Keith Pleas Blog

Somebody left these "ASK ME about Visual Studio Server" buttons in the VIP lounge at VSLive/NYC in July. Nobody confessed to knowing what they referred to, so nobody would actual wear one (which sort of defeats their purpose, right?). Six months later, Google only turns up references to "Visual Studio Server Explorer". Hmm.

These two posters went up around Microsoft's Redmond campus a few months ago. I was part of the team that designed the (then-new) Architecture portal (http://www.microsoft.com/architecture) but - even with that "perspective" - I think these posters can be difficult to grok. I like the mountain image, but if I understand the symbolism here - is a physical architecture that is literally "carved in stone" a good thing?

I've been spending the week at a "peer" retreat on Enterprise Architecture in Crested Butte (Colorado). The small event (there are 16 people this year) is organized by Martin Fowler and Bruce Eckel and has been running for several years now.

A couple of months ago I wrote about the difficulty I was having with project collaboration. Mike Sax referred to that post (scroll down a way), saying that I should send everyone I work with a copy of “Getting Things Done“. Well, I bought the book, read it, and in fact - yes - it is changing the way I work. However, the book doesn't really say anything about collaboration and when I mentioned this to Mike at TechEd last month he said “well, I only read part of it“!

The “best” thing at TechEd 2004 San Diego was undoubtedly the cabanas. It was like an extended “Ask The Experts”, except that - confusingly - the sessions were actually caled “Meet The Technologist”. The a/v support was abysmal, which lead to some creative solutions:

Yesterday I did a workshop on “Best Practices for .NET Enterprise Architecture” at the Enterprise Architecture Summit 2004 in Palm Springs. One of the questions I asked the 30 people in my workshop was “How many of you are familiar with WSE?”. About 10 hands. Then, “How many of you are using or are planning to use WSE”? Zero hands. Whoa! Then, “How many of you are not going to use it because of something the Indigo team has told you?” The same ten hands. Which pretty much confirms what I heard at TechEd, which was customers telling me that the Indigo team had told them to “hold off“ on WSE.

Since there are two architecture precons at TechEd this year - our GAPP (Guidance about patterns & practices) and another about Identity Management - one of the Microsoft architecture teams I work with has put together a Sunday evening party at the San Diego Automotive Museum. Registration for the party is first-come, first-served using the following link:

Another interesting ZDNet piece updating about Nicholas Carr's the year-old story about Carr's notable HBR essay “IT Doesn't Matter”.