Is it really August already?
Holy smokes people, where the hell did the past 4 months go? So much for my promises to blog more often. What can I say? There's no point in even recapping what the tech world has unleashed in 4 months, you already know. What I can tell you is that I am now 9+ months into my new gig at Microsoft and I am just as enthusiastic as when I first started. My job rocks! It's tough, it's challenging in every way, and I am learning heaps of stuff from my very talented peers. All that being said..it isn't perfect. :-) It's Microsoft, and with a company of 80,000 people comes a lot of red tape and baggage.
I hear people complaining all the time about how we do some stupid things, heck - I'm the first one to bitch about it. What most people DON'T realize is that for everything that seems like a stupid oversight or decision, the reality is that it was probably done willfully and knowingly. I'm learning that creating software this complex has a lot of dependencies and relies on a lot of things that quite simply are just sometimes beyond your control. It's a game of negotiating and prioritizing. There are TONS of things that we wish we could do and features that would be way cool to have, but for one reason or another, aren't possible in a specific release. It's just the way it is and I'm learning to have to deal with it.
The positive side of things is that times are changing. Slowly, but surely. The culture at Microsoft is VERY Dev driven, but recently there has been a push for more emphasis on design and user experience. We can thank companies like Apple and others which are leading the way in User Experience and educating customers on the value of "User Experience." Microsoft isn't going to change overnight, but it's happening. One thing I can say is that we hear you loud and clear, even when you don't think we are listening.
So all that being said, I am going to attempt to AGAIN start blogging more often. I keep saying it but let me tell ya folks, it's getting hard to do that! :-) My day typically starts off at 8am and I'm rolling back into the house at 7pm. There's just so much stuff to do every day that I can't imagine how anyone with a job like this can actually blog every day and balance work and family life. If someone has the secret, please let me know! It's looking more an more like what little TV I watch is going to have to go by the wayside. Meh - who needs TV anyways? :-) I'm planning to get a new Canon EOS 40D in the next month and finally get out and start shooting around Seattle! As soon as I get those pics rolling in, I'll post a link. For now...back to catching up on my blog reading...
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