Some unusual things happened last week (Dec 10-14). In Gresham, Oregon, a tow truck driver was arrested after trying to tow the cop who ticketed him. At the Nürnberg airport, a man nearly died after opting to chug a liter of vodka rather than relinquish it before a flight. And in Austin there was Phizzpop.

I was invited to help represent Pop Labs at the Austin Phizzpop Design Challenge, a Microsoft-sponsored design and development competition, along with our very own Chris Pratt and LaToya David. The Phizzpop Design Challenge pits top designer/developers in various cities around America, and it’s usual for several reasons.

The Format

Phizzpop starts with a 2-day crash course in brand new technologies, after which 3-person designer/development teams are given a ‘Problem Statement’ and just over 2 days to create a solution using the new tools. As if this concentrated initiation into Microsoft’s Expression Studio isn’t harrowing enough, the teams then get to present their solution before a couple hundred peers at the end of the week.

I’d never experienced anything quite like it. On Monday and Tuesday, two tag-team trainers named Robbie and Jonathan managed to skim the surface of the many integrated apps like Expression Blend and Silverlight. Tuesday evening, Chris Bernard, a ‘user experience evangelist’ for Microsoft who manages the whole shebang, presented the challenge itself. We were given Wednesday, Thursday and early Friday to develop our solution. During that time, Microsoft made available two expert mentors (Josh Holmes and Phil Wheat) to guide and assist the teams.

The Venue

The Driskill Hotel in Austin, ‘nuf said.

Microsoft & Competitive Ideas

In previous years, many regarded Microsoft as a monopolistic behemoth which tyrannically stifled competition. Some still do. However, Microsoft has in recent years used its considerable resources and influence to introduce competitive alternatives. Some of these (often monumental) R&D and marketing efforts have yet to make a serious foothold (Zune, search) while others come from nowhere to become the industry standard (Xbox). Which brings us to Expression Studio…

The Tools

I had honestly never investigated MS’s Expression before last week; we had gone into the competition thinking we’d be sampling a knockoff of Adobe’s Creative Suite. We were wrong. With Expression Blend and its XAML engine humming under the WPF & Silverlight platforms, Microsoft is attempting to revolutionize both project creation and designer/development workflows to achieve rich, standards-based user experiences.

That’s the theory, anyway. Sparing you the details of our team’s trial-by-fire, I’ll simply say there are issues—from PC installation and running-Windows-on-a-Mac compatibility problems, to concept development and effective workflow considerations. There is a learning curve not covered in this crash-course, but by the end of the week, I did start to gain a basic understanding of the theory behind Expression and see its potential.

And there were some specific UI elements which I haven’t seen in other design apps, such as an easing curve for animation and improved gradient manipulation. So even if the whole Expression package doesn’t take over the web, other industry-standard design programs may be forced to add matching tools.

First Ever Competition

Assuming Microsoft makes this an annual event, it’s safe to say Phizzpop ’08 will be very different. Expression won’t be new. Right now, there’s very little support beyond Microsoft’s own documentation—no third-party books on Amazon, not a whole lot of community forums. No doubt such resources will continue to grow, so come next Phizzpop, the competitors won’t require (as much) training. Or who knows, maybe Expression won’t catch on and/or Microsoft will use Phizzpop ’08 to highlight some other technology. Either way, my Phizzpop t-shirt is pretty cool-lookin’.

Alas, Pop Labs didn’t win the challenge, but our team walked away with a very good introduction to the technology and met some awesome people. In many ways, our experience mirrors the introduction of Expression itself: nowadays you have to just throw a raw app into a pack of ravenous webdogs and see how they bite. In that sense, Microsoft is using Phizzpop to jump-start the process of honing these promising tools. I look forward to that reciprocal process, as web developers help shape Expression while Expression suggests new methods of web development.

An unusual event with an unusual format using new, unusual tools…who would guess that square ol’ Microsoft could help (as the locals say) “Keep Austin Weird”?

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Pop Labs would like to thank Chris Bernard at Microsoft for the invite. Special thanks to Josh Holmes, who acted as technical mentor and provided excellent guidance