Stonemeadow Solutions LLC

Two guys who love to write code and can't stop talking about it

It's hard to believe that it's been over 10 years since the first Bob & Larry seminar. I'm biased of course, but this was a one of the best examples of evangelizing the developer community that I've seen at Microsoft since my tenure ('95-'00) and after. It's definitely the most fun that I've had in 27+ years in the industry...and it's amazing how after 10 years, people still remember Bob & Larry, some with great fondness believe it or not. Bob Familiar and Russ Fustino have kept up the tradition and are now legendry evangelists at Microsoft.

Check here www.msdnevents.com/russ for more information on Russ's events. Also check at the bottom of this page for photos that Russ sent me, one of his attendees brought a Bob & Larry & Russ newsletter to one of his events in Boston.

Note: The web does many things well, but similar to an OLTP database it does not track history well. Searching on "Bob and Larry" returns very few hits today (other than VeggieTales). So, to that end hopefully this can serve as an archive / historical record.

For those of you who think only VeggieTales and not developer evangelism second, Bob and Larry was a full-day monthly event held in Microsoft's Waltham and Farmington offices as well as many other venues during it's tenure (Sept '97-Feb '00). The monthly mailings were creative and in many cases the copy was hilarious albeit a bit corny.

So, I hope you enjoy the following, and please email me if you'd like me to add content or if you'd like to add a personal testimonial.

	You asked for it...you got it! Bob and Larry have read your comments on the back on the seminar evaluation forms, listened repeatedly to your voice-mail messages, cleaned off your spray-painted epitaphs on our cars and moved our families out of state for their own protection. You want more information on the NT 4.0 Option Pack. Be careful what you ask for because Bob and Larry are going to tell you more than you ever wanted to know about Internet Information Server, Certificate Server, Index Server, Transaction Sever and SNA Server. All you have to do it show up...oh and please bring back out mailboxes



	It was clear that these two hombres were different when they rode into town. The way the rode just a little taller in the saddle; the way they faced danger with a sneer; the way they cried when they couldn't get reliable Web connectivity. They didn't need six-guns they had Windows DNA and COM+. They set to Web-enabling all the towns' applications. Nothing could stop them, not failed demos, not beta software, not even that person in the fifth row who kept asking questions despite a deadly barrage of brain balls. Now their job is done, and it's time to ride off into the subset. Register today for the last Bob and Larry session, you'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll get free breakfast and lunch as well as great giveaways.

Bob and Larry timeline

Jul '97	July 1997 was when the foundation was laid for Bob & Larry. What started everything off was Microsoft's creation of the Applications Developer Customer Unit (ADCU). ADCU's mission was to ensure that LOB application developers, i.e. SAP, Siebel, PeopleSoft developed their products on SQL Server. Click here for the initial press release on ADCU.
	Rick Greene was named the ADCU manager for Microsoft's New England District. Rick initially hired three resources: Tom Snow (Business Development), Bob Familiar (Development Technology Specialist (TS)) and Larry Barnes (Database TS). Note: These positions were highly coveted and Larry wasn't the first choice. Rick finally decided on Larry given that SQL Server was central to ADCU's mission. Thanks Rick!!!
	Rick's background as a TS convinced him that a developer seminar series would be successful if experienced developers leveraged custom demos with Microsoft's marketing muscle behind it. Management was very skeptical, but Rick persevered. He was Bob & Larry's creator and sponsor, which to this day he stills reminds both Bob & myself. Once Rick sold the idea, it was up to marketing to execute.
	Anthony Salcito was New England District's marketing manager. Anthony was an incredibly creative and dedicated marketing manager and had won the top marketing manager award the previous year. Anthony, now the GM of Microsoft's US Education Sector, was involved in all aspects of marketing and was the one who was able to obtain and justify the budget for Bob & Larry. Probably most importantly he assigned Barrie Mirman as the marketing lead for Bob and Larry. Thanks Anthony for everything!!! Barrie was (still is) a remarkable resource and person, Bob and Barrie were the two creative forces behind Bob and Larry. As for me, it's similar to playing doubles in tennis. Your key to success is great partners and teamwork.
Aug '97	Bob and Larry debuted at Microsoft's Farmington office, there were less than 10 attendees. Good thing, we were still getting our demos and content together. This was in the early stages Active Server Pages (ASP) and Microsoft Transaction Services (MTS). Our first demo was "Bob and Larry's Bank", which executed two-phase commits for updating databases on both "Bob's" and "Larry's" banks. This was a nightmare since we had to integrate our code for the demo. Lesson #1 for demos, just like projects, things get more complicated when you move from 1 to > 1 developer. It's interesting how 2-phase commit was such a valued feature back then. I wonder what % of applications actually require a two-phase commit?
Fall '97	The first Bob and Larry mailing went out to the NE developer community in September. This would be the theme for the October and November mailings also. Our focus for each of these seminars was the Microsoft DNA core, the Windows platform, ASP and MTS. Russ Fustino was hired as the third TS on the ADCU team. Russ is famous for his seminar series which has been running since '98. Russ's mission was developer tools, primary Visual Studio. Russ became "Russ" of Bob & Larry. Russ is one of my favorite people. He's incredibly fun to be around and is passionate about developer evangelism. Microsoft made the correct move when they finally recognized that you need to separate out the roles of evangelism and sales. These early sessions were where we started to build a group of repeat attendees. Chad Gronbach and Andy Kelly of Blackstone were frequently in attendance. Chad now works at the Waltham MTC. Andy is a SQL MVP, a practice director for Solid Quality mentors and a golf partner.
Dec '97	December was where monthly themes were first added to our marketing collateral. The December content was also ambitious, we put together an "end-to-end" story for "Bob and Larry's Bank". Sessions included: DNA architecture and Visual Studio, Project start up, Databases, Components, User Interface, ASP to tie it all together and finally MTS to scale. Barrie had also gotten us the first "Bob&Larry-obelia", with the most popular being the "Bob & Larry" Frisbees and Brain balls. I remember when we first saw the size of the Brain balls Bob commented that he was hoping for larger brains instead of smaller. I also remember Russ winging an attendee with one while they were walking back to their seat. The brain balls were a coveted item. I still see these in offices/cubicles, both inside and outside Microsoft.
Feb '98	Bob & Larry started back up in February since the December holiday season wasn't the best time to develop content. Bob correctly concluded that two person demo development efforts were not the right way to go...so he developed "Bob's Bank". It was around this session when we first started seeing the Farmington and Waltham MPR's filling up with attendees. Many months we had to turn attendees away and Waltham was seeing so much traffic that the Building's management starting complaining that Bob & Larry was filling up their parking space. This month was also the first month where we introduced our lunchtime sponsors program. Barrie correctly concluded that companies would pay for our attendees lunches if they could get in front of them to pitch their products. Great idea as usual and our attendees never lacked for food again...
Mar '98	March was when the marketing collateral really started to get creative. This remains one of my favorites and was of the three themes that became a t-shirt. T-shirts of course was Barrie's idea along with the "Bob & Larry" bucks...three B&L bucks from three seminars got you a t-shirt. Of course we then spent the next two years saying "That's three different seminars, not three from one seminar". We had room for 280 attendees in the Waltham MPR and trust me, that was crowded. Imagine 280 developers maturing for 8 hours in an enclosed space, not a pretty site. Over 400 people registered some months so we had waiting lists. Also, at lunchtime the halls were packed end-to-end with attendees eating lunch and talking tech. Dianne Gregg, then the VP of Microsoft's East Region, was based in this office and had to wade through this sea of humanity to get to her office. I'm sure that helped contribute to Bob & I getting the "Top ADCU rep" award in 1997 at Microsoft's Global Sales event. Around this time while at a seminar, Joe Stagner told me "I want your job". Joe and I had worked at a client while I was with MCS and was well versed in web development using Microsoft product. Joe was true to his word and joined Microsoft in 2000. After years in the field as an evangelist, Joe's now a program manager with the Microsoft Web Tools and Platform division.
Apr '98	April continued with the creative marketing themes, Bob & Larry's Crunchy CODIES Cereal was Rick's favorite. April also marked the first month that Russ went out on his own and spend a lot of time with customers and Visual Studio as well as incubating content and messaging for "Russ's ToolShed". The content in April also started to mature. We had been focusing on IIS, ASP, MTS and SQL Server in our sessions. The focus in April was on State management, which was the hardest hurdle for a Client/Server developer to make. Robust object models just didn't scale once placed into the middle tier of a 3-tier app. Also, this is the first month that we covered XML. We also presented at WinDev in April. I'll never forget Don Box's disgust over us evangelizing DIsconnected Recordsets because they were too inefficient. But you know, in top of code performance there's also developer performance, i.e. writing more maintainable code faster.
May '98	May's "Bob & Larry Zone" theme remains one of my favorites. This was also made into a t-shirt. Also Bob's content was classic... "You unlock this door with a key of registration...beyond it is another dimension...a dimension of sound...a dimension of sight...a dimension of free food and brain balls...you're moving into a land of both PowerPoints and questionable demos...of components and code reviews..you just crossed over into...the Bob and Larry Zone...A zone as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. Well maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration. Let's just say there will be plenty of seating available." I think that this was the month that Bob created "Bob and Larry's" ecommerce site. Some of the products were priceless...Bob & Larry's "Meat on a stick" was a crowd favorite. This was also the month of the first SQL Server 7.0 content which would be my focus for future seminars.
Jun '98	The best of Bob & Larry tour. Boston University hosted a Bob & Larry in June. It was a remarkable venue and the attendance was great. What I remember most was an exchange Bob had with a overly vocal attendee: Attendee: What happens to the application state if I leave a page and go oh let's say to a porn web site Bob: Sir, I'm speaking about ActiveX not ActiveXXX ...priceless
Jul '98	July 1997 was a great month for Bob & Larry. We co-received the "Top ADCU rep" primarily based on Bob & Larry. Barrie also won the "Top marketing rep" award so it was a clean sweep. The "Bob & Larry" brand was solidly established. This was primarily due to Bob and Barrie...and I was fortunate enough to tag along. ADCU was also growing through '97. First it had been renamed to Business Solutions Group (BSG). Rick brought new members to the team including Mike Cramer (from the COM/TI acquisition), Tom Scontras (ex-Informatica), Steve Chmielewski (ex-Oracle), Dave Young (ex-Lotus) and David Mitchell (from MCS NE). The Bob & Larry team also grew when Kathy Cronin came on board to work with Barrie on the events. This was the height of the seminar's popularity, so naturally it was time to change things... Both Bob's and my goal in Fiscal 1998 (Microsoft's year end was June) was to leverage our notoriety to maximize sales and revenue of Microsoft product. On the surface this makes perfect sense. However, it's hard to be both an evangelist and pre-sales. Pre-sales requires 100% customer focus, effective evangelism requires not only prep time but also is less effective if it goes hand in hand with the product sell. Microsoft has since realized this and now has resources focused on Architecture evangelism, both Bob and Russ are in these roles today. The marketing effort and content continued to grow but both Bob and I were less focused on Bob & Larry and more focused in other areas. Bob was working directly with customers, my focus turned more to Business Intelligence including separate seminar's (and audiences).
Aug '98	We started things back up in August and our focus was on Visual Studio 6.0. This mailer asked attendees to dress up in Hawaiian shirts (as we were forced to). I forget how many shirts showed up...but I remember that I had to borrow one for the event. After August, one or more sessions were presented by a guest speaker from Microsoft New England. This made perfect sense, Bob and I no longer had the time to develop custom content plus there was a wealth of expertise that we could tap in to.
TV Themes
Sep '98	The ActiveX Files, our first theme based on television shows. Al DePietro was our first guest speaker. Al joined Avanade a few months after I did in the Fall of 2000. We worked together in Avanade for about 5 years where Al was a highly regarded architect. Al rejoined Microsoft Consulting Services in 2005. September was also the month that Bob & I were at ADCU's first conference in Las Vegas. One surreal moment was when Bob & I were experts at a "Meet the experts" session next and were right next to Jim Grey. There were more people speaking to us than Jim...my first thought was "Are you folks crazy?" Jim's probably one of the 25 most influential people in computers this millennium and you're wasting your time with us?
Oct '98	Another great cover for this month. This was one of the six selected for the "Bob & Larry" poster which was given out to attendees of the last Bob & Larry show (Feb '00). The guest presenter was Bob German. I run into Bob whenever I'm down at the Waltham MTC, he's been a senior resource at the Waltham MTC since 2000. Bob's a great person and manages to be very knowledgeable and humble, something I'm still working on.
Nov '98	A WWF take off, the World Wildlife Fund's lawsuit was still pending back then. Get ready for "Transaction" Bob Familiar and Larry "The Replicator" Barnes. The guest presenters this month were Kelly Hardebeck and Susan Hiller of MCS. Both had come from Vermeer (which Microsoft acquired and shipped as FrontPage). Both were well versed in Web UI development techniques. I'm not sure how happy they were with their stage names: Kelly "Meta-Tag Momma" and Susan "I've Got Your Cascading Style Sheet Right Here" Hiller. I've lost touch with both Sue and Kelly...although it looks like Kelly has teamed up with Justin Fielding (ex-Vermeer and Microsoft) to produce films...see castparty production's web site.
Dec '98	Mr. Bob's and Mr. Larry's Neighborhood is another great marketing cover plus some good content from Bob. ... Hello boys and girls, we are Mr. Bob and Mr. Larry. Can you say Geek? Sure you can...Mr. Bob and Mr. Larry will also be joined by our very special friend Peter the Postal Worker. If we are very very quiet and make no sudden movements, Peter the Postal Worker will tell us a wonderful story about how we can..." Peter Ricker was my office-mate at Microsoft back in 1995 and specialized in Exchange/Collaboration. Peter had developed products back in the early days of PC's and had actually caught a person trying to steal his code from his PC during a meeting at his offices. Talk about the wide west. Peter and I worked together for 1+ years at my last client engagement...it's a small world.
Fall '98	The fall of '98 was when we brought the Bob & Larry show to other cities in New England including Providence RI, Burlington VT, Portland ME and Tyngsboro MA. Bob had broken his ankle rollerblading (during his vacation, even Bob knew enough not to roller blade in the snow). Bob had some wonderful times trying to get to these locations in the middle of snow storms. Kathy Cronin had to schlep him around with probably the most difficult leg of the journey was getting up and down Bob's driveway.
Feb '99	The good thing about skipping January is that it gives you time to develop content, which was good for me since all of my free time from Sep-Dec was focused on completing 7 chapters for a book I co-authored on Data warehousing.
Bob and Larry movie themes
Mar '99	March's mailer had one of my favorite covers and theme's, Men in .BAK. The focus was on Office 2000 development / analytics, so Bob's copy was "When Office Developers Attack". Here's a excerpt from some great copy: Bob: "This breed of developer is know for it's cunning and extremely long lunch breaks" Larry: "We will track down this alien creature and study its behavior in its natural environment, the space saving cubicle". That's beautiful. The guest speaker was Jeanmarie Wade, a longtime MCS consultant who specialized in User Interfaces.
Apr '99	Another creative cover for April's mailing. This was one of the six selected for the Bob and Larry poster. Part of the copy included lyrics: "You must remember this...Components and some scripts...Are all that you require...To implement your intranet...As code compiles" The guest speaker for this month was Russ Fustino, making his first appearance since March 1998.
May '99	Another great cover, this was one of the six selected for the Bob & Larry poster. The guest speaker for May was Jim Goodrow. Jim was a veteran MCS consultant who was highly regarded back when I joined MCS in 1995. I remember Robert O'Hare, a frequent attendee, came back from vacation to attend a seminar. That's impressive!
Jun '99	June was the last of the movie themes and included some great copy from Bob. "...The last time these two gigantors got together there was quite a tussle. Let's just say the Pacific Rim has never been the same." The guest speaker for June was Caesar Samsi. Caesar was a industry veteran and I had worked with Caesar on Stream International's web site prior to his joining MCS. Caesar is now a product manager on the Commerce Server team.
Sep '99	September was the start of the Bob & Larry Discover theme and also four color cover art. I like how they have me one-handing an anvil, The guest speaker was Mike Cramer. Mike joined Microsoft was a result of an acquisition which shipped as the COM/TI product. Mike is currently an Architectural Engineer for the Microsoft NE District and we last caught up at Rick Greene's get together in Maine. Mike's daughters are accomplished equestrians...Mike did not listen to me back in 1998 when he asked me whether he should encourage his daughters interest in horses. We've had horses for over 25 years, including five now, so my supportive response was "Are you crazy!".
Oct '99	October's cover was one of my favorites, you've got to love all of those Bob heads in the room. This was also chosen for the Bob & Larry poster. The guest presenter was Ed Morrison, making his second appearance. Ed and I had worked together for years since we both focused on SQL Server while in MCS. Ed has had various roles within MCS. Ed and I just reconnected on a client pre-call last month.
Nov '99	November was the first Bob & Larry where all content was delivered by guest speakers. Russ Fustino presented for the 5th time. Kevin Sheehan was (is) a TS focused on Exchange, SharePoint and Knowledge management. Maureen Tracy Venti was one of the original MCS consultants in New England and has since retired from Microsoft. Peter Ricker made his second appearance.
Dec '99	December was one of my favorite covers and was one of the six selected for the "Bob & Larry" poster giveaway for our last presentation. December was also a month where all content was delivered by guest speakers. Dave Mitchell presented on Microsoft Commerce strategy and on EAI. Ron Bokleman presented on Site Server analytics. Ron had spent some "dog-years" while at MCS implementing Site Server at a very difficult NE retailer. I also run into Ron at the Waltham MTC where's he's been a senior resource since 2000. Roger Sessions was a guest speaker who presented on COM+, EJB and Corba. Roger is the founder of ObjectWatch and was the most influential voice in the industry at that time with a positive view of Microsoft.
Jan '00
Feb '00	February marked the end of Bob & Larry. "...Bob & Larry find motivation in the simple beauty of code, in the brilliance of a well executed distributed component design and those little crackers with the cheese on top that look like a smiley face. Mike Cramer was making his second appearance and presented on COM+ queued components. Curt Devlin , presented on COM+ object pooling. Curt joined MCS a few months before I did and is currently an architect in Microsoft DPE--Developer & Platform Evangelism. Alex Torone presented on COM+, publish and subscribe events. Alex since has moved to Redmond and now is a Group Program Manager for Microsoft Visual Studio. Curt Koppang presented on Compensating Resource Managers. I've run into Curt at both Tech-Ed 2007 and at client while with Avanade. Curt 's office had a B&L brain prominently displayed. Barrie organized a poster signing and framed it for us which I still have on my office wall (see below). Next to Bob, Barrie is the person most responsible for any success that this series had. You can just go down the line, great monthly marketing collateral, vendors lunch sponsorship, getting brain balls, Bob and Larry t-shirts, Bob and Larry bucks...and most importantly just having every and I mean every logistical detail nailed.
	Bob and I presented once more together at a "Bob & Larry reunion" after I joined Avanade in August of 2000. I had missed my flight and was about 45 minutes late and as I entered Bob was giving away some merchandise, in this case a clock. Always fast on his feet, his next words were, "Larry I have a clock for you too, it looks like you need it". So, that wraps up the Bob & Larry timeline...thanks again everyone and special thanks to Bob, a uniquely creative individual. I'm biased but in my opinion he's the best evangelist that I've ever seen. Check out Bob's new seminar series, you'll emerge a better person.

Bob & Larry-obelia