Together with a few other developer audience marketing managers, I had the opportunity to spend quality time last week with key stakeholders of Microsoft's audience strategy towards software developers at our headquarters in Redmond. We didn't discuss our products and features in those products, that's for other people. As it was an audience marketing summit we focused on how - in the short and long term - we can improve the experience developers have with Microsoft. We had great discussions on our relationship marketing strategy, our work with the community, market intelligence and customer insights, and a lot more...

For a part of the summit we worked in different smaller teams. I had the honor of being part of the team that also consisted of:

• Our team lead: Eileen Rumwell, Developer Audience Marketing Manager at Microsoft Corp
• Wendy Rogers, Developer Audience Marketing Manager at Microsoft Canada
• Frank Fischer, Developer Evangelism Manager at Microsoft Germany
• Maxine Cook, Marketing Manager at Microsoft UK
• Woody Pewitt, Developer Evangelist at Microsoft USA (Southern California area)
• George Kamarinos, Developer Audience & Product Marketing Manager at Microsoft Central & Eastern Europe HQ
• Dave Morehouse, Product Manager in the Community team at Microsoft Corp
• Korby Parnell, Product Manager in the Community team at Microsoft Corp

Out of the 9 people in our little team, it positively surprised me that 5 people have their own blog. And Frank writes a lot of technical content for the MSDN Germany site, so he has web presence too. Other people that were at the summit and have a blog include:

• Frank Arrigo, Developer Evangelism Manager at Microsoft Australia
• Amy Sorokas, Developer Community Marketing Manager at Microsoft Corp
• Clare Dillon, Developer Audience Marketing Manager at Microsoft Ireland

At the end of the summit we had 4 hours to present the results of our work to several Microsoft executives, which was absolutely an inspiring experience. Although such summits take up quite a lot of regular working time, I always find them very inspiring as you have a chance to think about and discuss several topics with other people in a related job. Something that is not easy to do over conference calls. Also the fact that you really disconnect from the daily challenges allows one to think more "out of the box". That really energizes me again.

And now it's time to catch up with e-mails and get some rest. Next trip is to the Luxembourg subsidiary for the MSDN Event next Tuesday.

Developer & IT Pro Days is the main conference in Belgium for developers and IT pro's that are interested in learning about current and near future products and technologies. Some of this year's highlights:

• Pre-conference on 27 March with Wintellect's Jeff Prosise on ASP.NET 2.0, ASP.NET AJAX and WPF/E
• More than 60 sessions during the 2 day main conference
• Opening keynote by David Chappell
• Several industry experts already confirmed: Thinktecture's Ingo Rammer and Christian Weyer, Jeff Prosise, Roy Osherhove. There are a few other amazing speakers in the pipeline currently; I hope David can confirm them really soon...
• Ron Jacobs, the man behind the ARCasts, will host an architecture track
• If you register on or before 28 February, you get 15% off the normal registration price.

After the good feedback we received on last year's venue, we decided to host the event again in Ghent. I hope to meet you there...

Live blogging from Brussels... Ine Dehandschutter posted the first backstage pictures from the 'Experience the "Wow"' event that will happen tonight.

I've met quite some bloggers here in Brussels; some of them have already posted something:

• Kevin De Mulder (in Dutch) - Wow
• Maarten Schenk - Experience the Wow
• Maarten Schenk - Vista: Wow
• Ine Dehandschutter - What to expect tonight in the Atomium

I just came by a recently released Digital Photography Powertoy named "Microsoft Photo Info". From the product's website:

Microsoft Photo Info is a new software add-in for Microsoft Windows that allows photographers to add, change and delete common "metadata" properties for digital photographs from inside Windows Explorer. It also provides enhanced "hover tips" and additional sort properties for digital photographs in Explorer (in Details view).

Here's a screenshot from the software running on a Windows Vista machine:

Read all about it at my MSDN blog: Scott Guthrie in Belgium on February 1st; join the free community event.

Quite exciting times again at Microsoft Belgium. Tomorrow we'll officially launch Windows Vista, Office 2007 and Windows Live OneCare to the broad public. After the big Business Innovation Launch event in November for enterpise customers, tomorrow is the day that we'll celebrate the (general) availability of Windows Vista and Office 2007 in stores and shops. As part of this general availability launch, there will be a launch event in the Atomium with a very limited number of attendees. To win an entry ticket, you should have participated in a contest organised by one of the media partners. At this moment all tickets are already distributed, so the few lucky ones that will be able to participate are already known and have been notified.

If you didn't get an entrance ticket, there is one last opportunity for you. You'll be able to watch the gig of Praga Khan for the launch event, live from the Atomium, through three different media: via MSN/Telenet, via Proximus 3G Vodaphone Live! or - probably the coolest - in Second Life. The details for the event in Second Life were mainly worked out by one of the newest Developer & Platform Evangelism members, Miel Van Opstal, who also gives more detailed information on his blog. The technical aspects (such as the streaming) are being taken care of by a marketing agency. (Technical aspects and a marketing agency... Let's hope that works out well...    )

The gig will be broadcasted on 10 different locations in Second Life:

• Strawberry Estate, Miel's own chunk of land with a miniature Atomium in the garden. In every sphere of the Atomium there are screens where people can watch the concert. There will also be 2 giant screens in the Strawberry Estate Club.
• Parioli Club in the Italian Virtual Parks region. They have created a great looking themed location, especially for this launch.
• Club Elements
• Crayonville Island
• Isle of Lesbos
• Mermaids Gentlemens Club
• ShowGirls
• Liquid Dreams
• The Sanctuary Rock
• Irie Vibes Club

And because a picture says more than a thousand words, I'm very happy that Miel allowed me to use his images on this blog:

Slightly adapted from http://blogs.msdn.com/tommer/archive/2007/01/29/second-life-streaming-of-concert-at-belgian-windows-vista-office-2007-launch.aspx.

In September, Microsoft Belgium - with the support from Child Focus and the Belgian Federal Computer Crime Unit (FCCU), distributed booklets that explains children how they can safely surf the internet. (Read Luc Van Braekel's Dutch blog post "Safe Internet for Children" about this booklet.)

As a follow-up for this campaign we're currently looking for volunteers who want to deliver a presentation on the same subject in schools to pupils aged 8 to 14. Quite some people from Microsoft and from our MSDN and TechNet communities have already delivered these presentations at difference schools with great success. You can now help increase the reach of this information to even more pupils.

If you feel that you want to be part of this project and teach children how they can safely surf the internet, please have a look at the information on this project and register (French speaking people, click here).

PS. Note that you don't have to be a developer and IT professional to deliver these presentations. Registration is open to everyone with a good knowledge on the Internet and with the necessary capabilities to bring over a message to children.

This Friday, Tom Raftery will be in Belgium. Tom is a known blogger, focussing on Web 2.0 and business blogging. His current Technorati rank is 2.985, which is obviously higher than my current rank at 20.591. ;)

Simon McDermott took the opportunity to organize a blogger community dinner in the evening together with Tom Raftery. Unfortunately I won't be able to attend this dinner, but it looks like it's going to be fun. Simon just wrote me that already 6 people confirmed their attendance but that there is a lot more space available. Leave a comment on Simon's blog post if you want to attend the dinner as well.

No blog silence at all. Although I must admit that I've neglected this blog for quite a while. For several reasons, I decided to blog on 2 different sites. Each site will have its specific content.

All things related to software development stuff, Visual Studio and MSDN in Belgium and Luxembourg will now be posted on my MSDN Blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/tommer/. This blog at http://www.vsdotnet.be/blogs/tommer/ will remain active but will change focus to other topics that interest me and that I come across in my role of audience marketing manager at Microsoft Belgium & Luxembourg.

In short, developers reading my blog will now get the same kind of information from me on http://blogs.msdn.com/tommer/. People interested in audience marketing, web 2.0-stuff, etc, can continue reading this blog.

Now I need to find some time to update the layout of both websites... Urgently...

Following MSDN Evenings are currently scheduled at the Microsoft offices in Brussels:

• October 18: MSDN Evening: Developing solutions with Windows SharePoint Services v3 and Office SharePoint Servers 2007, presented by Joris Poelmans
• November 15: MSDN Evening: Introducing Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals, presented by Gunther Beersaerts

The event starts at 18:00 till 20:00 and always covers 1 topic.

Cross posted at Tom's MSDN Belux Corner.

These are the currently scheduled Belgian user group events:

VISUG - Security Development Lifecycle
Wednesday 25 October 2006
The software industry has been struggling with how to create and release software that is more security-enhanced and reliable. The Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) provides a methodology that works; it is a critical way to help reduce the number of security defects in code at every stage of the development process, from design to release. When compared to software that has not been subject to the SDL, software that has undergone the SDL has experienced a significantly reduced rate of external discovery of security vulnerabilities.

During this presentation Wim Verhaeghen, content master for MSDN Belux, will introduce you in the process of developing software that needs to withstand malicious attack.

ACCB.NET User Group Brugge - Strict On Programming
Wednesday 18 October 2006

SQL Server User Group Belgium - SQL Server Integration Services
Thursday 23 November 2006
Nico Verheire, BI-consultant at Dolmen, will talk about Integration Services for about 1 to 1,5 hours. After the break, you are free to share and show your experiences / troubles on some desktops available in the room. Of course, you can also bring a portable with your "case". It is not a consulting evening, so no guarantee about the outcome, but the ideal place to share ideas and experiences with others.

All events can be attended free of charge. The .NET User Group Brugge requires membership of the user group.

Cross posted at Tom's MSDN Belux Corner.

Steven Van de Craen's latest article was published on MSDN Belgium & Luxembourg.

Customizing the Content Query Web Part XSL
The Content Query Web Part can be used to display a dynamic view of content from your site on a web page. This article discusses how you can extend this Web Part to show additional information about your SharePoint items (news articles, announcements, events, documents, etc.)

Cross posted on Tom's MSDN Belux Corner.

Tags: Sharepoint MSDN Belux CAML

We recently published a new article from Kurt Claeys on the MSDN Belgium & Luxembourg website:

State Machine Workflows in Windows Workflow Foundation
Windows Workflow Foundation allows us to implement workflows as state machines. This article uses a simple case and demonstrates how to develop a state machine workflow and solve the requirements of a case.

Cross posted on Tom's MSDN Belux Corner.

You are invited on October 11 for an event at Microsoft in Luxembourg, where David Boschmans, development platform advisor at Microsoft, will show you how to manage the Software Development Lifecycle with Visual Studio 2005 Team System.

Visual Studio 2005 Team System is a productive, integrated, and extensible suite of lifecycle tools that expands the Visual Studio product line to enable greater communication and collaboration among software development teams. With Visual Studio 2005 Team System, organizations can ensure greater predictability and quality early and often throughout the development process.

There are 2 sessions scheduled:

• October 11 from 9:00 till 12:00
• October 11 from 13:30 till 16:30

Location:

Microsoft Luxembourg
Zoning industriel "Cloche d'Or"
NCI Office - Laccolith
rue Eugène Ruppert 20
Luxembourg

By attending this event, you’ll gain knowledge on the features and capabilities of Visual Studio Team System.

Cross posted on Tom's MSDN Belux Corner.

There's one thing that everyone agrees on about Bart De Smet: he is not the regular nine-to-five developer. During his daily-blogging-mission in September, he wrote a few posts on how to create barcodes on the fly in C# (without requiring 3rd party software):

• Code 39 barcodes in C#
• EAN-13 barcodes in C#
• ISBN to EAN-13
• An ASP.NET .ASHX HTTP handler for Code 39 barcode generation

Please join me in congratulating Bart for the 4th consecutive year he's been awarded as a Visual Developer MVP. All of this, and a lot more, made us decide to make Bart our Belgian "MVP in the spotlight" at MSDN Belgium & Luxembourg during October.

Cross posted on Tom's MSDN Belux Corner.

Last Monday (25 September) more than 600 developers attended the free MSDN Belux event on .NET Framework 3.0 development. According to the attendee feedback, Peter Himschoot and Ingo Rammer rocked the house! Apparently for some people the content was a little too advanced, but most of you appreciated every presentation. So many people were also nice for us in their comments; here are a few of them:

• "The MSDN events are always interesting."
• "Microsoft keeps innovating, and listens to the feedback of developers."
• ".NET is my weapon of choice for any project!"
• "Microsoft gives me all I want, plus a lot more..."
• "I'm a MS developer in heart and soul... wouldn't want to trade for other tools and languages anymore..."
• "It is very pleasant developing with Microsoft products"
• "Great tools. Great resources. Great community."
• "Microsoft is doing well for the developers community."

Thanks, guys. Also the people that didn't leave such positive comments. Constructive critism is always appreciated... and developers are a very critic audience.

Someone of the event crew tooks some pictures, which I uploaded to http://www.pixagogo.com/3877614242.

Cross posted at Tom's MSDN Belux Corner.

DasBlog 1.9 was recently released by Omar Shahine and Scott Hanselman. Several features have been improved and a lot of new ones have been added. One of the new features ("multi-user/blogger support") was added by a Belgian developer: Christoph De Baene. You might also know Christoph as a board member of the Visual Studio User Group - VISUG - in Belgium.

Scott also points to a blog post of Kris van der Mast, another Belgian developer and VISUG member, on writing custom macros for DasBlog.

Congratulations to the entire DasBlog team for this getting this release out, and a special shout out to both Belgian developers for their contribution...

Cross posted on Tom's MSDN Belux Corner.
Tags: MSDN Belux Community, DasBlog

Today we've launched the Ready for a New Day event website for the Business Innovation Event. I got following text from our marketing department:

A new world of work needs a new world-class architecture. That’s why Microsoft developed Windows Vista, Exchange Server 2007 and the 2007 Office system - yours to experience at the Microsoft Business Innovation Event on 9 November at Heyzel in Brussels. Mr. Bill Gates, Microsoft’s BeLux executives and Microsoft’s best partners will provide you with all the necessary information on how to tackle tomorrow’s challenges. Don’t forget to register today (seats are limited)!

It's pretty clear that you won't get to see a lot of code - if any - during this "Business Innovation" event. Does that mean that developers are not welcome? Well, on the contrary... If you're a software developer and interested to learn more on the business opportunities and strategies with Windows Vista and 2007 Office system, please join us on this event. Just don't expect a deep-technical dive into these products.

FYI: There won't be a lot of people from the MSDN team in Belgium at the event, because almost every MSDNer will be at TechEd: Developers of course. If you want deep-technical content, TechEd: Developers is the event that you should attend...

Cyra Richardson - lead program manager for layout and rendering in the Internet Explorer team - is touring across EMEA for making developer aware of the changes in IE7. Although initially she wasn't going to visit Belgium, David managed to get here coming over to Belgium for delivering a MSDN Evening session on 29 September. From the website:

Internet Explorer provides rich new experiences around three pillars: great user experience, secure/trustworthy browsing and powerful web developer platform. Learn how your sites shine up on Internet Explorer 7 by taking advantage of better HTML and CSS standards support, RSS, search integration, and new security features. We will also take a deep look at what you can do and how we can help to prepare your existing sites for IE7.

The capacity for the event is limited to 50 people as it will be hosted in the training rooms at Microsoft in Belgium. Please only register if you're absolutely sure that you'll attend.

More information and registration.