Gurus down the hall From the creative minds that developed our Macintosh products, here are some wonderful ways to get more out of these applications than ever before!

User groups saved my life.

Well, not literally, but close enough. It was back in 1979, and I had just run out of things to do with my cool six-month-old Apple II computer, on which I had spent my life’s savings. I was working as an usher at a movie theatre -- I saw Saturday Night Fever over three hundred times – when I happened to mention to a co-worker that I owned an Apple II. To my astonishment, he told me that he had one too, which was about as likely in those days as two ice hockey players finding each other in Tahiti.

When I told my co-worker that I wasn’t sure what to do with my Apple II, he dragged me along to my first user group meeting, a whole bunch of folks who were trying to figure out what to do with their computers, too. I was totally hooked right away: a roomful of geeks just like me! That meeting started a 20-year (so far) connection with user groups. Eventually I started visiting user group meetings to show off products, but I always remembered how much fun it was just to show up at a meeting and trade news, gossip, and home-grown software.

I still get to visit user group meetings now and then, demonstrating products like Internet Explorer and Outlook Express. My most recent trip was to a group in Northern California in mid-November. Some things have changed a lot in 20 years: for example, the members are no longer computer jockeys but are a cross-section of everyday folks trying to get the most out of their Macs. Other things are exactly the same: the community feeling, desire for information, and strong support for Apple.

I was looking forward to showing off Internet Explorer, but I have to admit things got off to a less than perfect start. When I started by asking if there were any general questions, one friendly fellow asked "When is your boss going to prison?" I just smiled the smile of a Mac guy who works at Microsoft, laughed a little at his joke – I’m almost sure he was joking – and moved on to the demo.

And that was the fun part. As usual, the audience was very interested in the demo and really liked seeing the features in Internet Explorer. I love when someone in the crowd exclaims "cool!" or "I didn’t know it could do that", which they did when I showed Internet Explorer’s Download Manager and 1000-item History features during my presentation. I even got a couple of bursts of applause. And all the rest of the questions were about Internet Explorer, thankfully.

By the end of the demo, things had gone well, with several people coming up to me and telling me how much they liked Internet Explorer. I was a little concerned when the guy who had asked the provocative question approached me on his way out. Without stopping or looking at me directly, he said "I guess it is a better browser", then continued out the door.

This experience demonstrated one of my favorite facts about Mac users: it’s the product that counts. Even people whose experience with previous Microsoft products could have been even more positive are willing to give us another chance, as they have with Office 98, Internet Explorer, and Outlook Express. And if they like the products, they’ll use them, which is why I enjoy working on Mac products at Microsoft and getting to show them off.

I have a fundamental personality flaw: I want people to like me. So when I go to a user group meeting representing Microsoft, it’s nice to show that we’re serious about making great Macintosh software. And as long as I keep meeting happy customers at these meetings, I’ll have a pretty good idea that we’re on the right track.

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