Hello Manuel, could you briefly introduce yourself? And your company as well?
Hello, my name is Manuel Diaz and I’m the CEO of groupe Reflect, the French partner of the Emakina group. We are a full services interactive agency, which provides rich solutions and new user experiences for our clients. Thanks to the various types of expertise that we have developed, the agency cultivates a global, creative and innovative vision of today’s Internet.
How did you hear about MIX? What was your motivation in coming to Las Vegas for several days?
As an agency, we follow new developments among software editors in general very closely, insofar as our clients are constructing services, together with us, on the basis of these technological building blocks. From the various recent statements, it’s clear that Microsoft is increasingly positioning itself around the user experience. However, we were surprised by the way the event was opened up to graphic artists, art directors and other creative profiles.
So therefore we quickly realized that what was actually happening was a genuine cultural revolution within Microsoft and our main motivation for MIX was to evaluate the breadth of this cultural revolution at first hand. Microsoft is making a simultaneous approach to developers, graphic designers and art directors! Our genetic inheritance, from our trade and from our agency, is precisely made up of a combination of these backgrounds. Since we’re friendly and curious people, when other people try to talk to us, it’s our pleasure to come and listen and see if we can construct anything worthwhile together.
What was your impression after the first keynote?
I would retain two principal messages from the first keynote:
- Software as a Service: we are quite familiar with this market tendency. This involves a logical evolution for a software editor who is going forward in a market which is becoming increasingly competitive.
- The user experience: in Vista and Office 2007, the user experience counts for something. Microsoft has heavily invested in the design and ergonomics of its two pioneering software solutions. That’s obvious. But the extent of the investment astonished us when Microsoft announced the release of a software suite that enables the development of user experiences for the Web! Through Microsoft Expression, Microsoft is approaching a whole new population!
For us, this really involves a cultural revolution at Microsoft, and we think that’s just fine. We were able to mingle with the decision-makers, graphic designers, developers and ergonomists who attended the keynote. The opening up of this horizon means there are new populations who are beginning to be drawn towards Microsoft. During the keynote, the terms “user experience” and “ergonomics” came up again and again. As an agency, this involves values that mean a lot to us.
Which sessions did you participate in? Microsoft presented examples involving transmission using high-quality video streaming on numerous occasions, as well as concrete examples of collaboration between graphic artists and developers. Are you sensitive to these topics?
Microsoft offered each sector the possibility of following the sessions in keeping with their concerns and interests: sessions for developers, sessions for graphic designers, others for company decision-makers, and others of a more general nature around the user experience. Given my profile, I essentially participated in the Graphic designer and Decision-maker sessions. The name of the event was well chosen: MIX, since Microsoft is addressing a mixed population.
Furthermore, one of the strengths of Microsoft Expression is precisely the use of a language common to the developer and the graphic designer. As a language, XAML is more or less visible within the function of the skills and knowledge of both of them. In the case of Microsoft Expression, this is the first time that I’ve seen a software suite whose components are so well integrated with each other, and which aims to cover the different aspects of the web: from e-commerce all the way up to the transmission of interactive videos, including reading a newspaper on line.
Microsoft has understood our expectations as an agency: individual expertise, on its own doesn’t have much impact. Today, it’s essential to place the individual competencies into a production stream, in order to create a value chain that is of service to clients. That’s been our job ever day at groupe Reflect for 10 years, and if Microsoft has grasped this, and can help us, we’re delighted!
Did you take advantage of the MIX event to widen your professional network?
Yes, MIX is an important networking event. For example, I used the event to meet some American bloggers that I regularly have discussions with, without having ever met them personally. What is more, the Microsoft teams are extremely approachable, and this is greatly appreciated.
MIX took place at the beginning of May 2007. Three months after the event, how do you evaluate the results of your and your investment in it?
Concretely, before MIX, we were on the technological lookout, greatly interested in the positioning and the messages from Microsoft. During MIX, we confirmed that interest through the technical presentations, via the exchanges with the Expression product teams and the exchanges with the bloggers, developers and graphic designers. Coming back from MIX, we went into production for a large French account using Silverlight technology on the client side.
Briefly, Danone organizes the DNC every year, a football world cup for all those children who share values in common with Danone: self-development, nutrition, healthy living through sports. For this group, a new user experience was needed, a more attractive interface, closer to the event. Through the community application Silverlight, the countries participating in the DNC could exchange information about the qualifying phases, blog about key events and publish photos, and all of this also by communicating through a Sharepoint base. In parallel to this, we have developed an interactive experience collecting together all of the material generated by the users. Children can thus recreate their own stories during the competition and to share this with other children in other countries. I invite everyone to pay a visit to www.mydnc2007.com.
Silverlight is the only technology that allows us to run an operation that is such a rich and viral experience in a navigator, in such a short space of time.
To sum up, the MIX event allowed us to confirm our technological choice in terms of Silverlight, to boost the levels of expertise of our teams. We’re therefore already in the process of exploiting these new competencies for concrete projects. Thanks to MIX, we’re able to be productive very quickly; our learning curve has gone up. It’s an enormous saving in time, thanks to all the information that we were able to pick up in Vegas.
After MIX, Microsoft presented Surface, an interactive table that is continually pushing the user’s experience just a little bit further. Is this a direction that you are now thinking about?
Definitely yes. The computer industry is turning more and more rapidly towards the end user. How can we make the consumption of information easier? How can we improve the interactive experience? These have become the stakes in the industry. This experience is coming out of the computer and is being used on television, in home automation, for intelligent furniture. But whatever the device, whatever the application, the individual person is looking for simplicity, pleasure and instantaneous response.
We in groupe Reflect have been arguing for the value of a simple technology for quite a few years; a user service, centered on the user’s experience but also creative too. I’m convinced that this is the culture that will attract the interest of our clients and represents a significant difference for the projects we are developing for them.
MIX represents this diversity well.
Manuel DIAZ
Directeur Général
People Your Project !
www.groupereflect.net - blog.groupereflect.net - Emakina group
