MVP Summit 2008

I recently attended the 2008 MVP Summit, a great event.  Well organised and a privilege to be with the Microsoft team and like minded MVPs.

I attended as many sessions as possible and I attend the Exec Session on Thursday.  My feedback on this session is markedly different from the reports on recent blogs.  I have a different takeaway from the headlines at Mary Jo Foley’s recap of the MVP Summit keynote session with Steve Ballmer and Ray Ozzie (see here).  A spin on the same story:

The MVPs who were questioning Ray and Steve were trying to ‘lead the witness’. 

The MVPs were challenging Ray and Steve to open up regarding the Groove story.  The MVPs were in a privileged position in terms of the level of technical details of the Groove roadmap and where attempting to get the story told in the open session. 

This story may have been different if Ray and Steve knew the atomic level details of the Groove roadmap.  I would not expect this of an executive.  They know the high level Groove roadmap, and they may have set very clear goals for the development teams – one of these goals includes not disclosing product plans until the product scope Quality stage gate has been completed.

Any questioning of the execs regarding Groove would have had a similar impact. 

Would a positive story have been told if the execs had been more informative?   

Or, if they had provided more detail? 

Time will tell, if the blogs were right about the lack of a  Microsoft game plan for Groove. Only time…..