Darren Straight's Blog

ICT Enthusiast and photographer.

By - Darren Straight

Back from my first ever Microsoft Student Partner (MSP) Event!

Hey everyone, as you know or may not know I’m now a UK Microsoft Student Partner (MSP) 2006/2007 and well I’ve just arrived home from Reading (UK) after spending the past two days there for my first ever Microsoft Student Partner (MSP) Events.
And well what can I say, it was great, I met lots of new people, had lots of really interesting discussions and got a whole load of freebies which will definitely come in useful as a MSP!

So let me give you a quick overview of what I did, I arrived at Reading Sunday afternoon at around 13:00 and once I had checked in and had a wash I met up with some fellow MSP’s, these MSP’s being Grant Downeh, Ian MacGillivray, Paul Shemmell, Philip Stears and Will Perry. Once we had all had a drink we headed down to Reading Town Centre in the hope of getting some food, we eventually came to end up in the Slug and Lettuce at the Oracle, not too long after that did two other MSP’s come and join us, these being Emma Guy and Matthew Bell.

Once we had all eaten our food we started to make our way back to the hotel so we would make it in time for the Social Event which Microsoft had planned for us.

At 6 o’clock Stuart Leddy and Matt Duffin both of who are interns at Microsoft, came to make sure we were already to head down town for dinner at Zizzi’s, once there we all started to sit down at the tables and then we suddenly found out that we were all going to be in on different teams anyway, I ended up being on Team Vista with Chris Weeks, Paul Shemmell, Richard Makepeace and Zacharias Joubert along with Dianne Terry the Marketing Team Lead for the UK Academic Alliance Team.

Anyway after some fun and having dinner we all headed back to either our hotel or homes (in the case of the people living in Reading already) as we knew we had an early coach trip the next day to the Microsoft Campus were Breakfast would be awaiting for us.

And well… I’m going to stop here because I’m under a NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement)

Haha just kidding, well not about the NDA, but about stopping, however that dosent mean that I’m now going to tell you detail by detail of what I did at the Microsoft Campus, as that just would’nt make your time as a MSP (if you become one) as exciting as mine, plus anyway I’m getting quite sleepy now and don’t really feel like writing a ton out right now! 😉

So here’s a a quick summary of the agenda

  • 08:00 Depart from Accommodation
  • 08:30-09:15 BREAKFAST
  • 09:15-09:45 Welcome to Microsoft! (Andy Sithers)
  • 10:30-10:45 BREAK
  • 10:45-11:15 .NET and Visual Studio Flyby (Matt Duffin)
  • 11:15-12:15 Windows Vista and .NET Framework V3.0 (Mike Taulty)
  • 12:15-13:00 LUNCH (10/15 MINUTE TOUR OF THE MICROSOFT CAMPUS)
  • 13:00-14:00 XNA Games Studio (Andy Sithers)
  • 14:00-15:00 ASP.NET & Atlas (Mike Ormond)
  • 15:00-15:15 BREAK
  • 15:15-16:15 Introducing Office 2007 (Chris Rothwell)
  • 16:15-16:45 Final Roundup
  • 16:45 Leave the Microsoft Campus, Thames Valley Park

But hey, want to know more about a particular part? just ask!

Ohh and before I forget, thanks goes to the whole Microsoft UK Academic Alliance Team and everyone else including MSP’s for making this such an enjoyable event, this is surely going to be a Good year for MSP’s with the release of Windows Vista, Office and lots more!

Update: Just noticed that today is the 500th day since my blog was started so it’s kind of cool that it coincides with my first MSP Event at the Reading Campus, so hey here’s a pic of some stuff I got!

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