It’s been a great week. I got to see Bill Gates and really liked the things he announced and discussed in his keynote. He even talked about Second Life. Hah, imagine that! It’s one of the memorable moments of this TechReady week. After the keynote we went back to the Microsoft campus in Redmond to meet up with some more people and to enjoy the atmosphere there. Video shooting, hanging around, talking… networking. I think I’ve been able to create a solid base for future projects in which I can include a lot of people to scale it, and to me that’s really important.

I liked the TechReady atmosphere, but the sessions I attended (the few of them) were a bit too technical and went way too far into details to be ‘understandable’ to me. I have a very limited tech background, and I do want to know and understand how things work, but seriously, I’m not going to be an overnight wizzkid that all of the sudden will start coding the kernel or some sort of sequel server patch. I’m a people guy, I need practical cases I can demo to my audience. That’s why I felt a bit ‘left out’, together with some of the other EEs. We need more tangible things. That’s exactly why we went to look for them on the campus.

I got a chance to talk with Joe Wilson, the director of DPE, about ‘my commitments’ and how to set them, about the deliverables that come with them and how to measure those. Really interesting. I should get on it as soon as I get home.

Today’s closing keynote by Chris Bangle, BMW’s Chief of Design, was really impressive. He had a great story to tell, with lots of valuable insights that could really be applied to a lot of the things we do at Microsoft. It was absolutely worth the time spent there, and I even got some nice ideas to include similar examples in my future presentations.

All in all I enjoyed my stay here in Seattle. I met a lot of people with whom I’m still actively discussing things over email, because of the lack of time. I met the coolest colleagues a man could wish for. I know now that my choice to go for Microsoft was the right one. Damn, I love to be where I am.

My plane back goes in a few hours. We’re in the hotel lobby right now, chilling a bit to wait for the others to arrive, and then we’ll go for sushi. A cab later we’ll be at the airport waiting for the plane.