Greetings Readers!

I have some absolutely amazing news to share with all of you.  As of today, I am officially a Microsoft Student Insider.  What is that you ask?  Essentially, it is an unpaid job to blog about various topics that they would like me to blog about.  There is one student insider to talk about a specific topic.  In my case, I am the chosen one to speak about all things Windows 7.  Normally, I wouldn’t take an unpaid position, but the perks of the job are good enough that I don’t mind it.

While I will be writing a minimum of 15 blog posts for Microsoft over the next year, I am also being sent, all expenses paid, to whatever conferences they want to send me to cover.  While I don’t yet know a schedule of everywhere I am going to be sent, I do know that I am being sent to cover PDC in LA all of next week.  It seems a bit fast considering I just got the job today, but I don’t think I can complain too much about a free trip to LA and entrance into an expensive conference and I am getting some awesome stuff too.  As part of being a Student Insider, to help me cover the event and others like it, I am being given a Flip HD camcorder, an ASUS eee pc netbook, a Microsoft shirt and some various other things to help with cab fair and such.  I am also told that I will have access to talk to higher up people within Microsoft like various product managers and stuff, possibly even some board members either next week or at other times.

I will tell the story of how I got the position in either another post or on the next episode of the podcast which is at a time to be determined since I will be en route to LA at our normal recording time, but I do want to address what this means for the blog.

Although I have wanted a sponsor for some time for the show or the blog or whatever, mainly to help pay for my hosting fees, domain fees and such, at the same time, I have always dreaded the idea.  I have build the podcast and this blog on a goal of being 100% honest, 100% of the time with no BS.  I have always dreaded the idea of the sponsor because I don’t like the feeling that I can’t say what I want to say about a topic because I don’t want to worry about offending them.  The last thing I want to do is open up my mouth and scare way people who want to throw money at me.  When I found out more about this position, I hesitated for a bit because of this, but I have decided that despite what I am being given or where I am being sent, I will do everything I can not to allow it to influence my opinions so that I appear to be nothing but a mouthpiece for a company.  I will gladly blog about the topics that they request I blog about, but in the end, I will express how I really feel.  I will do my absolute best not to censor myself.  I will allow Microsoft or anybody else to present their case to me and I will forward it on to my audience, but in the end, my opinion is my own.

If all goes the way I hope, the type of content on here and the podcast will not change, there will just be more Windows 7 related stuff and when it is something that Microsoft wants me to talk about, I will make that very clear so that you can factor that into your judgment of my writing when you read my posts.

I primarily see this as an opening door that I have been trying to work my way into for the past 2 years.  As many know, I have been trying to get a job at Microsoft for nearly 2 years and I see this as my way in and I will do whatever I can to achieve my dream while keeping my integrity in regards to Global Geek News but I suppose we will see how it plays out.  Anyway, there may or may not be a podcast next week.  Since I will likely be in flight when the show is recorded, it will definitely not be released on Tuesday like normal.  There is a small chance of recording on Wednesday but at this point, I am not holding my breath.  It is most likely the case that we will end up skipping a weeks show but I don’t yet know.  I will keep you all informed.

More to come!

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