A wise man once told my that the only job of a PM at Microsoft is to make shit happen. Career PM's are defined by their ability (or inability) to do that.

I have observed that there are 4 personas a PM can take on when engaging in this meta-task:

• The Hand-Wringer. Worries most about getting everything lined up internally and being completely buttoned up before taking an idea public. Vulnerable to analysis paralysis.
• The Strategic Influencer. Plants key ideas in the minds of other people. Relies on the other people's ability to execute on the goals they originate, which is both a blessing and a curse.
• The Consensus Builder. Touchy feely, gets broad buy-in, makes sure everyone is happy before moving on. Risks design-by-committee.
• The Juggernaut. Has an end goal in mind, unmercifully relenting, amount of intermediate destruction caused is inversely proportional to other people's ability to get out of the way. Can be tremendously productive, but in this limit this interferes with your ability to successfully execute the other strategies.

As I spend more time at Microsoft, I'm realizing that no single strategy is independently successful in all cases. Each one, applied exclusively, ultimately leads to failure.

The key is know which strategy to apply when.

Microsoft has started a big anti-influenza campaign to cut down on the spread of the flu amongst employees.

I noticed this effort this morning, when I arrived to find a bottle of anti-bacterial hand sanitizer in my mailbox. By the looks of it, everyone in the company got one of these.

Not sure how effective anti-bacterial stuff is against flu viruses, but heck I feel safer...

Today is a very good day. I’m really glad Savas made the decision to join DSG.

Welcome aboard! And don’t listen to Don when he talks about the east side :)

I had a meeting on the 2nd floor of 42 today, so I walked up the back stairwell by my office because it was closest. I turned the corner off the stairs and realized that Jim Hugunin (of Iron Python fame) has the office pretty much right above mine.

I’m still a little bit wierded out by the fact that I get to work with (o.k, in the same general area as) some of these people. I have to resist the temptation not to degenerate into a fanboy.

This is good news. It’s lamentable that we didn’t make this decision in time to actually get the anti-discrimination bill passed, but I’m sure the issue will come up again. And next time, Microsoft has committed to supporting it.

+1 for SteveB.

Bravo to both Cyrus and Scoble for their recent comments lamenting Microsoft’s decision to pull support for Washington’s anti-discrimination bill.

When I got SteveB’s memo in my inbox yesterday, I was sad too. I recognize that Microsoft is a business, and that as a business we have certain priorities. Some things align clearly with throse priorities and some don’t. There wasn’t a direct business justification for supporting this bill, and in that respect I guess I can acknowledge the company’s decision not to lend official support for it. But still, I couldn’t help but feel that we’d passed up an opportunity to do some good in the world.

There’s no doubt that Microsoft is a progressive company when it comes to human rights. Our anti-discrimination policy is very strong, and it’s no secret that MS offers its employees same-sex domestic partner benefits. The company’s position regarding discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is definitely public knowledge.

All we had to do was stand up in a public forum and tell the legislature what everyone already knew — that the bill under consideration aligned with Microsoft’s company values and internal policies. It wouldn’t have surprised anyone. And maybe – just maybe – that simple act of stating the obvious might have tipped the vote the other way.

It’s too bad that a company that’s about empowering people through great software isn’t also about empowering people through legislation that guarantees them a fundamental level of equality.

Today marks my first day as a Microsoft employee (and I have the "escort not required" sticker to prove it!). It also marks the beginning of my "life at ms" category, which I will be using from time to time.

A good chunk of today was spent in New Employee Orientation, or NEO. Beyond the standard new employee stuff about benefits (which are quite nice!) and whatnot, there are two major takeaways from NEO. Number one, it makes it clear that Microsoft is a big fan of the "total immersion" approach. Number two, it really drives home just how big this thing called "Microsoft" actually is.

Basically, NEO consists of about 6 hours of HR people throwing lots of information at you in a rapid-fire fashion. It's pretty much a bulk-load session; there's a lot of information to absorb. Fortunately, there's also a lot of pointers to external resources which keeps the whole thing from being too overwhelming. But I think it's definitely a metaphor for the style and intensity that characterizes Microsoft culture -- which is one of the reasons why I came to MS.

The other thing that left NEO with was a newfound appreciation for the sheer scale at which Microsoft operates. Just today, there were 94 new hires...a larger than average week, sure, but still just a week. Those people come from all over the world and work in seven different multi-billion dollar businesses...I always knew Microsoft was big, but I have a little bit of a different perspective on it now that I'm inside. It's pretty amazing to think about the kind of reach that comes with being a company that size, and the resources now available to me as a small part of it.

Or rather, the resources that will be available to me as soon as my network account gets activated (tomorrow morning, hopefully). Since I previously had a summer internship with MS I'm technically a returning employee which causes some delays in getting my accounts activated. As a result, I spent the day in "network purgatory" but hopefully that will be cleared up soon. I don't get my blue badge until Wednesday, so I have these attractive stickers with my name an "no escort required" on them to tide me over until then.

Regardless of my technical status of "non-existant" as far as the network is concerned, everyone here has been very quick to offer warm welcomes and make me feel part of the team. I even ran into Don Box coming out of 43 and got an improptu "welcome to the team" hug. Overall, it's very cool to be a part of this thing called Indigo now after spending quite a bit of time as a somewhat privileged outsider.

I have no doubt that I'm about to embark upon the biggest challenge yet in my professional career. But it's a challenge I know I'm capable of meeting, and that's actually a pretty empowering feeling. It's going to be a good ride :)