News - MIX Online

Countdown to MIX09: Straight from the Horse’s Mouth

MIX09 News — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 10:47:58 GMT

We can talk until we’re blue in the face about why you should attend MIX, but how about hearing it from a customer who has not only been to every MIX since it started but last year he sent 18 employees to the show! Meet Scott Stanfield, CEO of Vertigo Software, who explains why MIX is one of his favorite conferences and why he sends many of his creative and technical folks to the event every year. Scott describes when he attends MIX he gets to learn what’s going on with the tools from Microsoft, he gets to talk to key industry folks and make business contacts, the show is intimate enough that he can make connections with top tier influentials, plus Vegas is a great town to hang in for a couple of days (and sharing rooms in the Venetian hotel, where every room is a large suite, makes it easy to not break the bank when you’re sending that many people).

Call for Content: Be a Speaker at MIX09!

MIX09 News — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 00:04:08 GMT

Do you have an idea for a session that you’d like to present at MIX09? Would the content be interesting to our web developer and designer audience? If so, we invite you to submit your session idea for consideration by 5:00 PM PST on Friday January 23, 2009.

Send your idea to mixprpsl@microsoft.com, and be sure to include the following information:

· Title – Ideally, the title is short, catchy, and descriptive

· Abstract – One or two sentences that describe what an attendee would hear and learn in the session

· Speaker – Your name

· Speaker Bio – A little about who you are and why you’re the perfect person to present the session

· Speaker Contact Info – Your e-mail address and phone number

· Target Audience - Creative, Technical, or Business

· Session Type - Full or Mini. In addition to Full breakout sessions that are 75 minutes long, for MIX09, we are introducing a new 20-minute Mini breakout session format. These mini sessions are intended to focus on very specific topics.

After we receive your submission, it will be reviewed by our content team for consideration. Though we may respond earlier, please don’t expect a response until after the submission deadline ends on January 23, 2009. While we promise to review every submission, we receive far more session proposals than can fit into MIX09 and the selection process is very competitive. As a result, not all submitted sessions can be selected for MIX.

Thank you for your interest in MIX09, and good luck!

Countdown to MIX09: MIX 10K Challenge

MIX09 News — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 20:16:13 GMT

Tune in and get your pressing questions answered about the MIX 10K Challenge. Adam and Amy (co-owners of the MIX 10K) join the Countdown to MIX09 show to talk about the why and how behind the new MIX contest. Do you have questions about what's included in the 10 kilobyte requirement? Wondering why you should enter early? Don't miss this episode!

Countdown to MIX09: Design Matters!

MIX09 News — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 18:25:29 GMT

This week we invite Tim Aidlin, the creative director of MIX09, to tell us about the design philosophy behind the MIX creative. We know if we’re going to hold a conference for some of the best web designers out there, then we had better make sure we show we know our stuff. In other words, it’s not just pixels on a screen but the whole damn experience – everything. And we tell it the story in just 10 minutes as the chicken keeps us honest about not blabbing on and on (and on and on). :)

Watch the show and then grab your MIX wallpaper, blog bling, posters and more from our MIXtify page!

Countdown to MIX09: Who, what, where, when, why, and how

MIX09 News — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 10:56:06 GMT

Welcome to the inaugural edition of our MIX09 series, the 10 minute show (according to the chicken) that will give you a behind the scenes peek into the planning and preparation for our premier consumer web conference, MIX, happening March 18-20, 2009 at the Venetian hotel in Las Vegas. Over the up-coming weeks Mike Swanson and Jennifer Ritzinger, members of the MIX09 planning committee, will regularly share insights and tips about the MIX event, and explain from conception to birth what goes into having a baby like MIX. Be sure to check it out, and come back for more 10 minutes of fun! http://2009.visitmix.com/

Advanced Tools & Practices Workshop Track Announced

MIX09 News — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 20:06:06 GMT

MIX09 will feature a third pre-event workshop track: Advanced Tools & Practices. The first workshop in this track is called “Shio O Totte: Using What You Know” and will be lead by Adam Kinney, one of Microsoft’s resident UI experts. The second workshop is called “Hiking Mt Avalon”, and will be jointly led by Robby Ingebretsen of Pixel Labs and Jaime Rodriguez of Microsoft. Not only do all three of these speakers bring a hearty sense of humor (yes, they supplied the workshop titles), but they will also share their hard earned experience and best practices for implementing Microsoft technologies (including Silverlight, WPF, and XAML).

Says Kinney, “The Advanced Tools & Practices track is a great compliment to the Harmonizing Designer / Developer Workflow track. Designers and non .NET developers will find the Shio O Totte: Using What You Know morning workshop and the Developing for Experience with 3 Heads afternoon workshop to be a great combination.”

And the reverse is true, too. The morning Design Fundamentals for Developers and the afternoon Hiking Mt Avalon workshops are perfect for .NET developers.

Don’t forget about the Black Belt Web Standards workshops focusing on front end design and development.

“The workshops really offer great content for everyone that’s designing or developing for the web and wants to go just a little deeper than a typical session” continues Kinney.

Win big in the MIX 10K Smart Coding Challenge

MIX09 News — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 01:20:42 GMT

Have you heard about the MIX 10K Challenge? We’re shaking things up with a new contest for MIX09, and we’d like you to be a part of it!

The grand prize winner will live large at MIX09 with a free pass to the MIX09 event, three nights at The Venetian Hotel, and a $1,500 Visa gift card. The community choice winner will receive a USD $1,500 Visa gift card. And, three runners-up will each receive a $500 Visa gift card. Winners will be notified after the close of community rating on February 13, 2009. All participants that have their entry accepted into the gallery will receive a limited edition MIX 10K t-shirt.

Don’t wait to create! Learn more, view the official rules page, and submit your entry at http://2009.visitmix.com/MIXtify/TenKGallery.aspx.

Got questions? Email us at mixchall@microsoft.com.

Check out similar contests for inspiration:

Wolfenstein 5K: http://www.wolf5k.com/

5K: http://www.sylloge.com/5k/entries/list.html

Stewart Butterfield’s 5K: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/5k

It’s All About the Content at MIX

MIX09 News — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 15:55:13 GMT

MIX09 is for everyone involved with creating rich web or client applications. Although successful applications start with exceptional design and user experience, they now must also properly include complex online and offline services, optimized designs for increasingly complex client devices, viable business models, and much more. The content at MIX this year will be expanded to better cover these key topics and will help attendees learn how to effectively design and build great applications. To demonstrate this commitment, the initial MIX09 sessions focus on key topics for web professionals ranging from user experience design methodologies and standards-based web development techniques to creating rich internet and client applications. Highlights from the initial MIX sessions include:

· For the last two years, Lou Carbone has inspired us with insights about how to improve the bottom-line by optimizing customer web experience. This year we’ll see Lou expand greatly on this topic with brand new content.

· Last year, Dan roam explained to us just how powerful images can be. This year, he’s going to teach us how to think visually.

· Johnny Lee was recently hired by Microsoft Research. You may know him from <link>his innovative work with the Wiimote. He’ll be at MIX09 talking about it, and some other stuff he’s had brewing in his crazy lab.

· Microsoft Surface is now out in the open. So, unlike last year, it was easier to convince the talented Surface UX team to come tell us their secrets.

· Last, but certainly not the least, you’ll get the chance to hear the Expression Studio team talking about everything from workflow to standards-based design.

Check out the recently released set of sessions, and stay tuned for our complete MIX09 content line-up. Attendance at MIX09 will be more limited than last year, so don’t delay – register now!

Scott Guthrie to Keynote MIX09

MIX09 News — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 07:05:37 GMT

Join Scott Guthrie, Corporate Vice President of the .NET Developer Platform, as he explores the future of Web and Client focused products and technologies at MIX09 in Las Vegas. For the third year in a row, Scott will unveil Microsoft innovations that are pushing the boundaries of the Web. A founding member of the .NET Framework team at Microsoft, Scott runs the development teams that deliver .NET and related technologies including ASP.NET, Silverlight, WPF, IIS7, and the Visual Studio tools for Web, WPF, and Silverlight development. Be sure to join us for a keynote that is sure to inspire and inform.

MIX Online Re-launches with a New Attitude

MIX09 News — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 06:05:37 GMT

MIX Online (our sister site) is a community site for web designers and developers who are building and believe in the innovative web. In the past, the site has given you a varied perspective of what is happening on the web, a view into our conference called MIX, and interviews with amazing people with incredible ideas and stories on how you can take advantage of the web. MIX Online has always been a year-round companion to the event.

MIX Online moves forward by taking more of a scenario focus around emerging web trends. For example, Microformats is an interesting movement in the web community and we want to introduce you to it and give you some practical guidance around it.

MIX Online will continue to have our traditional blog, but we are renaming it under the heading “Opinions” that provides a more natural conversation with our small team. Also, MIX Online now provides practical articles with each scenario that are written by people in the community, not always Microsoft’s perspective.

Best of all, MIX Online is providing freely downloadable, open source, and immediately useable prototypes. You are encouraged to use these prototypes for your own projects, but to also submit code to the prototype project on CodePlex to share with the community.

Check out the new MIX Online at www.visitmix.com.