Monday, June 4, 2007

Theatre Sessions

Nice idea, but the execution could use improvement. The theatre sessions equate to stories around the camp fire. The reason stories around the camp fire work well for story tellers is the quiet of the woods. I the case of the theatre sessions, it's very difficult to hear the speakers, what with the music in the background, the other adjacent speakers and the noise of the attendee conversations 10 feet away. Stick to meeting rooms.

Keynote Address

I was very amused by the Keynotes openning with the Back to the Future parody. The previuosly filmed portioned parts were very well done. Unfortunately, things few apart a little once it went to the line acted portion. Poor Christopher Lloyd seemed lost on stage and few a little out of character as Doc Brown, but all-in-all very amusing.

The openning skit parodied the Back To the Future franchise. The story started with Bob Mugliia, Sneior Vice President, Sever and Tools Business, leaving stage after bombing with the crowd (this was all played out on the video screens). Doc Brown showed up with the time traveling DeLorean. Doc took him back in time to show him all the failed visions of Micrsoft in the past and help him rethink is keynote speach. Eventually, the return to the present and Bob knows now what he should say to get the crowd motivated. That when a wall is moved on stage and the DeLorean, surrounded by fog, is rolled out onto stage. Bob and Doc Brown climb out of the car and transition off into Bob's keynote as Christopher Llyod wished him luck and leaves stage.

Conference or House Arrest?

What's with the scanning of badges outside every conference room? Why is Microsoft collecting this information and how much extra spam and junk mail is it going to mean for me? Or is Microsoft going to claim to own part of my brain because it now contains information on its intellectual assets? Whatever the reason, it sure slows things down.