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Microsoft in Retail – My Thoughts
So its official, I think? Microsoft is planning to build their own retail stores and brand. Its an interesting move taking into account the current global economy. But its still an important one because of the potential opportunity to interface with the Company’s customers. I thought of suggestions on what a brand experience should be in a Microsoft store. - First of all, don’t call it the ‘Microsoft Store’, my suggestion for a retail brand is, the ‘Windows Live Style Store’. Get it? Windows is an ecosystem and the Windows brand is still powerful and should be something to build from for a consumer running Windows. The Live evokes a connection with the customer, that brand is the people who work at the store, the people who talk to customers, engage with them, help them answer questions, solve problems
and help get the most out of their Windows PC.
- Showcasing the ecosystem. I know the Windows Live Style Store will have a lot of Microsoft branded software and hardware. But the great part of it is show casing the OEMs who make great hardware devices that utilize Microsoft software and technologies. It should be one of the first places to go to see the latest Netbook, Gaming PC, Tablet, Business PC’s, Consumer PC’s running Windows. Looking at Engadget is great, but getting to experience the devices first at the Windows Live Style Store will be even greater.
- Solutions, I mentioned the Windows Live Style store being a place where Windows users can go to get answers to their questions or solve their problems. I believe this is where building confidence in the brand will definitely come in. Users should be able to bring their Windows PC to the Live Style Store, have technical experts fix their Computer while they are educated about their PC and the great things they can do on it. Whether its learning about new products, getting working done or utilizing the consumer
features of Microsoft services such as Windows Live Essentials.
- Live Projects and Scenarios. The store must be a place where you can come and do things. Microsoft should setup class room training, help customers, schools that have classes and need to get projects done. In fact, consulting should be one of the hallmarks, whether you want to get your school reports done, how to use Windows Movie Maker to create that great cinematic experience or how to start a small business.
- Entertainment. I think this is a key differentiator for Microsoft from Apple. Microsoft has the potential to draw customers into their store and the innovations exist to do it, the Surface, the XBOX 360 and Windows Live should be ways of expressing to customers the fun side of doing things on the Windows platform. Some of the key elements include Game Parties, where persons can come down to a Live Style store on the weekends and play on the XBOX’s, families can show off their home movies on big screen TVs in the store. Have local bands come and play at the store in Jam sessions. Really make it an experience. Connect with the users.
Am I thinking too big? Maybe! But I think Microsoft needs to stand out on the retail experiences. Its gotta be more than just having a store thats filled with Microsoft. Its gotta be a people place, a social experience, a way of showing the human side of Microsoft. Technorati tags: Microsoft, Windows, Retail, Stores, Microsoft Retail, Microsoft Retail Stores  , Circuit City, Best Buy, Consumer, Brand, Experience, 2009, Wal Mart, Windows Live Up Link Partner adacosta.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!E8E5CC039D51E3DB!21257.entry
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2009: Year for Change
2008 was dubbed a difficult and historic year for the United States,
but it was also a difficult year for myself. But 2009 is the year for
change. A change in myself, and hopefully a change in the world we live
in. I'm not an Obama fanatic but I think its quite obvious that our
nation needs change more than it needs anything else at this moment.
With the stock market in decline and
job losses at an all time high, I
think everyone can do for a little change, myself included. Though Im
not a big fan of making New Year's Resolutions, here are a few for
those who need some ideas. 1.) Love a little more, hate a
little less. The Beatles once said "all we need is love", and this
statement could not be more true. Help out a neighbor, friend, or a
complete stranger. Be there for someone when they
are in need, donate
clothing or items to the needy. Love yourself, your family, and your
neighbors. 2.) Change up your life. Even if you think it is going
perfectly smooth there is always something that needs to be worked on
whether its with you, your loved ones or your household. 3.) Break
an addiction. As hard as those are to break, make it a resolution to
give it an effort. This will bring change to your life and others
around you. 4.) Weight gain or loss. For those that are lucky enough
to be able to put on a few pounds, snack on a Twinkie or something!
This seems to be the most popular one for a lot of people who want to
change the way they eat, they exercise, and function in their daily
life. Grab the Wii Fit instead of that Xbox 360 controller. Go for a
walk, bicycle ride or just play with your kids outside. I'll leave you with the lyrics from 2Pacs song "Changes". Happy New Year Everyone!
We gotta make a change...
It's time for us as a people to start makin' some changes.
Let's change the
way we eat, let's change the way we live
and let's change the way we treat each other.
You see the old way wasn't working so it's on us to do
what we gotta do, to survive.Wishing you and your loved ones a happy and healthy 2009, Brad Young backdraft123 Up Link Partner backdraftsgamerblog.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!B1120BF63AE11D60!1944.entry
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R and F#
One of my new year's resolutions - or at least, something that got added to my list of stuff to do in the unlikely event I've got some time spare and can be bothered - was to learn more about statistics. I've only got a very basic grasp of the subject but, like data mining, it's one of those things that seems to promise to be incredibly useful in my line of work. However it's interesting to ponder that I've been working in BI for almost a decade and never so far needed to learn much beyond basic stats; my theory is that stats, like data mining, only tends to be used by highly skilled quantitative analysts, whereas the people I work with are business people whose maths skills are very average and who quite
rightly don't trust analysis done using methods they can't understand. Anyway, in my browsing on the subject I came across the all-of-a-sudden popular topic of R (see http://www.r-project.org/), the statistical programming language. I thought it might make an interesting blog entry, but today I saw John Brookmyre beat me too it so I'll just link to him instead:
http://blogs.conchango.com/johnbrookmyre/archive/2009/01/14/are-you-r-ing-yet.aspx I also got interested in learning about F#,
the functional programming language that will be included in VS2010 (for a good overview, see http://www.developer.com/net/net/article.php/3784961). I was struck by some similarities with MDX and began to wonder about how it could be applied to BI; and yet again, a quick Google revealed Aaron Erickson had had the same idea and blogged extensively and intelligently on the subject:
http://blog.magenic.com/blogs/aarone/archive/2008/04/23/On-Business-Intelligence-and-F_2300_.aspx
http://blog.magenic.com/blogs/aarone/archive/2008/09/07/F_2300_-Business-Intelligence-Case-Study-_2D00_-XBox-Live-Trueskill.aspx
http://blog.magenic.com/blogs/aarone/archive/2008/12/11/One-step-closer-to-F_2300_-for-Business-Intelligence.aspx It'll be interesting to watch the uptake of F# in BI; from what I can see there's already a lot of activity in the area of data manipulation and stats for F# (see for example Luca Bolognese's blog
) and I'm sure it's only going to grow. The only complaint I've got is that here's yet another addition to the Microsoft BI toolset and I'm yet to be convinced there's any kind of company-wide strategy aimed at shaping all these tools into a coherent BI strategy. F# won't be the language of BI in the way that Aaron wants; it's more likely to end up as a technology island in the way Aaron specifically doesn't want. But hey, the .NET guys have arrived at the party! The more the merrier. Up Link Partner cwebbbi.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!7B84B0F2C239489A!4107.entry
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Experience Matters
If you’ve been following the news about Windows 7 and Office 14 coming from PDC
, one thing should be immediately apparent: experience matters these days at Microsoft. Ever since the release of Windows Vista and Office 2007, I’ve seen a real shift for the better in the way people are approaching UI design within the company. No longer is it an afterthought – it’s baked into the product development cycle at almost every level, and people are paying particular attention to the way our software makes people feel. It’s fun to watch (and certainly has something to do with ramped up competition with Apple). There are a number of great examples of this over the last year or so at the company – and a LOT more to come over the next few months and years. But I wanted to take a minute and highlight a few of my favorites just in case you haven’t been following all the recent news. These are very specific examples, but I think the uber-message is that you should expect (and demand) great experiences from Microsoft now and in the future. Never again should we release something as confusing as older versions of Office or Windows Media Player or as offensively colorful as Windows XP :) Zune 3 Now Playing – Just a phenomenal visualization for your music. It uses album art and stock photography of the artist, along with text to give you a real visceral reaction. It’s one of the nicest looking things in the industry in my opinion, and part of the reason why I *love* the Zune client (the Zune Pass is another reason). Pictures don’t do this justice, you should check out the video. 
New Xbox Experience – I’ll admit that I have yet to play with this, but I’ve watched the demos a dozen times and have heard great things from friends here on the beta. I think people are going to be wow-ed by this update later this month. To be honest, I’m already wow-ed that a 3-year old system that should be obsolete by now is getting such a huge update. It will feel brand-new again. 
Office 2007 & Office 14 – I can’t talk about Office 14 in any detail yet (and don’t know much yet either) but Office 2007 has set the usability bar high. If you haven’t used the new Fluent UI with live previews, the ribbon, SmartArt, and a dozen other improvements large and small, you’re missing out. I think the Office 2007 user experience will go down in the books as an update just as impactful as toolbars and menus themselves. You’ll start to see it in appear in Windows 7 and Windows Live (Movie Maker) over time as well. 
Windows 7 Superbar – I’ve now been using Windows 7 for about a month and I dig the Superbar (that’s just a nickname, I think). The functionality itself is great, combining the best elements of the old Windows model (Quickstart, taskbar, system tray) with new usability improvements like jump lists, progress indicators, Aero Peek (which lets you peek in at window contents) and more. One subtle feature which shows the serious focus on detail is “color hot-track”. Long Zheng describes color hot-track here: “When hovering over the icons in the taskbar, the color highlight of the “glass” button is actually different from application to application. How it works is dynamically abstracting the color values of the application icon to find the most dominant RGB value. Besides the obvious eye-candy, this feature delivers some sentimental value by making it easy to identify applications by color.” Examples: 
Images from Long Zheng. Windows Live Services, Wave 3 – Can’t talk about this one yet, but one of our tenets early on was “beautiful, fast, and polished” - which should tell you about how hot it’s going to be. There have been previews posted in some places though where you can at least get an early feel for what we’re thinking. Stay tuned on this one, it won’t be long. In all, I’m pretty excited to see Microsoft really embracing experiences in such a deep way. Up Link Partner mike.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!FBABF8E542F5D5DB!16587.entry
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5 weeks away from the office
(Sorry, I accidentally posted an early draft of this earlier today) One of the great benefits of working for Microsoft is our parental leave policy. Even though we had our baby almost a year ago, you have up to 12 months to take your leave… which really helps work around project schedules, life events, vacations, and most importantly to me, making sure you’re home with your child at the “right” time. For me, spending time with my daughter as she approaches 1-year old was infinitely more satisfying than it would have been had I taken the time when she was born. She’s barking at dogs, giggling all the time, playing hide & seek, and is saying “Dada” now. We had a lot of fun. She’s an amazing little girl.
But my time off wasn’t all play. I had a bunch of little projects I wanted to finish around the house that I just haven’t had much dedicated time to do all year – so I used this work-less time to crank through them. Here’s the list in all its glory:
- First of all, I was sick the entire time. So I had a few doctor visits. Turned out to be a series of colds thanks to my daughter’s daycare, but it threw a serious wrench in my gym time.
- Took a 5-day trip to the Washington coast to kick off my leave – lots of relaxation, reading, and walking on the beach with the fam.
- Cleaned out my closet & donated my old clothes. I try and do this at least 1-2x/year, but for some reason this time it just felt more satisfying.
- Cleaned out bookshelves and recycled old books; sold old DVDs/CDs
. - Cleaned out bathroom drawers and realized it’s much easier to keep them organized than to organize them, so that’s the plan now.
- Stella and I took afternoon trips to the Seattle Aquarium (she loved it), the Woodland Park Zoo, the Children's Museum, and we even went to a parents & kids movie with some friends which was fun.
- Rented a wide angle lens to experiment. Stella and I did a photo shoot with the lens and I got a few great shots. In all, I probably took over 2,000 photos of the munchkin.
- Spent some quality park time at Myrtle Edwards Park, showing Stella the boats in the Sound (the photo above is from that visit).
- Filled up my gas tank just ONCE in 5-weeks! WOW.
- BIG project: Scanned hundreds of old documents using a ScanSnap, and then proceeded to shred almost all of them. Our home is now 99% paperless and it feels great.
- Downloaded Zune 3 and Windows Live beta – Love them both!
- Rebalanced all of our investments - not like it mattered once the crisis hit. Would have been better off not having any!
- Applied for life insurance for my wife & me and started a 529 college fund for our daughter.
- Sold off almost all of my old Xbox games (sad – expected to get $5-10/ea but instead clocked in at $1-2/ea)
- BIG project: Digitally encoded 25+ VHS tapes and recycled them (this is worthy of another post as it took 4 trips to Best Buy to make this work – it was pretty horrible)
- Made a video with Windows Movie Maker for my Mom’s birthday from footage from 20 years ago.
- Bought a Polar heart rate monitor, learned how to use it, and started a more intense fitness program once back to normal.
- Ignored my blog completely thanks to Twitter
which has become my outlet. - Changed almost all of my online passwords after reading horror stories (see: Sarah Palin’s Yahoo account)
- Learned a lot more about politics and started following the campaign on an hourly basis (I’m hooked now!)
- Bought a new fireproof media safe for my backup hard drives & miniDV tapes, transferred everything to it.
- Renewed my driver’s license.
- Took a 5-day trip to Pasadena to visit family & friends and soak in the sun!
In all – a very satisfying leave. Up Link Partner mike.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!FBABF8E542F5D5DB!15828.entry
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