Today I found out that I have been awarded MVP (Most Valuable Professional) status. Naturally I am delighted. I have read that other people are surprised when they become MVPs and say that it was completely unexpected which I have found confusing. My experience was that Microsoft directly contacted me ages before the award and told me that I was being considered and would I tell them everything about myself so I can be evaluated. Obviously at this point I was deperately trying to recall all of those times Bill had phoned me up saying "Guy, about that tricky internationalization problem we were discussing the other day, could you help me out ?" and sadly failing to recall the specific dates when these phone calls happened and instead filling in my accomplishments over the last year with things like helping old ladies across the road and picking up small bits of paper dropped by people much more important than me. Still, someone, somewhere thinks I’m most valuable so I am very grateful. I told my mother. She is grateful too.

In the last post I described the Fest07 day organised by the Next Generation User Group. I was sitting in the audience for the keynote when they gave out the NxtGen awards when I heard my name and discovered that I had won the NxtGen Coventry Best Presentation 2006/2007 award. I was delighted, surprised and humbled. Not sure in what order though. I gave a presentation back in March at the NxtGen Coventry meeting which was entitled "10 Things To Know Before Internationalizing An Application". This is one of my favourite presentations and I had a great time giving the presentation and everyone seemed to enjoy it and there were lots of interesting questions and we all had a good time. It seems strange to get an award for doing something that was so much fun but I am delighted and very grateful. Thanks to everyone who came to the NxtGen meeting and was so kind with their voting. And thanks also to Rafal Lucawiecki for not speaking at NxtGen Coventry this year. Long may it continue.

(Actually this is an audio book review but I don’t think that matters). Disclaimer: Blink has nothing to do with .NET or Information Technology in general so if you only read this blog for those subjects you can skip this entry.

For me Blink starts with The Tipping Point, also by Malcolm Gladwell. The Tipping Point is an absolutely fascinating book and was my book of the year for 2006. The Tipping Point is all about what factors affect whether a small idea or product tips over into becoming a national or international phenonenom. Brilliantly told by the author, I cannot praise this book enough. So when I saw Blink and saw that it was also written by Malcolm Gladwell I had to get it.

Blink is about how your sub-conscious brain processes information so much faster and potentially so much more accurately than your conscious brain. The author covers numerous fascinating examples of how people’s brains gather and process information, how the sub-conscious brain can be both more accurate and also less accurate than the conscious brain, what leads you to false conclusions and how you can avoid allowing your sub-conscious brain let you down. Each example is fascinating by itself but the connection of the dots to form the book’s overall message is artful and compelling. The book includes considerable examples of scientific research in many areas. To give you an idea I’ll pick out one example that was particularly interesting to me. Many people are aware of just how much information is conveyed on a person’s face: whether people are sad, angry, happy, morose etc.. Everyone is probably aware that your face simply reflects your feelings. What is just fascinating though is that it works the other way. The expression on your face can affect your mood. If you use the muscles that are used in a frown for long enough you will eventually feel unhappy. The book is full of bits like this.

I have to unreservedly recommend this book. I have a new maxim for life to add to my collection: always read books by Malcolm Gladwell.

Blog Tagging is where someone writes a blog entry containing 5 things that people wouldn’t ordinarily know about them and then they name 5 other bloggers who haven’t been tagged yet and get them to do the same. Virus ? Bit of fun ? Major security risk as people expose critical information about themselves ? Who cares. Malcolm Groves tagged me so it’s my turn.

1. I am the inventor of Python: The Drinking Game. Like all drinking games it has fairly simple rules. One person says a line of Monty Python. Any line from any performance (television, movies, recorded performances). The next person has to say the next line in the sketch. If they can’t they have to take a drink. They can, however, challenge. In which case the person that said the first line has to say the next line. If the first person can then the second person takes two measures. If the first person can’t then they have to take a measure. The process continues to the end of the sketch or until someone can’t say the next line whereupon the person after them starts again with a new line of Python. There’s only one more rule: if it is your turn and not only can you say the next line but you can also say the whole of the rest of the sketch then everyone in the game takes a drink.

2. I have plotted my own murder. You know those "How To Host A Murder" games where you turn up at someone’s house and pretend to be Captain Scrub Nightly or some other ludricous name ? Well I did a load of these and learnt the formula and ran out the ones that at least made an iota of sense. So I wrote my own. But because I knew who did it and how and why it had to be me that died otherwise if I played a role I would have given the game away. So I had a group of friends come as themselves only I exaggerated their real lives to the same extent you see in the commercial games. You know the kind of things: strippers, illegitimate children, shady business deals, blackmail. And I gave them all a motive to murder me. Excellent fun.

3. My 21st birthday was a custard pie fight in Chislehurst Caves. More fun than you can shake a wet banana at. Chistlehurst Caves is 22 miles of ’haunted’ caves in Kent (but we only got a section of it). At 9:00pm everyone was let loose with plates and pie foam canisters and 50 people ran around the caves pie-ing each other. Probably the most fun I’ve ever had in a cave.

4. I once entered the World Pinball Championships. A long time ago I used to be quite good at pinball. I had a pinball machine in my house so I could practice whenever. I heard about the World Pinball Championships and thought I should try myself against some real serious types. I was confident. I shouldn’t have been. In the first heat I played probably the worst game of my life and I was out. I didn’t enter again the next year.

5. I collect fast food taste sensations. Not just common or garden junk. Real nasty stuff. Stuff that has a reputation. And the further afield the better. Holland has the Showarma kebab which is one of those foods that you never eat during daylight or when you’re sober. Coventry has the Faggot And Pea Batch (no, it’s true). Canada has the amazing Poutine which is even better for it coming from a land that has no other food in the same class (Poutine is chips, gravy and a sludge of chemicals that Canadians call cheese but is frankly insulting to cows everywhere). And Of course, Sydney has the Pie Floatter. So that’s two things that I have to ’thank’ Malcolm Groves for. Thanks, mate.

And like all people who have been blog tagged I get to pass the virus on to the next victims: Chris My

In the last couple of years DDD has helped towards developing speaking talent within the UK by giving anyone in the UK the chance to present at a seminar-style event. DDD levels the playing field and allows anyone to propose a subject regardless of their presence or absence of previous speaking engagements. This attitude inspired me and I wanted to contribute towards this goal so I have written an article How To Give Great Presentations that I hope will help people who are new to presenting to get started. Even if you aren’t new to it I hope you will find some ideas here to make it worth your reading. The ideas are based on the seminars, conferences and user groups that I have spoken at over the last couple of decades and the Train The Trainer courses that I ran for Borland UK.

In addition you can download 4 Chaps From Blighty podcasts on this subject here and here.

If you have any comments or tips and tricks I’d be interested to hear what you have to say. Good luck with your presentations.

At TechEd Developers Europe last month Channel 9 host and interviewer Charles Torre caught up with Sarah Blow, Richard Costall, Dave McMahon, fellow 4 Chaps From Blighty chap Brian Long and myself to chat about the UK developer community. The video is up on Channel 9 at http://channel9.msdn.com/showpost.aspx?PostID=266248#266248.

Historic news! To coincide with the re-launch of the 4 Chaps From Blighty website the 4 Chaps have started podcasting! You can download the very first ever 4 Chaps podcast here. This first podcast is part of a collection that discusses how to give great presentations and is aimed at first time or relatively new speakers who want to improve their presentation skills. Future podcasts subjects will vary across a wide range of information technology related subjects.

This one is clearly a first attempt but it marks the moment when the chaps entered a new world. Let us know what you think over on the 4 Chaps site.

In the opening session of the VBUG Conference this week Mark Anderson conducted a quick poll of the audience and I jotted down some very rough results that you might find interesting. Bear in mind that this is the Visual Basic User Group so the root of its membership is Visual Basic developers. Of the 150 (approx) attendees in this session 10 people are still using Visual Basic 6, 50% of the audience use Visual Studio 2003 and 60% of the audience use Visual Studio 2005 (obviously the overlap is because some people use both).

Here’s a couple of promotional videos you might enjoy, written and performed by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant for Microsoft UK recorded at the Reading Campus:-

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9076288729387457440

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=959125392868390030

Tomorrow (Friday 1st September 2006) sees a sad day for the UK .NET community as Melita Walton, the Communities Marketing Manager at Microsoft UK, turns in her last day at Microsoft in this country. Melita is returning to New Zealand to start a family. A quick Google of ["Melita Walton" Microsoft] shows pages of comments about Melita performing a fantastic job supporting user groups and the community and nursing DeveloperDeveloperDeveloper (DDD) from its first event last year through to the organizing of DDD4 later this year.

Thanks, Melita, you have done a fantastic job for us and we won’t forget you.