Team System Chat - Wed. Aug. 1st

Since I received the MVP award, I get a lot more email about different things going on at Microsoft that the community-at-large might like to know about.  Other emails are requests to inform the community about upcoming events.  Here is one for an upcoming Team System Chat. 

Come chat with the Visual Studio Team System product team – This Wednesday

Join members of the Visual Studio Team System product group to discuss features available in Visual Studio Team Foundation Server, Architecture Edition, Development Edition, Database Edition, and Test Edition. In addition, discuss what's new in Beta 2.

We will be holding two sessions:

Join the chat on Wednesday, August 1^st, 2007 from 10:00am - 11:00am Pacific Time. Add to Calendar | Additional Time Zones

            -or-

Join the chat on Wednesday, August 1^st, 2007 from 4:00pm - 5:00pm Pacific Time. Add to Calendar | Additional Time Zones

 

If you've never sat in on one of these chats, do yourself a favor at try it out.  It is a great opportunity to ask your questions directly to the development teams that create the products you work with and work on daily.  No question is too broad or detailed.  These folks are great.  If the answer that you need can't be adequately answered in the timeframe, they will post follow-up, detailed  answers to their blogs.

This is also a good chance to let the people that decide what goes into the products know what you want for features, what you like and what you dislike about them.  All in all, a very responsive group of people.

- Steve

Dry-spells

I've been writing this blog for a little over a year now and it has been mostly focused on TFS and Team Build/MSBuild in particular.  I've recently run out of daily experiences to write about as I've been working with SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) at my current client.

I was wondering if there would be any value to broadening my blog topics to include whichever technology I happen to be working with at the moment?

Would any of you like to hear about the technology du-jour or should I stick with TFS related postings?

I'd like to keep this technology focused and still provide value to the community while being able to post more frequently.  Basically broader scope == more posting opportunities.

Leave me a comment and give me your feedback. 

- Steve

A big Thank You to Microsoft!

I received a nondescript piece of email this morning.  A cursory glance at the address revealed it was from "support" at some company or other.  The message above it seemed more interesting so I moved on to find that Jason Bock, one of my colleagues at Magenic, was awarded Microsoft MVP - Visual Developer - Visual C#.  I though that that was great and fired off a congratulatory email.

I then moved back to my piece of unremarkable email.  I opened it up and just about had a heart-attack.  Here's the meat of the message:

"Dear Steve St. Jean,

Congratulations! We are pleased to present you with the 2007 Microsoft® MVP Award!

The Microsoft MVP Award is our way of saying thank you and to honor and support the significant contributions you make to communities worldwide. As a recipient of Microsoft’s Most Valuable Professional award, you join an elite group of technical community leaders from around the world who foster the free and objective exchange of knowledge by actively sharing your real world expertise with users and Microsoft. ...

Your extraordinary efforts in Visual Developer - Team System technical communities during the past year are greatly appreciated."

All I can say is "Thank You...I'm honored." 

But the excitement is tempered but gut-wrenching fear.  MVPs are considered to be experts in their Product Group.  Team System is a huge product platform and I've only scratched the surface in a number of areas.  What will I do if I have to answer a question in an area I'm "shallow"???  Somewhere in my travels I came across a quote that poignantly sums me up... "Jack of all Trades, Master of Some."  I guess this is the impetus to broaden my knowledge of the platform.  

So thanks again to the folks at Microsoft, all the folks that post questions to the MSDN Build Automation and MSBuild forums, sit through my presentations and to all of you folks that read this blog.  We'll see what the next year brings...

- Steve