that winfx map really didn't help
Today I stood outside one of the "whirligig" rides, which are inflatable slide things designed for the young and engergetic. As I waited for my young and energetic person to tire himself out, someone with a nice longhorn sweatshirt stood next to me and did the same.
Now, it would be a great story if I could pull a Scoble and introduce myself, start talking tech, etc. I thought of several openers, such as "Here for the MVP conference?" or "What part of longhorn do you work for?" Of course I considered being honest and saying "How much for the sweatshirt?" But alas, no great story, because there were so many openers (all flawed in some way) that I missed my moment and the guy walked away. What can I say, I didn't get hired for my networking skills.
The truth about chatting about longhorn is that the data I have on it is too low level, and the questions I have for it have yet to be asked or answered (too high level). I scour the internal net, weblogs, PDC conference slides, but it all skims around the core of the product so deftly I still don't know what I'll be working with. And that famous poster: Here are lots of boxes, and how they fit together, but little definition of what the boxes do, and more importantly why. It's like being a marine biologist. You can put on the tank and go under, but you're still an observer.