Brian Groth's Life at Microsoft

Messenger TV - my latest project

For the last few months I have been creating something we call Messenger TV. Today, John Mangelaars (the Vice President I report up to) announced it in London on CNN and CNBC. It is available in 20 countries (Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, India, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, & the UK). This represents 12 languages (Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, & Swedish). Needless to say, I have been quite busy over the last few months. Notice though, that it is not available in the USA or Japan yet, but we're working on that.

The interesting thing to me, and has been a challenge, is that this is a world-wide rollout, but my remit is to focus on the Windows Live business in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

Our marketing site that explains the product is at http://messengertv.msn.com/

Further information about how to use the product is on the blog I currently maintain for the related Windows Live Agent at http://messengertv.spaces.live.com/

The press has been picking it up too. I especially like seeing it mentioned in Reuters, CNBC, CNN, Bloomberg.com, the Seattle Times, and the Calgary Herald. If you search for the Windows Live Agent (MessengerTV@Live.com) you can see that 261 (as of this posting) sites are linking to the agent.

You can of course use Live Search to find a variety of news articles where Messenger TV is appearing.

About Brian Groth

For the time being, I will be using my MSDN blog as a sort of landing page about me. So to learn more about me, please see:

1. The Live in Europe blog for topics about my current role as the product manager for Windows Live in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
2. My miscellaneous business, marketing, and leadership articles.
3. My resumé/CV, which is a little out of date, but not too bad then follow it up with the reasons why I work at Microsoft.
4. My personal blog, which is mostly about living in London, various adventures, and of course my dog Milo.
5. My "official" biography that I happily share with press and analysts follows:

Brian Groth

Product Manager, Windows Live Services, EMEA

Brian Groth, is the product manager for Windows Live, in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). Windows Live is Microsoft’s set of online services aimed at consumers. Designed to keep consumers informed, connected and protected it includes the world’s most popular instant messaging service, Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Hotmail, the world’s most popular free web mail and Windows Live Spaces, Microsoft’s popular blogging service.

In this role, Brian is responsible for bringing new products and services to market, growing the user base across EMEA and growing the time consumers spend online using the Windows Live set of services. He is also responsible for expanding the Windows Live audience into new areas and services such as Windows Live Mobile, which provides all the Windows Live communications services on mobile phones and Live Search, Microsoft’s search engine.

A seasoned Microsoft employee, Groth has been with the company for 13 years. Prior to this role he was based in Microsoft’s Seattle headquarters working as Business Manager for Windows Live. Groth began his career at Microsoft in 1994 as a Support Engineer and since then has held a number of positions including Group Program Manager at Microsoft’s Redmond Technology Centre and then Business Manager for the World-Wide Microsoft Technology Centre.

Groth is based in London and in his spare time, enjoys hiking, snow sports and playing with his dog.

Windows Live product team blogs

The following is an updated list of product team blogs for Windows Live and related online products from Microsoft. You can always find this list. Below, I have loosely organized the list by product to help make it easier to understand the relationships between these blogs.

Messenger    Agents    Games    Messenger Support    Alerts

Hotmail    Mail (desktop)    Email Support

Spaces    Writer    Photo Gallery

SkyDrive Live Folders

Development    Live ID    Spaces Development

Admin Center

Live Search    Virtual Earth

Mobile

Live Gallery

AdCenter

OneCare Family Safety

MSN Video

New blog for Windows Live in Europe

I now work on a team in EMEA (Europe, Middle East, & Africa) focused on Windows Live, MSN, and Search. We just launched a new blog at http://liveineurope.spaces.live.com/ called "Live in Europe" to highlight some of the features and promotions specific to these products in Europe.

Brian Groth's Latest Marketing & Management Tips

Business and Marketing Leadership Tips

Below are my blog entries that are related to leadership, management, and marketing. I don't post very often anymore, but when I read up on something interesting, I will add it to the list.  

Marketing

1. New approaches to sales and marketing plans
2. Buzz Marketing
3. The Future of Marketing (is here now)
4. The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
5. Your Marketing Message
6. Brands to be Passionate About
7. Monitoring the Buzz
8. Measuring your Marketing

Leadership

1. Principals for Leadership

2. Giving Feedback
3. Active Listening
4. Selling Your Vision
5. The Upwardly Global MBA
6. Strategy Focused Organization
7. Leadership Practices, Behaviors, and Commitments
8. Applying Ideas from Good to Great
9. 'The Leadership Challenge' and 'Execution'
10. The McKinsey Mind

General Business

1. Balanced Scorecard
2. Business Acumen
3. Tips for a Good Business Plan
4. What is in a good business plan?
5. Problem Solving, the McKinsey Way
6. Customer-Sensing Capability Systems
7. Executing on your Sales Strategy
8. Recommended Statistics Refresher Info
9. The World is Flat
10. businessThink
11. Sun-Tzu and the Art of Business
12. Organizational Change Management

General Management

1. Negotiating and/or Meetings
2. Be Aware of What Is Behind Your Actions
3. Managing Yourself
4. Managing Creativity
5. Hiring Great People
6. Motivating your Employees
7. Growing Skills and Driving Careers
8. MSF Agile
9. Handbook for a Manager
10. All courseware from the MIT Sloan School of Management
11. How to Win Friends & Influence People

Related Stuff About Me

1. My Resume so you know what work I've been doing
2. My Myers-Briggs Type Indicator: ISTJ
3. My Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument (HBDI) Results
4. Six Sigma Green Belt Certification
5. 360 Degree Review
6. Why I work at Microsoft

Build apps without writing code: Popfly

Microsoft just announced Popfly and once it is available for everyone to use, we can all build interesting applications on the web, all without writing code. Michael Gannotti explains it best on his blog. 

Windows Live Hotmail Ships

The Hotmail team's blog says it all and you can also check it out before upgrading, Soon you will be able to use Outlook to get to your Hotmail, and it will be VERY fast. That means you can use the best e-mail client (Outlook 2007) with a free e-mail server (Hotmail), then when you are on the road, you can use it from the web (http://mail.live.com).  

Useful Windows Live Links

Messenger: PC Client Version 8.1 / Mobile Client / Mobile Browser / Add-Ins / Online Help / Service Status / Support Blog / Newsgroup Discussions / Authorized Vendors / Team Blog / Feedback
Hotmail: Web Version / PC Client Version / Mobile Client / Feedback
Spaces: Web Version / Mobile Browser / Windows Live Writer / Feedback

Measuring Your Marketing

How do you know where to invest your marketing dollars, how much to invest, and if you are getting a good return for that investment? I just read "Marketing and the Bottom Line" which covers these topics and stresses the importance of measuring the impact of your marketing. Among other things, it has a great list of questions to get you thinking about what to measure. These include, in my own language:

1. Do you research your customer motives and behaviours?
2. Have you aligned your marketing metrics with your marketing strategy?
3. Have you quantified what success means and how to measure it?
4. Are you connecting marketing activities with your performance in-market and your financial performance?
5. Does your top management pay close attention to those connections and metrics?
6. Do you compare actual performance to forecasted performance of those metrics?
7. Do you compare your performance of those metrics to the performance of your competitors?
8. How does brand equity enter into the evaluation of marketing activities?

In my opinion, if you are good at marketing, then you can answer yes to all of these questions.

Designing Cool Websites

Check out the Microsoft Expression Blend product to "create engaging web-connected experiences for Windows". Scoble even just blogged about it, sort of. Check out the features on the Blend page (just hover over each one) and you'll see how cool it is.

Now if I only had time to play around with it and develop something!

I would like to see someone use Blend to build a really cool Windows Live (or Vista) Gadget with the Windows Live Contacts Conrol.  

Marketing 2.0 Manifesto

John Dodds has an interesting list of things to keep in mind if you are in any sort of role related to, or in, Marketing. See his Marketing 2.0 Minifesto

Search for Management and Leadership Topics

Yes, I am playing with information from the Live Search blog regarding SiteOwner searches.

Enter a topic here to find a management or leadership article I have written:

Search My Blog - via a cool popup window

Staying in Touch via Windows Live

So far, the following is working quite well for us to stay in contact with friends and family:

1. Run Windows Live Messenger: http://Messenger.Live.com and login when you are online - make sure we are setup as each other's "buddies".
2. Get the Microsoft LifeCam VX-6000 so we can see each other via Video, plus of course talk to each other (all for no cost other than your connection to the Internet). The VX-6000 has better video and voice quality than the other webcams on the market. 
3. Get a Windows Live Spaces site: http://Spaces.Live.com so we can post photos and stories about what's going on in our lives. And when running Messenger, we see when each other's Spaces site has been updated just by the little "gleam" next to each other's names.

So far, we have had Video chats with my folks, my brother, and Lorie's folks.... soon others too.

Landed in London

We've made it and I'm now working out of the London office. I will now be focused on the following products for all countries in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa:

1. Windows Live Messenger: See http://messenger.live.com
2. Windows Live Spaces: See http://spaces.live.com
3. Windows Live Mail (and Hotmail until WL Mail replaces it): See http://mail.live.com

If you have any problems or want to provide feedback, please use http://Feedback.live.com