Well, the MEDC Tour is finally over and we're all back safe and sound in Redmond. Feeling both very happy and satisfied that the tour is complete and everything went very well. Feeling a little blue too coz all the euphoria and excitement is dwindling away.
It has been a great experience especially for me, since I'm relatively new to the group. We've gone to over 7 countries over the span of 2 months and what I treasure most from this trip (aside from all the great work and people we've met) is for me to be able to call the speakers who have been travelling with me, buddies rather than just colleagues. We've gone through so many highs and lows (more highs obviously) during this tour and collected so many stories that you'll never be able to find or experience anywhere else. This has brought us closer together, which will definitely be reflected in our daily lives and I'm sure will be a boon for the company in the long run.
Going on a tour like this is great for one's confidence and experience with the other parts of our planet. Sometimes we get so sheltered in Redmond that we fail to see all the great momentum and culture that occupies the area where we call "Rest of the World". This experience forces us to think globally and not just restrict our scope to the United States.
here's a short summary of our trip:
Countries Covered: United States (main), Australia, Japan, France, Taiwan, China and Malaysia.
Additional Countries: (other MEDC events that we did not go to) India & Korea
I'm in the process of putting together a short photostory of our tour and i'll share it with everyone once i'm done. Need a couple of days to aggregate all the photos we took and pick the best. If you're interested in our pictures you can checkout our flickr site at http://www.flickr.com/photos/medc2006team
Although i've started this blog for MEDC, I'll keep it alive from now on and will keep updating anyone who's interested about new and exciting things coming from the Mobile and Embedded Devices Group (MED) here in Microsoft. I'll probably rename this blog to "Backstage at MED" instead.