MVP Global Summit - Day 1
Day 1 started with a rude awakening at 3AM, due to the time zone difference. Well, I am happy to report that my UNISA assignments are going to make good progress in the early mornings, but unfortunately that means that by 6PM local time my systems starts a shutdown sequence.
Toby Richards, General Manager of Microsoft's Community Support Services group, started the 
MVP event with a welcome, followed by Colleen Hunter-Gale's introduction of Sean O'Driscoll and finally the man himself, Sean, giving his view of communities and the social network evolution. After the welcome note, we experienced a new concept, the "Open Space" sessions.
Sureen Aslavi hosted the first open space session I attended, the "Creating Successful Organizations - Sharing Insights & Experience". The discussions were immensely interesting, but unfortunately time ran out and we will have to continue offline. In essence the points I took from the session is that we need to trust people, we need to share a vision and we need to practice active listening and empathy ... I believe that our team, ATC, adheres to these basic principles. It is also imperative that we have the right leaders, not managers, to ensure that both the environment and the people within are one happy family.
The second open space session, hosted by Charlie Russel, was very interesting, but my system shutdown began early. I missed session three, talking a walk in the cold and taking a short power nap back as the Westin hotel.
Tonight we had the welcome reception, where MVPs can network. It was good to see all the TFS buddies again ... Paul, Marcel, Anthon
y, Chris, David, Etienne, Michael, Mickey and Luis ... our Spanish poster man q;-) After the welcome we had a good dinner, had interesting discussions ... Ruari our Einstein in the world of energy makes for immensely interesting discussions ... but suddenly all South-Africans started crawling back to their hotels ... the time zone strikes again.
Looking forward to three days of interacting with the product team, starting tomorrow morning at 8AM.
Although the weather is typical Seattle weather ... cold, rain ... the signs of spring are visible, trees and bushes blossoming all over the city.
Blog you tomorrow ...