Looking Back

Exactly one week from today, it will be my first anniversary here at Microsoft. It has been quite an experience and eye-opener for me. I knew that Microsoft Consulting Services is always changing in order to better server our customer’s needs and to improve our customers and partners experience.
Combine that with the turbulent times we lived in the last 2+ years and as a result we have constant change. I joined MS in December 2008 and 7 months later the Global Practice had been reorganized and refocused. Our new focus is more what I was used to with my previous employers, so it was a change that I quickly internalized.
In this new role I have been exposed to mission critical projects for real customers. It has been exciting to work with the best side by side in establishing the Microsoft Platform in areas that usually are owned by Unix/Linux.
In this year I also had the opportunity to meet and get to know people outside the MCS organization. It has been exciting working with them and supporting them in readiness events around the world. Readiness is another exciting and familiar line of work for me. I started my career in 92′ as a Sybase and PowerBuilder instructor and technology consultant + support engineer. That was a role that I really enjoyed and accelerated my growth in the technology space. I do remember putting together custom training on Visual Basic 1.0 and how to develop Client/Server apps in VB 1.0 and Sybase. I remember “jimmy-rigging” the MS Access db scripts to execute them in Sybase in order to connect MS Access directly to a Sybase DB. good times!
You must me thinking, what a geek! Well, part of me still a geek, but in the last 10 or 11 years I discovered that in order to continue to grow I had to become business savvy and bridge the gap between technology and business. These two models exist in any enterprise and someone has to make them work together. That is a role I enjoy. As I continue to do that here at Microsoft I get a chance to do just that with a Platform that is Business and Enterprise Ready.