Check out my interview with Erica Wiechers on the .Net show on MSDN.

ERICA WIECHERS: With me today is Tim Aidlin, he is a design evangelist at Microsoft. Tim, welcome.

TIM AIDLIN: Hey, thank you.

ERICA WIECHERS: Why don’t you tell us what it means to be a design evangelist and what team you work in?

TIM AIDLIN: Okay. Well, first of all, I have to acknowledge that I love my title. Design evangelism really- I work with my team to develop next-generation applications, the way they kind of look and feel, working primarily towards demos for a lot of our upcoming events, such as Mix ’07, PDC, basically trying to ride the edge of what’s capable in our next generation, how that might work and how that might look.

ERICA WIECHERS: Okay. So how does your job differ from, say, what the designers who work on the actual product might do?

TIM AIDLIN: It’s usually very similar, I just think that I have the fortunate capability to go a little bit farther than sometimes they can, because we’re working towards a goal that’s a little bit farther out. We can look a little bit more pie-in-the-sky, go a little bit farther. Which makes the project very fun for me. A lot of times we do do a lot of quick cross-pollinization between the product groups and our group as well. The product groups will have come up with an idea, will develop it out to a certain point, we’ll grab onto that idea, flesh it out further, maybe with some other scenarios around it. That often pollinates back into the ecosystem where they’ll take some of those ideas and actually run them and get them into the product.

ERICA WIECHERS: Okay.

TIM AIDLIN: Which is always fun to see.

ERICA WIECHERS: Have you seen anything specifically that you’ve designed planned to go into a future product?

TIM AIDLIN: Well, it’s- I have the very fortunate position of having worked on the Windows Live initiative over this last year for a majority of my time. Working with the CDC in Microsoft, we really were able to take a lot of the ideas that were up and coming, translate them into real wire frames, real working models of what things would be. Working with outside agencies as well to really get the whole Windows Live identity and functionality really coherent. That’s been probably the biggest example of something that I’ve worked on that I’ve really seen kind of get populated out most recently.

ERICA WIECHERS: That’s cool.

TIM AIDLIN: Yes, yes. It was a very fun project to work on.

ERICA WIECHERS: Have you always done design work?

TIM AIDLIN: Yes, I’ve been a designer for, I guess, somewhere around 10 years now. Been working with Microsoft for most of that in some sort of capacity. Also have kind of gone outside of our little ecosystem and worked for some of the agencies around here in Seattle. That’s also been great.

ERICA WIECHERS: Okay.

TIM AIDLIN: Yes.

ERICA WIECHERS: What are some other groups you were- or products you’ve worked on at Microsoft?

TIM AIDLIN: Well, once again, the majority of my time was really Windows Live, and I think that’s probably the most high-profile. Did spend a significant part of my time working for MSN Shopping, which is a really great product team, a really great product in itself. It was particularly interesting to work on that product, since it was right before Windows Live and a lot of the new design elements that became pretty standard. One of the most fun projects that I’ve worked on at Microsoft was back in the day at sidewalk.com. It ended up getting bought out by City Search, as we all know, which is still a great side, but there was just something about Sidewalk that had a certain edge and a certain funk to it, which I really enjoyed.

ERICA WIECHERS: I agree.

TIM AIDLIN: Yes. So working downtown in Pioneer Square with a bunch of hipsters, it was a lot of fun.

ERICA WIECHERS: That’s great. I miss Sidewalk.

TIM AIDLIN: Yes, yes.

ERICA WIECHERS: What are some things you like to do outside of work?

TIM AIDLIN: Well, as I mentioned, I’m a designer and deep into that world. I have taken that a little bit farther and have kind of immersed myself in fine arts, so I maintain a studio down in Pioneer Square. We open up for First Thursdays. It’s down at the Toshiro Kaplan Building-plug, plug. So basically do oil painting, acrylic work. Been starting to meld the worlds of digital media a little bit with some of my fine arts, so trying to kind of find a nice compromise between those two worlds. That takes up a majority of my free time, as well as spending time with my wife and, well, my soon-to-be daughter.

ERICA WIECHERS: Oh, great.

TIM AIDLIN: Yes. Yes.

ERICA WIECHERS: What are some of the things that you paint? What’s some of the subject matter?

TIM AIDLIN: Well, currently I’m working on- it’s an acrylic and digital media series. It’s basically self portrait remixes. What I’ve done is gone out to my social networking network and had people submit self portraits that they’ve taken, whether it’s with cell phones or camera out at an angle, Web cams, all of that sort of stuff. Kind of taken the idea of the avatar that I was working with on Windows Live and well, what does it mean to have a self portrait that we all put out online? And what would happen if somebody took a new- a stab at that and remixed it and brought a new perspective to somebody else’s idea of themselves? Working on that project as well as a series of oil paintings on kind of personal heroes.

ERICA WIECHERS: Cool.

TIM AIDLIN: Yes, it’s a lot of fun.

ERICA WIECHERS: That’s really unique.

TIM AIDLIN: Yes. I’ve been kind of in that world for many years, and I’m really glad that I’ve been able to keep my world in art, one way or the other, whether it’s doing that outside of work or really being immersed in the world of online digital design. I really feel fortunate that I’m able to go both ways.

ERICA WIECHERS: True. Can you talk about specifically any current projects you’re working on at work?

TIM AIDLIN: I don’t think I can really talk very specifically about some of the things. Doing a lot of work for the upcoming Mix ’07 event, which is just going to be fantastic. Last year was a blast, and I learned a lot at that, so I’m really looking forward to that and feel fortunate that I get to work on a lot of the collateral for that. Then working on a lot of projects, trying to take the Windows Live idea a little bit further, try to cohere that a little bit more and develop that out a little bit further. But that’s a long project.

ERICA WIECHERS: Okay. So one final question: What’s it like to work for Robert?

TIM AIDLIN: Robert’s really fantastic, I have to say. He understands things before you say them, and gives very, very good straightforward feedback. Yes. The whole team is great. The whole DPE crew is just awesome.

ERICA WIECHERS: And he’s watching you right now, so.

TIM AIDLIN: Yes. So was that good? Is that what you wanted me to say?

ERICA WIECHERS: Well, Tim, thank you so much for joining me today.

TIM AIDLIN: Absolutely. It was a pleasure, thank you.