Visual Studio Team Biography Program Started
Check out the biographies page that has been set up here. Members of the “Core” Visual Studio team were asked to submit their biographies to this site. You can check out what I wrote here. I think it’s cool that they have also decided to pull in our last blog entries into the space. Though, once I saw that I thought… Why not just pull my biography description from an article on my blog so that I can update it without going through MSDN? Maybe version 2.0? I also now have what I consider an acceptable bio pic to post here. :)
Overtime you might expect that more teams and more people from Visual Studio will have their biographies posted. With some better organization and searching the benefit to customers will be improved relationships with members of the Visual Studio team. Let’s say I have a problem with my menus and toolbars in Visual Studio. Through the biographies I know that Paul is the developer responsible. I can send him a mail directly and start a conversation about how I would like the menus to work and the problems I face.
It works up the chain to. Currently you can read about my boss, my boss's boss, and even my boss's boss's boss! He is our team's Product Unit Manager. His link is currently down, but it should be fixed soon.
Enjoy and send us feedback!
Comments
- Anonymous
April 19, 2004
There's a discussion about the bios going on over at Channel9: http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=4048. - Anonymous
April 19, 2004
Hmm ... I expect that some of execs in Microsoft will shutdown (or slow-down) personal activities soon. Why ?
It will be hard to retain current people if everybody will know about them, can contact them easily and will be ready to hire them.
Ask your wife - how likely will Microsoft hire a wellknown person or somebody without Google-able past ?
How easy it will be to find and hire a person working on outstanding Intel compilers if they will have blogs ?
Quote from JobsBlog - "Blogs as living resumes".
Then persons are known to public - company is no longer a company, but simply current workplace for people.
It was a big "NO NO" to blame and share opinion about anybody working in Microsoft then posting in private beta newsgroups (the only one point of direct access to Microsoft developers at that time). Instead you had to focus your opinions on Microsoft overall and it's strategies.
Now there is no such a solid company picture.
Every person can be under attack and pretend to have own opinions that can contradict with Microsoft overall. You are no longer a part of company - but a person from somethere outside.
I'm working as consultant - but my personal opinions never disclosed to any third-party. Even in case company I work for disagree with me.
Personal opinions sometimes can be result of incomplete information available to person, and persons desigions can be flawed, while overall company desigions are correct.
Possibly I'm wrong. But it will be nice to find some stats from Microsoft to know/compare current people retain/flow ration.
P.S> I'm unsure. Plz correct me if something wrong. Can it be that public blogs are simply a top of internal (Microsoft-only) blogs iceberg ? - Anonymous
April 19, 2004
AT - I think the only advantage a "google-able" person has over a "non-google-able" is that they are easy to find and identify. All things being equal, the fact someone has a blog does not make them a more desirable candidate for a job.
That said, you are right in that blogs.mdsn.com is a recruiter's dream. Heck, I think any recruiter worth their salt should have already started contacting every MS employee on msdn. Not sure they have ... but I would if I didn't already work here. :)
On the other hand, I'm not so sure MS employees (especially those with blogs on msdn) would be woo-ed away from MS that easily. For them to even have a blog and post about work topics on MSDN implies they are passionate about their work, product, and company.
I'm not going to tackle the rest of your comment. :) - Anonymous
April 19, 2004
The comment has been removed - Anonymous
April 19, 2004
"I think it’s cool that they have also decided to pull in our last blog entries into the space. Though, once I saw that I thought… Why not just pull my biography description from an article on my blog so that I can update it without going through MSDN? Maybe version 2.0?"
Could certainly be done. Just send us a category ;)
TTFN - Kent - Anonymous
April 19, 2004
A couple of points:
1. An e-mail went out asking for volunteers rather than forcing people to do this.
2. I don't think my Blog entries, or anyone else's on blogs.msdn.com are stupid. If they were I'd have a really hard time explaining why readership only goes up every week.
3. If publishing ones last name and email address on the web allows someone to steal another persons identity then I'd imagine the thieves would steal a lot of other peoples identities before mine.
4. Actually, just like blogs.msdn, the pictures do help me form a connection I would have otherwise not had with team members within VS. (Assuming that the program goes beyond my team.) From the customer perspective I actually outlined the scenario where it helps.
5. If you work for a Microsoft then you do create tools for the public. - Anonymous
April 19, 2004
The comment has been removed - Anonymous
April 19, 2004
AT: Yes, there are some internal only blogs, but I think the external volume has now surpassed them.
As far as the PR problem created by the public activities. It's a price that most executives emphatically believe they are willing to pay. Especially here in the developer space for the transparency with our customers and platform we gain.
From what I've seen there is actually more push back from team members about things like blogs and biographies than there is from executives.