Microsoft museum

Finally, to prove I did do some work while I was there, here are some photos of the final day.  This, as you might recall, was the day I had hoped to go to the Boeing Factory, but instead I attended some final sessions with Microsoft after a realised that there was information in the sessions that was relevant to me (originally from the agenda I’d thought not).  So, I didn’t get to see Boeing, but I did get to go to the Microsoft museum in the afternoon once we’d wrapped up for the day.Here I am outside the Redmond visitor centre with Meghan from Microsoft and Paul, another conference attendee.

It’s hard to believe just how big Microsoft is in Redmond, but basically 65,000 people work in the 150 buildings they have spread around Redmond — it’s a company town! As you can image, traffic is a logistical nightmare, and Microsoft seem to have made a lot of investment in shuttle buses, bike stations (with showers etc.) and other ways of easing the traffic.Inside the visitor museum, I got to hang out with the guys (that’s Bill down the bottom left). I think this was taken in the late 70’s.

We also got to play with some cool displays. This one had facial recognition software and drew a hat on your head, like in the Microsoft ad campaign.

Finally, I had to get a photo of this — Bill Gates first ever business card.