Office in the mail

One of the great things about attending Microsoft events, especially their launch events, is that you almost invariably walk out of the place with some quality software for free. Back in 2005 when the latest version of Visual Studio was released, attendees of the launch event received a free copy of Visual Studio 2005 Standard Edition, SQL Server 2005 Standard Edition, and a download for BizTalk Server 2006. But with the launch of Windows Vista and Office 2007, there wasn't any software being handed out. What happened?

It turns out that Microsoft seems to be ensuring that people attending events actually fill out the evaluation cards that are handed out to attendees. For us Canadian launch event attendees, Microsoft will soon be mailing out evaluation kits including a full copy of Office 2007 Professional, for those of us who always make sure to evaluate the sessions they attend.

I can't wait to receive mine. As someone who often evaluates others and is evaluated in kind, to get such a nice gift for it is definitely appreciated. And I think that I have fairly good evaluation skills, thanks to Toastmasters – after all, I did compete in the District 60 speech evaluation contest this year (although I didn't make it past the area-level competition). I'm checking my mailbox every day for the package that lets me download Office 2007 for free, along with other resources that Microsoft is providing to attendees.

The fact that Microsoft is withholding the software they once gave away at these events is somewhat distressing for me. Not because it takes longer to get the software, but because people just aren't bothering to evaluate the presenters and events. These evaluations are important to both the presenters and event hosts, because it lets them know what they're doing right, and where they can improve. I might be taking it a little personally, but I can be forgiven for that, since I do speak publicly as well as help organize a conference myself.