For those who’ve not visited my site before, Welcome.

For those who’ve been here before, welcome back! You’ve probably noticed by now that this site is markedly different from my old, somewhat stagnant site. Why? Well, the old version of this blog only contained a few disjointed and out-of-date posts, but, perhaps more importantly, a recent event triggered a desire to start this blog afresh:

On July 23rd 2010, after just over 10 years with the company, I decided to leave Microsoft!

“Whut? Why?” some of you may be asking.

There are many reasons that led to my decision, but essentially, it all boils down to the fact that I want more freedom.

I absolutely loved my time working at Microsoft. During my various roles at Microsoft, I met some of the most fun, exciting, fascinating, exceptional and gifted individuals anywhere on the planet – both inside and outside the company. I was also extremely fortunate to be involved with designing, coding, testing, naming, branding, evangelizing, marketing and presenting a number of important technologies such as Windows Communication Foundation (WCF, codenamed “Indigo”), .NET Remoting, COM+ & DCOM, Visual Studio Team System and Windows CardSpace (codenamed “InfoCard”).

I’ve learned an enormous amount - not just about technology and business - but also about who I am and who I want to be. Over the last couple of years, I’ve had a growing itch to branch out and carve my own future and decided that now was the time to make the leap to make it happen.

“So, what’s next?”

I am not abandoning the Microsoft world. I intend to continue in its orbit where it makes sense to do so. In the future, however, I’ll be free to offer a slightly more objective viewpoint than I was able to when posting at my “Welcome to the Metaverse” Microsoft/MSDN blog ;)

I am in the process of forming my own company through which I’ll be consulting and mentoring clients; sharing my expertise and helping them make the most of today’s and tomorrow’s technologies. I plan to re-engage the community-oriented aspects of my prior roles too, returning to speaking at conferences and writing more articles and perhaps a book or two! I also have several plans underway to build some interesting web-based businesses.

I also aim to catalog much of what I experience as I build my fledgling business and discuss many of the technical subject areas through which my career has and will continue to plow.

So, stop-by now and again, and if you like what you see here, subscribe to my blog feed.