back to business

coming right back from some relaxation i jumped right into our central region dpe (developer & platform evangelism) off-site in my new hometown of chicago. i think it was good for me to come into the off-site with some relaxation under my belt since the three days were jam packed and i felt exhausted after each one.

the one thing i do enjoy out of these off-sites is the ability to talk to incredibly smart people that i normally do not get a chance to talk to very often because we are all spread across 18 states within the central region of the us. these off-sites are mostly about figuring out how we can be more successful in achieving our commitments. the emphasis this time really seemed like cross-teaming which i love (there was also the extremely fun team ride on segways).

all-in-all the off-site was a success and i feel slightly drained sitting here in the loop office, but i know there is work to be done and a community to serve. so, back to business for me.

finishing up planning and going dark

i spent the past couple days with good friend and colleague, larry clarkin, going through some final thoughts on our community plan for this year (msft fiscal started beginning of july). these are the times that are most challenging since we really have to be precise on what we think we can work with the community to do throughout the year. i find myself saying “this is stupid” and “i am gonna punch this spreadsheet in the face” quite a bit during this time.

what is not stupid is the end result that comes from putting all this hard work into a plan. it is about ensuring we are putting the right resources in the right places to better serve the community of developers we so love. that same community provides to us feedback throughout this process so that we are not making decisions without their best interest in mind. that is the part i love.

what i hate are spreadsheets. i am a developer and i love to code so unless i am building some sweet ass obas, then keep me out of excel. it is the necessary evil that keeps us on track and not all over the place throughout the year, so i can’t complain too much (although i am).

the beginning of the fiscal year is always stressful. being at microsoft for over 3 years now, you would think i would be used to it, but i am not. so that is why i go dark around this time of year with my family on a beach in the outer banks with limited access to just about anything but sand and ocean. however, someday i will learn to leave the laptop at home and let the email build. but until that day comes, gorbett is still open for business.

chat with scott guthrie

while i was filling my brain with technical goodness at techready, our internal training event, i had a brief opportunity to sit down with scott guthrie (i was seriously debating on whether to link back to his profile cuz’ if you don’t know who scott guthrie is, shame on you :)) before he rushed off back to his family.

i was actually taping a podcast for thirsty developer so the audio on the video is not great (since i did not want to mess around with mixing the recorded audio with the video). actually the video is not great either since i did not bring a tripod and had my camera sitting on a pillow on an ottoman and it clearly sunk (remind me to yell at my boss for not getting me some good video gear).

even with the poor equipment setup, the video was still worthwhile to post alongside the thirsty developer podcast (which also contains another chat i had at techready, but i will save that for a different post). it really is amazing that a corporate vice president at msft can be so down to earth and understand the community that he serves. it also helps that he is wicked smart too!