Just a quick reminder that I’m holding a Coffee and Code today at The Roastery at 401 Richmond. I’ll be there between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m.. If you’ve got questions, comments or suggestions about Microsoft, Windows 7, Visual Studio, the Mesh Conference, the industry or anything else, drop by!
It looks as thought the Twitter user going by the handle of betbot is going to spend the next little while absorbing a very important lesson about managing one’s online persona after making this tweet at the Mesh Conference:
betbot’s profile vaingloriously proclaims that he has three Master’s degrees:
Self-proclaimed marketing guru trying to put my 3 hard-earned Masters to work
If you;ve spent any time on a university campus, you know that having that many Master’s degrees is not a boasting point; it’s a cry for help – it means you’re a shiftless pedant majoring in life-avoidance studies. As for putting “marketing guru” in your Twitter profile; it’s a cliche on par with “I like long walks on the beach” in the personal ads.
This morning at the Mesh 2009 Conference, Microsoft’s Mark Relph (my boss’ boss) and OCAD President Sara Diamond announced a Microsoft/OCAD partnership. Microsoft will provide OCAD with a Surface tabletop computer along with software and support (which includes training and courses by Infusion Development, who know a lot about developing software for the Surface).
We’re providing OCAD with a Surface development unit along with Visual Studio and other developer tools related to building software for it. The Surface will be put in OCAD’s Digital Media Research + Innovation Institute, whose first phase is currently under construction. It’ll be used as a tool within the school’s -disciplinary Digital Futures Initiative (DFI) program, whose goals include establishing a research and innovation laboratory for interactive design, art and digital media.
Microsoft Surface will help OCAD students, faculty and researchers to apply interactive technology to their work in digital media, art and design. In conjunction with our partner Infusion Development, we will be directly engaged with teaching students how to harness the power of these new technologies. This is only the start – in the years ahead we’ll be bringing in our technology and design experts to OCAD to help further strengthen this relationship. Our focus will not just be on the Surface technologies – as we move into a world where the interaction with software will depend on new user experiences like touch, speech and other capabilities it is critical that we prepare the next generation of software designers and experience experts.
As programmers, engineers and techies, we at Microsoft can come up with all sorts of interesting uses and applications for Surface, but we can’t come up with all of them. We feel that the students at OCAD, who have a strong bent towards design, will come up with some interesting ideas and applications that would never occur to us whose bent is towards geekery. Having worked at a job where OCAD graduates were the majority, I can say from experience that there’s a certain “something” that you get from design-oriented minds that you don’t get from engineering-oriented minds. You can see that “something” in Apple’s products, and it’s something I’d like to see more of from The Empire.
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Windows 7 Feels the Love
ComputerWorld has a report citing a couple of interesting poll results:
- A poll conducted by ChangeWave says that 44% of the IT pros they interviewed said that they were “very satisfied” with the Windows 7 beta. This is leaps and bounds over a similar poll they conducted in February 2007 when 10% said they were as satisfied with Vista.
- In the same poll, 53% said that they’d skip Vista outright and just wait Windows 7.
This is consistent with my own experience talking with people at various events ranging from the EnergizeIT cross-Canada tour to my Coffee and Code gatherings (where even Macheads have been asking me for Win 7 install DVDs) to the Mesh Conference. I’ve never seen people this stoked about a beta operating system, never mind a version of Windows!
It’s an interesting part of what I like to describe as the “sea change taking place within and without The Empire”. I’m looking forward to the upcoming release candidate.
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Apple I Art Photos for Sale
20X200 is selling this lovely photo by Mark Richards featuring an “exploded” view of the original Apple I computer, the predecessor of my first computer, the Apple //e. These are limited edition prints; as of this writing, there are:
- 76 8” by 10” (about 20cm by 25cm) photos remaining, selling for US$20 each
- 463 11” by 14” (about 28cm by 36cm) photos remaining, selling for US$50 each
- 12 16” by 20” (about 41cm by 51cm) photos remaining, selling for US$200 each
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First, Lauren. Now, Giampaolo.
First, there was Lauren, and now we have Giampaolo. The ad follows the same “You Find It, You Keep It” formula: someone gets a set budget to buy a new computer and they get to keep any money left over after the purchase. And of course, he picks the PC:
The first ad featuring Lauren got that minority of people who buy Macs for boosting their self-esteem rather than getting stuff done a little riled up and coming up with laundry lists detailing what’s wrong with the ads, and I suspect that there’ll be more of the same with this one.
I’m impressed that The Empire’s ad agency, Crispin Porter + Bogusky, came up with another ad that’s neither funny-as-in-strange but nonsensical nor forgettable. It’s also good to a portrayal of a Windows user as attractive, funny and not John “I’m a PC” Hodgman.
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Coffee and Code Events This Week
There are a number of Coffee and Code events taking place this week:
- In Ottawa, as part of the EnergizeIT cross-Canada tour: join Christian Beauclair, Rick Claus and Pierre Roman on Tuesday, April 7th from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. at Bridgehead at Bank and Albert.
- In Guelph: Cory Fowler’s hosting a Coffee and Code at the Albion Hotel on Tuesday, April 7th from 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m..
- In Toronto: Yours truly will host a Coffee and Code at the Roastery in 401 Richmond on Thursday, April 9th from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m..