I am starting my eighth year at Microsoft and although this last year was chalk full of amazing experiences, building Channel 9, it was time for some changes.
For those that don't know me I started at Microsoft in PSS supporting Visual InterDev 1.0 and Active Server Pages 1.0. I did that for about two years and went on to work in Visual Studio / MSDN. I worked in this group as a Program Manager building sites like Code Center and Lighthouse which was a service for the Visual Studio Shell that provided up to date data from MSDN to the shell. I eventually ended up leading a small team of PMs and we did a re-design of MSDN and Technet, an update to the MSDN offline Library and new viewer technology for TechNet.
I've always been an Evangelist at heart and since my career aspirations from my day one at Microsoft were to be an Evangelist I made the move back to an individual contributer (no employees) and moved to the Platform Strategy Group (now known as Developer and Platform Evangelism or D&PE).
My first project was to get an understanding of how Web Services would be used in the enterprise. I worked with Garland Brown and we created a set of Web Services that communicated with Microsoft's own Siebel environment allowing folks to communicate with Siebel via an ASP.NET web based interface.
This was back in the alpha days of Visual Studio.NET and was break through work. The work here ultimately led to the Alchemy Web Services in Microsoft IT. I learnt a lot about patience in that project, negotiating with internal groups and built a great friendship with Garland brown who later went on to take an Architect Evangelist role for Microsoft in Arizona.
With Alchemy complete it was time for the next thing so I moved over to help Steve Cellini with planning for the PDC. I partnered with Steve on a lot of the community efforts and other administrivia helping make the event happen. What an incredible ride that was!
When the PDC was over it was time to take our community and transparency efforts to the next level and Lenn asked me to partner with him to build Channel 9. This was probably the most fun I've had ever at Microsoft. It was just go, go go and make big things happen. Lenn and I were in perfect sync throughout the project and I loved every minute of it.
With Channel 9 out the door though now I was left wondering what to go after next. I was asking myself what was I passionate about and also where did my group need me?
It turns out our team had an opening for a Group Manager leading the Tools and Components Evangelism Team reporting to Steve Cellini. So after some thought knowing that I love Developer Tools and had worked for Steve during the PDC and enjoyed it, it was time to make the move and build a team again.
I am now leading an Evangelism Team where we work with early adopters for Visual Studio Tools for Office and Visual Studio Team System. In addition to this we'll work with early adopters for VSIP around vendors supplying components and tools for Visual Studio and Team System.
Its an exciting change, meaning lots for me to learn and do.
Microsoft is constantly giving me good changes and excitement. I look at the years I've spent here and its been amazing, constant challenge, constant change and the ability to move quickly and get things done.
Being able to move onto new things regularly is a good thing. For one it keeps you challenged and also keeps the organization moving too. I no longer will be officially working on Channel 9 (but you can bet I'll be constantly giving Scoble and gang lots of video and featutre ideas). Charles from the Channel 9 team is going to step up and take over a lot of the things I did. Ivan who did the Junktop Revival Laptop will also move over to Channel 9. I'm going to really miss working for Lenn but am also looking forward to working for Steve.
So we're on our way, David Allen strategies on hand (I am in jujuitso email mode) we're on our way.
Wish me luck!
P.S. I'm hiring :-)