Office and SharePoint? Not anymore they don’t! Steve Fox, the productivity track owner for Office, SharePoint, CRM and Unified Communications, talks to us about what kind of IW dev content we’ll have on these technologies at PDC, and what to expect that is different from the other events featuring these same products. We also announce the FREE Windows 7 Developer Boot Camp that will be held on November 16 at PDC, and Mike gives another hint to the last Hard Hat Challenge which remains unsolved: turtle!

Watch the latest Countdown to PDC09 episode on Channel 9>>

Evolving the PDC09 Event Site

mswanson — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 16:31:09 GMT

In my post, Evolving the PDC09 Event Site, learn how we used focus groups to prioritize improvements to the online conference experience so that you can more effectively plan, organize, navigate, consume, and share PDC09 content. We’ve tried to simplify the overall site design this year, increase the prominence of keynotes, workshops, and sessions, and make it even easier to create and manage your own personal schedule. As we get closer to the event, we’ll reveal additional features that enable you to stream keynotes from the comfort of home, navigate the event with your mobile device, and take advantage of the “all you can eat” plan. As always, we’d love to hear your suggestions and feedback. Enjoy!

Countdown to PDC09: Calling All Server Developers

amyrc — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 22:02:18 GMT

You think PDC this year will be all about the cloud, tools and the OS? Think again! We’ve got loads of server content coming out our 64-bit procs. Volker Will, our content guru overseeing all of our server sessions, is our guest of honor this week and he describes some of the new cool stuff we’ll be talking about at PDC (plus he hints at some top secret stuff that we can’t reveal until we’re in Los Angeles). In addition to Windows Server, SQL and BizTalk will make appearances, so keep your eye on the sessions page and look for the technology tags to get the latest and greatest on new sessions posted.

Watch the video on Channel 9>>

Behind the Scenes with Keynote/Demo staging

roberth — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 15:14:17 GMT

by Robert Hess

Lights, Camera, Action!

It’s just before 8:30am, you saunter into the keynote room and while the room looks pretty full, you see some available seating halfway up the room on the middle right. You pick up your pace a little bit, because it seems like you aren’t the only one who has noticed that handful of seats. Just as you sit down, the music changes, the lights dim, and you can tell the show is about to begin.

The keynote at the Microsoft PDC is where executives, product managers, and other leaders from the company will carefully lay out the key technologies that knit together and form the cohesive foundation that developers will use to bring to market key applications, solutions, and services. In addition to colorful slides which graphically portray the way everything works together, there are also a variety of demos which are used to help illustrate how these technologies can be used.

As the keynote comes to a close, you briefly look back over what transpired, and recall a few key technologies that you want to make sure you find some sessions on, you also mentally note one or two of the demos which were presented and try to think about how that approach might work best in your own applications. You then quickly exit the room.

The Hidden City

Unbeknownst to you, there was just a huge sigh of relief coming from backstage. That would have been me, thankful that another set of demos has gone off without a hitch. To get to that point it took months of footwork, preparation, and a small team of various people all working closely together in order to coordinate the various hardware needs that each demo and demoer might have had. I suspect that the effort that goes into making sure even the simplest technology demo works flawlessly on-stage is something that many in the audience don’t even consider. I thought perhaps you might enjoy just a little bit of a glimpse back-stage to get some insight to the overall process.

The backstage is essentially a little city unto itself. There are little communities scattered throughout. One is for managing all of the sound, another for the slides, another for video production, and then there is “Demo Alley”, which is where I typically spend all of my time, coordinating all of the demos that will be presented on-stage. You may not realize this, but each and every demo you see being performed on-stage has not only a backup system that can be switched to in milliseconds should the need arise, but there is also somebody “shadowing” the on-stage demoer so that should we need to switch over for some reason, the backup machine is in-synch with what the demoer was doing. While demo failures are relatively rare, it is always best to be prepared for the worst.

Demo Craft

At an event like the PDC, the potential for demo failure can be a little more than at a typical event. The PDC we try to show technology that is six months, a year, or perhaps even more away from being generally available. You can just imagine what this means to the stability of what we might be running for the demo. Add to this the fact that we will also usually try to show multiple (unfinished) technologies working together, and it’s nail-biting time!

Sure, we could simply do mockups for many of the demos. Work up fancy animations that only look like we’re showing real code, or use other tricks. But that sort of defeats the purpose; it wouldn’t really show the audience what the technology will do. Sure, there might be times when the technology we want to illustrate is still on the drawing boards, but even in that case we will code up a simulation which as closely as possible matches the process flow of the actual technology. It’s all about actually showing the audience what the technology is capable of, and how it will benefit them.

Another side of getting demos prepared is carefully working on the script that will be used. Often, the hardest part about these scripts is working them down to as short of a time as possible. I believe it was Blaise Pascal who once apologized for a writing a long letter because he lacked the time to make it shorter. Likewise, it’s relatively easy to do a long demo, but to trim it down to its most compact form, without losing its impact, can be very difficult. When there is a finite amount of time however, and far too many things vying for a piece of it, it is necessary to be both minimalistic, as well as complete, with everything.

In the end, we have a small army of people who are trying to pull the various demos together. They are working against the clock, and often resort to electronic versions of bailing wire and duct tape to get pre-alpha versions of software up and running properly. So as you are sitting in the audience this year, watching somebody doing what seems like a rather simple (albeit important) demo, just remember that behind that demo are a handful of people who are sweating bullets at that moment and hoping that it isn’t “their” demo which crashes.

Demo-Lition

Part of knowing how to be best prepared for demo failure however, is having lived through a failure and learned from it. Perhaps one of the biggest demo failures I was involved with, was several years ago when we were presenting a day of demos which revolved around showing features of various websites and webservers being combined together. By its very nature, it required live access to live servers on the actual internet. To account for possible problems, we had a redundant internet line backstage that we could instantly switch to if needed. But as you may have guessed by now, this wasn’t enough. Just as the first demoer was walking to the stage, the main internet line went dead. The backup was dead as well. Quick and frantic calls showed that it wasn’t just our lines, but all lines within a two block radius were down. They remained down through the entire presentation. Since then, when the situation demanded it, we have had as backup a satellite internet connection that we could switch to if necessary.

Of course, all of this just makes it that much more exciting. So this year, as you are sitting out front watching the technology parade, know that I am back stage trying to control the mayhem with fingers crossed.

Time-lapse

I thought I’d also share this link with you of a nice little time-lapse we did at this year’s MIX09, which shows the setting up of the keynote room.

MIX09: Time Lapse camera, setup and tear down

Countdown to PDC09: Visual Studio and .NET Framework Track Owner Tells All

amyrc — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 17:33:15 GMT

Meet Drew Robbins, the evangelist organizing the content that is dear and near to all PDC attendees: developers tooling, application lifecycle tools, the CLR and the .NET Framework. Think you’ve seen and heard it all? Think again. As Drew coordinates across 35 product teams (!!), he and his crew have built out user stories this year to insure that PDC attendees are truly going to be hearing and learning new content about our developer products that have not been surfaced below. Listen to Drew as he drops hints about F#, parallel programming, scrum, ASP.NET, the future of VB.NET and C#, and much more!

>>Watch the video on Channel 9

Countdown to PDC09: Developers Go 3D!

amyrc — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 21:40:38 GMT

Watch out James Cameron, the PDC team has done their first ever show in 3D, and that’s because we’ve got the width, the depth, and the length. And how do we have those? Well, check out the dozens of new sessions just announced (with tons more content still to come), that include SQL, WCF, Silverlight, and lots of goodness on Azure including a session on how Azure has changed since Microsoft first described it. But don’t feel left out! You can give a community talk at the PDC via our Birds of a Feather sessions. Check out the PDC09 BOF site that includes instructions on how you can submit a session for consideration. Now go get your 3D on, and don’t forget, the red lens goes over the left eye, and the blue one over the right eye!

Watch the latest Countdown to PDC09 episode on Channel 9.

Countdown to PDC09: Hard Hat Challenges are Back (sort of)

amyrc — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 23:27:30 GMT

Do you get car sick easily? If so, you’re in for a ride as Mike and Jennifer ‘go mobile’ and take their show on the road this week. This episode includes the return of the Hard Hat Challenge, starting with the apple pie puzzle from last year that remains unsolved to this day. But there are still other ways to win! Enter the INETA coding challenge and you may win a free ticket to PDC. Additional updates on sessions, hotels, PDC Classics and more are covered in this show, that’s very much on the go.

It’s a wild ride…BUCKLE UP!

Watch the video on Channel 9.

Countdown to PDC09: Win a Trip to PDC

amyrc — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 18:17:24 GMT

In a speedy 10 minutes, Mike and Jennifer cram in an update about PDC content, Birds-of-a-Feather, hotel options, the PDC attendee directory, and how to win big bucks and a free trip to the PDC by entering the www.Code7Contest.com. Phew, that’s a mouthful! Don’t forget to email pdc09@microsoft.com with your questions and feedback, and maybe you’ll get a shout out on the show.

Watch the video on Channel 9: http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/LarryLarsen/Countdown-to-PDC09-Win-a-Free-Trip-to-PDC/

Countdown to PDC09: Discounts, Workshops, and Tweets

amyrc — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 01:20:17 GMT

In this week’s episode, Mike & Jennifer talk about how to keep up with PDC news via Twitter, highlight the 7 deep-dive Workshops being offered this year, remind folks that students and professors qualify for a great PDC academic discount (only $595!), and begin to talk about the Birds of a Feather sessions. But, only so much can be squeezed into ten short minutes, so I guess you’ll have to watch next week’s episode to hear the rest of that sentence.

Watch the video on Channel 9:

http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/LarryLarsen/Countdown-to-PDC09-Discounts-Workshops-and-Tweets/

We Love Your Feedback. Seriously. Really.

amyrc — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 16:38:01 GMT

Hello, I’m Amy…or as some on the PDC09 Core team like to call me, ‘the marketing wolf pack of one’. (If you’ve seen the movie ‘The Hangover’ then you’ll get the reference.) My hands touch everything from PDC09 brand creative, online ads, print ads, and promotional emails to various communications and copy on our conference site, Twitter and Facebook page. It’s a pretty cool gig, and I especially enjoy the opportunity to meet PDC09 followers in-person, so introduce yourself if you see me at the event!

Now let’s get down to ‘business’ here. Back in May, I asked the PDC09 Twitter audience about how we can improve the PDC online experience and how we communicate with you.

I asked / you said:

- What should the online team focus on? Make session content easily discoverable on the site; simplify the UI, session evaluations online/mobile

- How do you typically share event information and content with your friends/colleagues? Blog, word-of-mouth, email links, community sites/forums

- How do you prefer to learn about registration, discounts, offers or other announcements? Email (very popular response); event news blog with RSS; Twitter

- What’s the most important factor when deciding which events to attend? Session content, clear understanding of the event’s focus; pricing; opportunities to meet with Microsoft technical experts

And my favorite quote (you know who you are!): “I vote for RSS. Anyone not using a news reader at this point doesn't deserve to attend the conference."

How we’re responding…

COMMUNICATIONS
- We launched a PDC09 email list, which has been very popular - over 2,300 people have added themselves to the email list to date. We communicate via that list about once a month, providing updates on event announcements, sessions and special pricing offers.

- You can now subscribe to RSS feeds for New Sessions and What’s Happening.

- You’ll see PDC09 newsletter placements and information in various user group and partner newsletters

- We’re sharing more of the inner-workings of how the PDC experience comes together through the ‘Behind the Scenes’ blog.

CONFERENCE WEB SITE
- We’ve simplified the I.A. for easier navigation and discoverability.

- You can now link to and share sessions and speaker bios.

- We’re currently working on improving the mobile experience at the event, and the options for moving session evaluations to online.

SURFACING CONTENT
- We added a New Sessions RSS feed that allows you to keep up with newly published sessions as we get closer to the conference date.

- Sessions are featured prominently on the homepage (no longer buried in the I.A.), and we’ve improved the UI for filtering/searching for session content.

Well, that’s all from me for now. You can reach me on my personal Twitter account or by commenting below on this post. To prospective Twitter followers – follow me at your own risk! Most of my tweets are about music or obscure movie references.

-Amy, PDC09 Marketing Manager

Countdown to PDC09: 10 Minutes Gets You ‘The Goods’

amyrc — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 06:51:42 GMT

Set your timers! The Countdown to PDC Show is back with your favorite hosts, Mike & Jennifer. Each week they’ll give you the insider’s perspective on what’s new in the planning process, and introduce you to some PDC09 speakers and team members. In the inaugural Countdown to PDC09 episode, learn more about what the PDC is, who goes, keynotes, pricing, and a whole lot more until the timer cuts them off. But don’t worry, they’ll be back next week! Watch the Countdown to PDC09 show.