Passing the Tiara - Retiring as Blog Queen and GDN Princess
Some of this will likely take folks as a surprise (although the hallways have been buzzing around here as the internal mails have flown around), but today I am stepping down from my position as queen of Microsoft employee blog sites and principal program manager for Gotdotnet to take a new position at MSN (aka Windows Live).
Apparently, what I'm working on is not yet ready for blog consumption, and I'd have to shoot myself if I blogged about it, which would be a bummer because I don't have a gun.. Plus I'd rather die coding, man! Er...well maybe....I'd rather die shot by a jealous blogger. Er...ok, I'd like to go in my sleep actually of old age, with people convinced around me I got an unfair share of love and happiness.
I will continue to be a program manager and I will continue to work in the community spaces (These are the voyagers of the Starship Enterprise...) where no one like me has gone before because frankly,. I ain't been there yet and other people are not crazy enough.
The new queen of GDN and blogs is Jana Carter who can take both projects to lands of perky happiness I could not dream of. She is an avid community advocate inside and outside Microsoft and is totally psyched for the challenge. Plus, she's run a marathon. Anyone who can do that level of pain, can take anything cranky bloggers or Gotdotnet servers can throw at them.
Is it sad to leave? Yeah, it is. GDN has been my baby since I came to work for Microsoft, and the blogs naturally grew out of that. But, both projects are now at a good place for what Sandy Khaund and Korby and crew hope to do in the future, and I'm leaving them in the hands of a person who "gets it" about community and putting customers first. You can't ask for better than that.
So from now on, this blog will be about blogging and community and collaboration - but in a whole new way perhaps, and not from the person who troubleshoots employee blogs or Gotdotnet bugs, but from the person hoping to earn a new tiara. Or at least propeller-head hat. I could live with a dorky propeller if it levitated me.
Live it vivid!
Betsy
