My second week in Asia was packed with visits in Seoul Korea and Tokyo Japan.  It was my first time in Korea, which was just awesome to finally see in person--amazing food, sights, sounds, friendly people, and an incredible talent pool of great designers.  Beau Ambur, CEO of San Francisco design agency Metaliq, was with us on our visits to these countries which was a lot of fun for all of us--it was great having a US designer with us with practical experience in WPF and Expression tools, and it was also fun to see him (as a Flash god) interacting with the local designers and making the cross-continent connection.  Metaliq did a contract project for us for a Burton Snowboards demo we had shown at some events in the US, and when I had told Beau over a beer one day that we were going to Asia, he expressed interest in joining as he had never been to the region and had always wanted to--next thing we knew we were there, a little bit of a "wow, this actually happened" moment for both of us.   Beau was a real trooper, as we had absolutely packed days with customers and press--i hope we made it up to him with the fun meals.  Here he shows his sportsmanlike approach to the food, tasting the raw meat marinated in chilies and papaya--something that other members of our troupe couldn't handle so well.

We visited some very cool agencies to check out the interactive design work being done for web and mobile phones in Korea, such as D'strict (awesome visuals and use of interactive video and virtual 3d environments--their website is killer and award winning as well) and Kobalt60 (more application/RIA type apps).  Here's a photo at the Kobalt60 office, Beau on the right taking in the cool apps.  Day one in Seoul was *really* long, with meeting after meeting jammed in--however the evening was capped off with a gathering of about 120 designers at the msft office where we went through our presentations to an enthusiastic and engaged audience.  Designers here, like other places i've presented, are always a little skeptical at first when they hear about msft's story re: design technology, but once we have a chance to talk about our vision, our platforms, and our tools strategy, the general feeling is always one of general curiosity and desire to learn more.  In the crowd here we had UX leaders from top agencies, as well as many folks form mobile phone design teams at LG, Samsung, and Motorola--it was fun to talk to them in side discussions that evening and the next day about the mobile phone space, and the requirements they have for building better experiences on next generation devices.

Everyone talks about how much better the mobile phones are in Korea than in the US.. but it isn't hyperbole.  Most of the phones here are receiving television broadcasts, have kick-ass broadband capabilities, and consumer usage patterns that go well beyond how US users would even dream. 

In Japan we did some group presentations to our many partners already using WPF--Japan has created some of the most interesting early samples of what can be done with our new platform.  One of the most unexpected examples is the 3D animated concept piece called Dominoken, created by agency Bascule.  Our partners had lots of questions about WPFE, and feedback for us on WPF and Expression Blend.  A highlight for us was visiting one of the partners,2nd Factoryy, which has dedicated team of developer and designers working on several WPF apps.  The team had a voracious interest in more training materials, samples, and connection to community as they are already pushing the limits of what we have provided to date--a great lesson for us to take back the office (you can never provide enough samples for a new technology!)

Oh, and what visit to Tokyo would be complete for fans of Sophia Coppola's Lost in Translation without a visit to the Park Hyatt; using some very long shutter speeds, and numerous takes, we were able to get Beau recreating Bill Murray's Santory Whisky pose from the film.

For me this week was all about the "wow", but not the Windows Vista launch campaign kind (although i did see a ton of "wow" Vista ads all over town)--rather, it was my first visit to the amazing country of China, with visits to both Beijing and Shanghai.

We started off our customer visits at the ChinaVisual.com offices where we met with some of their editors and founder who's nickname is "Byteart".  China Visual is an amazing online community that spans across many design disciplines including web and interactive.  I did an informal interview with some of their editors which will be posted on their site with Chinese subtitles--i'm really curious to see how that carries since it was a somewhat rambling chat but very fun.  I was really surprised by their questions, which were very specific and showed a great understanding of the software business, the web and interactive space, and a curiosity re: US business and culture.  It was my first glimpse of a "creative workspace" on the trip, and their office space had common themes that I saw throughout the trip--a ton of creative/technical folks in wide open interior spaces--very similar to US and "western" design firm's offices.  What was particularly cool about the China Visual office space is that they had decorated the room with some photography and illustrations/graphics from a customer show they were planning for the following week, which served as good "walking the life of the user" reflection for their staff, busy cranking away at computers building out their application and editing content.  I found a fellow film lover in one of their editors, Lusheng, who asked me about David Lynch's new film Inland Empire--just goes to show you that "the language of cinema is universal".  It was really fun to connect to a shared passion (Mr. Lynch) with someone from such a different cultural experience... in the same way that "design" in general would appear as a common passion amongst the many Chinese designers we met throughout the visit.

The next day we organized a customer meet and greet to talk about User Experience design and the opportunities for design in software--it was at this *radical* club/restaurant that apparently was designed by Philippe Starck, "LAN Club" was the name... the staff was constantly reprimanding all of us for taking pictures (presumably to protect the uniqueness of the space from being copied by others elsewhere).  It was a great location for our meeting with 30 or so of the tope designers in various fields in Beijing. 

We also had several more intimate 1:1 meetings with agencies: Digital Hail CEO Deng Xiao and his team showed us some cool WPF based apps they've built for Windows Vista, including a prototype for a social gaming environment/community space that was unlike anything I've yet seen in WPF (I hope they'll finish it up and post to their website);  Energy Source showed us their portofolio (amazing) including their integrated marketing campaigns that span web and location based experiences for top global brands; and we got to visit the "YouTube of China", Tudou.com, which has a killer app and amazing growth rates/content that mirror the rise of that other web-video site in the US.

All of my US friends who have been to China
told me in advance of the vast number of new construction projects that dot the skyline in China's cities, indeed, i must have counted 50 buildings being raised... it was a apropo metaphor for the incredible development potential of China's creative and technical communities--everyone we visited seemed to be bursting at the seems with ideas, energy, and optimism for the future potential of their business' and China itself.  I came away from my brief visit inspired myself, with a bunch of ideas of how we (msft) shoudl be thikning about the opportunity for our tools and platforms in the China market.  That, and all the yummy food, nice people, and amazing sites... I can't wait to go back and visit again!