Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and I "Yucking It Up" at the MVP Summit

[NOTE: This story has been told a few times by others, but I wanted to provide some detail]

As many of you know, the Microsoft MVP Summit 2009 was a few weeks ago on the Microsoft campus in Redmond, Washington. Each year Microsoft invites all of their MVPs to come visit with their respective product groups who share information about future products and get our feedback.

Each year there is a keynote address by someone like Bill Gates or Steve Ballmer. This year it was Steve Ballmer who addresses the crowd. After his talk, he opened the microphones for questions. I jumped up and was first at microphone #3. When it came my turn for a "question" (Ballmer had previously stated that MVPs don't ask questions, they make statements with a question mark at the end, which is true), I said "I am a Windows Home Server MVP". Ballmer, not hearing me very well held a hand to his ear, interrupted me to say "Windows what?", to which I responded "Exactly!" (referring to the fact that Windows Home Server is often ignored even within Microsoft and in some ways is the "forgotten OS").

As you can imagine, this caused a big roar of applause from the audience. Holding up my WHS stickers, I proceeded to tell Ballmer that "I've noticed that there seems to be a lot of ad space on your shirt" addeding "and even more on your forehead". This time a unified "Oooooooh" came from the crowd, as they didn't know how Steve would take my insult comment (meant purely out of love). Just as quick as my "exactly" retort, he responded "It takes one to know one buddy" (note that I am paraphrasing all of these quotes). Rubbing my hand through my goldy locks, I responded "fair enough".

Continuing with my question, I asked "would your be willing to put a sticker on your forehead?". Being a good sport, he said "I will if you will" and motioned for me to come up on the stage.

It was a great moment for me. Not only did I get to pose for pictures and shake Steve Ballmer's hand, but I was able to promote Windows Home Server to thousands of MVPs world wide, may hearing about the product for the first time. It also put it front and center on Steve Ballmer's mind, literally! :)

You, of course, can get your free sticker here along with some other cool stickers from Microsoft.

I also got the chance to promote another cool Microsoft technology: Microsoft Tag (blog).

 

(photo credits to mtoo on Flickr)