Microsoft (Excell Data)

Program Manager

MSN Advertising Solutions

2007 – Present

I implement advertising on top web sites in a cross team, cross division, cross company process.

When Microsoft makes an announcement about winning a new web site partner into their display advertising family, they are talking about our very small team of about 4 or 5 people.

Including me there are two program managers that implement MSN ads on multiple web sites.  I am the one they give the external to Microsoft sites. 

Pre-contract I design and create marketing and training documents and materials and interact with the potential partner to help solve technical issues.

During implementation I do what ever needs to be done.  Sometimes this is technical developer support, sometimes testing and coding and always end to end technical problem solving.

Post-contract most of my attention goes to making sure that the implementation runs smoothly and efficiently. I guard the partner from too much Microsoft process while blending seamlessly into their process

My partners include Digg.com, Piczo.com and Facebook.com.

These are high-touch partners for Microsoft, so I continue the relationship post launch proactively looking for issues.  This could be anything from communicating the practical details of a data center slow down to establishing a relationship for them with another Microsoft team. 

I also design, spec and drive features to improve this scenario across advertising, MSN and Microsoft.

Consulting

January 2000 – 2007

Part of a small team that developed a proposal at the request of the Deputy Prime Minister of a major Southeast Asian country.  We were charged with kick starting their national strategy of becoming a top destination for software project outsourcing.  Topics covered included: reviewing strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, identifying the ideal niche to target and what course should they take to achieve their goals.

One of the largest law firms in the U.S needed a way to recruit top law school graduates.  I designed a comprehensive corporate response detailing how the firm could reach out to and create a social network with the best upcoming students during their preparation for the LSATs. 

The proposal made excellent use of Web 2.0 strategies such as social networks, blogs, podcasts and wikis. 

I created many customer web sites, including an award winning company marketing site. 

When creating these sites I used HTML and Flash, ASP.NET, C#, and SQL Server, JavaScript (AJAX) and other technologies.   These sites ranged in size from 10 to 50 pages.  My creative look tended to be described as clean and crisp, with a restrained and strategic use of razzmatazz. 

Microsoft

Word, MSN, Game Zone, Commerce Server, Windows & eBook

1989 –2002  

Program Management

This included writing specs, driving issues through many internal and external teams and working closely with the feature team to define and achieve our goals. Formed and managed virtual teams for multiple feature areas.

Organized a training event for the Microsoft Technical Briefing that received near perfect attendee feedback scores. Spoke and demoed at conferences, including many presentations at the Microsoft Executive Briefing Center.

Performed a variety of special projects, including managing a Comdex pre-launch event, which was the first public showing of the Microsoft Reader.  Other projects include managing the usability and research staff.   Performing new product feasibility studies and performing company acquisition due diligence. 

Test Management

Top priority was to never let the rest of the product team be surprised by the actual state of the project.

Staffed up and managed teams that ranged from 4 to 60 people.  Managed external testers both local and overseas.  Was responsible for million dollar budgets. People from other disciplines often commented on the excellence of my team and really liked the wide range of perspectives that I made sure were represented. I took great pride in having exceptional team morale rankings.

Shipped products for PCs and mobile devices. Shipped applications, Windows features, graphical operating system layers, authoring tools and online properties. Created and executed Overall Test Plans. Created and managed the creation of test plans, test cases, test automation (systems and cases), brainstorms and reviews. I was famous for always having a check list for everything; some of these lists became company-wide best practices. 

Development (SDE/T, DSE)

Shipped 12 versions of Word for Windows, including the 1.0 version. Responsible for WinWord 1.0’s entire setup program.

Responsible for design and implementation of automated testing system. Designed and maintained product and competitive benchmarks. Organized bug reporting and automated response system for the technical beta sites. Tested the entire Word Basic language.

During the roll out I participated in a body swap with Product support services and from that experience I created the Beta Buddy program where product team members paired up with prolific beta users to funnel valuable feedback to the team.  This program eventually went corporate wide.