i have been heads down working with the phizzpop design challenge teams this past week and this week until we announce the winners on thursday at the phizzpop event here in chicago at the chicago cultural center. take a look at how things went in the last phizzpop challenge that took place in new york and join us this thursday as we announce the winners.

i had the privilege to participate in and help sponsor the latest (and last for the year) tech cocktail event here in chicago last thursday at john barleycorn in wrigleyville. being that this was my first one, i was a little skeptical about sponsoring an event that i believed to be essentially a social mixer at a bar. when i first arrived (after sweating like a pig carrying my two bags from the red line) i was greeted by one of the founder’s, frank gruber, mother who immediately took care of getting me settled. wow! i know now why tech cocktail runs so smoothly… frank’s mom!

after about 20 minutes of being there, i realized what I have been missing for so long. not only is the social energy addicting, the networking and connections made in the crowded room are worth any business’ time in both participating and sponsoring. i met so many energetic people from small, medium, and large businesses who were both excited and confused about the presence of microsoft there. i quickly mentioned we recently launched a program called bizspark that is really going to jump start the startups looking to build software and services. the founders of tech cocktail, eric olson and frank gruber, allowed me to steal the microphone for a couple minutes to announce bizspark (if you are a startup or looking to promote startups, then run over to the bizspark site to learn more).

but it wasn’t until towards the end of the night that i realized that my message of bizspark did not even need mic time. because the venue is so open and social without any “eyes forward” type presentations, people that were genuinely interested sought me out and asked great questions on how to both join bizspark and become a network partner. i found i was able to really address people’s questions without having to bore people to death with a “eyes forward” type of presentation. luckily, my partner in crime, chris bernard, arrived just in time from making the same announcement at flashpoint academy to help answer questions on the program and announce our phizzpop event. the conversation continues next week as we announce the winners of the phizzpop design challenge at the chicago cultural center. make sure you register today to participate in a kick ass event.

all and all, tech cocktail should be the model on how to invigorate technology discussion in a community. cram about 500 wildly enthusiastic technologists, startups, marketers, socialites, etc. in a room and there is bound to be connections made. tech cocktail is truly living up to their mission: “To amplify the technology signal in under served markets and have fun doing it.”. i just recently joined the online community and I am looking forward to next year and another season of tech cocktail.

nuff said.

i have been making the rounds at techfests around the central region talking about the windows live platform, getting ready for all the exciting announcements starting today at pdc.

i like talking about windows live because most folks don’t know what it already out there since all the buzz has been around mesh.

with all these services available to developers, i sometimes wonder if we just not have been doing a good job marketing the power of the live platform. when i build a website or client application, if I could get some free authentication (from windows live id) i would be all over that.

i would also recommend you pay attention to all the exciting announcements we are making at pdc this week (starting today with a keynote at 8:30am pst). this is a big week for us and many of the announcements are going to be service related, including announcements and sessions on the windows live platform itself.

for those that have been looking for my presentation, here it is (below). i am still working on cleaning-up some of the code i used, but will be posting it here or to codeplex soon.

i attended the cloudcamp chicago event last night and was delighted to mingle with some really incredibly smart people chatting about a topic that is relevant to just about every developer, architect, marketer, business owner, etc.

the open spaces format was really effective and i had the honor to lead a topic on microsoft cloud technologies (don’t worry, i didn’t give anything away before pdc).

i also had a great chat with harper reed, the chief technology officer at skinnycorp/threadless (yes, i was wearing my favorite threadless tee at the event). harper is the kind of guy that i actually enjoy talking technology with. if you can get past the horrible sound in the following video, he makes some great points about solving business problems and not worrying about the technology. harper, i’ll see you at techcocktail in a couple weeks.

another great conversation was had with dr. werner vogels, the vp worldwide architecture and cto at amazon. all i can say is that i am infinitely wiser from my chats with him.

i also talked to a couple super smart google engineers, some smart folks from clarity, and tons of other partners. anyway, done with my words. catch more of the horrible quality video at my qik feed.

david chappell is principal of chappell & associates (www.davidchappell.com) in san francisco, california. david has been the keynote speaker for dozens of conferences and events in the u.s., europe, asia, latin america, and australia. his popular seminars have been attended by tens of thousands of developers, architects, and decision makers in forty countries. david’s books have been translated into ten languages and used regularly in courses at MIT, ETH zurich, and many other universities. in his consulting practice, he has helped clients such as hewlett-packard, ibm, microsoft, stanford university, and target corporation adopt new technologies, market new products, train their sales staffs, and create business plans.

who should attend?
anyone responsible for application architecture, software design,  setting technology direction or those responsible for testing and implementing SaaS systems.

where and when?
may 20, 2008  1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
microsoft corporation
3025 highland pkwy., suite 300
downers grove, il 60515

go and register now before it is sold out!

next friday is the launch event for windows server 2008, sql server 2008, and visual studio 2008 in milwaukee, wi. i will be presenting the reach end-users with next generation web applications session in the developer track. i am a little more excited about this launch event then the ones that i have spoken at in chicago and cleveland since it will be my first visit to the great town of milwaukee.

if you have not yet registered for the event, please register fast before it is sold out. these launch events are a great way to get to know the products that you so dearly love and they tend to sell out as the date approaches. i hope to see all you there. i will be one of the guys in the blue shirts wearing, proudly, the visual studio 2008 logo.

i spent last week in seattle and redmond attending the 2008 mvp global summit and could not believe the quality of folks we have as mvps (pictures i took are on my main page). i spoke with people from all over the world and was excited to witness first hand the kind of excitement they have for microsoft products. i think what is even more exciting is the ability they have to really shape the way that products are being developed.

the best part of the summit for me was the first day of open spaces. this is where mvps really had the opportunity to have open honest discussions on a variety of topics. one of the sessions i attended was the windows mobile session and boy were our mvps pretty vocal (i took a pretty good beating just being one of the only guys from msft in the room)! that discussion warrants it's own post, so more on that later.

what was also interesting is the amount of information that we share with mvps. granted, all mvps share a non-disclosure agreement with msft, but some sessions i attended was information i had heard for the first time! i love the transparency that we are adopting and the mvps i spoke with echoed the same feeling. they felt that it really allowed them to better understand our direction and participate in the conversation of actually making the product better.

outside of all the great technical conversations i had, i also learned something new about australia. i shared a cab with an infopath mvp from australia and learned, among other very interesting tidbits about australia, that there smallest coin denomination is $.05. this is brilliant. this means that i would never have to carry around a pocket full of pennies anymore. it also means that depending on gas prices, i would either be paying a couple cents more or less at the pump (because they round). great conversations to be had at the mvp summit!

so if you are someone that is passionate about a microsoft product and find yourself participating in the community, both online and offline, i highly recommend you investigate what it takes to become a mvp. i would love to chat with you next year at the summit!

i am pretty excited to hang out with over 1700 microsoft most valuable professionals (mvp) and regional directors (rd) from all over the world in seattle and redmond wa this week at the mvp global summit it is a pretty exciting time because we get to here first hand were we are doing great work and where we can do better. the feedback is heard by the actual product teams as well as microsoft top execs like steve balmer and ray ozzie.

if you are a mvp or rd based in the midwest then give me a holler while i am out there or follow me on twitter (which is really the only time I use twitter... out at conferences and such... i will have to post about my love-hate relationship with twitter sometime).