Technology Blog of the Week this week goes to Eileen Brown’s Weblog where Eileen talks about and comments upon an array of technology related subjects and often gives a useful insight into what goes on behind the big doors over at Microsoft UK (Eileen manages the IT Evangelists team). I often talk about Messaging and Mobility on this and my other Blogs so it was the Management, Messaging, Mobility and Real Time Collaboration sub-title that grabbed me initially. I have enjoyed a number of presentations given by Eileen at various Microsoft events and her friendly and communicable nature comes across very well when talking about (and sometimes demonstrating!) technical subjects. This helps when sometimes landed with the graveyard presentation shift (late in the day post lunch) when the subjects may otherwise lead to quite a bit of head swaying and eye resting.

Eileen’s Blog is hosted on the TechNet and MSDN sites at Microsoft (and also mirrored on a WordPress platform). There are no advertisements, nor fancy themes on Eileen’s Blog, just useful articles and interesting snippets of information given priority of screen real estate. It is difficult to assess the Blog Juice ranking of Eileen’s Blog as the TechNet blog platform hosts a number of blogs however a Technorati Authority of 120 and a ranking of 70,020 with over 800 Blog reactions (as of 20th June 2008) gives a good indication of reader popularity, so too the broad reader range shown on the ever useful Clustrmap.

Articles that particularly caught my eye on Eileen’s Blog include Xobni for Outlook, which I now run as an essential plug-in for outlook (Why I need Xobni to manage my e-mail), the post on the Semantic Web: a seamless web of data in your life and the post on coaching (Presentation style coaching: The feelgood factor) – some useful generalised coaching tips would make a great follow up article. Anyone who has ever stood up in front of a room full of people to give a presentation will tell you that it is not an easy task so getting real feedback is invaluable in capturing and maintaining the attention, and interest, of the audience.

Events transpired that prevented me from attending the Birmingham launch of Windows Server 2008 so the “So you couldn’t get to the Windows Server 2008 launch in Birmingham?” post was a useful pointer to the Virtual Event (although Virtual Events always lack the essential buffet and freebie bag!).

A useful “how-to” post was the outline on how to Import Outlook 2007 to Live Calendar… Importing calendar entries, especially older ones into an online platform can help keep your mailbox size low and act as a useful out and about archive for when you just need that important information.

Eileen runs a useful and insightful Blog and can be reached at: http://blogs.technet.com/eileen_brown