On my mind...
I've been firing on all cylinders lately. Office move + fiscal year end + lots of nice weather (read: yard work)+ trying new things + mentoring our new intern (more about her later...she's fabulous). I naturally have a short attention span (did you already know that?) and so the thought of pulling off a complete, well-thought-out blog post...kinda out of the question at this point. Lotsa stuff on my mind...some things probably worthy of more discussion...
...review time. I have to admit, I hate writing my review. Obvious self-promotion seems sick and who likes to point out the stuff they need to work on? Sometime between now and Friday, the document must materialize. Dang. So, I've brought this up before because this is my second review since I've had my blog, but...how to measure blogging effectiveness. Yeah, it's totally part of my job now. I have to assume that because professional blogging is a hot topic, others are running into or will be running into the same issue. Guess I've got 2 days to figure this one out...
...also, user acceptance testing, third party recruiting tool feedback. It's been a big focus for me over the last week as well. I always like to be well-informed on innovations that will impact the industry, but it's really not part of my job. So what's the point, really? For the love of the industry? Because I want my opinion heard and I won't be ignored...i won't, i won't, i won't. Anyone else like this? Should I not be surprised that I found people that actually want to listen to me? What the?...
...getting a few steps closer to some resolution on my soap box issue; employee referrals and why follow-up is required. Sakun, our MBA intern (who has agreed to guest blog on the annual intern barbecue at Bill's house...I'm so jealous), is working on this. We'll share more info when we are farther downstream, but let's just say that our business partners are passionate about this and they are sharing their opinions (hmm, sounds like a competency of lots of people at Microsoft...more on that later, too). We are learning a lot and confirming things we thought we already knew (yeah, you guessed it, they will refer more people if we actually follow up with them...shocking!)...
...Planning a local finance open house...will post notice soon...um, right after I write my review...
...Microsoft marketing leader web chats via LiveMeeting. Interest or no? You tell me...
...And I am coming back to the Silicon Valley for a visit in August. Did ya miss me?...
...I need to take a big deep breath.
Comments
- Anonymous
June 22, 2005
The thing with reviews is that they're so short-sighted. I mean, coming from a developer perspective in my old job (I don't have formal reviews anymore working for a small company, yay!) we used to have maybe half a dozen "targets" and our performance was based on how well we do against those targets.
The problem is that a lot of our job was spent doing things that don't have a short-term benefit (and may be even detrimental in the short-term), so unless they're explicitly set as targets in your performance reviews, then it just looks like down-time.
Take unit testing as an example. If I wasn't writing unit tests for everything, then I could probably write code 50-75% faster. But then there'd be lots more bugs in my code as well. A lot of those bugs wouldn't have been found during initial development, and so it might not be for a number of years before you can actually measure a benefit from doing the unit tests.
That means that unless unit testing is explicitly set out as one of your targets (e.g.
"90% of new code will be covered by unit tests"), then from a review/performance point of view, they're bad for you!
Now unit tests, might not be a good example, because they generally will be set as one of your tarets (because people generally see them as good in the long-term), but things like what you're describing it's harder to explain. I mean, just because it's not directly related to your job, doesn't mean that doing all that stuff won't have a long term benefit.
Anyway, I'm probably just rambling now... - Anonymous
June 23, 2005
The comment has been removed - Anonymous
June 27, 2005
Be sure that you do a follow up post from Sakun on the intern BBQ! :) - Anonymous
June 27, 2005
Count me in as intersted in the marketing leader chats. - Anonymous
June 27, 2005
I'd love to see marketing leader chats. As an incoming APM to MS coming up in July, I'm always dying to gain more perspective on marketing at Microsoft! Your blog rocks! - Anonymous
June 28, 2005
Dean-good points. I am lucky that my chain of command understands that some of my activities(like blogging) pay off over the long term. But that kind if understanding can be a rarity considering the kinds of goals most teams work against.
Barry-given the close proximity to review time, people are going to think you are a plant ; ) If you ever figure out the thumb thing, let me know. Seems there should be more thumbs available for the exceptional, I think. Maybe the pinky finger is acceptable as well. - Anonymous
June 28, 2005
Dean-good points. I am lucky that my chain of command understands that some of my activities(like blogging) pay off over the long term. But that kind if understanding can be a rarity considering the kinds of goals most teams work against.
Barry-given the close proximity to review time, people are going to think you are a plant ; ) If you ever figure out the thumb thing, let me know. Seems there should be more thumbs available for the exceptional, I think. Maybe the pinky finger is acceptable as well.
Daryll-will do!
Jeff and Rafael-cool! I'm definitely going to work on that.