Linda is uniquely knowledgeable and plugged in, in a way that makes her one of the best friends you can have.

THE SEER (David Bunnell)

The Catalyst

"In real space, each place we go has a different sense of place. Places offer mood, personality, and context. When we choose where we want to take a walk or have dinner, carry on a conversation or shop, we do so based on how a place dovetails with how we're feeling, who we will be with or what we hope to accomplish. Likewise, how we dress and how we generally present ourselves impacts the impression we make on others. In part, our lives are a process of developing, tuning, and refining who we are...both to ourselves and to others. At the moment, our cyberspace identity is our email signature."

Linda Stone is director of the Virtual Worlds Group in the Microsoft Advanced Technology and Research Division. She is a visionary both within Microsoft and to the industry at large. She is also extremely effective in making things happen. Her vision of the Internet is a place that embraces humanity and serendipity and supports rich social interaction, as well as recreation, information, and productivity. She's been promoting this view for years; it is only very recently that the rest of Microsoft has come to the Internet party and thus realized that Linda's work addresses some of the big societal(and business) issues we all face in the immediate future.

LINDA STONE is the Director of the Virtual Worlds Group in the Microsoft Advanced Technology and Research Division. She has spent more than ten years in high tech, working primarily in multimedia both at Apple Computer and at Microsoft.