George Bullock's WebLog

" Man"

gbullock — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 04:50:00 GMT

Taylor Parsons (new PM for MSCOM RSS Directory, the project I shipped [as PM] in May), Dave Morehouse (Product Manager for same) and I had a few spare minutes at the end of a meeting. Somehow, the fact that Dave previously lived in Alaska came up; this led to a discussion of the movie 'Grizzly Man'. I've never seen the movie but it sounds intriguing per Taylor's and Dave's descriptions.

As we were leaving Taylor said: "Have you seen 'Cobra Man'"; "No, I haven't; is it good?", was my naive (stupid?) response. "It's about a guy who hangs out with cobras", deadpanned Taylor.

Well, of course (I hope it's obvious) there is no such movie. However, I quickly realized Taylor had coined a phrase. Hence the title of the post. The possibilities are limitless...the usage less obvious.

A possibility: "I just got out of a meeting. It was totally 'Dev man', man."

Or, just amuse your friends by thinking up increasingly absurd, inane, or simply funny items to insert in <someThing>.

Managing Email with TRAF

gbullock — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 21:48:00 GMT

First, thanks to Peter Provost and Brad Wilson for introducing me to TRAF; I have been using the 'Getting Things Done' (GTD) system alongside my overall FranklinCovey time management system; GTD is very similar to TRAF but the order of actions is important and better in TRAF. GTD is 'Do, Delegate, Delete, Defer'. TRAF is 'Trash, Action, Refer, File'; this means you get all c--- out of the way first. I've taken TRAF and added some details around flagging, categories, to/cc, etc.

I also want to thank Jeff Sandquist. Jeff was the first Program Manager I worked with at Microsoft (Jan 2000 and on for a year or so) and I've been using on a daily basis many of the mail tricks he taught me back then; particularly, moving people around from to: to cc: (see below).

First, here's how I'm using TRAF:

T = Trash

At intervals during the day (first thing, after lunch, end-of-day) go through inbox and set to read anything useless (delete is fine as well)

R = Refer

After completing T identify anything that needs action from somebody else, not you. IMO, this is different from you needing to ask for help on an A item. The hope is that you are seeing the last of this thread.

A = Action

After completing T and R identify any mails that you can take action on without interrupting the larger flow of your day, then complete these. In some cases you will identify things that are so urgent that they need your immediate attention no matter what.

F = Follow-up

After completing T, R, and A identify things that are of various levels of importance, need action, but don't have to interrupt the larger flow of your day. Set a flag on these and set them to Read. Setup search folders: one to hold all flagged mail and one for Red Flag. I use this:

Red Flag = Need to handle or revisit by EOD

Blue Flag = Take a look by EOD if possible; track them regularly to turn them to Red Flag as necessary or to close.

Yellow Flag = Interesting but there will likely be little consequence if you don't get to them this week; track to change things to higher colors as needed; or close when you have time.

Green Flag = You have the green light to ignore these but might want to look at them sometime.

Why all the flagging? Because it allows me to really keep to a handleable minimum the mails to which I haven't yet responded but which require close tracking. This is instead of keeping them floating unread in the inbox. The result for me has been that I'm able to easily keep my inbox at one screenful of mail or less (no scrollbars visible). In that past I would sometimes keep 30-100 unread items. I had always reviewed them and had a good idea of what was in there but it was stressful and I would sometimes miss things.

A few other things I do:

Set color rules for the Inbox:

Red mail = To me

Grey mail = I'm on cc:

Some bright color = From management

Use search folders:

To: = to me

Cc: = I'm on cc:

Move names between to: and cc:

If only one person is being directly addressed I move everybody else to cc:

If more than one person is being directly addressed I move everybody else to cc: I bold any name references so people can focus on what I'm asking them

Archive mail

I don't bother with much of a folder hierarchy. Here are the .pst's I use:

Projects - I have a Projects .pst with a folders for each project I'm working on and sub-folders as needed.

Reference - This is a .pst with a single folder (Reference) into which I drop anything I might want to refer to later

mm-yyyy - Whenever the read mail in my Inbox starts to pile up I create a new .pst named for the month and year. I create two folders within it: Inbox and Sent Items. When ever necessary I empty the read items from Inbox (for that month) or the Sent Items (for that month) into the appropriate folder in this .pst. Given current search capabilities this is usually all the filter I need to be able to find mails.

Personal - I'd tell you more about this but, well, it's personal :)

PDC 2005 - Wed, 9/14 - Morning

gbullock — Wed, 14 Sep 2005 21:01:00 GMT

Keynote: Office 12: Steven Sinofsky demoed some very cool features in Share Point aspects of Office 12. InfoPath especially has some great updates. It will be interesting to see the developer response; there has been very little code in these demos but there really is a look of important advances for business automation scenarios; I do know that the new Office Tools book from Addison-Wesley has been flying out of the on-site bookstore so I believe there is definitely an interest in these possibilities among the Microsoft developer community.

Started the night with dinner: David Chappell, independent analyst and speaker par excellence, Ted Pattison, Joe Hummel, formerly with Developmentor and currently both working hard in the training space, Ted as a star training instructor with a focus on SharePoint; Joe as a college professor; also, Carl Franklin, Richard Campbell from .NET Rocks. In fact after everybody finished eating we recorded an on-site segment for .NET Rocks. Less than reverent, a lot of fun, and hopefully to soon be available on .NET Rocks.

Attended two parties last night:

Press Party at Figueroa Hotel; fire dancers, floating torch pans in the swimming pool, and the secret .NET Punch, very exotic. Saw Jeff Sandquist, one of the founders of Channel 9; Jeff was one of the first PMs I worked with at Microsoft. I still use many of the email tips, tricks, and protocols that Jeff taught me and still silently curse those who don't do things like: only put people on the to: if they have actions or are being directly asked a question in the mail (unless it's a general message you want everybody to read), keep things short (well, I don't always do that one well), etc. Jeff continues to play a leadership role in Channel 9 as well as overseeing evangelists and other aspects of Microsoft Platform Strategy. I also ran into Keith Pleas and Rockford Lhotka. Both of these guys helped me greatly in my development career (pre-Microsoft) through their books and articles; it's been fun getting to know them since I joined Microsoft and started attending Tech-Ed and PDC regularly. Rockie's Business Object book gave me a lot of great info and paradigms as I built business systems.

Then on to MSDN Magazine party; thanks to Josh Truppin for the invitations. There I ran into a bunch of people I've known over the years at Microsoft; Erica Wiechers, a great friend; she has been the anchor person for the .NET Show since its inception; I was lucky enough to be the MC for the 50th episode special. Erica did a great interview with Bill Gates for that show. Erica is here doing the PDC daily news as well as on-site reporting.

Jana Carter, Jeff Willis, Pete Coupland, and Tarlochan Cheema, all from the Microsoft.com Community Team all attended the party; it's been great hanging out with them and getting to them better here at the show.

We got home in plenty of time to get a good night's sleep so we're ready for another day of engaging with customers.

See you at Booth #36 at the Microsoft Pavilion.

George

PDC 2005 - Tue, 9/13: Afternoon

gbullock — Wed, 14 Sep 2005 03:00:00 GMT

I had a great time today working in the Microsoft Pavilion for the Microsoft.com Community team. I had a lot of interesting conversations with customers about how they use community to help them do their jobs (and to have fun, meet people, etc.). What I'm trying to discover is: -What does community mean to you? -What are your goals as you interact with community? -What are the features, sites, etc. you currently use to help you meet these goals? -How could these features, sites, etc. be better? One obvious answer is excellent search: our customers want to do their jobs efficiently and effectively and great search results go a long way toward helping that. People also use of lot of the other standard community features: chat, blogs, newsgroups, forums. I've provided links to our offering there but that shouldn't imply that these are the only sites people use. In fact, I want to be sure I understand what the best community sites are for people and why.

One thing I'm hearing consistently is how important it is for people to be able to find and interact with experts on a specific technology. A good time to remind people about our MVP program. Also an important reminder that we need to do a great job in community with making it easy to for people to find each other and get together to solve problems or just have fun. I actually got a chance to meet and talk with Francois Bonin, a developer from Ghana who's doing great work developing .NET community in Africa.

I spent some time talking to my good friend Curt Johnson from Addison-Wesley. I'm really excited about two of their new books: Build Master and Framework Design Guidelines. Build Master covers configuration management and is written by Vincent Maraia who's had years of experience shipping products at Microsoft. Framework Design Guidelines covers API and Framework design and is written by two guys who have had tons of experience doing this through their work on the .NET Class Libraries. This is an area in which I'm really looking to develop my skills so I'm looking forward to reading this one.

I also got a chance to catch up with Josh Truppin from MSDN Magazine. I've known Josh for years; both indirectly through reading the MSJ magazine before I came to Microsoft and directly during my years at MSDN. Josh was showing off his newish Nikon digital which still didn't have the key feature I've been looking for: making a picture of me look good :)

Tonight the obligatory rounds of parties begin; <sigh>I guess I'll have to attend a few. I'm actually having dinner with the Band on the Runtime guys and that will be excellent.

See you tomorrow at Booth #36 at the Microsoft Pavilion.

George

PDC 2005 - Tue, 9/13

gbullock — Tue, 13 Sep 2005 21:04:00 GMT

First official day here in LA; I ran into Chris Sells at the Westin this AM. He's one of my favorite Microsofties and I'm sorry that I won't be here for his presentation on Friday. If you're still here then be sure to catch his presentation.

Bill Gates keynote: A lot of excitement around the Windows VIsta and Office 12 demos. Really cool stuff: with Office as we know, there are many features that are rarely used: the 80% uses the 20% most of the time. Thinking is sometimes that people don't need all the features in there: where does Office go next? As these demos show, Office 12 is partly focused on surfacing these cool features so there basically as easy to use as e.g. File/Save. Very cool; my slide decks will definitely benefit.

Jim Allchin keynote: More cool demos, especially the much needed Super Fetch. Then Don Box, Anders Heljsberg, Chris Anderson showing Linq, etc. I know Don from my involvement with Band on the Runtime. He remains one of my favorite speakers and I hope to catch at least one of his sessions this week.

I'm getting ready to go to the Microsoft Community Team booth (#36). If you're jazzed about online community and want to help us do it better stop by and chat.

George

Hurricane Katrina relief efforts: we can help

gbullock — Fri, 09 Sep 2005 10:02:00 GMT

I read Michael Lehman's post earlier tonight regarding helping the victims of Hurricane Katrina. The Seattle area Red Cross is holding mass volunteer orientations over the next week. I know I'm going to try to make one this weekend before PDC. Also, I know that evacuees are being brought into WA. I'm going to see if there's some way that Microsoft can partner with Red Cross in some kind of 'adopt-a-family' program where Microsofties can get directly involved in helping people 1:1 adjust to their new situations. I'll post any developments on my blog.

PDC 2005

gbullock — Fri, 09 Sep 2005 05:21:00 GMT

I'm getting ready to head to LA for PDC 2005. I'll be representing the Microsoft.com Community team. Our primary goal is to build technologies that allow Microsoft customers to interact with each and with Microsoft. Current offerings include Microsoft.com Forums (http://forums.microsoft.com/msdn), Microsoft.com Chat (http://www.microsoft.com/communities/chats/default.mspx), the Microsoft.com Blog Portal (http://www.microsoft.com/communities/blogs/PortalHome.mspx ), Federated Community Services which powers the search at pages like (http://www.dotnetjunkies.com/search.aspx) and Smart Components for content syndication (note the web part-ish parts of this page; with the RSS buttons: (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/community/default.mspx). We working on a lot of exciting features for FY06 and we look forward to getting customer feedback at PDC.

I've attended every PDC since I joined Microsoft in 2000. The show is always incredibly exciting and a great chance for Microsofties to meet with the people who really count: our customers. Having been a developer on the Microsoft platform before joining Microsoft I have a special place in my heart for developers; and PDC is the best place to meet and talk with the developers who depend on our platform to allow them to really provide value through their work.

I've always had a great time at PDC; PDC 2003 was particularly fantastic: I was the Program Manager and guitarist for Band on the Runtime (Don Box, Ted Pattison, David Chappell, Carl Franklin, myself) and we had the opportunity to play on the roof of the Standard hotel as well as at the MVP party. Great fun and a wonderful chance to hang-out with some really great people: Don, Ted, David, Carl, and all the folks who were at the shows.

This should be another great show; sold-out, tons of great technologies to talk about and plenty of time to really dig in and understand our what our vital developer community is thinking, doing, and needing from our products.

George