The second day of the EE summit, last Sunday, was pretty interesting too. We had demo sessions with Q&A about how to set up things as good as possible when you’re video-interviewing someone, and we also had some more background info about Channel 9 and Channel 10. Then we had discussions about what sort of content we should produce for the Channel 10 website and how the Enthusiast Evangelists should look at their role and the position they take within the company on the one hand, and within communities of influentials on the other.

Later that day, we did a session where each of the EEs could tell what they were doing, what they’ve done and what they were up to, so we could help each other out if something would come up.

Then yesterday, on Monday, it was the opening day of TechReady. The event is massively huge, with 6000+ attendees and they have breakfast and lunch buffet for everyone. I’ve never seen so much food on display ever. Rows and rows and rows of blueberry pancakes, bacon and eggs, fruit and salad… and people from all over the world.

Steve Ballmer’s keynote was everything I expected and more. He’s a bomb of energy and ambition, running up and down the stage with motivational words and bashing comments. I got really boosted up when he was finished. I didn’t take any pictures, but my colleagues did, so tonight at the hotel I try and get my hands on them to post them here.

Unfortunately, the other speakers didn’t bring their content as captive, so I got a little bored. I was also a little tired, so I had a hard time not to fall asleep. It’s soooo difficult to sit in a dark room listening to people who just wrap up numbers and stats. Argh. It’s not that I lack respect or so… it’s just… you know… when you’ve just seen the great Ballmer show, anything that follows is quite a bummer.

We fled the scene and went to the Redmond Campus. Neil Woodgate showed us around at the mobile lab, something that kind of comes close to gadget heaven. The designers that work there are having the time of their life, and the amount of devices that got developed but never made it to the market is quite impressive. We had an iphone years ago. Hah! I still don’t get it why people are so overjoyed about it. That iphone looks cool, don’t get me wrong… but really. Touch screens are a pain in the ass on mobile devices, I’ve experienced it a lot. Some devices aren’t made to be controlled by touch. Phones are one of them. But yeah, the iphone looks cool. And that’s about it. At the mobile lab, rumor has it the countdown for Windows Mobile 6 has begun. As far as I got into the details, I think I’m going to upgrade my phone asap. Some funky new tweaks coming up, and an even better user interface… delicious. In less than a week, it’ll be live. I’ll post details as soon as I can.

Here’s a picture from the ‘ringtone composing equipment’, a music booth in the lab where they test and create ringtones.

So then after that we had a chance to wonder around freely. Jesse took us to the company store so we got to buy some branded goodies, and then we went to the building of Channel 9. I met up with Joshua Allen, who’s working on IE8, and we talked a little about the new things that would be present in the browser. Joshua’s pretty networked too, so Nic from APAC (the EE for Asian/Pacific Region) and Paul from UK joined in on a talk about the benefits of Barcamps and about getting involved with the communities, about Mix07 and loads of other interesting things.

Later that evening I met up with Hans (my boss) and the rest of the team to have a team dinner. We ended up in the hotel lobby for a last beer with Arlindo, David and Philippe, three other Belgian colleagues who just happened to sit there as well.

This morning I grabbed a cab back to Redmond, and I’ve been hanging out with Neil again, who showed me the datacenter of Windows CE, where all the coding is rendered and all the updates and new versions are being produced. Impressive place and cool people. I expected daylight-depraved nerds, but they were all nice and kind people.

Then Neil kicked me out because he actually had to do some work, and I went to Building 8 to have security make a badge for me so I’d have access all areas, and now I’m in the employee restaurant, writing this post and eating pizza. I’m meeting a few other EEs in a few, so I better get on with it.