Tag Archives: MVP

London Bot Framework Meetup Numero Four

On the 16th January I had the pleasure of hosting another London BotFramework meetup at the newly constructed event space in the Just Eat offices.

London BotFramework Meetup #4

They’ve joined three floors with a staircase, so attendees can have beers and pizza upstairs while the presenters sweat with the AV equipment downstairs!

There was a great turnout for this one, including the usual gang and a few new faces too.

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Video

Just want to get stuck in? Here’s the video; first half is Jimmy, second half is Jessica.

Sessions

For this meetup we were fortunate enough to have the Engström MVP power team, Jessica and Jimmy, who were in town for NDC London and graced us with their presence.

1) Developing Cross Platform Bots: Jimmy Engström

Jimmy Engstrom - Cross Platform Bots
The first session included several fantastic live demos where Jimmy creates a simple chat bot and, with minimal development effort, gets it working on Alexa, Cortana, and Google Home!

(Rendering my own ingenious Alexa BotFramework hack from last year quite useless!)

During the day Jimmy Engström is a .NET developer and he does all the fun stuff during his spare time. He and his wife run a code intensive user group (Coding After Work) that focuses on helping participants with code and design problems, and a podcast with the same name. Jimmy can be found tweeting as @apeoholic

2) Conversational UX: Jessica Engström

Jessica Engstrom - Conversational UX
In the second half Jessica gave a great overview of creating a framework to ensure your bot – speech or text based – seems less, well, robotic!

Some great takeaways from this which can easily be applied to your next project.

Being a geek shows in all parts of Jessica Engström’s life, whether it be organizing hackathons, running a user group and a podcast with her husband, game nights (retro or VR/MR) with friends, just catching the latest superhero movie or speaking internationally at conferences.

Her favorite topics is UX/UI and Mixed reality and other futuristic tech. She’s a Windows Development MVP. Together with her husband she runs a company called “AZM dev” which is focused on HoloLens and Windows development.

Follow her exploits over on twitter as @grytlappen

Summary

The updated event space at Just Eat is great and gives better visibility of the sessions thanks to stadium seating at the back.

The sessions were insightful and overall I think this went well.

Here’s to the next one and don’t forget to join up (and actually attend when you RSVP… ahem…)

MVP led TechDays Online

MVP led TechDays Online

On February 20th to 22nd you’ll be able to join MVPs like me at the 3 day online conference UK Tech Days Online.

This is a chance for MVPs to talk about some of the cool new MS tech that’s out there, show you how to use it yourself, and give a few case studies. This year it’s all about AI, Bots, Data Science, and Azure OSS – awesome stuff!

Since I’m not able to attend this on the day of the event, my fellow Bot MVP, Gary Pretty, will be accompanied by the talented James Mann (no doubt a Bot MVP in the next round of awards!) for a couple of sessions on Day 1 all about BotFramework, LUIS, and the various features and tooling around that ecosystem.

So that you don’t miss out on my handsome visage (!), I’m pre-recording a short session at Microsoft over the next couple of weeks, which will hopefully be played here and there throughout the conference, where I give a very brief case study for the JustEat Help chatbot; it’ll be a tasty Bot infomercial snack – don’t miss out!

Full Schedule

20 February 2017

  • 10.00am: Data, data, data – How and where to store it on Azure?
  • 11.00pm: Conversational UI using the Microsoft BOT Framework
  • 12.00pm: Microsoft Bot Framework and Cognitive Services: Make your BOT smarter!
  • 1.00pm: The best kept secret, Document DB.
  • 2.00pm: Let’s discuss Server-less.
  • 3.00pm: Keynote: Dr Mike Rys What is an Azure Data Lake?

21 February 2017

  • 10.00am: Creating a PHP-MySQL web app in Azure App Service and deploying using FTP.
  • 11.00am: Gain profit from Azure app service tooling as an OSS developer.
  • 12.00pm: Dockerizing Your Cross-Plat .NET Development.
  • 1.00pm: Communication Driven Development.
  • 2.00pm: Monitoring Linux in Azure with Microsoft Operations Management Suite Log Analytics.
  • 3.00pm: The Open Source World of Xamarin.

22 February 2017

  • 10.00am: Bootstrapping blockchain.
  • 11.00am: How IOT and data is changing lives.
  • 12.00pm: An introduction to Quantum Computing.
  • 1.00pm: Social Scientist Professor Bradley Love from University College London and the Alan Turing Institute
  • 2.00pm: Microsoft Regional Directors panel.

If this whets your appetite for nerd knowledge, pre register now at https://aka.ms/uktechdays2017

MVP Bling!

As I recently mentioned, I’m now a Microsoft MVP!

I thought you might like to see what bling you get when you’re awarded the MVP, so here it is:

MVP Bling

The box

It’s a pretty big box, and quite heavy too..

MVP Award 2017 box

Would you look at that picture though?! I mean, all those pens in the pots – these MVPs mean BUSINESS.

In grey.

Contents

There’s a bunch of goodies in there:
MVP Award 2017 contents

A nice certificate from The Gugges with my MVP area – Data Platform (although I actually focus on BotFramework) – a hefty glass wedge and a little puck with “2017” on it which slips on to the wedge, all ready to start building up my many years of MVP-age to come no doubt 😉

There’s also a little MVP pin and a conference/ID card thingy. Finally there’s a sheet of MVP stickers of various sizes; expect my laptops and phones to be totally covered in them the next time you see me!

So there you have it – the tangible side of an MVP award. Now I just need to find a space somewhere in my flat clear enough to put this stuff…

I’m a Microsoft MVP!

Microsoft MVP Logo

I’m extremely pleased to announce that I’ve just received the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) Award!

Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals, or MVPs, are technology experts who passionately share their knowledge with the community.
They are always on the “bleeding edge” and have an unstoppable urge to get their hands on new, exciting technologies.
MVPs are driven by their passion, community spirit and their quest for knowledge. Above all and in addition to their amazing technical abilities, MVPs are always willing to help others – that’s what sets them apart.

During 2016 I discovered – and became quite obsessed with – the concept and development of chatbots; I’m am excited with the possibilities. Microsoft’s own product is the BotFramework and various Cognitive Services.

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