I love conferences. So much information. So much energy. So many ideas. I’m always inspired when I find myself in the company of a few hundred or a few thousand peers. Great fun.

Yesterday was the first day of MIX. I learned more about Windows Azure (didn’t know about Traffic Manager, which sounds pretty cool), Windows Phone 7 (great usability and design presentation by Megan Donahue DVC02), and IE10 (Markus Mielke explained a lot about the new CSS3 features being implemented – VERY cool).

Probably the most interesting (though not particularly useful) thing I learned was that high-level people from all the top browser makers talk on a conference call once per WEEK to discuss emerging HTML5 standards. Wow! They meet in person 4 times per year, too! They respect each other – even like each other. Browsers are an area of enormous competition and yet the people working on them work together, too. I think it’s safe to say that the focus is actually on making the web a better place, which is awesome. Someone should make a documentary about those meetings.

I even got to party with old and new friends last night.

Today is the second day of MIX. Wonder what I will learn today.

If you are here, email or tweet me – I’d love to chat.

I’m attending one of my favorite conferences this week – MIX: http://visitmix.com. MIX is Microsoft’s conference for “designers, developers, and web builders”

Much of the content will be recorded and streamed at http://live.visitmix.com, so I’m focusing on people instead of content this week. I’m especially focused on people using Windows Azure and Windows Phone who are based in the Central Region of the US (since that’s my area). If you live in one of these states and you’d like a Microsoft contact for Windows Azure or Windows Phone development, PLEASE reach out to me at Patrick.Foley@microsoft.com or @patrickfoley. Even if you don’t live in my region – if you’re reading this from MIX, please reach out.