Russ: This is The BusinessMakers Show, heard here and online at thebusinessmakers.com. And now it's time for the Aflac BusinessMakers Flashback, brought to you by Aflac, ask about it at work. And for this mornings Flashback, we are going to roll back to earlier this week when I visited with Christian Thilmany, User Experience Architect with Microsoft, also known as an Architect Evangiliest. And we talked about a real cool program called BizSpark that Microsoft is offering to service software startups. We entered the discussion where I asked Christian to tell me about being a user experience architect.

Christian: Well, being a User Experience Architect is about focusing on user experience, of course, but more generally an architect is an architect evangelist-part of a group called Developer and Platform Evangelism, or DPE-most of which sits in the field. We help customers, partners. We work with the community on our platform, our technologies, such as .NET, and then more specifically things around the user experience, such as Silverlight and Windows Presentation Foundation, which are core technologies used to improve user experience. We're talking about improving the overall richness of an application experience for a user-improving usability, reducing training for those users, improving the application use overall for those users. There are specific technologies and techniques that we employ and evangelize-not to overuse that word-and that's basically my focus.

Russ: Okay. Now, since our audience is primarily innovators and entrepreneurs, we actually invited Christian in here today to tell us about a program at Microsoft called BizSpark. So Christian, tell us about BizSpark.

Christian: The team I'm actually working on is actually a relatively new team called the Partner Evangelism Team. We formed the team to work with a smaller segment of partners-breadth partners, we call them. These are typically service partners-usually under 50 folks-startups, design agencies, and ISVs, and sometimes there's high bleeds between the two types. Being a User Experience Architect, I get to work with technology teams on these partners to improve their solutions around Silverlight and WPF. But more specifically, I also work with-and am the BizSpark champion for Center Region, which that means is I help startups and work with startups and get them plugged into the startup community. One of the conduits for plugging them into that community is the BizSpark program. And the BizSpark program is a program we rolled out in November, so it's relatively new. If you're under three years old, you're carousing under a million dollars, and you're a private company building software, you will have access to basically our entire stack of products for development.

Russ: Okay. But bottom line is that it's reserved for software companies.

Christian: Yes, even if you're bundling against hardware, let's say, you would not qualify.

Russ: And how did you package this that makes it much more advantageous to them?

Christian: It provides three major things for startups. Given this economy-that kind of goes into the reasons of BizSpark. And given the fact that smaller startups have challenges-obviously usually financial-

Russ: Right.

Christian: -so the other two things you get is support-so you get access to my team, you get product support incidence from Microsoft, but you also get visibility. There's actually a profile database you could actually register. So it basically gives you access to folks in the venture capitalist environment, the angel community, the incubator community. There are actually several roles that make up BizSpark. There's the startups themselves; there's the champs, who actually can enroll the startups, such as myself; and then there's what we call network partners, and these are the folks that can also enroll BizSpark members-these are folks that are like incubators or venture capitalist angels. They become network partners of ours. They help us enroll those folks.

Russ: Okay. And so what you're saying is that, "Look, if you're a startup software company, you become part of BizSpark, and we're going to give you software, we're going to give you assistance, and we're going to network you with some people that potentially could advise you-potentially could even fund you."

Christian: Exactly right. There are incubators out there that are currently doing that already, but now-

Russ: Right.

Christian: -we're arming them with software that can also-

Russ: Right.

Christian: -provide these guys.

Russ: Right. When you talk about giving them software, was this software that before BizSpark, the only way they could have it is by buying a license?

Christian: Exactly. So there are express editions. We have express editions of our development tools that have always been available for free-

Russ: Right.

Christian: -much to-there are folks that actually don't know about that, but-

Russ: Right.

Christian: -this is our entire stack. There's a component of BizSpark called Microsoft Developer Network-it's a subscription. If you qualify-if you're under three years-you get this for three more years. So you get-under the BizSpark umbrella, you get MSDN for three years, and that includes all the products. So it's quite a big offering. Most developers that have done Microsoft development know what MSDN is, so they'll resonate. For those that are new non-Microsoft developers, it's actually pretty powerful, too, because even if they're building products on other platforms, they may want to test on Windows, let's say, and that way, they don't have to buy those licenses for testing; they get those right in the program.

Russ: Okay. And to be part of BizSpark go sign up and register, right?

Christian: Pretty much. I mean, you go through a champ-you either contact me-can do that via my blog, for instance. My blog is www.flyover18.com--it's the number 18. There's information on BizSpark on my blog as well. Or you can contact a local network partner by going to Microsoft.com/bizspark, and you can pick a network partner in your area, and they will sign you up. They will ask you a series of questions, and basically those three things that I just mentioned: that is, are you under three years old? Are you under a million dollars? Are you producing software? And we take your word for it.

Russ: Okay. It's real cool, so it started in November. What sort of response do you have so far?

Christian: Tremendous response. At least the Center Region right now, we're doing very, very well with the number of enrollments that we're seeing. In fact, we surpassed our goal, and we're striving for more. We're also looking for deeper involvement with the startups that are actually signed up for BizSpark already. So it's more than just wanting to sign you up; we actually want to attach to your story, get involved in what you're doing, and make sure you're successful. For instance, we're hosting an event on June 12th in Dallas called SparkStart-that's a Friday-and there'll be venture capitalists there, local VCs. There'll be local angels, local incubators. I'll be there. There'll be some technology tracks, some teaching going on, and you'll be able to sign up for BizSpark right there and then. And so it's a great opportunity to learn more even if you're part of the program already. It's a way for you to advance yourself along the pendalum.

Russ: Okay. Before we let you go, Christian, why don't you make sure our listeners know where they have to go to sign up.

Christian: You can go to Microsoft.com/bizspark, B-i-z-S-p-a-r-k. Or they can get information on my blog at www.flyover18.com.

Russ: Okay. Christian, we think it's a cool program, and we thank you for coming in and sharing it with us.

Christian: You're welcome.

Russ: And that concludes our discussion with Christian Thilmany, User Experience Architect with Microsoft. And that wraps up the Aflac BusinessMakers Flashback, brought to you by Aflac, ask about it at work. And now its time for Tech Talk with The Planet, so lets welcome Kevin Hazard.

[Tech Talk with The Planet]

Russ: And you are listening to The BusinessMakers Show heard here and online at thebusinessmakers.com.