Category: Students

Wow, what a busy last couple of days. It has truly been a fast paced whirlwind trip to Seattle for Student Insider training at Microsoft. I’m sitting here in the terminal waiting for my flight back to Phoenix, and looking out the gray skies and watching the rain fall.

I flew up here to Seattle on Wednesday in the early afternoon, and spent the last two days at Microsoft’s main campus meeting with people in Microsoft Research, Xbox, XNA, Office, Windows Azure, and meeting some more famous names like Scott Hanselman and Frank Arrigo (Happy belated Australia Day, Frank!).

I have been chosen to be Microsoft’s IT Student Insider. I personally think that the term IT Student Insider is somewhat ambiguous. I see myself as providing more of a broad perspective on Microsoft and their offerings, and also trying to focus in on how Microsoft products can help consumers and business users achieve their goals.

There are a grand total of 6 insiders in this first wave of the program. As the program develops and matures, I think that the number will grow and that there will be insiders across many areas at Microsoft. Below, I’ve listed my fellow Insiders, and their disciplines.

Name	Discipline	Blog URL	Twitter username
Ryan Bucinell	Programming	http://www.dreamincode.net/forums/blog/swiftstriker00	@swiftstriker00
Patrick Godwin	Programming	http://www.ximplosionx.com	@ximplosionx
Joe Osborne	Expression / Design	http://www.geekadelphia.com	@joeosborne87
Jeremy Bray	Windows	http://www.globalgeeknews.com	@globalgeeknews
Ashley Myers	Imagine Cup	http://www.organizefish.com/blog	@organizefish
Tom Ziegmann	IT	http://www.tomontech.com	@tziegmann

I encourage all my readers to read my fellow Insiders blogs and follow us on Twitter. Who knows, we just might have some cool stuff to give away at times. 😉

I want to take a moment to highlight a fellow Insider, and his name is Patrick Godwin. When I had been told about the program, I was under the impression that it was for college students only. However, when I met Patrick, I found out that he was only 16. Yes, sixteen! Patrick’s focus is development, and it was very evident during our talk with Scott Hanselman that Patrick knows his stuff. I was blown away by how much he knows, and he has a real passion for Microsoft, and Microsoft’s development technologies. It’s great to have you with us Patrick!

Over the next couple of days, I’ll be posting more about training and some of the people that I met with. Until then, I want to say Thank You to Microsoft for hosting us, and I’ll be back soon.