I was recently interviewed by Fairchild TV (a national Chinese language station) for a segment about the Vancouver tech scene.
If you’re interested in the story, here are links to the video. Note that it’s a Cantonese language station.
(You can download the video if you find it's playing too slowly on the site.)
Part 1:
http://www.fairchildtv.com/newsarchive_detail.php?n=27&topic=375&episode=690
Part 2:
http://www.fairchildtv.com/newsarchive_detail.php?n=27&topic=375&episode=691
The Microsoft (MSDN) MVP blog decided to quote one of my posts on the Microsoft SharePoint Conference this year.
My post is called SharePoint Conference as an Attendee. I also wrote another called Wading into the SharePoint Conference and I’ll be posting some notes from the sessions I attended. For example, SharePoint 2013 Conference–Upgrade Deep Dive.
As you can see by the “old school” counter below, geeklit recently passed the 400,000 page views mark. (Yes, that’s views, not hits, so 400,000 people saw one page, or if it was one person—well that person really likes my blog.) This has me feeling a little nostalgic about the path that this blog has taken.
In the early days, it was very much about Halo. (And trying to be an advocate for legitimate Halo modders. Modding isn’t about cheating damn it!) The first post for this blog was written Monday, January 31, 2005 and the majority of the posts at that time were about my Halo books: Black Art of Halo Mods (Sams), Halo 2 Hacks (O'Reilly) and Halo 2 Battle Guide (Thompson). There was also some content about Microsoft Content Management Server (MCMS) and the book I co-authored about that software: MCMS: A Complete Guide (AW). I don’t feel bad ‘plugging’ these titles because they’re so old now that I don’t think anyone is interested in paying for them anymore.
- this image was in the first post with the caption “I don't recall whether this was staged or not”
Of course, after leaving Microsoft, I eventually made it back into the fold (although writing books about Halo and XNA—how far did I really roam?) when I joined metalogix and started blogging and writing books about content management again—of course, Microsoft had consolidated on SharePoint by that point.
I’ve had people tell me over the years that my blog is eclectic, and I’ve always agreed with that assessment. Whether it was chronicling a drive across Canada, or writing about some development topic such as adding Growl/Prowl push notifications to SharePoint applications, I have jumped around a bit.
There is a common thread though, whether it’s Halo, MCMS, SharePoint, coding for XNA, or even highlighting the no left turn to Tim Hortons sign in Fredericton, it’s all pretty geeky.
During the Microsoft MVP Summit Earlier this month, I participated in a video question session where Microsoft MVPs talked about how they currently use online resources.
If you blink, you’ll miss me, but you can see the video on TechNet.com. I’ll have to work on my showmanship—although, in my defense, I was sick as a dog during the conference and trying to keep that fact to myself.
Question 2 in the same series.
I’m happy to say that I’ve received a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) Award for SharePoint.
What is that you ask? According to Microsoft:
“This award is given to exceptional technical community leaders who actively share their high quality, real world expertise with others. We appreciate your outstanding contributions in SharePoint Services technical communities during the past year.”
In practical terms, this means helping with community-focused resources such as contributing to the SharePoint newsgroups, speaking at conferences, writing about SharePoint and contributing to CodePlex (an open source site used by the SharePoint community).
Getting into the MVP program has been a long story for me. Back in 2001, NCompass Resolution became Microsoft Content Management Server (MCMS) and I had started what became the MCMS FAQ. The FAQ was a searchable CHM containing hundreds of questions and answers. I created it partly for the consulting team, but it was mainly targeted at the community at large. When NCompass Resolution became MCMS, I wondered if I could be an MVP. However (and I’m not complaining), I was hired by Microsoft and employees aren’t eligible for the MVP program.
In 2004, the MCMS team was folded into the SharePoint team, and I started getting involved with the SharePoint community. But I took a break to do some writing, so it really wasn’t until 2008 that I was deeply involved with SharePoint community activity.
Thank you to everyone who helped along the way. My employer, Metalogix Software, has been tremendously supportive and I wouldn’t have received this award without their help.
“That UBC even has a pep song – let alone a newly recorded one – may prompt some surprise. University fight songs are rare in Canada, where the tradition isn’t held as dear as in the United States.
At UBC, an older version of Hail UBC that’s been kicking around since the 1930s wasn’t even suitable to be played over the loudspeakers at games.
This proved troubling to UBC associate athletic director Steve Tuckwood and former athletic director Bob Hindmarch, who last year began asking around for a new version of ‘Hail UBC.’” [more]
- UBC’s Cecil Green Park House – where I was lucky enough to get married
this is part II of a story about software support and how I moved through various jobs...
part I - support serf to writer: a how-to
when I joined NCompass, the .com economy was at it's peak. it was the time when great things could happen for a technology company. but it was clear to some people that the glory days wouldn't last forever. one NCompass manager told me at a company hockey game that "being an internet-focused company right now is like being in a gold rush -- everyone is trying to get their before the gold runs out." it was this sort of thinking that led the NCompass board to tell its executives to spend like "drunken sailors".
<how-to section>
I started at NCompass labs as a trainer. this was a good example of getting my foot in the door so that I could work towards other things. I wanted to do something more technical, but it was a way to get some experience at a software company. I believe that getting your foot in the door is the key to making big strides. by working along side the right people, I was able to form relationships that lasted for years. some people call it networking but that almost implies that it's some form of deception. genuine relationships are far more valuable.
</how-to section>
that position didn't work out -- I simply wasn't a good fit for what they were after. my manager and I simultaneously came up with the idea that I should move to the support department. most people would view this as a demotion -- yet another example of the support department not getting enough credit for the crucial role that it plays.
when I moved to support, there were about a half dozen support reps. although, one was soon fired for using company time and resources to run his own support business. after he was canned, he tried to get a product key for Resolution; he actually called the help desk and pretended to be a customer. the support rep recognized his voice and told him that we would have to check his credentials. when we contacted the customer, they confirmed that the caller had used a fictitious name.
the most challenging aspect of supporting Resolution was that NCompass didn't track how many cases each customer logged. believe it or not, we were also responsible for free pre-sales support. during this period, there were about 350 open cases and six people to handle them. in contrast, Microsoft tries to keep their case allocation to less than 20 per support rep. hiring was extremely difficult during the bubble, but NCompass did eventually increase the support staff to around a dozen people. the days when one person had 100 cases (which actually happened) were over.
I enjoyed the experience of working on something that was innovative. at the time, it was unusual for anyone to use a database on their front-end web servers. Resolution was meant to run in this fashion -- although there was a 'staging' option for those who weren't ready for the leap into dynamically rendered data or online web-based authoring. Resolution also had a top quality Application Programming Interface (API). the API was my favourite feature and I enjoyed playing around with it. in fact, I saw the API as the perfect way for me to hone my technical skills.
I tried many times to get sample applications added as part of my job responsibilities. one of my managers hated the idea -- the company need to keep people in the support department and he probably saw my interest as an attempt to get out. eventually we made a deal that I could volunteer my time as long as it didn't interfere with my actual job. the irony is that there was a need for such applications. at one point, the company ran a contest for the best sample app. the prize was an old foosball table that had just been supplanted by a proper tornado brand foos table. I won the table with a dynamic image gallery app. although, for posterity, I feel that I must note that I was the only one who finished on time.
I was having a good time working on sample apps, and NCompass was a fantastic environment. I was truly fortunate to be part of such a great company, but I still had to deal with the tribulations of being part of the support department. I was working in support despite the overshadowing knowledge that those of us on the front line would not get all that much respect from the industry. this is something that most support people just deal with.
there were times at NCompass when I received a great deal of recognition. however, these were almost always related to some work that was outside of my job description. people who worked hard within their defined support role were generally below the radar.
after NCompass had been absorbed into Microsoft, I heard a story that amazed me. one team in the company was told that they could go on a rabid spending spree weekend. they actually spent more money than I made in a year. the party was a celebration for meeting an annual goal. did free pre-sales support play a role in meeting that goal?
I've written about a pervasive lack of respect so I had better cite some examples. working at NCompass I was once asked to take over a case with an angry caller. the original support rep was so offended that he could not deal with the person in a rational manner. he later said that he felt like he was treated like a dog. you assumed that I was talking about a customer didn't you? no, it was an NCompass employee who had called. fortunately, that guy didn't last long. but it just goes to show that even within the company fold, support was considered a lower caste.
what role does support play? at NCompass I figured that the experiences of being on the front line were not systemic. surely at Microsoft things would be different... but would they?
I'll get to that, but I want to first address the obvious counter argument that is bubbling up in the minds of some of the readers out there. it goes like this: support is paid less and given fewer perks because the people in support aren't as skilled as those in groups such as development group or consulting. after all, software companies make software. the people in support don't make software.
first of all, the astute will see that there's already a crack developing in this logic. a company is comprised of many different parts. in order for the company to be successful, all of these parts must be functional. the argument about developers being the only contributors to a software product is ridiculous. without the sales team, how would the company make any money? without the support team, who would put out the fire when a company's web site goes down?
and what about the first part? the idea that only developers have skills. have you heard of a software product that didn't have bugs? no, me neither. the reason for this is that devs make mistakes. more often than not, the support group takes the flack for those mistakes. yes, it's true that management sometimes encourages errors with unrealistic timelines, but no one is perfect. people need to remember that the support department is created by the developers' mistakes.
saying that support staff aren't skilled is a gross generalization. for the purposes of this post, 'support' is primarily used to refer to problems that arise from actual product bugs. I am most certainly not referring to cases where the customer has created the problem through their inability to use the software. I'm not talking about supporting people who are having issues while writing their grocery list in word.
at microsoft there is a group in support called SIE. I think it stands for something like 'solutions integration engineering.' if you saw the cases that those folks handled, you would have a different impression of the skills of the support team. they are given cases which involve the interaction of countless technologies and network configurations. resolving cases that complex is an ability completely outside the scope of most developer's experience. in other words, complex debugging requires smart people with considerable training.
coming soon...
support serf to writer: part III (working at microsoft)
