Today’s post features a seven-minute interview with Sean O'Driscoll, CEO of Ant's Eye View and former general manager of Microsoft's global MVP (superusers) program. I shot it with my Flip Mino at AT&T Park May 14 following the first full day of our annual customer conference in San Francisco.

In the interview, Sean talks about finding, recruiting and retaining superusers – which he calls “the secret sauce that ultimately determines whether your community efforts succeed or fail.”  He also touches upon common mistakes in superuser program management, along with suggestions on successfully aligning business goals with this group of passionate contributors.

If  you have questions for Sean, please post them below and I'll make sure he sees them. Sean’s face is in shadow for first three minutes (sorry Sean!) but I got a better angle for the remaining four. 

I feel a bit out of place here because this is Scott’s domain, but since he’s out of town on business this week – and off on vacation next week – he’s left it to me to welcome everyone to the “new” Lithosphere.

So welcome, everyone!

Come on in and kick the tires. Better yet, open the hood and poke around a bit. You can even ask questions and I’ll make sure to get the answers from the folks who have ‘em.

Quite frankly, I’m like the substitute teacher who lets the class talk quietly among themselves while he reads a book at the desk.  Needless to say there will be no homework and no detention while Scott's away.

As the substitute teacher, I’m not even sure of all the new features and functionality of this new design – but I do know one thing: This sure looks cool!

Let's see what he's got here in his notes ... Scott wants me to tell you all that while the intent of this new look and feel is to push the envelope of community design and demonstrate what can be done with the new tools available in the platform -- that this is by no means a finished product.

“Our vision has always been that the Lithosphere should shift over time as we achieve some of our objectives and start to focus on others,” Scott said.

“In many ways, a big part of the new platform introduced in the Winter '09 release is increased flexibility in what can be done, and we fully intent to take advantage of that over time! But as we experiment, we will be looking to all of you Lithospherians to provide us with the feedback we need so we can improve!”

So, on behalf of Scott and the entire Lithium team, welcome to the new Lithosphere!  Please take some notes as you explore our new home and let us know what you like, what you’d like to see, and what we can improve.

Oh, and I'm fresh out of hall passes. Sorry.