Normally, at the big Microsoft conferences i have to work (and stress) pretty hard because I commit to doing a number of developer sessions.  More times that not one of our customers are in keynote demos too.  Well, i got off lucky this time.  All that I am doing in front of an audience is a panel session called “Building Innovative Windows Client Software ” with some buddies of mine: Scott Hanselman, Scott Stanfield, Tim Sneath, Dave Wolf.  There certainly no stressing on that.  in fact, with that group, I may not even get a word in.  🙂

So, the most fun job I have at Mix this year is a job i have had the true pleasure to do for the last 3 large Microsoft Conferences.  I am the guy that does the interviewing for Microsoft for the “Bytes by MSDN” video series.  In all honesty, normally, I am the one who is getting interviewed and I can tell you that doing the interview is so much more fun and challenging.  I “own” the User experience track and get to interview ten or so pretty interesting people…including the king of design himself, Bill Buxton., a principal in Microsoft Research and a true pillar of design and user experience…and btw, a genuinely nice guy.

The other reason this is such a fun job is that the masterminds of the “Bytes by MSDN” video series are great and talented people from Microsoft and really fun to work with: Julie-Anne Arsenault, Erin Jacobs, and Nora Kelly.  They contract some pretty talented “hollywood people” to do all the filming and production and now after my 3rd go at this, i think I am getting the hang of keeping “mike the director” pleased.

Yesterday I interviewed Victor Gaudioso, Erik Mork, Scott Stanfield, and Ian Muir – all famous technology and design guys in their own right.  Those 4 are 3rd party guys – non MSFT..  Today I interview mostly Microsoft people: Paul Stubbs, Rick Barrazza, Bill Buxton, Scott Hanselman, John Papa, Tim Heuer, and Nishant Kothary.  It is going to be really fun.  And i can already guarantee the outtakes video is going to be hilarious.