MIX09 retrospective

After a pretty crazy few days of sensory and information overload in Vegas, it’s time to look back and take stock of what has come out of the conference.  I’m writing this from by the Pool at the Venetian – it’s nice to have time to myself again, and no obligations save making sure i don’t miss my flight in a few hours time.

Microsoft have done a great job in putting this conference together; keeping it relatively small and focussed made for a far better return on investment for those attending, as the real value in actually being here in Vegas was not in the sessions themselves, but in being able to connect with people.  Having the keynotes streamed online (alongside a #MIX09 twitter feed on the same page), and making high quality videos of the presentations (with embedded slides) available soon after, meant that the conference content was as accessible (if not more so) to those tuning in from around the world, as it was to those here in Vegas.

Real world social networking

Among the attendees and speakers was a veritable who’s who of experts, practitioners and stakeholders in these Microsoft web technologies.  All were accessible, open and free to chat and answer questions whenever you were able to grab them.   The Microsoft Partner teams also did a great job of corralling the relevant people through social events designed to allow and encourage discussion.  Despite being perhaps a little too organised at first, as is the way of things – people found their own way around, and a more organic discussion evolved as a result… though the beer probably helped too.

Keynotes

These were all about the big announcements.  IE8’s official release being the one that most of the general public will be most aware of, sooner.  But it’s the release of Silverlight 3, and the evolution of Expression Blend that i think will have the greater impact on the designer/developer community and the web ecosystem in general.

It’s always awesome to have Bill Buxton talk, and without  his introduction giving some context and setting the tone in the first Keynote, Scott Guthrie’s section would have been more of a bullet-point list of (albeit exciting and highly anticipated) announcements.

Deborah Adler’s Keynote talk on the development of the Clear Rx packaging system was a great example of how important user-centred design can be.  In this case, literally a case of life and death.  Unfortunately quite a few (developers) failed to recognise its relevance to them, and would have benefitted from a clear explanation of how it translated to their working processes.

The Sessions

There was a broad mix of topics, to cater for the broad range of attendees.  It seemed at times that the speakers were surprised at the number of UI / UX professionals in an audience they had expected to have a great developer bias.   Opinion on the value of the sessions varied wildly depending on who you spoke to.  It was very hard to gauge (from the title and description) just what level of expertise some of the more specific and technical sessions were aimed at.  Often it seemed that a developer experienced in a field would come out disappointed, while someone looking for an introduction to a technique or subject would derive great benefit from the same session.  The occasional sensationalist session title didn’t help… one person’s idea of ‘cutting edge’ can be very different from another’s.

Those sessions taking a deeper dive into some of the topics briefly covered in the keynotes were more universally enthusiastically received (and delivered, perhaps).

Highlights

• The obvious: Release of Silverlight and Expression Blend 3.
• The Unexpected: Pure awesomeness of Sketchflow.
• Having the opportunity to demo our application to so many MS stakeholders, and receiving such positive feedback both from them and fellow UK based MS partners.
• Finding the Silverlight and WPF app output from the UK partners seriously kicks ass… as does their attitude and ability to have a good time.
• Vegas - crazy place, even more so during Spring Break and St Patricks Day

I hope to cover more of the last few day’s happenings in more detail, in subsequent posts.  But right now i need to get me a coffee, shortly followed by a cab to the airport.

Hunter S. Harewood