Even though we always see it coming, this is still an insanely busy time for my team (and for most Microsoft employees, I’d wager).
Fresh off the bus and home from TechEd, we plunged immediately into planning for our next fiscal year (we run our business on a calendar that starts on July 1 and ends on June 30). Our budgets, our individual and team commitments, and sometimes even our roles and responsibilities are re-examined and reset. We are in the middle of our rapidly closing window of time to define and get approval and resources for all that we plan to do over the next year.
And we plan to do a lot.
Here’s what my day was like yesterday:
5:00am Wake up—not an easy feat after only 3 hours of sleep (and I’m not alone—had e-mail conversations with team at 1:00am) 6:00am Drive to work. 7:00am Conference call with our international field marketing managers to ensure our plan will work globally. 8:00am Coffee. First of several. 8:30am 1:1 with Sarah. Signed off on a very cool initiative for MCPs; Project PurpleEyes will be announced in the next couple of weeks, and launched very soon after. 10:00am Met with my peers and manager to put our high-level marketing message together for next year. Really like the direction we’re heading.
5:00am Wake up—not an easy feat after only 3 hours of sleep (and I’m not alone—had e-mail conversations with team at 1:00am)
6:00am Drive to work.
7:00am Conference call with our international field marketing managers to ensure our plan will work globally.
8:00am Coffee. First of several.
8:30am 1:1 with Sarah. Signed off on a very cool initiative for MCPs; Project PurpleEyes will be announced in the next couple of weeks, and launched very soon after.
10:00am Met with my peers and manager to put our high-level marketing message together for next year. Really like the direction we’re heading.
11:00am 1:1 with Tjeerd. Big focus for Tjeerd next year on recruiting academic instructors and teachers—into MCT? or does he have something else up his sleeve?
12:00pm Lunch 12:30pm Met with my colleagues in the U.S. marketing team to discuss plans to provide significantly greater opportunities for MCTs in Microsoft events and programs next year.
12:00pm Lunch
12:30pm Met with my colleagues in the U.S. marketing team to discuss plans to provide significantly greater opportunities for MCTs in Microsoft events and programs next year.
1:00pm Explore the new MCT Awards site. Love the Career Advisor tools and resources! Can’t wait until we start expanding this program for MVPs, user group leaders, and other influential audiences.
1:30pm Call Melissa with Springboard team and discuss plans for “Get on the Bus: Season 2” this fall. We agree that U.S. residents will need to sit this one out. (BTW, love the pics from the great Springboard party at TechEd… if you were there, check ‘em out.)
2:00pm Catch up on e-mail: Looks like we’ve got a new certification forum starting soon for hiring managers—cool.
2:30pm 1:1 with Bill. Love the new MCT Virtual Summit site—a 48-hour, non-stop, multi-language live virtual event for instructors? And you don’t even need to be an MCT to attend? June 18th can’t get here soon enough!
3:30pm Catch up on Born to Learn—even for me, this is the best way to keep up with what my colleagues are doing!
4:00pm Met with Marty, our Digital Marketing team lead, to sync on our social networks plans for next year. We did a lot of startup experimentation this year, now it’s time to get busy.
4:30pm Finally, focus time: two hours of work before heading home (and two hours of work after). Love, love, love Windows 7 Direct Access. Makes working from home a no-brainer—faster access to internal resources than in the office, without ever needing to RAS again!
Whew—long day! And a lot more still to come…
Do you remember Ken’s post several months ago about a day in his life ? Well, I loved that post and have