WM_IN - Channel 9

Lili Cheng: Designing Experiences for Social Computing

Charles — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 17:34:00 GMT

March is Women in Technology Month. We kick off the festivities on Channel 9 with a great conversation with an industry thought leader in interactive user experience design and architecture.

Meet Lili Cheng, general manager of Microsoft’s Future Social Experiences (FUSE) Labs, which focuses on software and services that are centered on social connectivity, real-time experiences, and rich media. Lili's a big fan of and active participant in social communication and the interactive design of social computing on the web.

Lili talks to @ritzy and @Carmine007 about her tenure at Microsoft which started in 1995. Lili is another shining example of a successful woman in technology, but more importantly her full time job consists of both pushing the envelope of social interaction and the inventing new experiences for social computing. Push on, Lili and team!

Maria Klawe: Scholar, Scientist and Microsoft Board Member

Charles — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 18:31:00 GMT

Dr. Maria Klawe joined the board of directors of Microsoft in 2009. She is a distinguished computer scientist, scholar and president of Harvey Mudd College. If that's not enough, she's also an accomplished artist. We had to catch up with Maria for WM_IN to learn about her path to success and accomplishment in computing and higher education, so when the opportunity presented itself recently Ritzy and I were all over it! What a treat it was to spend some time with Maria. It's hard to fathom just how motivated, capable and intelligent one person can be. We're very fortunate to have Maria as one of the people who govern Microsoft's future.

Tune in and learn about what it's like to be a member of Microsoft's board of directors (What does the board do, anyway? What's it like in the boardroom?) and president of one of the best engineering and mathematics liberal arts colleges in the United States.

Margaret Burnett: Gender and Software

Charles — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 18:49:00 GMT

Meet Dr. Margaret Burnett, a Professor of Computer Science at the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Oregon State University. She is exploring hypotheses correlating and differentiating (or unifying) both the design and usage patterns of software by gender. Dr. Burnett has spent the last three months as a visiting researcher at Microsoft Research. Great fodder for the latest edition of WM_IN, we thought, and we were lucky enough to catch up with Dr. Burnett during her last week at MSR to talk about her focus of study, which is the fascinating topic of gender differences and human-computer interaction that exist in the ways people solve problems when they use software.

Dr. Burnett's current research focuses on end-user programming, end-user software engineering, information foraging theory as applied to programming, and gender issues in those contexts. She is also the principal architect of the Forms/3 and the FAR visual programming languages, plus the WYSIWYT testing methodology for end-user programmers. Watch, learn and enjoy!

Anu Arora: Software Testing (R)Evolution

Charles — Mon, 25 May 2009 19:20:00 GMT

Anu Arora is a Principal SDET(very senior level) with the Engineering Excellence team. As a part of the Software Test Engineering Excellence team, she is chartered with helping everyone in the testing discipline at Microsoft get better through training and consulting. With a passion for quality, Anu is a huge advocate for the testing discipline and has spent her entire nine-year career at Microsoft in testing. During her journey, which started as an SDET to a test lead to a test manager and then back to being an individual contributor (IC), she learnt a few lessons along the way and she shares them in this interview on WM_IN.

Martha Bejar: Driving a 3 Billion Dollar Microsoft Business

Charles — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 17:23:00 GMT

As corporate vice president for the Communications Sector, Martha Béjar is responsible for setting Microsoft's strategy and driving the sales and marketing of solutions and services for telecommunications, hosting, and media and entertainment companies. The Communications Sector works with service and content providers around the globe, addressing the specific needs of wireline and wireless telecommunications companies, cable operators, hosting service providers, and media and entertainment organizations. A veteran telecommunications industry executive, Martha bring a wealth of experience, the ability to drive and support innovation, and a strong track record of leadership with one the world's leading communications companies. Meet Martha as she tells us about her diverse career, Latin background, and what it’s like to be the “new kid” on the block among the Microsoft execs.

Suneetha Dhulipalla: Making Office for the World

Charles — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 21:34:00 GMT

Suneetha Dhulipalla has been at Microsoft for 10 years, and is currently a test lead in the Global Experience Platform (GXP) group under the Office Shared Services (OSS) division. She and her team are responsible for developing engineering infrastructure and process that will help ship a high quality Office 14. Suneetha’s philosophy is that successful women at Microsoft demonstrate confidence, effective communication skills, passion, persistence, drive for results, and believe in themselves. Watch her interview to hear more!

Xin Wang: Science Fiction, Artificial Intelligence and Search

Charles — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 20:39:00 GMT

Meet Xin Wang, SciFi fan and an expert in artificial intelligence (she has a Ph.D in it!). Today she works on Markov decision problems and how to use approximate optimization problems that can be traced all the way back to Sir Issac Newton to solve combinatorial optimization problems. Xin has worked as an SDE at Microsoft for more than 4 years; when she first started she worked on a very cool project for ink parsing on the Tablet PC. Watch the video to find out more about this very interesting software developer!

Ramona Pousti: Visio, Software Testing, Technical Communication and Gender

Charles — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 20:35:00 GMT

Meet Ramona Pousti who works in Office on the Visio team. She took a programming class in high school, and from there her high-tech world took off. After interning at Microsoft, she joined the company when she graduated from Cornell and now she works on a product that reaches millions of folks, and bonus, it’s an application that her mom can understand – still highly technical but you don’t have to be a developer to get it! Ramona also talks about technical communication and how it’s the universal language of geek.

Dona Sarkar: Testing Software and Advocating Customers

Charles — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 22:57:00 GMT

Meet Test Lead, and author, Dona Sarkar. She hails from a family of engineers, and she’s one too, but she also writes fiction books for teenage girls. Wow! We could tell you more about her story, or you could just watch Dona tell it as she chronicles her career and the interesting twists and turns it’s taken. As we’ve said before, and Dona continues to prove it, it takes all types. The more diverse you are, the better.

Soni Meinke: From Fargo to Redmond, Engineering Windows Customer Satisfaction

Charles — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 18:56:00 GMT

Meet Soni Meinke, a senior program manager in the Windows Server group. From Fargo to Redmond, Soni talks about her successful yet non-technical path in the world of high-tech, and illustrates the point on how it takes all types. With a newspaper and communications background, Soni now works with early adopter customers.

Molly Breysse Cox: Women in IT, Management, Mentoring and Organizational Psychology

Charles — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 02:43:00 GMT

Meet Molly Breysse Cox who has been honored by Women in IT International for her long history of mentoring young women at the start of their technology careers. For the past two years, Molly Breysse Cox worked on her master’s degree in organizational psychology and spent a lot of time focused on one question: How do you build a foundation of trust in a competitive technology business? In many ways, it’s a question she’s been exploring over the course of her 20-year career in IT, a career that was honored with the Women in IT International’s (WITI) Leadership Award. Molly was celebrated by WITI for her long history of being a mentor to young women and helping enable them in science, math, engineering, and technology careers. Through her involvement with groups such as IGNITE (Inspiring Girls Now in Technology Evolution), and Women in IT, she has helped women succeed and continue to achieve success. In her words, she’s been “handing the ladder down.”

Jeanne Sheldon: Authoring Office Authoring Applications

Charles — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 20:48:00 GMT

Meet Jeanne Sheldon, Corporate Vice President of the Office Authoring Applications in the Microsoft Business Division. Phew! That’s a mouthful, what does all that really mean!? Well, Jeanne leads the product development teams for Microsoft Office Word, Office OneNote, Office Publisher and Microsoft Works. These applications are a central part of the Microsoft Office system, supporting the information worker with collaborative authoring, note-taking and publishing capabilities. A 19 year Microsoft vet, Jeanne tells us what a day in the life is like for her, including going to lots of meetings and signing things!

Ariel Stallings: Microspotting the Empire

Charles — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 16:31:00 GMT

You don’t think you can have blue hair and work at Microsoft? Wrong. You don’t think you can have blue hair, be a writer not a hard core geek, and be successful working at Microsoft? Wrong again. Meet Ariel Meadow Stallings, the brains behind Microspotting, the blog that humanly tells human stories about all of us who work to make up the soft and the micro. We may be an empire, of sorts, but we’re not evil, and Ariel is here to prove it. And guess what? Everybody’s got a story. Whether you’re an Olympic hopeful, a Bollywood dancer, a Peruvian rock star, a Goth, the son of a former Nigerian president, or completely shrouded in mystery and anonymity (yes, Mini-Microsoft), Ariel spins the yarns of these diverse people who have lives beyond the hallowed halls of Microsoft, and those lives help make them better Microsoft employees. And does Ariel walk the talk herself? Damn right she does. Watch the interview to hear how she happily enjoys a job-share, runs the very successful Salon of Shame in town, and is author of the book and blog, Offbeat Bride. Ariel is the empire!

Roz Ho: Reflections On Leadership and Believing in Yourself

Charles — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 22:59:00 GMT

Sometimes Charles and Ritzy get really lucky in meeting people whose energy is truly contagious, as in the case of Corporate Vice President, Premium Mobile Experiences, Roz Ho. In another edition of WM_IN, Roz tells us about her diverse experiences; from growing up in Hong Kong, moving to California, landing at Microsoft and how she almost left Microsoft to become an archeologist! Roz leads a team working on consumer-focused projects in mobile communications, and her team comes first; she literally shows us what keeps her coming back to the job every day, even after 17 years. And she knows a little something about the importance and delicacy of human relationships, as she used to be the GM of the Macintosh Business Unit, where her team was responsible for the development and marketing of Mac Office. Before joining Microsoft in 1991, Ho was a software engineer for HP and she also spent two years working as a software engineer developing a number of financial systems at Bank of America, including the first large-scale ATM system in the world.

Tracey Trewin: Tackling Tough Problems - From Math to XBox

Charles — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 17:48:00 GMT

Tracey Trewin, Technical Assistant to Technical Fellow Mohsen Agsen, talks to Charles and Ritzy about how she’s always sought out hard challenges, whether it was majoring in math or helping lead the Xbox 360 team to launch. A 13 year Microsoft veteran, the former Hawaiian has lead 2 incubation teams to ship as a Product Unit Manager during her tenure at the firm. Prior to joining Microsoft, Tracey ran her own business for 12 years building customer business solutions for businesses. Tracey will be attending the PDC this year, so make sure to find her. She’ll be attending the Women in Technology reception on October 29.

Seema Ramchandani: From Brain Science to Silverlight

Charles — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 18:33:00 GMT

Seema Ramchandani is the performance and controls PM on the Silverlight team. Seema talks about how cool Silverlight is including it being FREE, runs on the Mac, and leverages existing developer skills but she also tells us how she moved from being in the business of brains to software. Yes, brains! Before joining Microsoft almost 5 years ago, Seema was getting her master’s degree at Brown in the area of brain sciences, which is the convergence of applied math, computer science, and neuro science. (Is she a smarty pants or what?!) Specifically she was working on implanting chips into the motor cortex of humans so locked-in patients can control a cursor. Pretty cool, eh? Find out more by watching her WM_IN interview with Charles and Ritzy.

Jillian Venters - A Goth inside the Deathstar

Charles — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 17:08:00 GMT

Jillian Venters is a technical editor for ASP.NET within the developer division, editing documentation for Visual Web Developer to ensure all text and copy is clear and concise. With a diverse background in games and music engineering, Jillian is another fantastic example of how you can have a happy and successful career at Microsoft without being a hard-core programmer or developer. But, even more interesting (at least for Ritzy) is that Jillian is a full-fledged Goth. What’s a Goth, you ask? Goth has roots back to the 1700’s, the current incarnation is an off-shoot of the punk and new wave movement that includes influences from Victorian mourning clothing, so good they’re bad horror movies, Dracula and more. Guess what else? Goths aren’t just disgruntled teens trying to upset mom and dad! Lots of adults are Goths (there’s a formal group of them at Microsoft), and as Jillian describes one of the best ways to think about Goth is that it is an aesthetic preference which finds beauty in unconventional things. Wanna know more? Check out her etiquette and advice blog site, Gothic Charm School. Not only that, but Jillian is writing a book coming out next year on the Goth movement! (Good gig for an editor, eh? It should be well written.) It takes all types, and Microsoft proudly accepts them all. Enjoy!

Jasmine Park: SkyDriving User Experience

Charles — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 20:28:00 GMT

Meet Jasmine Park, program manager in Windows Live, who works on SkyDrive and FolderShare. Want 5 gigs of free password-protected online file storage? Sign up for SkyDrive. Need to keep your latest files with you, no matter which computer you're using? Install FolderShare for free and you can keep files in sync across your computers, share folders with friends, and access your files from any computer. When Jasmine joined Microsoft a little over 4 years ago she stepped right into the middle of a re-org, not an uncommon experience around here, but it all worked out and she’s been contentedly endeavoring in the online space since day one. Although not a techie, Jasmine shares her story of diversity and how there’s a happy home here at the Mother Ship for all types.

Tara Prakriya: Solution Architect

Charles — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 23:02:00 GMT

Architect Tara Prakriya is in the business of finding solutions to hard problems. What are hard problems? Ones that are complicated by both the business model and new domains, and then trying to figure out a technical solution that would be feasible within the confines of the market. Plus, being the architect doesn’t necessarily mean you’re the decision maker, you may be more of the influencer and so that means you have to understand all of the issues and being smart about your recommendations, which may not be the “right” decisions (because who’s to say there’s only one right answer). Working in the Unlimited Potential group, Tara has been specializing in education opportunities in emerging markets. The mission of the Unlimited Potential team to enable sustained social and economic opportunity for those at the middle and bottom of the world’s economic pyramid—the next 5 billion people. In the short term, Unlimited Potential aims to reach the next 1 billion people by 2015 by exploring solutions in three key interrelated areas, each being crucial to developing sustained economic opportunity: transforming education, fostering local innovation, and enabling jobs and opportunities. Tara is a big part of this team, and she shares her story with Charles and Jennifer on the newest edition of WM_IN.

Jane Kim: From Inventing To Implementing IE Features

Charles — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 19:11:00 GMT

Jane Kim, senior program manager on the Internet Explorer team, talks about how the IE team really cares and connects with the community in this episode of WM_IN. A Northwestern grad and seven year Microsoft vet, Jane discusses how the IE team has their own voice via the team blog and how they are striving hard to engage with their customers.

As a PM on the team, Jane helps create new feature sets based on customer research and she works with the team to understand the scenarios in which customers will be utilizing those features. Listen to Jane as she tells the story of how she went about pitching one of the new IE8 features, WebSlices, to her management. (WebSlices enable users to subscribe to specially marked content on a Web page. When the content changes, the user receives a notification on the Favorites Bar.) Ritzy and Carmine meet yet another woman who was good in math as a youngster in school (Perhaps this is a pattern, people?), and they enjoyed hearing Jane talk about why she became a PM instead of a developer (Debugging is for the birds!).

Carolyn Napier: Developing for Windows and Playing Pro Football

Charles — Thu, 22 May 2008 21:24:53 GMT

Carolyn Napier is a 9 year Microsoft veteran and she’s actually one of the truly technical women we’ve interviewed on WM_IN in a while (a former programmer she’s now a principal development lead on the Windows Application Platform team within the Core Operating System Division), but watch the whole interview and towards the end you’ll get the real scoop on Carolyn which really excited both Charles and Ritzy: Carolyn is a PROFESSIONAL football player!! Carolyn’s a member of The Seattle Majestics, the local women’s professional football team where she plays a rover on defense and a wide receiver on offense. This isn’t flag football, this is serious hardcore tackle football that is played with NFL’s regular rules (yes, she has a lot of bruises!). And guess what? As an athlete, there are many analogies Carolyn can draw between things that happen on the job and things that happen on the field. Go number 29!

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Mai-lan Tomsen Bukovec: From the Peace Corps to IIS 7

Charles — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 20:01:47 GMT

Meet group program manager, Mai-lan Tomsen Bukovec, who has been at Microsoft for nine years (Talk about a blast from the past . . . remember Microsoft Transaction Server? Mai-lan was on that team back in the day.). Mai-lan is currently on the Internet Information Services (IIS) team where she manages PMs working on IIS and the Windows Server Hosting System. What does that mean? Well, for starters, she and her team define the features of the core web server, as well as the management tools and administration interfaces plus they work on media server and providing the right tools for the web hosters of the world (like GoDaddy, for example). Phew! That’s a lot. From the Peace Corps to working at a couple of start-ups during the Internet boom when she left Microsoft for a bit, Mai-lan really has a worldwide global perspective. Watch this episode of WM_IN and hear about the mud mosques of West Africa!

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Betsy Hjort: On Making Windows Server, Singing with Bill and Being Technical

Charles — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 19:12:16 GMT

Betsy Hjort, principal program manager, turns the camera on Jennifer & Charles (literally!) as she tells us about her role on the Windows Server team and reflects about her tenure at the company over the last 12 years. Way back in the day Betsy was a Pascal coder, but things started to change when she got hired at Microsoft. Betsy joined the Exchange team in 1996, and in this lively interview she shares stories including how Microsoft allowed astronauts out on mission in space to have private communications with their spouses for the first time (being able to say “I love you” privately to your wife is a great example of the power of technology changing people’s lives), and how she and Bill Gates sang “Islands in the Stream” to each other (well, not really, but you gotta hear the story – it’s a classic!). This is one of Jennifer’s favorite interviews; watch it all the way through to see Charles get schooled by Betsy! It’s worth the entire 37 minutes, we promise.

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Shawn Richardson: A winding road to Software Security

Charles — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 18:46:21 GMT

From being an economics major and MBA to working with a veterinary ophthalmologist in Florida, Shawn Richardson tell us about her non-linear path into the world of technology. As a security program manager, Shawn is on the Windows Security Assurance team where they make sure the OS, when it goes out the door, is as secure as possible. (Plus, Shawn gets to personally sign off on the security of the OS. Cool!) She’s been at Microsoft over six years, and a time that really stands out for her was when she volunteered to help during the Blaster virus breakout. She realized then the impact we have on our customers, whether it’s our moms or the largest enterprise companies in the world, and helping to do the right thing for our customers no matter what is a very important part of her work philosophy today.

Meghan Perez: From Software Developer to Technical Advisor

Charles — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 18:51:12 GMT

Meghan Perez, the Technical Advisor for Senior Vice President and Channel 9 veteran S. Somasegar (Soma), talks about her role overseeing all of the products and technologies in the developer division and synthesizing that information for her boss (one of the nicest guys she’s met and one our favorite Channel 9 celebrities!). Fresh with a computer engineering degree from the University of Notre Dame, Meghan started at Microsoft in 1999 as a developer on the VS platform after completing a couple of internships at the company. She’s been Soma’s TA for a little over a year, and she’s having a blast. Watch Charles and Jennifer interview her on a usually ultra causal day (how many times can Jennifer say “cool” in one interview??) in another fresh episode of WM_IN.

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