MVP

Microsoft Still Wants Your Feedback

I’m back in Seattle writing another blog post talking about how Microsoft wants your feedback.

I’m attending the Microsoft MVP Summit. To attend this summit, you have to be a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP).

I was fortunate enough to receive this award from Microsoft back in 2009, and I’ve been given the award every year since then.

Originally, I received this award for DirectX and XNA. Then I was awarded for ASP.NET / IIS and now I’m a Windows Development MVP that focuses on Mixed Reality.

One of the big benefits of being a Microsoft MVP is that you get to meet the product teams at Microsoft and provide feedback. I’ve been spending my time between Windows and ASP.NET sessions.

Being able to provide feedback to the product teams is a great perk of being a MVP, but…

Here’s a secret…

You don’t have to be a MVP to provide feedback.

Sometimes it can be easy to think of Microsoft as this massive faceless company that only cares about the bottom line.

As somewhat of an insider, I get to meet the actual product team members that make the great software and products we get to use.

It isn’t a faceless corporation. It is a company made up of tens of thousands of employees who are dedicated to creating great experiences for their customers … you and me.

One way they can do that is by knowing which things they are doing well and which things can be improved.

The feedback forms in many of the applications go to the actual teams that make the product.

You can let your voice be heard by simply providing feedback through the app.

It’s a great privilege to be able to come out to Seattle every year and meet with the product teams. I’m hoping I’ll be fortunate enough to be able to attend next year.

Every year, a theme I hear from the different teams is they want to know how they can improve and what they can do better.

So take the time to let your voice be heard. You don’t have to be a MVP to get Microsoft’s attention.

I made a companion video to this blog post, which you can watch here:

Chad Carter Leave a comment

Microsoft MVP Virtual Conference

The Power of Community

Microsoft MVP Virtual Conference
May 14 & 15, 11AM to 9PM (EST) / 8AM to 6PM (PST)

Microsoft has put together an online virtual conference, called the Microsoft MVP Virtual Conference, that will have their MVP as speakers. I’ve been fortunate enough to be a Microsoft MVP since 2009. For the first several years, I was a XNA/DirectX MVP. For the last two years, I’ve been awarded the ASP.NET/IIS MVP award.

I’ll be bringing both worlds together in a talk I’ll be giving on Friday at 5PM EST called “How To Create A Global Leaderboard For Unity 3D Using Azure Mobile Services”. This will be a fast paced talk that goes through setting up an Azure Mobile App (a backend Azure service) that will allow me to store high score information. I’ll be going through how the REST API works and how to test it and to create a backend data store to hold the data. To use the data, I’ll be using a Unity 3D demo that shows setting and retrieving high scores from the cloud.

So that is my talk, but there are a total of 5 tracks that will be running over the course of two days! Here are a list of all of the sessions. And here is where you can find a breakdown of each track and each talk’s timeslot within that track.

So if you are into IT, software development, or just someone who wants to know more about Microsoft products (via the consumer track) you should definitely check out some of the sessions in the Microsoft MVP Virtual Conference. There are even tracks for Spanish and Portuguese! So make sure to register today so you can pop in on the sessions you care about. Don’t miss this very unique community event.

As of last week, there are over 5,000 people that have signed for this virtual conference. There are some great presentations that will definitely be a benefit to you if you take the time to attend.

When attending the sessions, I’d also suggest utilize the hashtag #MVPvConf for the event.

Start Time shown in the table below is PT (Pacific Time). You may use the Time Zone Converter to find out the time based on your location.

Day 1 – May 14th, 2015
Time
IT Pro
Track
Developer
Track
Consumer
Track
LATAM (Spanish)
Track
Brazil (Portuguese)
Track
8:00 AM
(PT)
Keynote Address:
Steven Guggenheimer
Keynote Address:
Steven Guggenheimer
Keynote Address:
Steven Guggenheimer
Keynote Address:
Steven Guggenheimer
Keynote Address:
Steven Guggenheimer
9:00 AM
(PT)
BYOD with Microsoft Enterprise Mobility Suite (EMS)
Microsoft Band: Project Online Task Updates from your Wrist.
How to present with your audience’s needs in mind, all within PowerPoint!
Implementing End-to-End High-Availability: Hyper-V, Network, Storage, and Cloud Architecture
Interfaces com Xamarin – O que eu preciso saber?
10:00 AM
(PT)
Microsoft Surface in the Enterprise
Fireside: Cooking with Open Source
Create Custom Icons in PowerPoint
Herramientas SQL-Server Best Practices Analyzer y Microsoft MAP para apoyo en la administración de Bases de Datos
Visual Studio 2015 – Novidades e Produtividade!
11:00 AM
(PT)
What is new in Skype for Business
Detecting Facial Expressions with Azure Machine Learning and Kinect for Windows
It’s Not A Windows Phone, It’s MY Windows Phone
Windows 10: productivo en cualquier tamaño
Introdução ao C#6
12:00 PM
(PT)
Power BI as a Self-Service BI Platform: Architecture, Use Cases, Strengths, and Shortcomings
Supercharge your Development with Azure Websites
Xbox music, the cloud and your Beiber collection
Extendiendo tu Infraestructura Local con Cómputo + Redes de Microsoft Azure: una Implementación en el Mundo Real
Primeiros Passos no ASP.NET 5
1:00 PM
(PT)
Azure Test Labs: From Zero to Hero
DevOps: What Is This Puppet You Speak Of?
Using Office Mix from Boardroom to Classroom
Introducción a Azure Machine Learning
Executando ASP.NET MVC 6 no Mac OS X e no Linux
2:00 PM
(PT)
Azure Remote App for your Line of Business Applications
Mongo Baseball.NET
Windows 10: Making School Life easier with Windows 10 and Cortana
Desarrollando para Office 365
Introdução ao HDInsight Hadoop Tools for Visual Studio
3:00 PM
(PT)
Securing Your Azure Data Center
Node.js for .NET Developers
Migrating from an iOS mobile device to a Windows mobile device and how to keep your Outlook data, emails, and contacts intact
10 Características que todo desarrollador debería utilizar con su sistema de control de versiones. Parte 1
Usando os dados de Mail, Calendário e Contatos do Office 365 em suas aplicações C#
4:00 PM
(PT)
Deploying Highly Available SQL Server in Microsoft Azure IaaS
Introduction to AngularJS in an Office 365 context
Ransomware – Key tools for prevention and recovery
Implementación de Recuperación de Desastre/ Respaldo de Datos con Azure
Project Online – gerenciando projetos e portfólio
5:00 PM
(PT)
Dynamics CRM MVP Ask the Experts
Native iOS Apps using Swift for Office365
Understanding Windows updating
SQL Server 2014 + Azure = Bases de datos hibridas
ALM para Apps for SharePoint
Day 2 – May 15th, 2015
Time
IT Pro
Track
Developer
Track
Consumer
Track
LATAM (Spanish)
Track
Brazil (Portuguese)
Track
8:00 AM
(PT)
Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Automation with PowerShell
Surviving in an Async-First Development World
I’m an uber chic hipster that runs my business on only Apple products; Why would I want Office365?
Implementando Exchange 2013 con las mejores prácticas em cada rol, evitando del principio problemas futuros
Otimizando o gerenciamento de máquinas virtuais no Microsoft Azure
9:00 AM
(PT)
Modern IT: DevOps to ITIL
Roslyn for Normal Developers: It’s Not Just for Compiler Geeks!
Using Access and SharePoint for Travel Expenses and Pulling up Maps
Generando Comunidades Corporativas con SharePoint
Automating Azure Management using PowerShell
10:00 AM
(PT)
Just Enough Explanation of JEA, Windows’ New “Just Enough Administration” (JEA) Tool
10 New Things for Developers on Windows 10
Pivot Table Data Crunching
Power BI 2.0 – la revolucion en inteligencia de negocios en la nube
Designing and Building a Hybrid Cloud, co-starring Microsoft Azure and Your Datacenter
11:00 AM
(PT)
Automating Service Delivery with System Center 2012 R2
Windows 10 and Spartan
Use your Windows Phone to tap into the Contacts, Calendar (and shared Calendars) and OneDrive
Enterprise Mobility Suite (EMS) – Cómo manejar dispositivos móviles en la empresa con System Center R2 Configuration Manager 2012 + Intune
Migrating Active Directory to Windows Server 2012 R2
12:00 PM
(PT)
Best Practices for Virtualizing and Managing SharePoint 2013 with System Center Windows Server 2012
A Lap around ASP.NET vNext!
Delve and the Office Graph – A crash course
Adoptando Marcos Ágiles con Visual Studio Online
Segurança em ambientes virtualizados com Hyper-V e Vmware
1:00 PM
(PT)
Troubleshooting Hyper-V Performance Issues – Black Belt Notes from the field
A Brief History of OWIN
Windows 10: New Features and New Directions
Administración y configuración de Microsoft Deployment Toolkit – MDT 2013 – para el despliegue de Windows 10
Prepare seu datacenter para a Nuvem
2:00 PM
(PT)
Migrating from VMware to Hyper-V for VMware Professionals
How To Create A Global Leaderboard For Unity 3D Using Azure Mobile Services
Windows Phone 8.1: “Hey Cortana” you make my life easier
Cardinality Estimator en SQL Server 2014. ¿Qué es? Y cómo nos beneficia
Deployment ágil com Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2013
3:00 PM
(PT)
Healthy SQL III
One XAML UI to Rule them All with Universal Apps and Xamarin.Forms!
These Are a Few of My Favorite Things – The OneNote Edition
Accesando Office 365 desde un App Android / Windows Phone
Controlando cargas de trabalho com Resource Governor no SQL Server 2014
4:00 PM
(PT)
PowerShell Desired State Configuration – Custom Resource Development
Cross-Platform Localization for Mobile Apps Using .NET
Windows 10: Productivity Tips
10 Características que todo desarrollador debería utilizar con su sistema de control de versiones. Parte 2
Why is my index still fragmented after REBUILD on SQL Server?
5:00 PM
(PT)
A pain-free migration to Office 365
Resolving Conflicts in Collaborative Occasionally Connected Mobile Apps
Virtual Tour of Microsoft’s Security Response Center
Identidad y Acceso en la nube
Construindo ambientes com o Quórum dinâmico

Go ahead and register for the conference.

See you in there!

Chad Carter Leave a comment

MVP Awarded for 2010

MVP_FullColor_ForScreenOnce again I was given the MVP Award in the area of XNA and DirectX. I’m really excited about being apart of the MVP program again this year. Because of Windows Phone 7 there is a lot more interest in XNA which is great because if you are wanting to make games then there isn’t an easier framework to use. There are tons of 3rd party components and engines being written now.

Writing apps in Silverlight is also extremely easy to develop in. This all stems from .NET in general. Back in 2000 when I first heard about .NET and ASP+ (to be called ASP.NET) I fell in love with it. The turn around time on new technology has been remarkable over the last few years. I believe this is because of the maturity of the .NET Framework and Microsoft being able to build upon that excellent foundation.

I encourage you to download the developer tools at http://developer.windowsphone.com/windows-phone-7

Also, I really encourage you to look at http://communitymegaphone.com/ to determine what community events are going on around you. You will grow as a developer tremendously by connecting with likeminded people and discussing technology that you are passionate about.

Also, and most importantly, get involved in your local user group. INETA has a great tool for this: http://ineta.org/UserGroups/FindUserGroups.aspx

I’m really thrilled that I received this award for 2010. I’m really looking forward to going to the Summit again next year. Being able to talk directly with the teams that create the technologies I use every day is outstanding.

The last thing I want to mention is that if you attend a user group and you have never presented on a topic before then I strongly encourage you to pick a topic you are passionate about and talk to your user group leaders about presenting. I really enjoy hearing folks who are passionate about a technology even if they have never spoke publicly before. Get active!

Chad Carter 2 Comments