Tech.ed Europe Register first, Save the most

oops.  I completely forgot to include this blog post when the site went live on Monday.  Basically we’re selling tickets for teched like the airlines do.  The first seats (places) sold are the cheapest and they go up – like airline seats do, the more places that are sold.  So it’s up to you to convince your budget owners that you need to register EARLY!

 

The very very cheapest places have gone already but you’ll still get a really great deal if you register your place soon. Perhaps we should do some badges with “I got my ticket at “xxx” because I booked early for Tech.ed”

Let me know how cheap you get your ticket …

 

Technorati Tags: teched europe

Crafting and Grafting* for tech.ed Europe

*Grafting is a term we use in the UK for working really hard

It’s surprising how things morph into other things isn’t it?  I’m reducing the amount of UK based stuff I’m doing as i go towards my Garden Leave on August 10th, yet I’ve been given an amazing opportunity that is taking up lots of my time at the moment.  I’ve been asked to be the content owner at #techedEurope which is going to be in Berlin in November.   Final details are still being worked out as to what type of role this will be (full time / contract etc) but for now I’m really busy with planning the event.

We start planning, as you can see, at least 6 months before each event.  We need content ideas, experts to own each track, advisors, to connect the track owners to the corp speakers, liaisons to link up with EVERY product team to work out which major announcements we’ll be making, which exec speakers we can get over to do the keynote, whether we’ll launch any products there.  We plan which Hands on Labs we’ll need (and how many), how many Instructor Led Labs we’ll be using, if at all, if we have any Birds of a Feather sessions, Demos in the main hall, and just about everything else you can think of.  So it’s a really exciting opportunity for me to get my teeth into something I’m really passionate about and not to worry about what’s going to happen after my time at Microsoft ends.

So my first challenge is… The Keynote.  So I’m asking you what you would like to see.  I’m thinking about having an IT Pro focused keynote and a Developer Keynote later in the week, so to keep them separate.

Which speakers would you like at each keynote – and why?  What demos would you like to see on stage?  What products?

and if you’re not sure – what would your colleagues like to hear about on TechEd Online (if they can’t come to the Event in person).  Leave a comment and I’ll start the discussions with the rest of the planning team.  And mark the date when registration goes live.  The cheapest tickets will be the first to go

More later…

Technorati Tags: teched europe,Berlin

Twitter – and good customer service

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I’m really impressed with the way that companies use Twitter to connect – really connect with their customers.  Andrew told me about his own personal experience of excellent and speedy service through Twitter.

Andrew has a really slow broadband connection – as i do – we both get about 1/2 mb each.  so VOIP calls can sometimes be a bit torturous with the latency.  I feel like speaking simplex sometimes “Roger”, “Over” “Over and Out”, its sometimes so bad.  Well Andrew complained about the speed of his broadband service

 

then look how long it took BT to respond to him…

then after a few tweets on Friday morning from BT and a visit on Tuesday evening, Andrew tweeted…

and BT responded…  

BT even came down a few days later to check the connections in the road.  Again, excellent response to their customers. 

Companies could certainly learn from this type of positive customer service and response using Twitter.  this is an amazing example of just how Twitter can be put to good use to change perception and improve satisfaction of a service, product or company.

Companies have a lot to learn here, but well done BT for being so responsive and getting great customer satisfaction from just one Tweet. nice one…

Technorati Tags: Twitter,customer service

Different stokes for different folks…

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I’ve had a bit of a blogging holiday recently – to tell the truth, I haven’t been sure what I wanted to talk about.  Should i just carry on like nothings happened?  Do I dwell and subject you to the range of emotions I’ve been feeling?  Do I tell you what I’ve been doing with my search for a new role?  or should I just keep quiet until I have something interesting to say?  I’ have been really fascinated with peoples reactions to my news over the past couple of weeks.  Some of the people I’ve known and worked with for years now behave really differently towards me.   I’ve bucketed these different types of reactions into 3 categories and wondered if you have similar experiences.

1: The Funeral Mourners.  They come up, hands on, a hug perhaps, a sorrowful look,  talking in hushed voices and oozing sympathy.  Their faces show concern worry and anxiety.

2: The Get on With Life Brigade.  Matter of fact, no nonsense people, who want to hear what happened and move on

3: The Scurriers.  Blank stares as they hurry past you in the corridor

So I wondered why these quite different reactions occur. How have I been reacting to news like this in the past?  Which behaviour do I prefer to encounter?  I suppose that these reactions its similar to peoples reactions when dealing with bad news in the family, perhaps a grieving relative or someone who is going through the 5 stages of grief

I found some interesting articles that try to explain how to deal with changes in the workplace when downsizing or restructuring occurs in a company which can all potentially produce grief-like responses as workers adjust to the change.  Additionally, The lives and the behaviour of the “survivors” and the “victims” of work changes will be transformed.

The victims of work changes must cope with social, interpersonal, and financial adjustments.  Those who remain must deal with changes in supervision and reporting lines, loss of co-workers, additional or redesigned work, and uncertainty of their role and value to the company. Both groups have encountered changes that will change  their lives, causing them to go through transitions. Workers often feel that the change "happened to them," rather than being their choice or something that was within their control. How people react depends on the individual, their previous work and personal experiences along with their history of past losses. Most worker’s reactions to the workplace event will be more about the secondarily associated losses than about the actual change itself.

There are some sage words here: Don’t be scared to talk to them about how they feel, and to say that you are sorry for them. Let them know you’re there for them if they want to sound off angrily, cry on your shoulder, or get out to do something to distract themselves for a while. Try not to avoid them unless they ask for some space, this may make them feel worse than they do already, and it’s a time when they need to know who their friends are

Well for me, if you come and chat to me, please can you be like one of the Get On With Life Brigade? I’m fine, cheerful, optimistic about all of my future options and I want to talk to as many people as possible to find my next role / job / customer / career.

And for the scurriers?  Well i want you to know that it’s ok to talk to me – I haven’t disappeared yet…

The Power of social Networking

I’ve always believed that traditional forms of marketing is starting its decline and the way we reach others has significantly changed.  This concept thudded home to me last Thursday when I posted about being made redundant.  Now the dust has settled I thought I’d share the timeline with you.

I use Live Writer to post to both blogs (this one and my old TechNet blog).  I’d hit “Publish”, switched blogs on Live Writer and was modifying the post to publish here when the timeline started.  I use a Live writer add in to post to Twitter each time I post a blog entry, and Twitter automatically feeds my Facebook status updates.  Well at Thursday 7th May 2009 @ 4.57pm (lets call this “P”) everything started…

P: Posted to my TechNet blog

P+3 minutes: Text from Mark, our MVP who runs the Active Directory User group “just seen your Tweet” what’s happening?

P+6: Called Mark to tell him that I’d be on “garden leave” from August 10th, so I was starting to look for a new job.

P+7: Call from Zack Whittaker ZDNet asking me essentially the same thing and telling me that he had Mary Jo Foley on IM asking him what the heck was going on in the UK – and to send her best wishes

P+8: Facebook status updates start to arrive

 

P+11: email from Mary Jo Foley proving yet again just how up to date she is with news at Microsoft

P+13 email from a colleague over in Redmond recommending me for a role in Corp

Yes, this is the person I spoke to you about before – Eileen is the Robert Scoble of Europe. You can see her blogs.technet.com statistics month after month outshining many Microsoft bloggers.

On another front, if we lose Eileen we will be losing the woman who pulled together the Women in Tech movement with Cisco and Google overseas. She has spoken all around the world (I think the New Zealand Tech Ed clip is up somewhere) about women in tech and made people think well of Microsoft.

I hope at least the two of you can chat by phone – if we lose Eileen to a competitor it will be a blow.

P+15 – Finally manage to press “Publish” to my WordPress blog

P+17 Public Tweets start to arrive. James has written a nifty Powershell script to pull all of this data from Twitter and place it into Excel (Read from the bottom up and notice that there’s an hours difference here…

P+18 First email from Hannah, a colleague on the Strategic Women’s panel over at the BCS who noticed the edits I made to my WordPress blog

P+19 First DM (Private Tweet) arrives on Twitter

P+20 first Facebook direct email message

I was still trying to respond to all of the Facebook, Twitter, emails and phone calls 4 hours later!  And now,  a week later, I’m still getting mails, tweets and Facebook Status updates.  My stats on both blogs have jumped quite a bit over the last 7 days, my Twitter followers have increased by more than 10%, I’ve had several requests to send my CV off to people, and one offer so far to consider going freelance.  Lots of options to consider.

But the power of Social media continues to amaze me – and here’s the proof of its value…if you wish to communicate your message effectively…

My role is impacted by the layoffs at Microsoft

…and I’m currently At Risk of Redundancy.  Therefore I won’t be continuing to blog on my TechNet blog any more, but I’ll still be blogging here regularly pointing you to all of the cool stuff I find out there.

If I do manage to find another role at Microsoft before my formal notice period ends, then I’ll continue blogging in both places of course, but you can always find me here or you can always get in touch via Twitter @eileenb.  I need to work out a way of getting my twitter feed embedded on to this blog though.  I’m sure I can work something out eventually

But meanwhile – if you hear of any roles that would suit a great technical manager who understands IT Pros, Audiences, Influencers, Community, Web 2.0, social media and knows Unified Communications and messaging rather well then let me know.

It’s been really great fun doing this fantastic job with some truly amazing people at Microsoft.  I’m only one of many people who have been impacted by this restructuring and my heart goes out to others who have also been impacted.  But if I can’t find another role at Microsoft somewhere, I’m sure I’ll find an amazing role somewhere.

Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible – but meanwhile – a large glass of wine beckons soothingly

Download Windows 7 Release Candidate now

The Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC) is now available to download for everyone, and is available until June 2009 to download.

Download the RC

So what’s new in the RC?  Check out this video explaining some of the enhancements introduced since the Beta release.

If you are considering deploying Windows 7 in an enterprise, try downloading Windows Server 2008 R2 to test out the ‘better together’ features such as Branch Cache.

Support for the RC is via the Windows 7 TechNet forums: Have questions? Need answers? Visit our Windows 7 Forums.

Important note to Windows 7 Beta users: The Windows 7 Beta will expire on August 1, 2009 so you must rebuild your PC with either Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC) or another valid version of Windows before July 1, 2009. You will receive a warning two weeks prior to July 1; after this date, your PC will reboot every two hours.

New resources for IT pros:

With the release of the Windows 7 there are also some new resources on the Windows 7 TechCentre. As well as the resources to guide you through your exploration of Windows 7, there is also now support on Piloting and Deploying Windows 7 and Managing Windows 7.

The new site  contains helpful information including:

Demonstration: Migrating from Windows XP to Windows 7

How to Start a Windows 7 Pilot Deployment

Windows 7 Manageability Overview

TalkingAboutWindows.com—where IT pros can hear the “back stories” from the leading engineers for Windows 7, discussing how and why they made the critical decisions and tradeoffs they did; along with videos of IT pros discussing Windows 7 in their environment

Gesture your way around Photosynth

Now this is neat.  YDreams have incorporated a device that lets you navigate your way around Photosynth using your hands.  You may not need to have the sound on the video though

Hat tip to David for finding this.  A very impressive demo…

 

Technorati Tags: Photosynth

90% discount on Microsoft Office 2007

I blogged about the Ultimate Steal last year – a really great opportunity to get your hands on Office 2007 for an incredibly low price.  all you need is an .ac.uk email address – so that includes all of the more “mature” students who have gone into academia later on in life.  Do you know anyone studying a the Open University?  Well they’re included too

 

Microsoft can now offer students the new software they need for a rock-bottom price.  The ‘Ultimate Steal’ is an offer being run by Microsoft for university students where they are able to obtain Office Ultimate for only £38.95 which is a whopping 90% off the current price amongst the retail outlets 

Microsoft Office Ultimate Edition 2007 includes:

• Microsoft Access
• Microsoft Excel
• Microsoft Groove
• Microsoft InfoPath
• Microsoft OneNote
• Microsoft Outlook with Business Contact Manager
• Microsoft PowerPoint
• Microsoft Publisher
• Microsoft Word

All you have to do to get your hands on this fantastic deal is visit The Ultimate Steal website.

Thanks to the Small business blog for the links

 

Technorati Tags: The Ultimate Steal,Office 2007

Can you spot the spammer?

This is a quiz. Here’s a word doc in an attachment that someone sent to me asking whether this letter was genuine or not.

I spotted 10 different reasons why this letter is a fake.  how many can you see?  By the way – I’m not just criticising the use of English (although there are many examples here).  Leave a comment and see how many you can find…

 

Technorati Tags: 419 scam,spammer,spam