I've Been Scobleized

Yes, I have met Robert Scoble!

A weblog can be a beautiful thing. On Friday I read that Robert Scoble was coming to Dallas for a wedding. On Sunday, I invited him to Fellowship Church to see Microsoft technology at work. On Monday afternoon, Scoble himself walked through the doors and I had the great pleasure of showing him around for two hours.

Robert's blog does an excellent job of reflecting his personality. He's a fun, personable, interesting, and enthusiastic person. We gave him the full behind-the-scenes tour, both of the physical space and the technology that makes it all happen. We started with a visit to our bookstore and cafe, toured the children's areas, the service production room, video editing suites, and the radio studio. He also left with a grab bag of materials, samples, and FC wear.

Ever the blogger, Robert did a fine job of encouraging us to expand our various websites through blogs and RSS feeds and had some terrific ideas on where this would have the greatest impact. He also revealed some areas where we're underutilizing blog tools for our own internal benefit. We're going to be expanding into this space as soon as our timeline will allow.

Knowing that he was flying out later today, I can't thank him enough for taking the time to visit Fellowship. It was a true pleasure to meet someone I've been reading on a daily basis for over two years. How strange it is to shake someone's hand for the first time, and yet want to ask how Maryam and Patrick are doing. Robert, anytime you find yourself in Dallas, the door's always open!

I can't even imagine how this has expanded my personal six degrees of separation. I think I'm just two degrees from Gates, Ballmer and Hilary Clinton, which makes me three degrees from Jobs, Buffett, and nearly half of the country!

And did I mention that Microsoft has cool business cards and I have a strange new desire to buy an X-Box?

Now, if I can just get Dave Winer to stop by.

Comments

[Tony Toews]

Scoble's business card is quite unique compared to the other MS employees cards I've collected over the years. The other folks are quite standard black on white with maybe an Office logo in colour.

I also doubt very many MS employees are allowed to have thier personal website on their MS card too.

[Robert Scoble]

Tony, true. I have some of the "standard issue" white cards as well. But the black ones are so much cooler.

[Ben Thorp]

While I was interested in hearing that you use Linux for your video rendering, I would be curious to hear your views on Open Source software in general within the Christian community.