The people at Skype Night in California
Skype Night in California, Sheraton Hotel, Palo Alto. Thursday, September 22, 2005
At an event like this, the people you meet, far out value the presentations. It is all about schmooozing.
A special highlight for me was meeting face-to-face with two of the top techies from Tallinn. I have communicated with them since 2003. Being able to share a beer with them was a special treat. Senior Developer Jaan Tallinn (yup, in this world of avatars and pseudonyms that's his real name!) and Project Manager Lauri Tepandi.
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Skype Night was the brain child of Skype International Marketing Manager Melany Libraro (SkypeID: melibrar). I think the event was a winning idea. I hope we see more of this happen all around the globe.
We were met at the door by members of the San Francisco-based sparkpr team, Skype’s new PR Agency in the US. I met Founder Donna Sokolsky, Managing Director Jon Murchinson, and Associate Erica Jostedt. Good folks. A plus: they understand the role bloggers play in the game of Marketing Communications. I hope next time we meet they will all have Skype Names on their business cards. (Grin)
Nils Hammer and I spent about an hour together. A business school graduate from Sweden, he joined Skype Marketing Group in London, later moving into the Product Management Group and now lives in California representing BusDev for Skype. Potential Skype Partners in the US have got a very well rounded, super competent Skype staffer to lean on. Based on the 170 that turned up for a word of mouth Skype Night event my guess is Nils will be run off his feet! Get to him quick!
Another “personal sweet moment” was meeting John Hammink of the Skype Certification Program. John is an American, living in Tallinn, Estonia. An expert musician who does gigs in and around the Baltic. He is also an expert in Software Engineering. If you want to win his attention or get your product Skype Certified I would strongly recommend you learn how to write Uses Cases. John and I worked together for 9 months in 2004. It was really nice to meet him face-to-face. You can also find John at LinkedIn.
Stefan Öberg, the Director of Product Management in Skype London. We had a nice chat and afew laughs. Mostly about the Skype Road Map that Phil published while at VON Boston.
I had a nice lunch with Lester Madden lester.madden at skype.net (he picked up the tab). Lester is with the Skype Developer Relations (3rd Party Developer Group) in Skype London. He runs the Skype Developer Blog. Please drop by and read it. Lester tells me he needs more hits!
Lester is new to Skype. About a 4 or 6 weeks. Came from Microsoft. I will be doing a detailed interview of Lester next week.
All in all. I had great time. If they hold a Skype Night in your neighbourhood don't miss it.
More on the Presentations at Skype Night in California in a few hours...
Comments
Smart to put all the email addresses in the post :-)
...except your own.
Ever heard of email harvester software?
Posted by: Hans Blaauw | September 27, 2005 07:39 AM