Now that I am settled in the new place I have had some time to give the old girl some spit and polish. I’ve also had some time to really think about what I want to add and I have begun to lay out a course. I am setting some ambitious goals for myself hopefully they just seem ambitious by comparison to the last few months of absolutely nothing and what happens is it turns out to be cake to give you guys one webcast a week.

Yeah thats right one a week, and that’s just part of it. I won’t go too far into details because I’ll probably catch enough hell if I start missing on that goal. But that’s what I needed and that’s what I have, a goal. So there it is. A new look, and a new…, err well a return to the original mission, but this time with new and improved vigor! Heh, now don’t get crazy on me or anything cause here is the punch line, and this is going to make you chuckle. I have to go to Atlanta for a week, next week in fact, so the fun starts really happening the week after next. Let’s not think of this as me already dropping the ball, lets look at this as me not picking it up completely until the week after. I’ll have the ball, I’ll kick it around with me while I’m in Atlanta, put I’ll wait till I get back to actually, you know, pick it up.

Enough of that, something that you might be interested in if you happen to be in the Los Angeles area here on the 28th of July. I, being Microsoft, will be hosting the locale for what looks to be an exciting LA UX Meetup event. Jared Spool will be delivering a talk on “What makes a design intuitive”. The event will be at Microsoft’s downtown LA office and all the info you may need is available at the LA UX Meetup website — Right Here.

There is also a special IXDA event near the end of August slash beginning of September where I will be demoing live in person the great new versions of tools in the Expression Studio suite, so keep an eye out here for more information about that here in the near future. Well that makes for nice little late night update, now I need to see a bed about a pillow.

Good Night.

J.

Part of my trip was time in LA for Phizpop, unfortunately it was hard not to notice the impact that the current state of the economy has had on the community there as we had two of our teams drop out before the training. Despite those setbacks we had three excellent teams that did some amazing work given the constraints. Archetype, PUNY, and Manifest Games all took up the challenge of redefining the model for a music label in this new digital age and each delivered a unique and compelling solution. In the end the comprehensive solution offered up by Archetype won them the prize and the trip to SXSW to compete in the Phizzpop nationals.

I’m happy to be home, even if it is for just a short time before I am off to SXSW and MIX09, and back at work on the content here. I apologize for the delay in posts and I hope I am able to make an impact here before I am off again.

Speaking of events, you may have noticed there is a new “active” link in the nav. I have launched the Events page with just a couple of events I am planning on attending in the coming months. There you can see where I will be and get a little info on those events, keep an eye on that page as it will be expanding in the coming weeks. If you are planning on attending of these events as well give me a shout, I am looking forward to making some new friends along the way.

Best to you in 2009!

J.

I am excited about the new challenges of this role, one of which is the reason for this site. You see I am by experience a Flash guy, I’ve been using the tool for years, since just before the turn of the century actually, I have designed, animated, and developed flash sites throughout my career using AS 1,2, and now 3, now I don’t claim to be a developer but when I became heavily involved in Flash and really wanted my projects to come to life it was inevitable that I should become somewhat familiar with that side of the equation and it was a bit of a surprise to me that I would take to it as I have. It was a tough learning curve for me but a fun one and one I am still riding, but now I have the opportunity to take on a similar challenge in this role with Microsoft.

As I grow into this position I am going to be learning how to develop sites in Silverlight and I am going to share that experience with you along the way. I hope that those of you interested in doing the same will join me here and share your experiences as well. I honestly don’t know what to expect here. I have only a cursory knowledge of Silverlight so it’s a real ground up approach for me. I know that there are some great shops out there developing some really amazing experiences with the tool so I have a lot of confidence in it’s capabilities but there is some concern over the learning curve for myself since I am more of a designer than a developer and a question of just how much parity there is between it and Flash as far as development.

Silverlight is still in a very early stage of it’s life cycle but it has done well in these last couple of years in gaining momentum. The NBC 2008 Olympic online coverage leveraged the technology http://www.nbcolympics.com, and the Home Shopping Network is doing some great e-commerce work with it on their site tying the broadcast with the online purchase http://www.hsn.tv. There are also many examples of the work being done with Silverlight at Microsoft’s Silverlight site http://www.silverlight.net.

This is the beginning of a journey for me, a little unnerving at the start because, as with all new technology or rather technology we are new to, it all seems so daunting. I hope that together we can get this rolling without too much of a struggle and if along the way we could open a line of dialog on what Microsoft could be doing better with the technology and the tools that would be outstanding. That actually was one of the things that attracted me to this opportunity, along with the chance to interact with you in the design community more, to know that I can and should collect your voices, experience, praise and disdain for this and other Microsoft technology and work to bring that information to the people in charge of the development of it as evidence, good or bad, with the sole intent of delivering a greater product down the line. I mean who wouldn’t want to have that kind of affect at one of the largest technology companies in the world, and to not only have them accept it but to be asked for it as a extremely important part of the role’s responsibility. I just think that is awesome.

So lets get going, there is a lot to do and I for one can’t wait.