Interesting People in Seattle Part 1: Steve and Javed - Microsoft Legacies and OBA Mashups
so we meet again...
It's a great perk as a field employee. I get the opportunity at least once a year to visit the mother ship and load up on technical training to fight the future. Here are some of the interesting people I met this time (I use "met" loosely - sometimes it was in a sea of 6,000 other Microsofties from 95 (!) countries around the globe).
Meet Steve...
As I flitted from session to session looking for Hyper Visor nirvana or RIA goodies, I stumbled upon a session that was labeled "unplugged with Steve". What a find! Steve Sinofsky fielded hardball/softball questions, was funny yet firm in his responses and refreshingly candid. Very cool. He has a blog: Discussion for college grads interested in learning about careers at Microsoft. While this particular blog hasn't been updated in 2 years (Steve now blogs internally - a must read for Microsofties), poke around it, there are some real gems there including...
Meet Javed...
I've met Javed before, but this time I stole some of his cheesecake at the factory across the street :) Javed was talking about the great advances in building vertical and industry focused Office Business Applications (OBA). His team just delivered an enterprise OBA mashup tool - eat your heart out Popfly! Watch the video, download the bits and join us at our Health and Life Sciences Developer Conference in April for a deeper dive on the OBA mashup tool.
In my head these guys are related based on a question Javed was mulling out loud (it reminded me of themes in Steve's writings - external and internal):
"What will your legacy be at Microsoft?"
Javed gave me his answer: hiring great people. He is looking to hire a few great people. I'm working on my legacy.
Thank you Norm (our host) for the great show.
See you tomorrow, same place, same time for other interesting people...
