Quality Webcasts

I'm just reminded every so often of how there is a lot of noise coming from a million different directions and you've gotta stop and talk about important stuff every so often. 

I wanted to write a quick blog entry to discuss something which is very important to us and that is our presenters and the webcast content quality.  We take pride in the fact that we attempt to bring back presenters who excel with deep technical knowledge and the audience is engaged and enjoys, and attempt to sway away from presenters who are just that ... presenters.  When I use that term in that way, I'm talking about presenters who basically could be presenting on AD and Exchange today and tomorrow be presenting on WCF and how to create a WPF Browser based application... basically powerpoint readers (I think of the Social Studies substitute teacher in an elementary school who askes the class what chapter they're on and then proceeds to just have the students each read a paragraph to the class to pass the time).  Now that's not to say that the webcasts we produce are flawless.  But more to ensure the level of commit we have to bring information right from the source (a product manager or program manager) or a partner who has exceptional knowledge in the given area.  Another great couple of examples of serious quallity and commitment to excellence would include Channel9, .NET Show, .NET Rocks, and there are several more I'm just not thinking of at the current moment in time.

You might say, well doesn't everyone have this attitude? And while they may, it seems like sometimes they don't entirely execute in a consistent manner.  I remember someone asking for a powerpoint so they could have someone else re-present it (no previous knowledge on the topic, but rather a "presenter") and I had to take a step back and and a deep breath and say "they're not part of the MSDN Webcast program, we can advise them however we need to realize that different people have different ways".

Like I said in the first paragraph, believe me, I understand that we're not perfect.  And at times, I know this ever so much, however our program and I know from our team the other sister programs (TechNet Webcasts, Office, Microsoft Webcasts, SmallBusiness, and Dynamics) really do attempt to keep the quality bar high and ensure that you're getting value from someone who knows.

If you find yourself liking a presenter, sure it comes through on the evaluation, however drop us an email and tell us.  Or if you find that some presentation really didn't seem up-to-snuff... tell us too.  But then again I'm sure that there won't be too many of those ;).

Sorry to get all serious, sometimes you just get in those moods and I did want to make sure that everyone realized while sometimes it may seem like MS is a machine, inside that machine there are people who care and attempting to bring you both business value and fun!

 Bryan