This week was the highlight of the calendar for any Microsoft Valuable Professional (MVP), the annual MVP Summit in Redmond. I cannot go into details on the sessions. But I can say it was excellent, with some serious deep depth stuff being presented by the product groups.
Throw in the mix with meeting and chatting with many of the program managers who help in the direction of the products, chatting with Jeff Woolsey over dinner, hanging out and chatting with Ben “Virtual PC Guy” Armstrong before a session, spending time with lots and lots of my fellow MVPs, asking the hard questions so I can give the easy answers (trademark pending!), listening to serious experts who were genuinely interesting in sharing and hearing our feedback, and even learning some PowerShell 
The Summit is a great chance to give feedback. There were certain things (which I won’t go into) that we did get a chance to talk about. It’s not often you get a chance to sit down with decision makers, talk over things they might not have considered, or try to get an understanding of why they did go in some direction. That helps us MVPs get your message to the product groups, and helps us in explaining product direction to you.
And oh yeah, Thanks to Didier van Hoye (Virtual Machine), a bunch of us had a visit to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on Monday to your their IT installation and chat about what they are doing. Wow! That was some impressive installation (again, sharing details is not possible).
I had my last Summit session this afternoon, with an impromptu presentation by a PM that I asked for and he jumped at and helped me assemble a bunch of things in my mind. Tonight, it’s a relaxed night out with Didier, Carsten Rachfahl (Virtual Machine) and Kerstin Rachfahl (Office 365). I start the journey back to Ireland tomorrow night. And then it’s the countdown to the System Center 2012 launch events with MSFT Ireland and another VAD Roadshow for work later this month.
BTW, I cannot wait to return next year.