The best Winter Olympics ever? As a Canadian, I can hardly be seen as an impartial judge of that, but I think the world has seen first-hand the warmth, friendliness, fun, inclusion and patriotism that is this country.

The games began with not a bang, but rather stuttery whimper, with the tragic passing of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili, then a mechanical failure in the opening ceremonies. Conditions at Cypress Mountain were abysmal to start the games and Whistler didn’t fare much better, with rain and fog postponing the alpine events.

The early going wasn’t great for Team Canada either. After a lot of pump-up with the “Own the Podium” program, which I still don’t like, it looked like we owned the podium, but were letting a whole lot of other people stand on it. There were uncomfortable upsets, and a medal eeked out here and there. Alexandre Bilodeau gave the country something to cheer about, saying his was but the first of many gold medals to come for Canada. At the same time, I felt terrible for Jenn Heil. The media descended on her silver as though she should be ashamed of it. Shame on the media instead.

Sure, setting out the goal of winning the most medals at the Winter Olympics on home soil was an aspiration, but was it unnecessary pressure? Melissa Hollingsworth’s emotional interview showed how much the athletes thought the country cared about medals above all else. Do we? She thought she let the country down. Were we all standing on her shoulders? That’s a heavy burden to bear. There are bound to be disappointments in the Olympics, if not for our country then for the ones we compete against. Not everyone can win, but everyone is giving it their all.

Nine or ten days into the Olympics and the skeptics came out to play in force. Was Own the Podium a complete, utter failure? Denny Morrison seemed to think so, telling the country that the program prevented him from training with his long-time training partner Shani Davis, who won gold in the 1000m long track event. All of a sudden, the goal wasn’t to win the Olympics, but rather try to make it to perhaps 20 medals. Let’s try not to embarrass ourselves in light of the hoopla surrounding medal count. The Americans joked about their “Rent the Podium” program.

It was probably around the time Jon Montgomery won the men’s skeleton gold that the country got pumped again. Jon is quite the character, a banner athlete for Canada certainly. His enthusiasm is electrifying and contagious. Perhaps it was just that for Team Canada. A few days later, Joannie Rochette puts up a fantastic perform in the face of grave emotional pain and lands a bronze medal. That was perhaps the most inspirational story of the games, garnering her a share of the Terry Fox award as well carrying Canada’s flag into the closing ceremony.

The rest is pretty much history – 5 gold medals in the last few days of competition brought Canada’s medal count to 26 and gold count to 14, the highest in Olympic history for any nation. Of course that record-breaking gold came courtesy of the men’s Team Canada hockey team, a game that I watched with the utmost excitement and gut-wrenching worry. When Crosby scored that overtime goal, I thought I was in a dazed dream. The streets were immediately filled with honking cars. It’s very unique to be in a country that can be united so strongly under a single hope. Perhaps this day will become a national holiday! I don’t think I’ve ever seen a happy moment bring so many people together anywhere in the world. We love our hockey and our country.

Team Canada has made this nation more proud than it’s ever been. These Vancouver Winter Olympics will be remembered for a very, very long time for the excitement a country brought the world. We’ve never been ones to boast or belittle. But these Olympics have shown how strong our will is and how big our hearts are.

Thank you Vancouver for uniting this country under the maple leaf and giving the world a taste of what I’ve lived and loved for nearly 20 years.

I haven’t written about piano in quite some time, since it’s no longer the huge part of my life it once was. Still, I’m extremely happy I have that skill, and today, I was able to get some great enjoyment out of it.

Watching Gattaca, which is a fantastic movie, I came upon the scene where the ‘12-fingered’ pianist plays Schubert’s Impromptu Op. 90 No. 3 in G-flat Major. Loving the gorgeous melodic lines, I decided to have a go at it myself, with merely 10 fingers available to me.

Listening to and enjoying music gets elevated to a completely different level when one can recreate that music him/herself. For me, I can derive far more enjoyment when I’m playing the piece myself, taking the interpretations on the lines as I see fit and putting my heart and soul into it.

I typically play a few pieces each time I’m home from university, but I practiced this piece for about an hour and a half today, probably the longest I’ve played on end in the entire 5 years of university. I have the first of six pages in good shape.

My eight years of piano have defined a large part of who I am today. The discipline, determination, and possibly intelligence I have can be traced back, at least indirectly, to the things I learned sitting in front of the ivories. Now I get to reap those benefits. Being able to tickle the ivories without embarrassing myself is nice too!

Disclaimer: Heck of a long post ahead. It’s divided into three sections for quick perusal. 1. Microsoft’s change over the past few years. 2. Windows Phone 7 – The Product. 3. Windows Phone 7 – The Team. Enjoy.

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Today, I’m proud.

When I tell people I’m going to work at Microsoft after graduation, I usually get one of two reactions. The first is the regular congratulations, typically from people outside of the information technology field. The second starts with a raised eyebrow, then a comment: “I hear it’s pretty stodgy over there.”

Reading blog posts and tech sites disparage this or that about Microsoft makes me cringe. I’m nothing if not loyal. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t at some points wish I could tell people I was associated with Apple or Google or Amazon or anyone else.

Hip. Innovative. Modern.

Those are certainly not things that you normally hear said in the same sentence as ‘Microsoft’, except when the word ‘not’ is in there as well. Perhaps that was true up until a few years ago. I even had this conversation with my GPM. Microsoft’s changing on the inside, but no one seems to know it. How can we show people what the Microsoft of the 21st century is all about?

Microsoft’s Reinvention

Different parts of Microsoft are changing at different rates. In the Business Division, things are somewhat more difficult to change. Over in the Entertainment and Devices group, you’re seeing what an increased focus on really delighting the user has already done. Xbox 360, Zune HD, Surface, Project Natal, and, most recently, Windows Phone 7 Series show what is brewing within the ‘Borg’.

It is that latter project that I want to talk about in depth here, both from a product standpoint, as well as its affect on me, several months ago. As you may know, I interned at Microsoft this past Fall (2009) in the Office InfoPath PM team. During my interviews, I had requested a design-oriented position, citing Office’s Ribbon UI overhaul as something I found pretty cool. Well, I got placed on an Office team. Perhaps not exactly what I wanted, but I was determined to make the best of it.

I had a fantastic semester with a great team, but I wasn’t certain if the enterprise space was right for me. Three things convinced me to give it a shot in a full-time position.

1. My team was absolutely phenomenal and the mentoring I received there convinced me that I had a heck of a lot to learn about the PM role, regardless of which team I was on. I am pretty much guaranteed continued mentorship when I return this summer.
2. A PM in the E&D division helped guide my views on the Office group. He was seeing the mentality of innovation and user-centered design spread throughout the company, Office included. He also inspired me to drive that mentality, regardless of where I found myself.
3. This was the clincher. I had several opportunities to talk with one of the PMs on Joe Belfiore’s team about the future of Windows Phone. It convinced me that Microsoft was indeed changing for the better and I wanted to be a part of that.

At the time, I was strongly considering graduate studies in the HCI space, hoping to work on the next generation of mobile computing. I surmised that the mobile phone, of all computing technology, was most aligned with a task-oriented operating design. The concept of applications is, in my opinion, already kludgy on the desktop and laptop. It makes even less sense on a smartphone. I saw mobile phones as the first place where an operating system could change the way people use computing technology today.

Task-Based

Instead of opening and closing applications, which has little analog with the mental and physical tasks we perform in the real world, the mobile should be centered around accomplishing logical (groupings of) tasks. I want to communicate with my friend. How, be it SMS, email, phone, or Facebook, is really secondary to that primary goal. I don’t want to think about which application to launch, because that precedes the goal of communication with a conscious and limiting decision. Once I have that SMS app up, I’m limited to 140 characters. Perhaps what I had to say requires many more. Over to email I go. That’s no good.

Windows Phone 7’s concept of ‘hubs’ are task-centers in disguise. Look at how they’re designed. One is people-centric. I want to communicate with a person. Let me decide how to do that after I get all the information I want/need about that person.

Another is media-centric. I have some time to kill. Launch the Zune hub and all my media needs can be satisfied there, whether it be radio, stored music, streamed music, or videos. No separate apps for Pandora. It’s all in one place.

Then there’s the Productivity hub, with Mobile Office. Again, you’re not launching individual Office applications. Instead, your documents are there – the application itself isn’t important – and you can work on any of them within the same hub experience.

Photographs can come from a multitude of places. They could be saved. They could be taken on the camera on the device. But in addition, Flickr, Picasa, and Facebook are just a few of a multitude of services that are connected in the cloud. Again, why have applications for each service? I want to view photos and all of these services provide photos. Give them to me in one place so I can accomplish my task in one place.

The design doesn’t punish a poor or wrong decision. It removes that potential for a wrong decision altogether, but still gives all the options.

Several of the screens shown are quite busy, as many have noted, especially the homescreen. The METRO UI theme takes cues from mass data displays such as airport flight monitors, which also update rather frequently. It’s proven to be an efficient way to present a lot of data in many situations, so perhaps it’ll work on the phone as well. Albert Shum, Director of Mobile Experience Design alludes to this in the following video.

I believe Windows Phone 7 is easily the closest out of all the smartphone platforms to reaching that task-oriented design I dream of. I’m very excited about Windows Phone 7, sure, but more than that, I’m interested to see if this is the start of a more task-oriented design to all the computing technology that surrounds us. That means PC operating systems as well. I’d be a staunch supporter of  such a design path.

Let’s be clear here – the Windows Phone 7 Series announced yesterday isn’t the end of the journey. It’s the beginning. There are so many more things in the pipeline that continue to break down the walls between siloed applications. More and more, the operating system will be about helping you accomplish tasks in an efficient and delightful way.

The Team

As I mentioned earlier, I had the privilege to get a look into the workings of the team that worked on Windows Phone 7. Hopefully I’m okay to write about it now, since the product has been announced. You might have noticed that Joe Belfiore mentioned he came to the Windows Phone team from Zune a bit more than a year ago. The person I spoke with also previously worked on the Zune team. I even met the lead designer for the Zune UI, and you guessed it, he was also working on Windows Phone. The UI shown today makes it clear that this was an ex-Zune team led effort. In fact, I imagine the upper echelons of the Zune team were simply plucked up and placed in Windows Phone somewhat more than a year ago.

That also gives you an idea of the time frame of what was accomplished and why it’s going to take until the holidays 2010 for shipping product.

But that team. It’s very different. I’m sure they were this way when they were working on the Zune, but upon moving to Windows Mobile/Phone, the team grew significantly. Getting everyone on board with the user-centric design mentality was a monumental accomplishment. I spoke with the PM on this point – how can you sufficiently convince people of such a large shift in design philosophy? Numerous points were discussed, but the short of the story was the team belief in creating a fantastic user experience, and progress along that path only solidified the idea that this was simply the right thing to do. The results created a feedback loop of buy-in. Of course, the stick had to come out a few times, to make sure things didn’t degenerate into the previous mess, but all in all, a very successful story of a real shift in the workings of a major team within Microsoft.

The team is simply different from any other I’ve seen thus far Microsoft. The people are ‘hip’. They talk about emotional design. They believe in it. I had a chance to see the lab where a lot of the magic happens, and my, my, I imagine Apple’s design labs aren’t much different. You see some of it in the video earlier on. The team is even physically laid out in a different way from most of the rest of Microsoft. I hope to take some of those learnings anywhere I go. It looks like it works.

Windows Phone 7 was a highly guarded secret, and the shock and awe value they got today was exactly the effect they were aiming for. I happily kept my mouth (and fingers) shut for the past couple months because that’s the least this wonderful team deserves, to reap the fruits of their hard labor.

This is why I’m super proud. Congratulations Windows Phone 7 team! I’ll be looking forward to the end of this year with great anticipation!

Full Circle

My cellphone pants pocket has come full circle over the course of a year and a half. Back then, I was sporting an iPhone 3G, and got my hands on an early retail BlackBerry Bold. My comparison concluded with a preference for the iPhone, citing my consumer leanings, and some serious drawbacks to the mapping application and smaller display of the Bold.

Over the course of the past year, I grew extremely frustrated with the iPhone’s touchscreen typing (I am atrocious at it, even with its great error correction), and moved on to a Nokia E71. I spent a good 9 months with that phone, before I swapped over to an HTC Touch Pro2. The Nokia provided me a return to the physical keypad and I loved it, but at the same time, I wasn’t very pleased with the lower resolution display. The TP2 had a fantastic 3.6″ WVGA touchscreen display (800×480) plus a giant physical keypad.

In a bout of prescience, I had commented in that iPhone – Bold comparison that HTC’s TouchFlo 3D looked great, but would be worthless if it came at the cost of a lot of performance. The TP2 was a dog of a performer, requiring regular reboots to keep in a good working state. Integration with Exchange was fantastic and MyPhone was a great feature, never leaving me worried about the synchronization state of my computer’s and phone’s contact lists.

My focus on a physical keypad was based on a significantly higher ratio of written communication than ever before. I get on average 10-15 emails per day and go through around 10 text messages in that same time-span. That reliance on email made me reconsider the BlackBerry once more (I had used a BlackBerry Curve for quite some time). A friend recently purchased a BlackBerry Bold 9000, and showed me how the platform was “just getting good when you left it“, as he put it.

So I bought a used BlackBerry Bold.

In Use

I’ve been using the Bold for the past two weeks, with a Rogers BIS data plan. Email has been much more reliable than the Touch Pro2 (I  now receive them on in prompt fashion) and the device itself is far, far more responsive. I immediately loaded BlackBerry OS5.0.411 (Swedish 3 network version, not the Bell version) onto the device, and combined with the Reverie D theme with transitions, the interface is sublime to use. Screens fade in and out without the least bit of hesitation. Things load faster than anything else I’ve used, and just as I noted even 1.5 years ago.

The keyboard, while not nearly as large as the one on the TP2, is fantastic to use. The keys have positive action, and a nice soft click when depressed. The slight ridges on the keys make typing very accurate, despite the size. I’m finding myself belting out more emails and text messages on the go than ever before. I always needed to slide up the screen of the TP2 to expose the keypad before I could really use that device to write anything. The candy-bar format makes this more convenient.

Furthermore, the Bold 9000 is built like a tank. The fake leather backing feels great in the hand, yet at the same time resists normal day-to-day wear, unlike the iPhone’s scratch-prone surface. Not unlike the iPhone’s monolithic bulk, the Bold also has no creaks or groans during use. I popped in an 8GB microSD card, and with the included 3.5mm audio jack, I can listen to some music on the go too. The screen isn’t glass-covered, and there are a couple  hairline scratches on this used copy, but it seems like even moderate care should prevent any serious damage to it. The TP2’s resistive screen on the other hand seemed extremely delicate. Over the short while I used it, it developed several scratches on the screen. And I take care of my gadgets. All in all, a very positive feeling for the Bold’s durability. I have no worries using it anywhere.

Browsing on the device is decent, not great. The browser that comes with OS5.0 seems capable of handling most any site I visit, with the exception of my university’s online course materials portal. Then again, an iPhone doesn’t do well on that site either. While the screen is far smaller than the iPhone or the TP2, the resolution is on par with the iPhone’s (480×320), and text looks extremely crisp on the Bold. Cramming that many pixels into this (relatively) small display creates a very vibrant, detailed experience. My previous experience with the Bold involved some frustrating time with BlackBerry Maps. I didn’t bother loading it up this time, instead opting for the free Google Maps application. On 3G, tile loading rates are good and GPS works just fine and dandy.

To top things off, I purchased a BlackBerry charging pod, which I now use as my alarm clock. It sits on my desk and I simply plop the Bold into it when I come home. It turns into a big digital clock, and I’m able to set as many different alarms as I want via the calendar. This works great as I have morning classes on Mon-Wed-Fri, but still want to wake up at a decent hour on the other days of the week. The dock looks fantastic, provides an extra bit of functionality, and ensures that my phone is always charged. Well worth the investment.

Speaking of charged, battery life has been solid. Over the course of a normal day from 9am through 9pm, usage includes around 10 text messages, 10 minutes in calls, 20 minutes of web browsing, 20-30 minutes of Brick Breaker, some time on Google Talk, and 4 email accounts being pushed, with 3G and Wifi enabled, the phone runs down to about 70% battery. On another run over 3 days, with one day of heavier use (on par or more than the above scenario) and two of light use, always with the 4 push email accounts, the battery ran down to 15%, at which point I got a low battery indicator. Overall, very good.

But not all is hunky dory. With only BIS through Rogers, I am unable to sync my contacts and calendar over the air with my computers, without some crazy proxies in between (such as using Google Calendar). Furthermore, I have a hosted Exchange server, which syncs my desktop and laptop. With the Touch Pro2, that also meant I could use ActiveSync to sync my phone. Microsoft MyPhone also gave me a backup option, even if there was no Exchange. With the BlackBerry, neither of these options exist without BES. A real bummer. Perhaps Mike Lazaridis’ announcement on Tuesday will address this pretty key drawback.

Wrap

After 1.5 years, I find myself back with a Bold, except this time, it’s mine and I’m loving it. The level of importance I place upon reliable communications has risen over the years, and the BlackBerry platform just makes sense for me right now. The Bold 9000 is snappy and responsive and performs its key competencies, email and communications, just so very well. The QWERTY keypad is fantastic to use, the form factor is good, and BrickBreaker’s pretty darn entertaining. It’s not a multimedia powerhouse like the iPhone or other touchscreen devices, but all I need is a cursory music player, and it has that.

If Research in Motion would go ahead and give me OTA sync of my calendar and contacts with an Exchange server or some other cloud service, without the need for BES, I’ll be very content indeed.

Windows Phone 7 will be shown off tomorrow morning, and I’ve been very impressed with what I’ve seen so far at Microsoft. I’ll be waiting with great anticipation for actual shipping hardware. Until then, the Bold will be in my pocket.