My first post!

Much more info to follow as I get my blog-ducks in a row, but for now:

I am a Project Coordinator at the Microsoft Enterprise Engineering Center (aka the EEC, blog here; recent eWeek article on us here), on the main Microsoft campus in Redmond, WA.  Our team hosts enterprise-level customers for software test engagements, where we replicate a part of a (or whole) customer's environment and assist them with validating their plans to deploy or migrate to Microsoft server-family software.  We help them identify areas in their plans that need adjusting, and we collect bugs and other feedback on our products which we deliver to the product teams so that they can improve their quality.  By doing this, we both: a) increase customers' confidence in their deployment plans, help them mitigate risks and accelerate their project, and; b) increase the quality of Microsoft's products by testing them in a real-world environment. 

My role at the EEC is mainly at the 'front desk', where the customers' Microsoft account team representatives or consultants first contact us to schedule test engagements.  I help gather the information we need to determine when and how we can meet their needs.

I also give many tours of our facility to visiting customers.  You can see a tour I helped give to Robert Skoble of Channel 9, along with my colleague Scott Napolitan, here.

Outside of work, I enjoy playing guitar and collecting music.  I was a DJ in a former life, and while I don't do it professionally anymore I do enjoy 'playing' DJ and making mix tapes. (Yes, tapes.  I do like the old skool.)

Much more info to come, both work and non-work related.

Thanks for reading!
j