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Q&A with Tommy Lewis

Technical evangelist in Microsoft Canada

I'm Tommy Lewis, a 15 year technical evangelist in Microsoft Canada living in Vancouver. I evangelize our technologies and platform around Apps, HTML5, Design and Gaming. The best part is that I get to work with some of the most inspirational digital app and website builders.

Hardware

A technical evangelist is fortunate to have access to a lot of great devices. Work in my home office is mostly on an Asus Ultrabook with a beautiful touch screen. When I am travelling or visiting customers, I use a Surface Pro and the Surface 2 with a fantastic purple backlit keyboard. I have a Nokia 920 Windows Phone which I am hoping to upgrade to a yellow 1020 soon.

But folks who know me know that I am a believer in technology coexistence, so I also have an iPhone 5S, iPad Air and a 27-inch iMac so that I don't fall into the myopia trap.

Software

Outlook. Man, I spend a lot of time there. But lots of it is due to our mobile workforce and for all the grief it gets, it is a pretty good tool for communication and keeping on top of all the things going on.

Visual Studio & Blend. Since these tools are the basis for building apps on our platform, dev and design respectively, I spend a great deal of time in them.

Adobe Creative Cloud & Pixelmator. Been spending a lot more time lately.

Not digital, but I spend a lot of time using Field Notes and a trusty pen.

Dream setup

Good question. I think right now since I mostly work from my basement I would like to have it finished out with some bookshelves and some full-wall whiteboards. OH! A projector that showed random kitten and puppy pictures on one of the walls!

Inspiration

When I want to be inspired, I try to get away from tech and look at other industries or back at history. I sometimes think we are quick to disregard anything non-digital (newspapers, books, maps, etc.), but we forget that those were experiences that are still endearing to people. So I like to ask "how can I take the same feels and apply it to the digital world?". I also like to think about people new to our industry and our technology and think how to make it easier to have them create experiences as well since I like to think of myself as a perpetual learner.