April 24, 2006On the top of my list are the folks who put together the world's biggest water balloon fight on behalf of the Xbox team!
Anyone who gets 2,950 people out to throw 50,000 balloons 50,000 people at a Microsoft marketing event is freaking awesome in my book!
Forget marketing. Forget trying to evangelize products or all that. Sometimes on my tour around Microsoft I meet simply incredible people who do things like drop everything within a few hours of a disaster halfway across the country and fly to New Orleans to help the Red Cross and victims and their families. I'm lucky enough to have gotten Jim and Dan's KatrinaSafe story onto video. They set a very high bar for the rest of us to reach up to whenever other human beings are in need. Shows that, yes, even geeks can help out during disasters.
The interview is a bit long, but eventually we get into what they learned from the experience. This interview might help a community the next time there's a disaster. I'm wondering how Microsoft can help BEFORE the next disaster hits?
Disclaimer, I have not shown this post to anyone, particularly my employer, er Microsoft. The ideas it contains are not vetted, and probably won't agree with anyone else's ideas.
OK, maybe you haven't heard about Mini-Microsoft yet, but if you care even a little bit about what Microsoft is, you've probably read his blog (he was featured on the cover of Business Week a while back). In my tours around Microsoft it's a rare employee who tells me he or she doesn't read Mini.
Sometimes an employee asks "don't you think they would try to shut Mini down?" (Mini is an anonymous blogger, who generally talks about things that Microsoft is doing wrong, and/or that he wants to see improved. His motto is to, by slimming down Microsoft, make Microsoft a more lean profit-making machine).
I say, no, cause I think he's doing a lot of good for the company and even if you don't agree with that point of view if Mini were fired I'd quit on the spot. I don't think the way you deal with dirty laundry is to get rid of the person hanging the laundry in the public square that way. Deal with the folks who are dirtying up the linen!
But, I'm going to use Mini as a metaphor for the angst that surrounds Microsoft, both internally with its employees, and externally with its customers and shareholders. I'm not talking about physically shutting down his blog or silencing him via censorship. No, I'm talking about taking away his reason for being. His karmic power.
Now, admittedly, I'm going on a small, but decent sized sample. I've interviewed more than 500 employees over two years (and talked with hundreds, maybe even thousands, more) and I've met thousands of our customers and shareholders on trips to conferences, VC firms, camps, private parties, and corporate meetings.
In my travels around Bill Gates' empire I do my usual Channel 9 stuff, but off camera lately I've been asking "how can we make Microsoft better?"
See, I've decided to stick around and make Microsoft better. I own a very very very small slice of Microsoft and so as an employee owner I figure I gotta do my part.
And, generally, what I'm finding on my tours is angst. Angst over stock price (it's gone up about $3 since I've joined three years ago). Angst over marketing issues (why do we make cool names like "Sparkle" lame by changing that to "Expression Interactive Designer?") Angst over vision and direction. Angst over leadership. Angst over advertising like our "dinosaur" ads (which are loudly derided by customers whenever I go to conferences and talk about how we're being perceived).
Yet, on the other hand, our angst is tempered by great products and marketing in other places. Everyone who owns a 360 praises it when I meet with them face-to-face (and I love their advertising and marketing, except that they can't ship enough to fill demand). Good feelings are still flowing over the Mix06 conference (several people remarked on that to me today at Makers Faire). Visual Studio's launch events were mostly overflowing. In Ireland, when I was there, people told me that the events there were standing room only. Our Atlas project is getting kudos. Our Live.com gadgets are seeing sizeable community adoption. MSN Messenger has 170 million active users every month. Hotmail, 200 million. MSN Spaces, tens of millions of active spaces. Whew, what is there to complain about? 
I had a huge surge of pride in Microsoft today when I saw a very cool booth that we had at Makers Faire. Robots. People teaching kids to program computers. Xboxes. Media Centers. UMPCs (another lame name for "Origami's" — one fun thing was I was in the booth when someone was holding a UMPC and then asked "can I see the Origamis?" Um, you're holding one, was the answer.)
But, that's off topic here. Back on topic. There are legitimate things to work on improving. If there weren't, Mini's blog wouldn't exist, or at least, no one would pay any attention to it. So, my thoughts over the past two weeks led to this rant:
How Microsoft can take away Mini-Microsoft's karmic power.
Apologies to Martin Luther King.
I have a dream.
I dream of a Microsoft that no longer has anything for Mini, or his commenters to complain about. I dream of a day where every Microsoft employee feels like they are part of a mission, a positive mission for the improvement of all humankind. Where they feel like they are being compensated fairly, and if they don't feel it's fair, that they at least see what behaviors will bring better compensation. Where Microsoft customers and shareholders feel excited by our vision, marketing, and service execution again and will go on blogs and in BusinessWeek and say "they turned a corner."
See, employees tell me they hit too many policies. Bureacracy. Politics. Committeeisms. And too much centralization of power and decision making authority. They also tell me they don't feel like we're on a mission to improve the world, like Gates led in the 1980s with his cry "a computer should be on every desktop." That they don't feel pride in our advertising and marketing and naming. That they feel we aren't making the kind of "bet the company" bets that Microsoft had in the past, like when a strategic decision had been made to go with Windows over OS/2.
So, I've been thinking about it for a couple of weeks. How do we tune up Microsoft's economic engine and get ready for the 2010's?
In September a new generation will enter high school. I call it the "Second Life" generation. They live in a world of always connected high-speed broadband. In a world that has computers that have more graphical power than our most powerful ones just 10 years ago. Where ubiquitous computing isn't a far-off-dream, but something pushed in their face every minute of every day as they see digital displays in classrooms, in shopping malls, in airports, and at movie theaters. They expect their cell phones to do a lot more than just phone their parents. They carry around laptops or Tablet PCs or, maybe soon, ultra mobile PCs that are hooked up through increasingly uniquitous wireless networks. I saw a guy yesterday who was building wifi networks for poor areas in Africa. By 2014 I can't imagine many places in the world without wireless access.
It is a world where they want to make their own experiences. MySpace looks passe to this new generation. Second Life, with its 3D world that can not just be controlled, but produced factory style from pre-built components, along with easy customizations, is where it's at.
It's also a world where the competition has changed. Now you can run Windows in a virtual area on OSX. Windows could be controlled by Apple. Or, by Linux. Once Windows users try OSX, why would they want to use Windows anymore? What's the value proposition? What will bring scarcity or differentiation to the Windows world? Our shareholders are worried, maybe not shortterm, but I notice the stock price isn't going up, even though the Xbox is doing tremendously well (and, actually, most of our product lines are seeing sizeable revenue and profit growth).
What will this generation expect as they move from high school, in the year 2010, to college? What will they expect as they move from college, in the year 2014, to the workforce?
I dream of that world tonight and see that Microsoft must change to be relevant to the Second Life Generation's world.
First, we need a big dream. A moonshot. The kind of challenge that'll keep our newly-hired rock stars minds engaged. That'll give everyone in the company pride when it's accomplished. The kind of goal that'll take four, or maybe even eight years to accomplish. For the Second Life Generation. But, don't stop there. It should be for everyone. It's just that this next generation is going to expect something a lot bigger than just a few gigs of email space.
What's the moonshot? A guaranteed Terabyte of Internet-based storage space for EVERYTHING and for EVERYONE running Windows in the world.
A simple vision. Yes, Mr. Gates, it'll cost billions. We'll need dozens, maybe even hundreds, of data centers around the world. All with state-of-the-art connections. All with state-of-the-art 64-bit servers. All with state-of-the-art backup systems. All with state-of-the-art power and cooling systems. All with state-of-the-art load balancing and data serving technologies. That stuff isn't cheap. But I hear we have a few bucks we can use in such a "bet the company" effort.
In this terabyte, integrate all of the new Live services into one data store. A sort of "WinFS" for our server farms. Why shouldn't Live Mail share the same data store as Live Local or Live Expo? Think about the searching, and data presenting, features our developers could build quickly if we had a common data store with a common framework and a common set of APIs!
"But, Robert, almost every 'big bet' that Microsoft tries doesn't work out," you might say. That isn't true. Just study the history of SQL Server. Of Windows. Of Xbox. We make big bets and stick with most of them, even as they don't look like they'll work out in the marketplace. Yeah, I know we have put a few back on the shelf, but for the most part when the company decides on something big, it sticks with it.
It's time to do that again. Give us all a mission we would get excited by.
"But, Robert, you don't have smart enough employees to do this," you might say. Sorry, as I walk around Microsoft Research, as I walk around the .NET team, as I walk around Ray Ozzie's new team, as I walk around the Live.com team, I realize that we not only have enough smart employees, more are coming every day (welcome Niall and Steve Berkowitz).
But, we do need to make some changes to ensure that every employee is engaged in their work here at Microsoft to make this kind of "big bet" not just a possibility, but an eventuality.
That leads me to the second way of how Microsoft can shut down Mini-Microsoft: buy every employee a top-of-the-line Dell machine with dual monitors running Windows Vista. And do it now.
I've seen the productivity benefits that dual monitors can bring. Every employee who has them says having two monitors is transformational. Especially coders who can have one screen for typing code and another for designing UIs. Or, even if they are just an algorithm kind of person, the second one keeps their email showing so they don't need to switch over when a new email shows up.
Heck, I'd go further. If we want to reach the Second Life generation we need three screens. One to run Second Life (and other kinds of social apps), one to run Visual Studio, and one to run Outlook. Or something like this. Go and watch the researchers at Microsoft Research who are working on multiple screen interfaces. They told me that industry researchers are seeing somewhere between a five to 15% productivity gain when someone goes from one monitor to two.
And, I, and my coworkers in the Evangelism team are now running Windows Vista and finding we're more productive, even WITH the burps that come from using pre-production code. I can't stand using XP anymore after using Vista for a few weeks.
But, as I go around Microsoft there are way too many employees who aren't running Vista and who don't have two monitors.
Want a morale boost? How about buying a new high-end computer, with dual monitors, running Vista for every employee? This would cost around $240 million, if my math is good. But wouldn't that be a great recruiting tool? Wouldn't it help us ship better products faster? Wouldn't it help us see the areas where Vista needs improvement (and, as good as it is, it does need improvements).
Think about the statement that would make to the industry. "We believe in Windows Vista." That's what that would say. And, as customers came onto campus to visit us, as the Chinese President did a week ago, they would see the benefits of having fast computers, with two monitors, running Windows Vista.
And, because we retooled our entire infrastructure, we'd be ready to build the next version of Windows after Vista and would have a ready base of computers to test it on. In fact, we could increase our stress program to use 60,000 new high-speed desktops around the world all running the same OS. Think about the data THAT would generate. No other company in the world would be willing, or able, to make such a bet on the future of operating systems.
That leads me to the third way we could transform Microsoft, er, shut down Mini-Microsoft:
Change employee behavior through public compensation change logs.
This will be the most controversial item. But, how do you change my behavior? Don't like it? Decrease my pay. Nothing tells me better that my behavior isn't what the company wants. Mini wants to go further and wants to see mass firings. That would throw our local economy into chaos and would get rid of potentially good people (I come at it another way, the worst person I've dealt with here at Microsoft is far better than many employees I've dealt with in past jobs, so all we'd be doing by mass firings is helping our competition out and removing brains we'll need to get some big jobs done). I'd rather take a four-year-approach. Remember, this is the Second Life generation. Let's make a Microsoft that's rocking and rolling for 2010 when they get out of high school.
Let's have compensation changes put into public. Say I get a four percent raise. Tell everyone. Let's say my managers don't believe I'm adding value here. They could leave my compensation where it is. After four years of public embarrassment (yes, we'd explain that 0%'ers aren't good, that 2%'ers are OK, that 6%'ers are above average, and that anything above that is way above average).
This would require a major change to our culture. To one that's more transparent. But, over time, it would cause me to change my behavior. "Hey, why does Charles always get 10% raises?" Think about the conversations that would start inside the company.
"But, what if I think your treatment by the company is unfair?" Say I got a 20% raise and you don't think I'm worth that. Well, now you can complain and rally your co-workers and go and sit down with my management so you can see why they think I'm worth that. Or, on the other side of the coin, let's say I got a 0% raise and you think I got screwed. Well, now you'd be able to see my management and find out their side of the story as well as maybe work on my behalf to get me a raise.
OK, this is such a major change that I doubt we could implement that all at once. How about internally only? How about you can only see anonymous names in your group? So you can see how you measured up against other people in your group and you can ask your manager something like "I see that three people in our group got bigger raises than I did, why is that and what can I do to get a raise next time around?"
By doing at least part of this in an open way management would be able to reward those who were taking risks, updating their skills, and learning new, and more productive behaviors. I talked with a developer manager last week who told me about his group's use of Scrum, for instance. I asked "why did you change to a scrum model?" (His group had just won and award for increasing productivity). He said it was due to his belief that every employee should continually educate him/herself about the best practices in the industry and one of his employees had been to a scrum training and found that it could be useful to the team. They tried it and it was hugely useful. Why isn't that team rewarded for trying something new that paid off? For changing their behavior?
And why aren't they rewarded in public, which would encourage other employees to change their behavior and look for better ways to do things?
Speaking of better ways to do things. How about number four?
Get rid of corporate speed bumps. All around Microsoft you hear about the speed bumps. Some of which are there for very good reasons. (Er, corporate pain in the past). But, some of which are just there cause "they've always been done that way." Some of the good ones? Policies to ensure that security reviews have been done on code before checking that code in. But, we've all met a rule that just seems past its due date.
So, can we build a culture that removes rules on a regular basis, or at least looks at updating them for efficiency's sake?
Can we give a little bonus to managers who kill rules? Remove bureacracy? Slash through politics? Exceed expectations?
Of course we can. Make a little game. Imagine if Steve Ballmer posted on an internal blog "here's a rule I killed today." And did that every week. Or every day.
OK, it's 1:30 a.m. Time to rap this little ditty up with #5 on my list of ways Microsoft can shut down Mini-Microsoft.
Force marketers to explain their decisions — in public on their blogs.
Say a marketer names something. Like, say, changes the name "Sparkle" to "Expression Interactive Designer." That person should have to explain their changes in public and sign their names to those changes. If it's a group, the group must sign their names. And must leave comments open so they can take the public scorn if names aren't good.
Heck, I wish this were true of every team. Come up with a new UI for your product? Explain it in public. Come up with a new product that you plan to sell? Explain it to us in clear english and have a conversation with us. Come up with a new logo? Explain why that logo matters. In public. Come up with a way to spend $500 million in advertising? Explain it to us.
Personally, the biggest drag on our morale internally is our advertising and the face we put out to the public. Having a bunch of different RSS icons out there is just an artifact of the problem — one that we aren't solving. We aren't putting a good face to the public. We aren't picking names that have any chance of being popular.
Here's a hint. In the top 100 brand names, as rated by BusinessWeek (PDF), NONE have more than two words in them.
We should make it publicly embarrassing for any employee, or group of employees, to come up with ANY name that has more than two words in it.
So, five things that Microsoft can do to get ready for the Second Life generation.
What do you think? Even if you think I'm on some good drugs, why don't you put forward your ideas instead of just tearing mine down. It's easy to tear down other people's ideas. It's hard to come up with interesting ideas to push things forward.
Hate Microsoft? Well, replace your company's name in whereever I said Microsoft. Every company I've worked for has similar problems to what Microsoft is facing. Even the small companies I worked for didn't make most efficient use of employees possible. Even "hot" companies like Google or Apple are looking for ways to make sure its employees are happy and well engaged in the problems ahead of them.
I figured that complaining about the problems wasn't anywhere near as interesting as proposing some solutions. Anyway, that's the kinds of dreams I've had the past two weeks. Hope they lead to productive conversations in your workplace and mine.
April 23, 2006By Robert Scoble — I've been to a lot of conferences and events. Last week I was at the Webmaster World Pubcon.
What was remarkable about that? The pubcrawl. That's where the "pub" part of "PubCon" came from.
Huh?
What's even worse is that very little alcohol gets consumed on these things. Turns out the average drink order per attendee is about one beer.
Every attendee I talked to said that it was the best part of that conference. And that conference is no loser. I attended several sessions and I learned a lot at each one. Things like this:
Did you know that Google treats words connected by underscores, like_this, as one word? Google sees that as likethis. Matt Cutts of Google explained why that is (coders at Google needed ways to find variable names in their code). He recommended using hyphens, like-this, instead. Why? Cause the search engine treats those as separate words, like this.
Now, why did that little tip matter? Well, he was looking at someone's code on stage. They were doing it the wrong way and it was hurting their standings in the search engine. It was the kind of tip that you only get if you go to Web Master style conferences with experts who know why things work one way, and not another, on stage.
So, that's one kind of conference experience. The "expert on stage."
But there's another few kinds. Dave Winer's BloggerCon was interesting because he not only had experts on stage that knew a topic well, but he got the audience involved in the session. That works when you have an audience that has experts in it too. Last week I also had dinner with Steve Garfield, who is one of the Video Bloggers who is pushing that craft along (he had a video blog before I was doing Channel 9 at Microsoft). Watch how the VLoggerCon that's coming up has just as many good ideas coming from the audience as it does coming from the stage. It'll be interesting to see which sessions are more the traditional "old style" expert on stage, or the new, unconference style, where the guy on stage both presents and gets audience members involved. The new style doesn't work all the time, though, only when there's enough experts in the audience.
For instance, today at Makers Faire there was a guy who had been blowing bubbles for 30 years. 30 years! There was NO ONE in the audience who could even come close to this guy's skill and mastery of his topic area. He was incredible. Bubbles in bubbles. All sorts of stuff. Used specialized equipment I've never seen until today (to generate smoke for the bubbles). But, he did get the audience involved and took questions. We learned that he used the general low-cost soap that comes in most bubble bottles. More high-tech, albeit stronger, bubble solutions containing glycerine didn't work as well (he explained why, but that's off topic here).
You can also get an audience to participate, I saw one guy, who was expert at building paper airplanes, get the entire audience involved by helping them build their own airplane. That was a lot of fun and the guy was just unbelieveable. I have one of his airplanes that he built out of two sheets of paper. A biplane!
But, now onto my point. I saw the future of conferences today. It was the Makers Faire.
What was special about it? Well, first, it was low-cost. And my son got in for free. This totally changed the attendance model that we see at most geeky conferences. A lot more women. Families.
Then, inside the front gate was a major sign that this was no VSLive or TechED. There was a firetruck. But instead of putting out fires, it made them! High into the air it blew a puff of fire with an impressive repercussion. It caught my attention.
But, walking through the place I saw all sorts of bizarre things. A cofounder of Apple Computer playing polo with friends on Segways. Robots. Weird cars and other rideable contraptions. Wind-catching generators. Inside the main hall were all sorts of contraptions and screens. And something fun, the kids were encouraged to put their hands on and try them out!
Inside the main hall there was a stage. Ah-ha, a conference! But it was surrounded by experiences. Things you'd remember the rest of your life. Puzzles. Robots. People dressed weirdly.
As someone said it was a Burning Man lite.
This is the future of conferences. Can you give me an experience I've never had? Can you give me something to take pictures of? Will you educate me? (I learned how to weld, how to make a wind-powered generator, how to program computers, how to ride a Segway, some new things to do in Second Life, and more).
The Make Magazine crowd had 10s of thousands of people come through their doors in two days. It was a watershed moment for me and I told both Phillip Torrone and Tim O'Reilly that when I saw them.
What's the next ExperienceCon? Some possibilities: Gnomedex. Pop!Tech.
More later, battery is dead. The city is dark! 
I see some people are talking about Technorati's top 100 blogs list (more on this issue on Memeorandum) and the fact that several MSN Spaces blogs appeared in high spots on that list in the past few days and that some "A list" bloggers, like Dave Winer, were no longer on the list. Today at the Maker Faire I bumped into head technologist for Technorati, Tantek Celik, and founder Dave Sifry. Both said that there was a bug in the code that generated that list that should be fixed by tomorrow. The bug let the list follow blogrolls that used the "nofollow" HTML attribute, which made some blogs appear higher than they should have.
Oh, looks like the bug fix has been checked in. Dave Winer's famous blog is back on the list.
BY ROBERT SCOBLE — SAN FRANCISCO, CA, USA (somewhere above the Golden Gate bridge) — Maryam Scoble, last Thursday, said "I like Bubba's blog better than yours." (She's my wife).
Ahh, you think I don't take abuse? Heheh.
But I agree with her. That was a fun experiment. Bubba, you want another week? It'd make Maryam happy.
Anyway, why am I writing from a bench high above the Golden Gate bridge?
Because it's part of my new scheme to have and share unique experiences in technology with you.
More on that in the next post.
But, first, how did I survive having two weeks off? It was nice, actually. I gotta do that more often. It was good for my soul. Linda Stone told me a while back to make sure I'm taking care of myself and my family as much as I'm taking care of the blog. I didn't listen to her then, but she was right.
So, anyway, nature put on quite a show for me sitting on this bench. The city looked like a spotlight was on it. The light is getting lower every second now. It's remarkable when you think of all the geeky stuff going on in that small city below my little bench.
The Golden Gate bridge, to me, is a symbol of high technology. People come from around the world to walk on it. Take pictures of it. But within a two-hour drive from it much of the world's technology is produced. There is no other place like it for technologists in the world.
Well, I'm gonna step into my car. My hands are freezing. And it's getting a bit dark. I'll probably make my way across the bridge to post about the Makers' Faire Patrick and I attended today and why it inspired me to change how I approach my blog, events, and technology.
In the meantime (it might be an hour) read Engadget's coverage of the Maker Faire and check out my photos from the day. Yes, that was Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak playing Segway Polo.
by: bubba murarka
The personal goals for this week of guest blogging were to share some perspective on working at MSFT in the Silicon Valley, learn what its like to blog on a widely read Microsoft related blog, and tell some stories about "growing up at Microsoft". It was both an opportunity and an experiment that would hopefully benefit all parties involved. Robert would continue to have some time/space to find the right balance for himself. Readers would continue to get a "human driven perspective" of Microsoft and get some interesting links. Interesting content would still get linked too and found by people who could benefit/add value to it. I would grow in a way that can only happen by doing something different from my normal life.
Robert will be back after this post and will hopefully share how his thoughts have evolved over the last week or two. Personally, I'm really looking forward to hearing them as this week has deepened a friendship that we started loosely two years ago.
Anecdotally speaking, it appears that people enjoyed reading another perspective here on the scoblizer blog. However, not everyone feels the same about guest blogging (not me personally, but the idea in general) and a conversation appears to be brewing. It will be interesting where the town ends up on this from an etiquette and practice point of view.
The guest blogging experience was fun, challenging and in the end personally very worthwhile. Thank you to everyone who sent mail with links, thoughts on a post, or a kind words about this stint as a guest blogger. Some things learned this week:
Blogging is a labor of love. You have to be willing trade off other life things you could do to really engage and continue a conversation/perspective. It is a tough balance and one that can easily take over other important things in your life. The bigger the blog the harder it is to find the right balance.
Blogging is a huge source of connections & re-connections. My high school computer lab manager found me through scoble's blog. We hadn't talked in many years and I'm looking forward to an upcoming lunch with him. People on the SVC campus reached out to say hello which generated more friendships and information sharing in our little piece of Microsoft here in the valley.
Blogging is emotionally challenging. Like anything where you share opinions, thoughts and feelings it is bound to generate responses. Some will be the positive and some will be negative. While a thick skin can help regulate the emotions you also learn to face your "stage fright" on a regular basis.
Blogging creates great offline conversations. The diversity and breadth of conversations you end up having outside of the public space of your blog is wonderful. It is really fun to get more in touch with the people around you and nothing facilitates that like having something to talk about.
These points may not be all that world shattering, but they were drilled into my noggin this week. Sometimes no matter how much you read or think about something it doesn't become real until you live them.
Finally, the measure of whether you really liked something is if you would do it again…and I most definitely would! In this case, I'll continue to blog over on spaces. My goal is to post one of these story type entries once a week or so.
Some links before I head off (mostly from the segment of the world I read regularly):
Oshoma Momoh has an interesting blog on technology, business and startups.
Toread.cc puts webpages you want to read in your inbox (via Trevin).
Heather posted about Onfolio (now a part of the Windows Live Toolbar) and how the product management team use it for research.
Torres talks about some culture change he'd like to see at Microsoft.
Fast OS switching on Mac Intels, a video.
Fil posted a screencasts from his Mix06 talk on XAML.
Jamie Buckely shares that search results for a holiday name now gives the upcoming dates…neat!
Looks like a new Vista build has been released to the public and Kristan is re already writing up tips and tricks!
Guy Kawasaki posted his top ten favorite books. In other news, I added 9 new books to my reading list.
And last, but not least, the silicon valley campus turned on the largest bay area solar power installation on earthday. The official press release has all sorts of great info about the environmentally friendly nature of the SVC campus.
Robert, thanks for the trust, support, and opportunity!
And now back to your regularly scheduled programming…
April 22, 2006by: bubba murarka
This week has rapidly passed between work, life and blogging. Not quite sure how Robert does it all, but maybe he has a time turner I should've asked to to borrow! Here is another attempt at a "mini scoblepaper" style post…
Welcome to Steve Berkowitz who just joined Microsoft from IAC/Ask to head the Online Buisness Group. I met Steve a long time ago and loved his energy and vibe.
Evolution of the netflix envelope - make sure to click the link at the bottom for a visual history.
The original RAZR got me to get a second phone in addition to my smart phone…wonder what kind of silling thing v2 will make me do. Speaking of cellphones Kevin sent mail pointing to a mobile technology podcast that looks neat…it is added to my list of things to check out.
Mark Harrision blogged a while back that 80-20 has built a free addition to sharepoint that adds record retention managment to sharepoint 2003.
The waybackmachine at archive.org is a treasure trove of information. You can find all sorts cool data about the web. I did a long time ago and ironically the only place to get the results now is on the waybackmachine. Today folks posted of visual histories of Google and Yahoo homepages and it would be great to see one for the main microsoft or msn pages. Unfortunately it looks like we disable archiving on live.com. I'll try to find out why.
If you are into grid computing and .Net you might want to check out Dan Ciruli's MSDN web cast on the 25th (my mom's birthday).
Found out that the Long Tail book has a cover now by reading a post on the marketing.fm blog.
Don Dodge, Mark Cuban (yeah that mark) and others are talking about click fraud. Continued on Mark's blog too.
April 21, 2006by: bubba murarka
David Weiss posted a great virtual tour of the Mac testing lab in Redmond. You should read it because it has a great personal style and shows off a great side of Microsoft that is often missed. Plus, where else can you see 150 mac mini's lined up so neatly.
As noted in the comments earlier, Paul Thurrott recently posted a part five of his review of the February Vista CTP. Boy, was it a candid and frank article about what he saw as shortcomings with Vista. Over at Channel 9 a bunch of folks discussed it at length. Reading it was an interesting emotional experience because parts of me have been frustrated with Vista and the challenges we have had getting it released. At the same time, I had worked directly on a feature of Vista before my new gig and knew how hard so many people were working to make Vista the best possible OS it could be.
With mixed emotions in tow I started to look around the net for stuff about Vista. It was great to come across articles about why Vista won't suck. Likewise, it was interesting to read Scott Berkun's perspecitve from the outside looking in. Capping off the look around was a read of the other four part's of Paul's write up on the Vista February CTP. [1] [2] [3] [4]
Quick point to stress - this is Bubba Murarka speaking, not Robert Scoble. Why say that? Robert is a great ambassador for Microsoft because he is honest, open and knows how to articulate his thoughts and engage through blogging.
So what do I think?
First is that Paul Thurrott really loves Windows and wants to see it be the best it can be. By being blunt he has given us concrete feedback that we can try to act upon. Feedback is why we have CTPs.
Second is that people inside Microsoft read, think, and talk about articles & feedback like Paul's. That leads to positive action and change. This was loud and clear from the numerous emails and IMs sent my way asking if the article was going to get posted to here.
Third is that Microsoft is going to learn a lot from shipping Vista. The dedication to changing and improving things is tangiable. Changes are happening because people are taking accountability and really want to make Microsoft the best it can be.
Will people say this sounds just like a fanboy trying to spin a negative article? Sure. Do I truly believe the three points I just typed above? 100%
April 20, 2006by: bubba murarka
Since asking for posts and putting up my email address I've gotten a ton of emails! Thanks to everyone for their responses. I'm still reading but here is what caught my eye so far…
Andy Edmonds, a great guy from the search team, sent a link to install Phlat! Phlat is a diffrent UI for Windows Desktop Search (read about beta wds apis here) and is up for an award at CHI next week! You can read more about Phlat at MSR's site. This is why it is great to build platforms!
A post from brian clark you should read because it might help you be a better writer/blogger.
Alex Barnett has all sorts of cool stuf on his blog including that Visusal Studio Express will remain free…very cool.
George Moore, a GM on the Windows Live Platform, sent a note saying Danny Thrope joined Microsoft! He is in SVC and sounds like a neat guy.
Gogogic builds casual games (my favorite type now a days) using .NET and SQL and their CEO has a blog where he is trying to connect with users!
Hank is mixing up location, blogging and maps in his latest project.
April 19, 2006by: bubba murarka
I just read John B's interview with Jim Lazone from Ask about relevance, google relationship and askmail. Jim is a really neat guy I met a few years back and sounds like he's having fun. Maybe not the same "quotability" as Gary Flake's interview, but a good read nonetheless.
Updated: added by-line!
by: bubba murarka
I was iming with a friend (couldn't confirm he was okay with me naming him) and he noted that scoble and I are pretty different types of bloggers. Not a bad or a good thing, just sort of a fact. I think he best said it with the following:
Scoble is a like a mini-newspaper. That's why many folks read his blog. Links to interesting stuff going in tech mixed with some MSFT propaganda
I like being me, but thought it was a good point and I decided to try and post some more links in addition to my long stories. Got any? Send them to me at bubbam@microsoft.com. I won't post everything, but I'll try to read it all!
Oh, if you work for MSFT in the valley and have a blog, let me know…I want to post links to them as a follow up to last night's long post.
Updated: added by-line.
by: bubba murarka
Fortune has a really long article about "the ozzie effect" at msft. I've talked to Ray a couple of times and I really like him.
Updated: added by-line.
by: bubba murarka
Just kidding…but he did hang out with John Kerry in the Boston Airport today.
Updated: added by-line
by: bubba murarka
John C. Welch is interviewing the macbu's "word developer god" tonight! Tune in to hear John and Rick Schaut talk about Xcode and Intel Macs.
Updated: added by-line!
by: bubba murarka
I once had dinner in New Mexico with Marc Orchant and I really enjoyed our evening talking, geeking and bonding. He gave me some cool geek shirts and I gave him a book. One of the downsides of my info management is I never really got into the habit of reading his blog. I randomly went over there today and found a link to some advice for microsoft modeled after federal tourism advice. It was an intresting set of ideas on how to approach the partner conversations differently. I'm not sure agree with it 100%, but I thought it was a good read.
But what I really identified with is what Marc said about being at MSFT in redmond:
Many times when I've spoken with Microsoft employees, they talk about how living and working in Redmond is like being in a different world. That can be a blessing and a curse.
I tried to work this in to my post last night about why I like working at SVC. I feel exactly like his aggregate msft redmond based employees during my trips there. However it is tempered with a different space and vibe while i'm home at SVC that is refreshingly contrasting/invigorating.
I couldn't quite find the words to explain it last night. Luckily Marc did and I appreciate it!
Now if only the comments on zdnet didn't ask for much info to post one!
Updated: added a by-line.
by: bubba murarka
I really digg working at Microsoft while living in the Silicon Valley. Telling people I work for MSFT in the valley is the second biggest double take generator in my bag of tricks (behind my name and right before my hair without gel in it). I often hear "you guys have an office down here?" and "I thought it was a sales office". We do have a sales and research office if SF, but there are also a bunch of product development and research teams down here in Mountain View as well.
The campus is commonly referred to as "SVC" which stands for silicon valley campus. There isn't a birds-eye view available of the campus, but here is a zoomed in aerial shot of campus. Here are the product teams that have people down here:
There is also Niall's new rss team (or at least niall), and of course my new team dealing with information management. In fact, I'm pretty sure there are several more product teams down here that I just haven't met someone from. On top of product teams there are biz dev, evangelist, recruiting, general HR, administrative, sales and of course Microsoft Research peeps. If you work at SVC and your team or role is not listed add a comment and I'll update the list(s)!
I've learned a few cool things about campus since starting here. Perhaps my favorite factoid is that the four main buildings of SVC are each "themed" after a color of MSFT's logos (Blue, Green, Red, & Yellow - colors are featured in all msft logos…well except for xbox). The themes are water, land, fire, and wind.
We have our own company store to buy msft products from, a library, a technology showcase, cafeteria, a wells fargo atm, and sports facilities (volleyball and basketball courts).
My dirty little SVC secert: In building five on the second there is an illy coffee machine that I sometimes hit up when our coffee counter is closed. It is run by MSR and I probably need to out by who exactly and give them some replacement coffee.
I don't know the exact number of people working on the campus, but it feels like a mid-size high school. This is really perfect because you end up making random connections with people based on familiarity and common use patterns. You also end up seeing people you sort of recognize on flights to Redmond and have people to eat with when your flight is late or carpool to redmond campus with in order to beat the traffic.
Speaking of random connections, I just found a post by Dennis (from toolbar team) about SVC on the jobsblog. Here is a map of the companies Dennis mentioned to help visualize where we are located in context to some other valley based companies.
Hopefully that gave the flavor of SVC. I wanted to share a little bit further on why I like working for msft down here.
The diversity in people, ideas, and culture of technologists in the bay area is phenomenal. It is the silicon valley for a reason, but it is incredible the number of new ideas that are discussed and cross pollinated here. Also, having people work at big, small, and medium companies that all have different review cycles, reward structures, and product spaces helps drive better conversations and good entropy. Personally, I've found many amazing people at MSFT (like mc who is visiting SVC this week) but I also like meeting people with completely different frames of reference and ideas.
It is really cool to be an MSFT ambassador in the valley. Getting to attend, share and connect with people at things like Lunch 2.0 (well soon!), SDForum Sigs, and Computer History events is just plain old awesome. I love the personal connections that end up in lunches with new friends from competitors and partners alike where we compare notes on cafeteria food, culture, and development approaches.
Being close to world class universities, top tier venture capitalists and enthusiasts results in all sorts of cool events to attend - like startup school.
I hate to cite the weather especially since the last 2 months down here haven't been all that wonderful. But nothing beats a beautiful December day drive with the top down!
That's probably enough about SVC & the bay area for one night. If you have questions about the campus or life down here as a microsofter I'd love to answer them!
Updated: Corrected some team names per comments & added some more types of peeps that live here in SVC!
April 18, 2006Robert passed along an email from the Veterans Foundation about the upcoming Military Blogging Conference. It is on April 22nd in Washington, DC. They are going to stream the entire conference live to the net too!
I'm on a train, with my T60 (two thumbs up), next to a friend (chris butler from the toolbar team who used to write for orange magazine) using a cell modem (verizon - only okay data rates, heard cingular is better) to post this. i love technology.
I also love living and working the bay area. Next to me on the train were some people talking about a new google maps idea. On the platform while we were waiting for the train, I saw yahoo, google, and microsoft badges (more, but those were the ones I recognized). Think I'm gonna write more about this and what's like to work on SVC campus of MSFT tonight.
Today is a big historical day for the bay area - the 100th anniversy of the 1906 SF earthquake/fire. The San Francisco MOMA has an indepth photo collection of before and after the earthquake on display. I checked it out a few weeks back and it was pretty amazing. They have a really cool handout that has pictures, info and stories for the day that is 100% free to take home.
Some folks are talking about the Boston Globe article on blogging being essential to a good career.
Between Tim Bray and Jeremiah Owyang I think the list is expanded pretty darn well and the "challenges" of blogging are also touched on. I'd add that another downside is information leakage. Sometimes, personal info you don't intend to share gets inferred, shared, or found and known to others in awkward manners. Not a huge deal given how much better that aspect is understood by folks now a days, but I remember how my friend posted pictures a long time ago that came back to haunt someone else in a job search.
I wonder what Mark Jen thinks of this discussion? He's been on both sides of the fence. He works down the street from me now, and we get together from time to time. I really like him, his peers and the space his company is working on!
FWIW, personally blogging did help me get a job. It also helped get me my master's degree.
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