Derek Harmon 16 As a Product Marketing Manager at Infragistics, I was responsible for creating technical and ad content describing our products (NetAdvantage®, TestAdvantage™, etc.) both on www.infragistics.com and third-party sites. I ensured the accuracy of the marketing content, and if a feature was not explained well enough, it was my job to explain it better. Background I had been with Infragistics since the summer of 2003, and had worked inside the development teams on the NetAdvantage ASP.NET controls and then as part of the User Experience Group for the first four years, so I know what developers want. As a developer, I was keenly involved on the development teams that brought you WinChart™, WebChart™, Infragistics.Excel, WebGridExcelExporter™, WebSchedule™ SQL and OLE DB data providers and Web Accessibility. It's been terrific working here alongside so many brilliant luminaries of the .NET and Silverlight universes. Although I wore the scarlet 'M' on my chest, my roots as a developer run deep and will continue to play a role in my future. Prior to joining Infragistics, I had worked as a software engineer, technical lead and consultant in the annuity, life insurance and retail distribution businesses. I find this experience helps me relate many of our products to your real-world application development scenarios. As an IBM Certified Solution Developer in XML & Related Technologies, I'm conversant in numerous XML vocabularies from RosettaNet to ACORD. New capabilities are coming to a user interface near you, and everyone developing with NetAdvantage can capitalise upon them. A Typical Day in Product Marketing There are no "typical" days in Product Marketing, that was a trick heading! Everyday turned out to be different. I coordinated much of the content that goes onto www.infragistics.com with our Web Team, especially during product launches where I would work closely with our Product Management and Experience Design Groups to get the message out. There were plenty of ads to proofread, data sheets or brochures to write, and articles to see published. We produced a lot of in-depth content for developers like you, so there was always plenty to keep up-to-date with as our Development team is a prolific lot. If the weather was just right or the stars aligned -- I blogged -- hopefully something members of the development community would like to read. Other Interests My other interests include Philadelphia sports teams, World Cup football, outer space and the outdoors, swing trading, space opera, nanotechnology, and games like Settlers of Catan and Diplomacy. I read Barrons, Science and The Economist. Blog
jQuery/HTML5 suite, Word Library, Network & Org Chart and much more coming in NetAdvantage 11.1 Derek Harmon / Thu, Apr 7, 2011 There is a lot of great stuff in this next volume release we will be shipping in June, not only new features to our existing products, but entirely NEW products for jQuery, Reporting and Mobile! You may...
Sneak Peek at the New Infragistics.com Derek Harmon / Tue, Mar 15, 2011 In our March newsletter, we gave you a sneak peek at the new Infragistics.com user experience we're planning to launch this spring. The new website will seamlessly integrate all of our community, forums...
What we won in Las Vegas? Derek Harmon / Tue, Nov 9, 2010 Well, our DevConnections team has returned from Las Vegas. Now, the local bureau of tourism would have you believe that “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.” Well, most of the time that’s probably...
European Tour Derek Harmon / Tue, Sep 7, 2010 Infragistics has a global presence and we're never too busy to reach out and engage with .NET developers at conferences, tradeshows and user groups the world over. This autumn we have quite a European...
Show Us Your Killer Apps Derek Harmon / Fri, May 21, 2010 Show us your Killer App with a state-of-the-art User Experience, and we'll show one lucky winner a 40-inch flat screen TV with quite a state-of-the-art User Experience in return. All you have to do...
LOB Apps with Silverlight 4, Visual Studio 2010 and Infragistics Derek Harmon / Thu, Apr 29, 2010 For anyone who couldn't make it out to Las Vegas to see Andrew's presentation at DevConnections and those of you who would like a second look, here is his slide deck on "Line of Business Applications...
Does your design firm have SOX? Derek Harmon / Tue, Mar 30, 2010 What do I mean by SOX? Sarbanes-Oxley? No. Philadelphia Semiconductor Index? No. The Clintons' family cat? No. In this case, I mean a Same Office eXperience (English purists may argue...
It's Interactive Design for a Good Cause Derek Harmon / Mon, Jan 25, 2010 You have probably heard about this year's PhizzPop Design Challenge being sponsored by Microsoft and The Webby Awards from your fellow interactive designers. If not, you have now! :-) This is a great...
Figuring the First Visible Day on Month View Derek Harmon / Wed, Apr 29, 2009 Have you ever wondered why the first visible day is what it is on the WebMonthView ? I know many of you have. Why can't it just be the 1st day of the month? Why is it a different date from month to month...
March Mapness and the 4-Color Map Derek Harmon / Thu, Mar 5, 2009 In celebration of this month's official launch of our Silverlight mapping control , the xamWebMap , we would like you all to join us for MARCH MAPNESS! Throughout this month I and others will be blogging...