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Big change, No changes…
Well, this is something I was never expecting to write on my blog. Something huge, at least for me, something that marks a personal milestone in my life.
I’ve been working for the MVP Award Program for several years: first, as a Community Program Manager (aka MVP Lead) for Italy, then, little by little, my manager gave me this great opportunity to take also care of the MVP Program in Central and Eastern Europe. That was a big change too, not only because of the increased number of MVPs I was about to represent, but also managing the business in 21 Countries meaning talking to the local stakeholders and making sure the MVP Program was getting enough visibility and awareness for the sake of both parties.
During this journey I met Amazing People, from so many different Countries and with different cultures and backgrounds I only dreamed of. Amazing and talented people from half of the Continent, I had the pleasure to attend so many different events and social gatherings, I had the opportunity to visit places that were only in my dreams. And all of this, I still have vividly on my mind.
Now is the time for a change. Big change. Huge change, as I said, at least for me. Well, to be honest I am not going anywhere (if someone is worrying about me leaving the Company I love 
). Even more, I’m not leaving the MVP Award Program, the Program I helped to build and that I never, for a moment, doubted its existence and its power and strength in the online and offline Communities.
So what’s the big deal then? I’m thrilled and honored to announce that I’ve been appointed Regional Manager for EMEA. WOW !! I still can’t believe that. The amazing thing is that the Team I love, the Program I love, the Communities I started to love years ago, will still part of my life .
I’ll be driving the Program in the whole Region, going to talk to a lot of different colleagues (internal awareness, as in all the Companies, it’s an important part of any Program) as a sort of “MVP Evangelist” as well as externally to the broad audience.
I’ll be responsible for the “EMEA Dream Team”, Talented People who, on a daily basis, take care of the MVP Award Program in different areas of the Region, driving the business in the Countries they represent and making sure other parties engage the MVPs in various activities.
This wouldn’t have happened without the learning process I’ve been involved in: great Managers, a great Executive Team, great people around me from which I learned a lot and to whom I’m really grateful. And it’s not just a bunch of people, I think the learning curve went up in the last 2 years also because of the many people I had the pleasure to interact with. Whether it was during an event, on Twitter, on Facebook, by e-mail, through Lync meetings and in-person discussions and roundtable. Wow, if I think about that I really can’t count the number of online and offline interactions I had during the last few years !
Having said that, I’ll be soon announcing, by email this time, the changes that will happen in the Region. Specifically for CEE & Italy MVPs, don’t worry about a thing, you’ll be in good hands! But right now I just wanted to drop down a few lines, making sure you’d see me happily jumping in the office, from one meeting room to another (you got the picture right? )
Thank YOU so much for trusting me, I’m intending to return the favor by doing my best and make the Program, with the help of the EMEA Team, even better in the whole Region !
Out Of Office (just for a while)
We have a lot of stuff coming up in FY13, lots of events (one above all, the Regional CEE & Italy MVP Summit during KulenDayz), Build, MVP Global Summit in US, and all the local events, MS and community events that will be held in the whole Region (and they are a lot, believe me..).
There are also lots and lots of online activities, from the forums posts to the webcasts/screencasts, from books and e-books to technical articles. Microsoft MVPs, the User Group Presidents, the Student Partners, the Regional Directors. In a word, the whole community ecosystem is already on track to deliver world-class technical activities f which thousands and thousands peers and users will benefit of.
I thought this was the best time to take some days off and make a blog post using my Windows Phone before the whole “community machine” will unleash its full power.
So now I’m taking a full break, relaxing a bit before the “unleash hell” command will be given 
See you very soon!
Nokia Lumia 710: my personal impressions
I’ve always been fascinated by the mobility computing from a consumer perspective. My passion goes back to the 90’s when I owned 2 PockePCs (a Compaq and a Casio Cassiopeia with Windows CE 2.11), a Palm Pre 2, A Psion Revo (best smartphone keyboard ever), several Windows Mobile Phones and an Android device.
I have to be frank, when I first looked @ the first Windows Phone model, I was not that impressed. The metro style was kind of strange, considering where the other devices (iOS, Android, WebOS) where heading to. But when I started to use it, I realized the full potential. And I became addicted…
I got this beautiful present for Christmas (probably my family is VERY aware of my addiction ), which was a Nokia Lumia 800. Superb phone, stunning display, lots of memory. But it doesn’t fit well.
What I mean is that I’m not a big fan of big phones (the Samsung Galaxy Note is like a giant phone to me, it’s not even a phone!). Technology is trying to “micro-do” everything since the Motorola 8700 and we’re going back to where we were before. Even though I see the value of them, I just don’t like to idea to carry a huge phone in my pocket. So my choice went to the Nokia Lumia 710.
I got the device yesterday and the price is at least a half of the normal Smartphone prizes, no matter which OS you like. Which is a good start…
When you lift the device for the first time, it’s seems like you’re handling an empty case, it’s just super lightweight. The form factor, something some people underestimate, it’s great. It perfectly fits in your hand. The USB connector is not in an awkward position like the Lumia 800. And it has buttons, instead of touch ones, which is great for a guy like me who was used to like the old IBM keyboards doing a lot of noise when you were typing.
Of course it lacks something: memory is only 8GB, the display is not even comparable with the Lumia 800 (TFT VS AMOLED, but the Gorilla Glass is good to have), the battery is only that powerful (although it’s removable, which is a good thing) and the camera is 5MP compared to the 810’s 8MP (which is ok for me. I don’t pretend to take stunning pictures from a phone).
You can have a look at this comparison I found (but there are plenty more out there):
If you’re still undecided, take a look at Tom’s Hardware Nokia Lumia 710 review.
I finally found the device I was looking for and I have no plans in changing it for anything. It reminds me, in a way, the HTC Mozart, one of the first Windows Phone I had, which was a great phone.
So overall I’m very satisfied with this purchase (at least this one I won’t regret it) and, if you want to see some pictures or have more info about my experience, just let me know in the comments box and I’ll definitely share them here.
And lastly, YOU, what Windows Phone do you have or you’re planning to buy?
Working on my slides…
I took some time today to make some order on the stuff I have on my computer. As I mentioned in my recent post, I had a few (!!!) issues to solve and finally I got everything.
And this is right after last week’s meeting I had with my extraordinary Team (the EMEA MVP Lead Team): it was so great to meet my fellow teammates, talented people with a lot of great ideas.
So now I was working on some slides I’ll present during a CEE Internal Meeting here in Prague. These people gave me an exceptional chance to present some of the things we are going to do (with their help) and some of the Microsoft MVPs’ Achievements during the last Fiscal Year.
This is the right time to start challenging people, talk with them and mingle (yes, that’s the right word ).
This is the perfect time to start, with a strategy in mind, all the activities we want to create, support and embrace in order to make the communities stronger and better.
Of course, as said, for me nothing is achievable without the help of the local subsidiaries: whether it’s a small Country or a big one, it’s necessary to talk face-to-face, start planning the activities and the conference calls in order to measure the status of all the different things we do. Or, I should say the MVPs do. They’re the KEY, the pillar and the main actors of our discussions. And the reputation they gained on the field, being the trusted advisors for many people, well, this helps a lot.
Apologize for the digression…
Starting to work on my slides, I realized the synonym of a Microsoft MVP is not easy to find. So I came up with this:
There are so many terms that can identify an MVP but this really depends on a case-by-case scenario, whether you’re an Early Adopter, a Trusted Advisor a distinguished speaker, etc…
But there’s one thing that is in common, and sorry but I’ll never stop saying this: Passion.
This is what differentiate us for doing a nice job in doing an excellent job, this is what defines you when you happen to have a conversation with people that are delusional on what they do (it happened to me just yesterday). And, no matter if you are an MVP, an MCC, or just an avid twitterer and enthusiast, this is your (OUR) key driver…
But I’m not done with it: as soon as I think about it and brainstorm myself, rest assured I’ll come up with many more ideas for my slides .
Love my randomized tag Cloud !
This is a tag cloud based on my blog.
It is not based on my personal tags (in fact, most of them are not shown in it) but it relies on the word counting in all the blog posts I did.
(created with Wordle)
And this is my twitter cloud, created with Tagxedo…
First week, second one..
I didn’t have much time to review and update my blog but, as I’m here in a Starbucks in downtown Seattle waiting to get a bus to the new destination, I thought it was worthy to write down some notes.
The MVP Global Summit (#mvp11) has been a great experience to me, to my colleagues and, to my knowledge, to the MVPs. It’s always amazing to get together in this place, far far away from our hometown. It’s about building relationships, interacting with the Product Teams, engage on with new opportunities and of course having a great time during the evenings. Great technical sessions, an amazing event organization, the Safeco Field Party, the Product Group dinners, I think almost everything was perfect. Of course there’s room to grow and of course some of you may not have been that satisfied with a particular session. But it’s not that easy to accomodate all of you, because of the different backgrounds and skills you may have.
Personally, I’m very happy with the whole event. Every year is better and better.
I had almost 100 MVPs coming from the Region I represent which is huge and my only regret is that I didn’t have the chance to talk with all of you guys. I just wanted to talk with all you but I just couldn’t ! At least I met almost all of you which is good.
Time flies and now you’re probably headed back home. I hope you’re taking with you great memories to tell your friends and families..
I’ll see you soon !
Gmail cooler than Hotmail ?
During one candidate review and another (), I thought about writing a post about e-mail messaging offering. And this is something I’m thinking about for several days.
I wanted to compare the 2 services from a higher perspective (but you can find a detailed one in the link provided below). I selected Hotmail and Gmail as they are the most used e-mail services abroad (so please bear with me Yahoo and AIM users ).
So the question on my mind was: why users tend to adopt a Gmail account?
There are a number of features we need to keep in mind.
Free space: Gmail now offers around 8 GB available space while Hotmail offered 5 GB, than 25 GB and now it’s almost unlimited (it detects if you need more space, and then it is automatically increased).
Filtering: they are both doing a great job on filtering messages
Spam: both are good in terms of junk emails. Someone would prefer one service or another but the Junk filters are both pretty good
Forwarding: with Hotmail you can send messages from different accounts (“on behalf of”) like Gmail, AOL Mail and Yahoo! Mail. Same as Gmail.
Advertisement: they both have it (on the web)
Security: they both use https encryption
Privacy: well, Google automatically scans e-mails to add context-sensitive advertisements to them. It seems your e-mails not read by a human but a bot will scan them to send ad-hoc advertisements. Also, senders’ emails are scanned too so (and this is one thing that really concerns me), if you have sensitive data to send to your customers, are you sure these e-mails are not really read by someone? What if you work for a Company which is a Google’s Competitor on a particular are? Hotmail uses Country-based advertisement so Microsoft does not need to scan your email messages. And a question: does Gmail “owns” the content you have in your Gmail account? That’s a question for you guys !
Search: Gmail does probably a better job in searching through your folders and emails as it uses the Google search engine (of course if you don’t access your emails through a client).
Web interface: Generally speaking, the Gmail web interface is thin and fast. Hotmail contains more advertisements.
Mobility: both services are accessible via a mobile phone easily. Of course if you have a Windows Phone 7, Hotmail works best. Same as you have an Android phone and a Gmail account (you have a dedicated application for that).
Other services: of course both of them try to drive their own additional services. Calendars, Contacts, SkyDrive, Windows Live Messenger, Office Web Apps, Google Buzz, Google Docs….you name it !)
Attachments: both are good now in terms of sending heavy files
There are probably other features I’m missing here but that’s ok to have an overview.
So, in the end, who wins? I think nobody wins and both are winners. So how come Gmail is perceived as cooler than Hotmail? Hence the reason why you tend to adopt one service for another. Does it depend to your needs? I don’t think so. Does it depend on space or spam filtering or mobility access? Not at all, I’d say.
The reason, IMHO, is brand awareness. Again, Google does a better job in branding its own services. Some of them are better than Microsoft’s ones, some of them are not. It’s the way in which it positions itself in the market. As someone said on Twitter: “#Microsoft writes software to sell software, #Apple writes software to sell hardware, #Google writes software to sell users”. This is no secret and an absolutely true statement: it corroborates what I’m saying here.
+ the power of the Long Tail. If you link branding (remember, Google is an Internet Company) with the Power of Mouth, than your chances of success are enormously higher. People talking about this particular feature or service to other people, online and offline, is the secret of success.
So, in the end, is Gmail cooler than Hotmail ? It seems so. And if you think about it, it’s in your head already. You don’t have to scroll down all the functionalities to see which service is best. It seems it’s already a fact (but it’s not, if you drill down into details). And this has been “caused”, believe it or not, by the Long Tail, the Power of Mouth, together with a good Branding Awareness.
So, to go Off Topic for a while and apply this to other stuff: you can brand anything. I believe a lot of people in the IT Industry think marketing or digital marketing or whatever you wanna call it is just fluffy/it’s not important. But they’re wrong. If you do it wisely and effectively, it’s the most powerful thing you can do.
Even for yourself (go have a look to this book and read it if you’re interested in this…)
Just wishing you…
kontent`a liber`temp`o (Esperanto)! Feriae felices (Latin)! Tchestita Koleda! Честит празник! Sarbatori Fericite! Vesele Praznike! Sretni Praznici! Boldog Ünnepeket! Linksmų švenčių! Veselé svátky! Festi! Veselé sviatky! Wesołych Świąt! Kellemes szünidőt! Buone Ferie! Laimīgas Brīvdienas! Καλές γιορτές! Džiaugsmingų švenčių! Srećni Praznici!
Abruzzo Emergency
You may have heard what is happening in Abruzzo (Italy) and especially in the nearby area of the city of L’Aquila.
Please read on here and/or follow the below link if you want to actively help the earthquake victims
Link to: Supporto Tecnico Enterprise : Emergenza Abruzzo – la risposta di Microsoft
MVP Open Day – Greece: Interval
I’m here attending a roundtable so why am I posting? Because it’s in Greek
Seriously, the event is still running, for me it is a great opportunity to meet all the MVPs living in Greece. I already had my speeches and now we split into 2 different audiences to talk about the local office interactions. There are a number of important and very impactful communities and User Groups in the Hellenic land: from Autoexec.gr to DotNetZone to StudentGuru.
Right now the MVPs and Martha (local ITPro Audience Marketing Manager) are talking about an important forthcoming event: the CyberCrime Security Forum 2008 which will be held on the 29 and 30th of November in Athens – Piraeus.
Now I won’t bother them with my click-click so I’ll stop blogging 
I got it !
After days and days and days of talking and rumors, what was I supposed to do? Simply talking ? Of course not ! (everyone needs to reward himself sometimes )
I found the device @ 399 € (Vodafone branded) which is quite good, considering that in Europe, unbranded, it is sold at 100 bucks more. If you want to know more about the Palm Treo Pro, you can find specs and out-of-the-box videos everywhere.
So I won’t cover those topics but expect a solid review from me shortly
Link to: Treo 800w Specifications – Treonauts
about.me
Alessandro Teglia
EMEA Regional Manager @Microsoft
Social. Connected. Digital Enthusiast. Online & Offline Community Influencer & Follower. Avid audio book reader, rookie Photographer, History fan. Addicted to #WindowsPhone... #Branding is my Passion
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