Last night Microsoft hosted their Digital & Creative Agency Event in Level 31 at Paramount. Paul Dawson, Matt Bagwell and I were fortunate enough to be invited along to “Join the leading digital and creative agencies in the UK, along with media agencies and publishers, to see Partners delivering creative technology on the Microsoft platform.” So off we went.
The first thing that stood out when we arrived was the view. Paramount is in Centre Point so has a 360 degree view of London.
The second thing was the wide range of industry experts that were on the guest list, both from Microsoft and their partners.
The reason for the event was to catch up on the announcements at MIX10, for those of us not fortunate enough to go along.
A number of Microsoft partners were also invited to demo some of the sexy work they have been doing with the latest Microsoft technologies.
So after some afternoon tea we all sat down to let the fun begin.
Michael McClary was our compare for the event and started the show with a few jokes about Vegas and the 2 things he remembered: the road trip he went on and the bars on the strip, we all waited with bated breath for the photos but he kept them to himself….
We then had an excellent mix of presentations from Microsoft, deltratre, Metia, Splendid, AKQA, Mando Group and EMC Consulting’s Paul Dawson.
The MIX10 updates included:
- Windows Phone 7: Opportunity, Designer and Developer Highlights
- Silverlight 4: Bringing Innovation to the Web
- Bing Mapping: Exceeding Expectations
- Expression: Design and Build
- Digital Marketing strategies
Paul’s presentation was on MIX Rockstar, the twitter game that EMC Consulting developed for MIX. The challenge was can 3 Java geeks develop an app using Azure in 3 weeks, and the answer was yes!
Once the presentations finished we headed to the bar for a well deserved drink and a chance to network.
I had some fantastic conversations with Matt Pilgrim, Michael McClary, Bindi Karia, Sara Allison, Marc Holmes and Paul Foster from Microsoft as well as Richard Sedley (cScape), Justin Cooke (Fortune Cookie), Andy Hood (AKQA), Tricky & Ben (TrickyBusiness) and many more.
There was a lot of interest in the next The Fantastic Tavern (#TFTLondon) which is on Augmented Reality on the 28th April, more details to follow.
All in all another excellent event by Microsoft and I am looking forward to the next one.