Monthly Archives: March 2007

MVP Summit Stories from 2007

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And now my manager will answer all of your open source questions, since I gotta run…

Last week was the MVP Summit, where once in every 1.5 years our MVPs gather on campus to see what’s currently in the works. Thanks to Charlie Calvert from the C# team, I was able to talk for a few minutes at his C# Community sessions about the work I’ve been doing and where I hope to take it. Humorously enough, the first sessions was running way over, so at the end of my slides, I said, “I have to meet an MVP for lunch 20 minutes ago, so I have to run now. But my manager Josh here will be happy to answer all your questions about Embracing Open Source at Microsoft. No pressure Josh.” There was much laughter as Josh stood there as I bolted for the door. I think someone tried to run after me to ask a question, but I ran faster =) And for the record, I stayed behind for questions during the second session. No conflicting schedules that time. Ironically, the MVP who asked me the most questions about CodePlex in the second session grew up in southern Mississippi too.

Apparently if i work any harder at my public speaking skills, i’ll be able to time travel.  Oh wait, isn’t Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles coming out with a movie?  Maybe i better calm down a little; otherwise, Howard the Duck may be next.

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One of the best things about conferences is that I get to meet blog readers. It’s never a dull moment. But the best was when a Developer Evangelist asked Josh how many people needed to be in the audience for me to be a speaker at his CodeCamp. I didn’t know an actual number existed (it really doesn’t). But the online petition idea would be so cool. =)

A lake is not a fountain

And even better than meeting blog readers is meeting contributors to our CodePlex projects! I met both Jim Zimmerman (from Ajax Control Toolkit) and Peter Richie (from the Power Toys). As Peter mentions, I gave him a tour of the Microsoft campus. How does one give a tour of campus? “And in this building, they make Office!” And, drum-roll please, “here is lake bill!!  Oops, um, wait.  That’s a fountain, isn’t it?” – I had to get directions to lake bill, since a fountain is obviously not a lake. =) Peter got to meet the CodePlex team, which was conveniently eating lunch in the cafeteria I got lost in. (how I thought I could pass Search and Rescue training is beyond me). And of course he got to meet our Power Toy developers and get a “tour” of the Visual Studio building.

Reports of Snowballs Seen in Hell

Probably the best part of the tour was going inside Microsoft’s Open Source Lab. I had actually never been inside the lab before, which is probably the most unique room in all of Microsoft. (yes, I know, my 9th grade English teacher, something cannot be more unique than something else, but it is my blog and my reality says it can!) And thanks to Jamie, we got some Port 25 t-shirts. That was so much fun handing out those snowballs in hell t-shirts at OSCON last year. “What?! You mean I have Microsoft around my neck!?!” (the OSCON 06 badge holder was from Port 25.)

Until next summit! Will (my nominated MVP), when are you ever going to stop by Redmond so I can finally meet you in person?

Influencing the Microsoft culture one open source presentation at a time

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The thing I love most about my job is being creative in how I’m trying to get an idea or message across, especially when it comes down to challenging the Microsoft culture.   So, it’s probably a safe bet that no one has ever seen a sign like this before on Redmond campus:

Embrace Open Source on CodePlex Weds at 1pm sign

view of sign from within the office

Yep, that’s my office.  Surprisingly, it wasn’t that difficult to write backwards, but the ‘s’ gave me trouble.  I knew i was spelling things right because people downstairs at lunch were mouthing the words, trying to figure out what i was writing.  =)

For you MSFT internals wondering if you can see the on-demand version, I’m on the Engineering Excellence Talk circuit for May 15 (ironically the 1 year anniversary of the power toys) called  “Lessons Learned Going Open with the Power Toys”.  So make sure to sign up when the next newsletter goes out…

And for those of you who attended, there’s nothing like having a fever (didn’t get sick until the night before – too late to postpone) while giving a presentation on embracing open source at Microsoft, hence the 3 bottles of water I shotgun down during the hour.  Now, the question I’m wondering is if I had fainted during the Q&A (yes, the white dots were getting quite annoying), would that have helped my cause or hindered it?

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Visiting Mississippi State 5 years later – Visiting Speaker Trip

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Wow.  That’s all i can say to fellow alumni who haven’t been back in a long time.  Here’s the story:  A few years ago, Flo and Eddies (a restaurant where we would hang out to drink beer on Thursdays) burned down, which sparked this crazy "let’s rebuild Starkville! movement".  I always knew that restaurant was the center of life in Starkville.  Around the same time, the MSU engineering department got a 25 million dollar donation (can’t remember the exact figure, but very very large).  The CS department said they would rename the dept after me for a much less figure. =)  Starkville, or should i say Starkvegas, and MSU got caught up to the 1980s in just a few years.

But The 1987 Highway Program Sign is still going strong!  (the entire reason why i drove from the coast up to MSU was to get a picture of this sign.  It’s a long story that you don’t want to know.)

The 1987 Highway Program Mississippi Moving AHEAD sign still up

Some major changes in Starkville

  • You can now buy cold beer.  yes, i just said "can" "cold beer" "starkville".  (Good job Richard!!!  He was a classmate / friend of mine back in the day who is now an alderman and got the vote to pass…)
  • There are a lot, a lot of new restaurants, even in Sushi place! in Starkville.  But thank god Bulldog Deli is still there serving Chicken Salad Sandwiches (omg… yum!!)  Too bad i didn’t have my camera w/ me to take a picture of those shot-gun shells (one empty, one full) in the grass outside the door.
  • I visited the super-walmart to tell it hi and thanks for all the memories, like thanks for being open that time after i woke up from my wine appreciation final (i audited the class by the way).  so many stories…

Some major changes at MSU

  • There is a MASSIVE Barnes and Noble that even has a Starbucks!!!  (Guess where i spent the majority of my time).  The thing is so big, it has the only escalator in the Northeast quadrant of the state of Mississippi.  Yes, let me say that again – MSU has the only escalator in the NE quadrant of the state, and it is in a Barnes and Noble.

The escalator in the Barnes and Noble

  • Malfunction Junction is no more.  It’s gone, as in there’s only grass.  What do the Digital Devices students make K-maps out of now??

No more malfunction junction. just grass.

  • The honor dorms Hightower and Suttle(?) have been torn down.  There are a ton of new dorms there now.
  • Lee blvd (between Physics building and Lee hall) is gated, as in you can’t drive during the day
  • The Union is under mass construction, but that cafeteria is just as bad.  The student fountain is still alive and kicking
  • It is faster to walk from "The Chapel of Memories" to Allen Hall than it is to drive, because you can’t.  Remember, no more Malfunction Junction.
  • I couldn’t remember how to get from Allen Hall to the Library (scary, huh?)

okay nation, let’s move on…

I gave the following presentations in my little "visiting speaker" tour:

  • Microsoft Software Development Lifecycle for the CS III course (at 8am CST).  I talked briefly about the power toys and what we’ve learned about the open source software model.  This student in the front row asked me what license we used, to which i replied "Awesome question!  Way to hold the Microsoftie accountable at 8am!"  As i answered his question, i noticed a student with a FireFox / Mozilla jacket nodding in approval.  Obviously, they knew a Microsoft person was going to be a guest speaker that day =)

Sara in her Visual Studio shirt standing next to student in his Firefox jacket

  • Why didn’t they teach me this in schools? for the Society of Women Engineers.  See my previous blog post.
  • Life at Microsoft for ACM (my old student organization).  This was a talk of me going over the various Core Technical (SDE, SDET, PM) positions, things i’ve done over my career, and what life is really like at Microsoft.  I started off with trivia questions which was truly the highlight of putting together this slidedeck.  For example, "where does longhorn get its name?"

I also enjoyed seeing former professors, like stopping by the French department.  Of course, they were sad to hear that I haven’t spoken french in about 8 years now, but at least i got to tell them i was able to read a section of a license sent to me that happened to be in French.  That and getting to do entire transaction at Walt Disney World over ice cream in French have really put my minor in french to the test!  =)

and of course, a picture is worth a 1000 words… this was on my way back to Seattle…

someone's luggage fell off the truck out by the terminal gate

"Why didn’t they teach me this in schools?" Society of Women Engineers presentation

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Back in January, I visited my college Mississippi State to do a long-awaited visiting speaker trip. My advisor asked me to speak to the Society of Women Engineers on whatever i wanted, so I thought I would go with a “Why didn’t they teach me this in schools” approach.

“Why didn’t they teach me this in schools” Slide deck

Observations
This was by far the most difficult presentation I’ve ever had to write, as I constantly struggled to figure out what messages to send. But as I started to work with my former undergrad advisor (now assistant dean of engineering) and another friend who runs the Computer Science IT Dept (hence, both very successful women in computer science), the messages became increasingly clear. We found one another saying, “hey, I feel that way too,” and “we have to get this across to them.” To my surprise, the talk really became a “this is what I wished people had taught me in schools,” as I related a personal story to each bullet point.

I’ve never given a talk on 13 slides that lasted a solid hour.

Highlights
• The audience gave no indications of being bored or day dreaming – I’ve never seen this before. I guess that’s why I was so stunned to see an hour had gone by when I reached the final slide deck.

Lowlights
• Only 10 women showed up. I’ve always been fascinated with how to increase attendance, as a former student organization president. I’d love to compare this attendance number to the number of women that drop out of the engineering department each year, just out of personal curiosity.

Feedback
Now, to answer a follow-up question in email (sorry it took me 2 months to get around to it).
Do you think whether Microsoft makes you so confident or it is just your personality. Did you ever think what if you didn’t ever work in the biggest company like Microsoft?

When I first saw this email come through, I thought, “wow, that public speaking training must have really paid off!” =) The first time I ever presented at Microsoft, I actually ended up yelling at a couple of my SDET peers in the audience. They were laughing at something (it had nothing to do with me), but I could have sworn it was all about me, and I’m like “what the hell is so funny… ROAR!” I was so embarrassed later.

In my opinion, it wouldn’t matter if I worked at Microsoft, had a PhD from MIT, or stayed behind to start a career as a character at Walt Disney World’s Animal Kingdom (true story: I actually overslept for my character auditions, so I decided to go to college instead). If you are not comfortable / confident in who you are, you cannot be confident anywhere. Changing the venue won’t change how you perceive yourself. The public speaking coach had to basically yell at me (quite literally) to get over my perfectionist ways, that I had already resolved myself to failure before the first word came out of my mouth. What he said really clicked. And for the first time in almost 20 years (no joke), I was actually able to listen to me talk on video without wanting to die of embarrassment.

As for my personality, when there’s something I truly believe in, want to see happen, and I don’t care what it takes to make it happen, then there is absolutely no stopping me. I should share sometime what I told Senator Trent Lott to get an appointment to the Naval Academy. But, if I’m not completely sold on the idea, don’t completely understand, or think others are more qualified, then I can begin to struggle.

I think success = luck + hard working. BUT luck is something we can’t control or can’t get by ourselves. How do you think about that?

I cannot remember where I’ve seen success / luck = hard work + opportunity. When you work hard and opportunities present themselves, you have to go for them.  It will only seem like you were lucky from an outside perspective.

People’s thoughts are always welcomed here….