Why I love working at Microsoft, part 658

anandi — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 02:51:00 GMT

I had intentions of posting here at least weekly. I even have a reminder in my Outlook calendar to tell me to blog. It's just so easy to ignore it. But I've been ruminating on this blog post for a few weeks, and now that I have several items to blog about, it's finally that time. Also, December is traditionally a more quiet month around here as folks who don't take vacation during the year frantically take the entire month of December off so as not to lose those precious vacation days.

This is when I get all my "if I had time, I'd fix that..." work done. I LOVE it.

So in no particular order, here are some reasons why I love working at Microsoft, all of which are due to things I've experienced in the past month.

Opportunities to network with other teams. Yesterday, the Windows Server Womens' group had a lunchtime origami class. An experienced origamist who works as a User Experience Researcher in the Unified Communications Group taught us how to fold a crane, and a small box. Obviously the point was not to ensure that we incorporate origami in our software designs, but it was a social opportunity to meet other women across the division, and just relax a bit in the midst of a busy work week. It was fun, and stretched my brain in a totally different way. I love that Microsoft supports these kind of activies for its employees. And that we even *have* a Womens' Group! Yay.

Events and activities that support my interests outside of work. There's a fairly large number of people here who are into art or crafts, which surprises me for a software company. There's a social email list for artists and handcrafters, and the Microsoft Art Collection has guided tours of the collection, as well as discussion groups and speakers from the art world. Obviously a lot of this has to happen on my own time (ie, it's still my top priority to get my real work done), but the fact that these things are available for my participation and actually sanctioned by work? That's just cool.

Unlimited opportunities for learning. I've always been totally enamored with the huge course catalog available to employees here. Anything from specific technical skills to touchy-feely workshops about conflict management are all available and usually free or nominal cost. I've never had a request to attend a specific training class turned down by a manager. A few weeks ago, I went to an "exam prep" course for a few days to work on my Project Management Professional (PMP) certification. It was invaluable, both in learning some things I didn't know about the PMI methodology, but of course, as a refresher before I took the exam. As a result I passed the exam without too much trouble. And this was all totally supported my my management chain. What a fantastic deal!

So yeah, I know it's not "hip" or "cool" to love your corporate job, but there you have it. To borrow a phrase from Steve (but with less yelling), I love this company! :)

Run, don't walk, to this training class!

anandi — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 00:59:00 GMT

Yikes. Yet again, I've waited too long to post to my blog. I can't believe it's been 2 months!!

I actually have a real speech-related topic this time, though. Last week, I went to the 5-day course called "Speech Applications: Planning, Voice User Interface Design, and Tuning" held in Seattle. It was taught by Bruce Balentine and David Attwater from EIG, one of our Speech partners (and a TAP participant!).

I was a little worried at the prospect of going to a 5-day class and the mountains of work that awaited me back at the office. But wow, it was totally worth it. Both of the instructors were extremely knowledgable and had a lot of real-world experience and examples to back up what they were saying. Unlike many other technical classes I've taken, the instructors didn't just read from the PowerPoint slides but just used them as a general outline to impart their wisdom to us.

There were a few group exercises which really reinforced what we were learning and actually gave me some great insight into what our customers do with their IVRs since everyone else in the course was working on an IVR for their company or for a client.

The course material was developed by Microsoft, but the class itself doesn't focus exclusively on Microsoft solutions, rather it's a more general intro to ASR, IVR systems and the specific design principles to use based on what we know about human factors and psychology.

I originally signed up for it a year ago, when I was relatively new to the Speech Server team, but I was sick the week of the class, so I was allowed to attend this session to make it up. I wish I had been able to take the class last year - it would have given me more of a technical background to understand the issues and feedback our customers have been reporting through our TAP and Beta programs.

In short, it was a fantastic class and a great use of my time. I'm usually very critical about classes but this one was well worth it.

It may seem expensive, but the things you'll learn about VUI design will translate into $$ saved for your company when more of your customers stick with your well-designed IVR app rather than asking to speak with an agent.

If you have any specific questions about the class, please post them in the comments and I'll try to answer them. The next session is in Chicago next month - check it out! (Really, no one is paying me for this review. It really was *that* good.)

Anandi’s Thoughts : training

Why I love working at Microsoft, part 658

Run, don't walk, to this training class!