Excerpt from the Joe Belfiore open letter circulating around (bold highlight mine)...

"It’s very exciting for me to look around at all the enthusiasm out there for Media Center, and once again I say thank you. There’s something special about the PC industry and the fact that it openly encourages partners of all kinds to innovate and ship creative solutions — it’s hard to keep up with! There’s definitely a buzz within the development team at Microsoft as, every day, posts from blogs are forwarded around our group — maybe something about the next cool new Media Center PC, or the latest speculation or wishes about features in the next year’s upcoming release. (I’m personally a fan of Thomas Hawk and Ian Dixon — thanks for your ideas and suggestions!) We love hearing from all of you and are doing our best to listen and keep the right new features coming."

Two thoughts come to mind:

1. I'm glad I work for a company where the General Manager of the team (the head honcho -- my bosses' bosses' boss who manages the entire team of 200+ people in the Media Center product group) chooses to be connected to the community at this level.
2. I know Thomas and Ian are too modest to point out the mention from Joe on their own blogs. Thomas and Ian, you guys are stellar and inspire me on a daily basis.  Thanks!

Group Hug!