My Appearance on Windows Weekly

If you don’t know it, Windows Weekly on the TWiT podcast network, is one of the (if not the) biggest Microsoft news podcast around. I’ve been a listener for a long time, and enjoy the news & conversations between the hosts, with news coming from Mary Jo Foley and Paul Thurrott. Because of my writing on Petri.com, a sister site of Paul’s site, I’ve gotten to meet Paul a few times. Mary Jo and I have talked a few times and met at conferences over the years – she gave me a massive opportunity a few years ago by inviting me to do a guest article on her site while she was on vacation. Both are real journalists using the blogging platform, and they’re the sort of people I respect in the media … and they’re nice people too.

I first met them in person at the TechEd in New Orleans when I was given a press pass. I was sitting out in the press room, and the two megastars of Microsoft news sat across the table from me. I kind of nerded out Smile

Anyway … I’m here at the Ignite conference and Mary Jo and Paul were doing a live recording of Windows Weekly in a studio that Microsoft had set up to do various live community podcasts throughout the week. I’d always thought that I’d love to visit the studio in California when Windows Weekly was on but never had the chance. This was an opportunity to sit in and enjoy the show live instead of in my car while commuting to/from work. I sat in, and it was enjoyable. As usual, the two had some background news and information from interviews with senior Microsoft staff that filled out knowledge that I had.

Often at recording at events, the show opens up an audience mic for Q&A. I think at one point Paul said something about “why is there no Cortana in my country”. After a series of questions where Windows Phone came up, I decided to walk up and offer up something different. It starts at the 1:25:49 mark.

It was very cool to appear, even in a tiny way, on a show that has informed me so much over the news. Thanks Paul & Mary Jo, and to the TWiT network for the opportunity!