My 2012 as a Microsoft Regional Director

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I’d like to let you know what I’ve been up to this year (next month, I’ll let you know what SSW has achieved).

Since my main job is helping companies adopt and deploy Microsoft technologies, my roles at Microsoft are very useful for my customers and staff.

As a Microsoft Regional Director and ALM MVP (where I received MVP of the year in 2011), I have enjoyed keeping my finger on the pulse of  Microsoft and all its product developments. This year has been the most exciting since 1995 with the release of Windows 8, Windows Phone 8, SharePoint 2013, Office 2013, VS & TFS 2012 and the Surface RT tablet.

On the community side, I have continued running the Sydney and Canberra .NET User Groups and one of my key projects for the year was the creation and launch of SSW.TV (tv.ssw.com), a great resource of videos for the developer community. I have worked with the SSW.TV team and we have been regularly releasing videos with interviews and how to’s. This has continued the SSW tradition of sharing knowledge to help our industry create better quality software. (More on their achievements next month).

My favorite thing recently has been showing audiences Microsoft’s 2 best devices, the Windows Phone 8 and the Surface. Developers are excited because nothing comes close to developing in Visual Studio 2012 and working in teams with Scrum. I have been showing audiences that while Microsoft was slower to market with the 2 new devices, the offering is much more cohesive for both the business and consumer communities. Apple, Amazon and Google were quicker into the market with hardware, but their software is piecemeal.

I’m proud to be one of the technology leaders in Australia and I will continue helping teams work better together by being a Scrum Master, Scrum Trainer and a .NET architect, working with TFS and implementing the whole ALM lifecycle.

I’d like to thank all the people who have helped me this year, including my staff (Sydney, Brisbane and Beijing), the people who have attended my sessions and all the people who have sent emails helping me to improve my rules and videos. If you were one of the people I heckled in my presentations, I apologize 🙂

In my personal life, I am a soccer coach (for the Under 11 girls) and proud father of Eve  www.evecogan.com/blog and Ruby  www.rubycogan.com/blog.  My daughter Eve was just announced as the School Captain this week.

 

Adam Cogan
www.adamcogan.com

 

 

– – –  More information:

Events I presented at this year:

  • Tech Ed Europe
  • Tech Ed Australia
  • Tech Ed New Zealand
  • DDD, Brisbane
  • SharePoint Saturday, Canberra
  • SharePoint Saturday, Sydney
  • SharePoint Saturday, Brisbane
  • SharePoint Saturday, Melbourne
  • SharePoint Saturday, Adelaide
  • Code Camp New Zealand
  • Boise Idaho Code Camp
  • Los Angeles Code Camp
  • Queensland .NET User Group (qmsdnug.org)
  • Queensland ALM Users Group (qalmug.org)
  • Adelaide .NET User Group (adnug.com)
  • Newcastle Coders Group (ncg.asn.au)
  • Sydney .Net User Group (ssw.com.au)
  • Canberra .Net User Group (ssw.com.au)

My monthly speaking gigs:

  • President of the Sydney .Net User group (next month will be our 20 year anniversary!)
    Starting in 2012, we now have a worldwide audience, as it is streamed live, then later published on tv.ssw.com.
  • President of the Canberra .Net User group

My blog:

My TV Channel:

My favorite events attended this year:

  • Build 2012 conference to keep up to date with new technologies
  • MVP summit in Seattle
  • Scrum.org face to face meeting with lots of white-robes in Redmond

My Publications:

  • Technical editor for the “Professional Scrum Development with Microsoft Visual Studio 2012” a book for Microsoft Press
    by Richard Hundhausen (386 pages, ISBN 9780735657984). This book is for software development teams using, or considering using, the powerful combination of Visual Studio and Scrum.
  • Technical editor for the “Professional Scrum Developer” course to Visual Studio 2012 and Visual Studio Scrum 2.0.
    A strategic program between Scrum.org and Microsoft.
  • Technical editor for the “Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2012: Adopting Agile Software Practices: From Backlog to Continuous Feedback”
    by Neno Loje and Sam Guckenheimer