Microsoft Building 25 — Local services in Redmond

I came here for the Mixed Reality Airlift but was turn away since I came later in the week. I had a question about augmented reality but the lady was too busy telling me I am too late to join and that I couldn’t stay to actually answer and help. I can totally understand about coming too late and I was totally fine with just learning more about what was happening instead of joining a team but she was quite rude and unwelcoming enough that teams were staring at us. It set an example of unfriendly and defensiveness to the AR/VR/XR community and developers who participated. I would not recommend this behavior and attitude. There were plenty of badges of people who did not show up in the front. I also heard that there were some people who could only show up on Tuesday for one day and they attended. I have been to hackathons where community and learning were the focus and it made me wonder if they didn’t want me to be there because I could learn something that they wanted to license and benefit from this event. At other hackathons that I have been to, it was mostly Friday for a optional workshop and then 48 hours to hack. People were welcome to listen even if they came too late to join a team or just show up to listen to the presentations. Anyways, I can understand why I heard so many negative comments about Microsoft not being innovative and not resonate with people verse other companies and startup who are focus on building community and are authentic. I found this to be a bad experience and think they can improve by setting better and short time period where more working people can attend (3 days: Friday - Sunday vs 5 days: Monday - Friday and not even welcome anyone without stating in their emails when the cut off to stop by is) and be more welcoming of the community. My experience was bad and I will look into other options and companies who actually care about people and their experiences. I am quite disappointed with Microsoft as an attendee and I hope they consider making changes. Nothing really special about the building. Hard to park...

If you can get in, the coffee and...

Neat...