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Things seen around Microsoft (and perhaps your college campus?): a fractal panda

fractalpandaIn the category of the interesting and odd things I see around Microsoft, this is one of the most unique, one that has found its way onto the Internet. It’s the fractal panda (or is that Fractal Panda?). It’s used by our good folks in Microsoft during various college informational trips. (I noted this on Twitter this morning as well, with a tip of the hat to the good folks over at Microsoft Recruiting and noted by folks in the wild including @ellenchisa.)

Anyone every see this around their campus?

As for interesting and odd, I fully expect to see more interesting holiday sweaters around the office today, too, for reasons that people on campus may acknowledge.

 

Tags: articles, what I read, Microsoft, Windows, recruiting, fractal panda.

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From Windows 7 to working with product groups customer satisfaction

Windows 7 UltimateA little more than three years ago as I noted here, I joined the Windows division working in COSD for Jon DeVaan with the rest of his management team (as I initially noted here) to work on Windows 7. I’ve certainly enjoyed the run in Windows, this being my second stint: I joined the engineering program management group when I first moved to Redmond back in 2003. More details are on the blog if you must know.

A couple of months ago as we discussed new roles, one of the positions that interested me was in returning to a corporate role in the company. In my new capacity, I’ll work with product and services groups across the company to improve satisfaction with our customers and partners.  These customer-focus efforts are some of key tenets of our work that we refer to inside Microsoft (in both the business groups and SMSG) as the Customer and Partner Experience (CPE).

This has been an area I truly enjoy, and one that Kevin Turner, our COO sponsors across our sales and marketing groups in close partnership with our product group sponsor Stephen Elop, the  president of the Microsoft Business Division (aka, MBD, home of Office, SharePoint, Exchange, OCS, Dynamics and many other products).

With this move comes a move from my office in the Windows division and later this week across campus to my new home. Sad to leave Windows but excited to move to this new role on the heels of one of the most successful product launches the company has seen in some time.

So over the next few days will be busy as I move offices, shed parts of my old position and move on to my new role. I want to thank my friends in Windows for a wonderful time in the division and I look forward to working with them in a broad capacity.

What this means for folks reading this blog should be a broad view of the work we’re doing across the company to improve customer satisfaction from the perspective of our product teams, and perhaps a few insights as I learn even more about my new surroundings in MBD.

And yes, that includes finding a new parking strategy on days I drive: the commute stays the same.

 

Tags: announcements, Office, Microsoft, Windows 7.

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Gizmodo offers a look at several Windows 7 Launch Parties

Did you have a Windows 7 Launch Party? Gizmodo offers a gallery of photos from several different Windows 7 launch parties although most/all are uncredited with original owners/URLs.

This one is certainly my favourite (is it yours?):

Note to self: need to post more details of our own launch event.

Tags: articles, what I read, twitter, Microsoft, Windows 7.

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Twitter: it’s more than people talking about themselves (well, maybe not ;). It’s a real resource.

Parking @ #BrickCon: $7. Coffee outside: $4 The line to get in the door? Endless, but worth it…

 

Interesting think about Twitter. It’s a social network that’s more than just a bunch of people talking about themselves, as Pam Baker noted in her article in TechNewsWorld

"To its detractors, Twitter is little more than a pipeline through which bores and narcissists flush their short, uninteresting brain droppings."

imageHmmm… perhaps.

I side more with Darren Rowse’s views on the benefits of Twitter (he’s the gent behind ProBlogger): it’s useful as a tool for networking and as a virtual water cooler.

In this case, overhearing what Frank was up to over the weekend answered a question we’d had at home the week prior: as it’s fall again, when the heck is that darned Lego expo?

As I noted on twitter this weekend, thanks to tweets from @frankarr, we were made of the Lego BrickCon down at the Seattle Centre. To us, this was an example of valuable information casually "overheard" in the Twitterverse from an individual I follow (in this case, usually more for the humour than the timely what-to-do-around-town information).

And without Twitter, we might’ve missed it.

Increasingly, Twitter is one of the initial stops I make in the morning after reading the news online, checking mail and my RSS fees. Sometimes whilst doing my email, with Twitter scrolling merrily along in the background. Several news providers tweet quite often and pulling up their list of recent tweets gives a quick view into what’s what.

Back to BrickCon.

More importantly, our boys, Max and CJ were able to get their hands on the last Spacetroopers (aka Halo) figures from the good folks at Brickforge. 

Of course, the real fun was when CJ was reminded that BrickCon was held at the same location as the Halo 3 ODST launch event. To which CJ asked: "Can I wear my costume again ?"

Tags: articles, what I read, twitter

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Personal documentary from Microsoft writer makes an impression

Of interest: reminding me of the brief series noted here, I found this article from Nicole Brodeur "Microsoft writer makes documentary on losing hand to cancer", about the film documentary from Joshua Isaac, a writer at Microsoft. Isaac lost his left hand to cancer and has been dealing with cancer – battling Epithelioid Sarcoma to be specific – for more than 10 years. He documented the battle in his movie "My Left Hand" showing this weekend in Seattle…

"My Left Hand" will be shown at 5 p.m. Sunday at the Museum of History and Industry as part of the 2009 Seattle Jewish Film Festival.

"But "My Left Hand" is not just the story of a young father felled by epithelioid sarcoma — a cancer so rare that Memorial Sloan-Kettering in New York, which specializes in rare malignancies, saw only 16 patients between 1982 and 1995.

"It is a valiant effort to make spiritual sense of his suffering."

You can also follow Isaac’s blog on Live Spaces.

Tags: articles, what I read.

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