I was at the Scott Gu Conference in Phoenix yesterday, which was a great event as it always is. Many thanks go to Joe Guadagno of SEVDNUG and Scott Cate of AZGROUPS. You know what you’re going to get when Teh Gu talks. He’s a good presenter; natural, funny, open, and accessible. There were two other softies presenting too: Glenn Block and Jaime Rodriguez. Both were great. Glenn did an excellent job, which I poorly covered here. I knew a little about Glenn so it wasn’t a surprise, but Jamie was a surprise. He too did a great job. I don’t know where MS finds these techies who also happen to be good public speakers. Maybe they train them?
I was thinking about the people working for Gu and how different those teams are from the image of the rest of Microsoft. It really seems like the culture is shifting, and Gu has just a great group of people. They are open and accessible, and in many cases helpful beyond my expectation. I think you should always give credit where credit is due, and accordingly I want to point out how this has come about under the leadership of Scott Guthrie.
I know of cases where Tim Heuer, Glenn Block, and Rob Conery were voluntarily helpful out of their own kindness. Several people under Gu are also OSS contributors or founders. I think its a great thing, and it appears they all have fun doing what they do. Just a bunch of smart, good people. Here’s a list of a few of them:
- Scott Guthrie (twitter, blog)
- Scott Hanselman (twitter, blog)
- Phil Haack (twitter, blog)
- Glenn Block (twitter, blog)
- Hamilton Verissimo (twitter, blog, ms blog)
- Rob Conery (twitter, blog)
- Jamie Rodriguez (twitter, blog)
- Brad Wilson (twitter, blog)
- Damien Guard (twitter, blog)
- Scott Galloway (twitter, blog)
- Tim Heuer (twitter, blog)
There are a lot more of course, but just a little credit where a lot is due. Thanks to all.
-j