Microsoft Visit

For the very first time I went to the visit the Microsoft campus in the UK. They employ about only 1,600 people in the UK. You couldn't tell it by their facilities. I can only say "WOW!"

If you forget that parking was a bit of a 'mare, I was very impressed. They have clearly invested in the work environment both for the benefit of their employees and their customers. Who says Microsoft doesn't care about the end user? Happy employees make happy customers I reckon!

Reporting (not quite live) from Rome

SURPRISE ENDING! Read all the way to the end........

Arrived last night home from Rome (hey, that rhymes!). Didn't have time or access to blog and thought maybe I could live without it for a few days. Hope you didn't mind. It was such a whirling dervish of a trip, I only managed to bring the children the chocolate left over from my pillows in the hotel.

The trip to Rome itself was uneventful. Amazingly, I breezed through the checkout, had a Cesear salad and a glass of wine and boarded the plane. My seat was in the very last row and very cramped. When will British Airways sort out their leg and arm room? The lady next to me and I kept bumping each other. I was reunited with my luggage and caught a taxi into the city.

Taking taxis in Rome is always a bit of a death wish. The drivers seem to be bit like polo ponies. They have only two speeds. Stop on a dime in 2 seconds flat and go hell bent for leather. I had landed right at the peak of rush hour traffic so the journey was long and tedious. But driving through Rome is a mini architectural history lesson. On your right are some ruins, on your left the Coliseum. The sheer antiquity of the city is breath taking.Or it could have been that the man driving the scooter whilst talking on a mobile phone took my breath away.

The weather was pleasantly warm and the sky was blue. I stayed at the Westin Excelsior which is a spectacular hotel on Via Vittorio Veneto. After unpacking, I walked down the road a bit for my dinner. I was shocked by how many Americans were in Rome, more than in London! The hotel was right next to the American Embassy but that wasn't the reason since it was so late in the evening.

I've always said that you don't go to Rome for the food. If you want the best Italian food go to Florence. This trip did not change my mind and whilst the meals I had were OK they weren't what I call moaning meals: Food so good you can't speak you just moan. I had a meal at La Ninfa. The table was on a terrace and I ordered the chef's specials. The tomatoes in my starter were delicious. Not sure how the Italians do it but the tomatoes are always sweet and crispy. Not until my dessert of lemon sorbet arrived did I start to feel a chill in the air. A short walk back to my hotel and I fell into bed.

Microsoft had invited me to speak at a forum for Utility customers from Europe. The speakers and attendees hailed from all over the world: Saudi Arabia, Germany, Hong Kong, Romania, Spain, Italy, Jordan, UK, USA. I was honoured to have to privilege to learn and share my learnings with these leaders. I was not scheduled to speak until the very last of the second day so on the first day I was able to focus on what everyone else had to say.

At the end of the day's presentations, we met up in the lobby of the hotel for a quick bus tour of Rome on the way to Al Pompiere. We had a 4 course meal and lots of red wine. I enjoyed speaking to both Jon Arnold and Larry Cochrane, both of Microsoft. Wow, these guys are clever, interesting and funny! Not techy geeky bores like I imagined all Microsoft professionals (except sales people).

Back on the bus and we headed off to a private tour of the Galleria Borghese. It was late (after 11 pm) and a bit spooky walking into this private building stuffed to the gills with sculpture by Bernini and paintings by Caravaggio. This art is occasionally loaned out to museums around the world but here I was looking at art that most people only see pictures of in books. What an amazing experience.

We boarded the bus well after midnight for the short journey back to the hotel. I awoke the next morning for an 8 am start not quite feeling like I had a proper night's sleep. In fact I'm sure I didn't sleep. You see, I woke up after a few hours in a wild panic that I had slept straight through my presentation. When I realised it was only 4 am, I tried to get myself back to sleep but one cannot sleep with one eye open staring at a clock.

After a cup of coffee (or several) I settled in trying not to psyche myself out totally. During the morning's presentations I was having a hard time concentrating because my stomach was doing flip flops and I felt like I was going to be sick. I was wired with the microphone and tried to calm my breathing to prevent complete hyperventilation.

I started and felt the voice tremble and raise several octaves. Not good, as my voice already sounds like I'm 10 years old. I needed to lighten the atmosphere more for my sake than anyone else. So, instead of standing at the front lording over everyone, I walked down into between the tables and started pretending like I was just having a conversation with friends and colleagues, people I know and who know me and trust my judgement and expertise. I made a couple jokes. They laughed (at the jokes not me, I hope). And then I relaxed and the presentation just flowed right out of me. The discussion during and following was lively which I believe is a good sign. I made people think and I hope helped them make some decisions about their business.

I'm really passionate about my current role at work. I think what my team and I do is important to our business and important to our customers. I think there is a huge potential to use technology to an even greater advantage. I hope this came across to all the attendees at the conference. I enjoyed presenting in the end and all that worry was for naught.

I had a quick lunch, checked out of the hotel and bundled myself into a taxi for the return trip to the airport. The taxi driver cranked up the radio, rolled down all the windows, smoked a cigarette, talked on the telephone, and drove 80 mph down the motorway wildly gesticulating to whoever he was speaking to. I'm not sure but I think he was driving with his knees. I simply closed my eyes and let the wind blow my hair everywhere.

The plane was an hour late departing from Rome. I knew the Marc and the children were coming to pick me up at the airport and I was worried it would be well past their bed time. I rang Marc on my walk to customs and immigration who reported that Seb had just vomited and was not feeling well. I told him I would hurry as much as one can hurry when getting through immigration and picking up your suitcase.

As I entered the baggage hall, I noticed people were staring in my direction. I turned around to see what they were staring out and couldn't see anything. As I turned back facing front I promptly bumped into the man in front of me as he had stopped walking. I task my disgust and reluctantly apologised only to realise everyone was staring at him. Then it dawned on me. I had just literally run into Jude Law. I mumbled another apology and kicked myself for using up my camera battery taking pictures of the Alps from the plane. I was having visions becoming a member of the paparazzi and selling my pic to The News of the World for £100K. But then I realised, the opportunity had passed me by and I just wanted to hug and kiss my hubby and children. Besides he was short and very skinny. Too skinny. That man got nothing on my husband. I bet my 5 year old son could do a better job fighting off a mugger than the wee stick of a man. Oh my, but his face is the stuff of Greek myth! Especially his eyes!

I refocused on capturing my luggage off the carousel and came out of the hall to the sounds of my children screaming "Mummy" and running across the airport to me. Nothing better than that mate! Ain't no architecture, no art, no food, no applause, and no celebrity that can beat the love of my children so unbridled!

Enjoyed the trip but thrilled to be home!

So, whatcha y'all get up to whilst I was away?

Disclaimer: All these photos were taken whilst either lurching on a bus, taxi, or plane. You're lucky I got anything to show you at all!

Italian Interruption

I am off to Rome in a few hours for a few days. I am hoping that this trip won't disrupt my blogging like my trip to Berlin did in February. But there are no guarantees. If I can't find a cyber cafe I will be out of luck!

I am going to Rome to speak at a Microsoft conference. I have been invited to talk about using collaboration to increase innovation. I hate public speaking. I don't mind speaking to groups of colleagues that I know. But a room full of strangers fills me with complete fear. I turn red and break out into a rash and my ears always feel like they are on fire. I speak so quickly I can finish a 40 minutes presentation in about 10. I have to or I might vomit. I am the last speaker scheduled for Friday afternoon. I am hoping that by that time I will have gotten to know some of the delegates at the conference and I can pretend that they are the only ones in the room and that they are mere colleagues. Well, this is my coping strategy. Wish me luck!

I have been to Rome before and after Florence it is my favourite Italian city. I just get absolutely overwhelmed by the sheer scale of history. I once dined at a rooftop terrace restaurant just across the road from the Coliseum. There were ancient pillars every where I looked and the Romans simply walked past them every day on their way to work without so much as a second glance. I suppose it is a bit like me walking past Windsor Castle every day and not taking any notice. Except the Coliseum is nearly 2000 years old.

I always miss my children and husband when I am away. I miss hearing my children tell me about their day and I miss sharing mine with my husband. It is getting easier now that they are getting older and technology is a wonderful thing. They can talk to me on the telephone with some understanding. Marc can send me photos of them having dinner or sleeping from his phone to my phone.

I love how their eyes light up when I return home and Friday night I should be back before they go to bed if there are no flight delays. Fingers crossed the mass migration back into Heathrow on a Friday evening will go smoothly and I will get home in time to tuck them into bed and have a lovely evening with my husband.

But I do love travelling. I travelled constantly for the first 15 or so years of my career. I used to fill up passports with stamps from all over the world. Now I'm lucky to get 3 or 4 stamps a year and those tend to be for our vacations. But with my new position I've travelled a bit more. And as my children get older it will probably increase again. There's a real vagabond in my shoes. I can pack in under 10 minutes for a 4 day trip! I will enjoy meal on my own and reading my book in the evenings (without interruptions).

What I am not looking forward to is the state of the house when I return. Marc and I have very different ideas about levels of acceptable tidiness and nutritious meals. So in my control freak best maneuver I have done the grocery shopping online (to be delivered this evening), made up a list of meals for the evenings, listed all the school/play activities for each day, made up a list of things he must do (eg laundry, run dishwasher, unload dishwasher, feed dog). He's got post it notes on the back door, on the fridge, on his computer screen.

Of course, he will pretend not to have seen any of them. This is what happened when I went to Berlin. Each night I called home and asked him what the children had eaten for dinner and he would report hot dogs. Every night. When I asked why he wasn't giving them what was on the menu he said they didn't want what I had written down.

Basically, I am expecting carnage. But it is carnage in my absence. So, I ask my self, does it really exist?

European Microsoft Sharepoint Conference 2007

I've been to a lot of conferences during my professional career. I mean a lot of conferences. This was one of the worst.

I had very high hopes. I had never been to a Microsoft conference but had a great deal of hope and high expectations. maybe this is where I went wrong.

I attended the Gartner ITSymposium Expo in Cannes, France in November 2006 and this was easily one of the best (if not THE best conference I've ever attended so maybe my expectations were unfairly high). I now compare conferences to the gold standard. this was not it.

You judge for yourself:

1. The first morning of the conference started well enough. The conference venue was a bit outside of the centre of Berlin. Not necessarily a bad thing. It was just a short (20 minutes) taxi ride for us. Check-in started at 8:30 which seemed a bit late to me. Most conferences you can register for the night before to avoid the rush and get started early in the morning but this didn't matter to me since I wouldn't have made a special trip to the venue just to register. However, it should be noted that some conferences have warm-up sessions on Sunday evening so you don't just sit about in your hotel. That's OK, though. This was going to be a bit of a slower pace.


2. The welcome packet came in a paper Microsoft bag. It had a different piece of paper for each session schedule for each day and another page with a map of the venue. Not connected. Not in a little booklet. Phew, that's a lot of paper to keep track of. The other items were some very hefty catalogue and brochures. Don't know what they were because they were all in German. Wasn't this the European conference? Wasn't this supposed to be in English? Did they want me to carry these heavy items which I can do nothing with around with me? Fat Chance!


3. The delegate badges were not bar coded or have metallic strips. There was no way for Microsoft to tell which sessions I had attended. The supplier partners could not swipe my delegate badge and get my contact details. Not a good thing. Very inefficient.


4. The first session of the morning was the welcome and key note. We started 30 minutes late. And the welcome address started in German. Now we had confirmed that the conference was going to be in English and I was starting to get worried when the speaker was still speaking German after 10 minutes. He did switch to English and proudly announced that over 50 countries were attending. At this point, I couldn't help but ask myself, if that was true, why in the world did he just spend the last 10 minutes speaking to us in German? He must have made the decision about what would be in the welcome pack. By the end of the welcome and keynote sessions, I was a bit bored. Not inspired, not excited about being here. Just waiting to get on with the real stuff.


5. Every session for the rest of the day started late. I walked out of one due to boredom. I think I might have fallen asleep in another. I hope I didn't wake any of the other delegates with my snoring. Many times, people just got up and walked out.


6. Lunch was scheduled for at least 2 hours each day and on the last day we were allowed 2 1/2 hours for lunch. This seems a bit slothful to me. I like a bit of buzz and any buzz I might have gotten was quickly subdued by the 1/2 hour coffee breaks between each session. At the Gartner conference, I remember trying to pee and drink a glass of water at the same time so I wouldn't be late to the next session.


7. At the Gartner conference I had trouble picking from the vast choices of interesting sounding sessions. At the Microsoft conference, I struggled to find one for each time slot.


8. Day 2 didn't start very well. The keynote was the worst I have ever attended and half the attendees walked out. Can't even begin to tell you who was speaking and what they were speaking about. I can still tell you that the CEO of HP spoke at the opening session of the Gartner conference and the CIO of HSBC spoke at the closing day. That keynote made me want to work for HSBC and him. It made me want to change my work environment. He made me want to be better than I was. He was fabulous.


9. The keynote on the last day was cancelled altogether. Hmmmmm, this is not good!


10. The very last session that I attended on the very last day was the one that I learned the most from. it was about migrating from a Sharepoint 2003 platform to a Sharepoint 2007 platform. This is extremely relevant to me. I got some sound advice on what to do and what not to do. I can use this.


11. The supplier partner stalls all the looked the same and there was no compelling reason to step up and make an inquiry. Oh and some of the staffs displayed only in German. Wasn't this the European conference?

I picked up some little nuggets of useful information from various sessions in the conference. I got to see what Sharepoint 2007 looks like. There were some extremely knowledgeable Microsoft professionals on site who were willing to discuss at length the answers to any questions. I could have gotten the value of 10 (above) by going to the Microsoft campus in Reading, just 20 miles down the road from me.

The language thing doesn't really bother me. Although I almost wrote that if we had been in France it would have all been French but that wasn't true at the Gartner conference or a Project Management conference I attended in Paris some years ago or so.

I don't think I'll be going to another Microsoft conference anytime soon. and I don't think I'll be approving anyone who works for me to go any time soon.

Back in the UK

I have returned from Berlin and am back on line. I can only hope you missed me half as much as I missed you. I have loads to tell you about but am struggling to find the time to get it all down. For now, let's just say that I couldn't believe that at a Microsoft Conference in Berlin (a European capital) I could not get my laptop to connect to do a simple post. No connection was available at the hotel and even the conference venue had insufficient bandwidth to cope with the conference delegates. Worst of all, Microsoft had not provided free kiosks with Internet access at the conference. Bad Bad Bad!!! But that is just the start of it! I have a litany of complaints!

Stay tuned for all the details.