Reads Mini-Microsoft and Wears Shorts in Winter - Lisa Brummel, VP of HR

I must say, this was a great video.  She reads C9, watches videos, reads Mini-MS, has listening sessions.  She's very proactive and extremely down-to-earth.  It must be tough dealing with 60,000 people in a company...I guess I can somewhat relate being one of 200,000+ at Citigroup.  Having a good HR dept is very helpful and I've found that to be the case at Lava Trading (part of Citi).  So, you've seen the challenge - if you are productive in your comments on C9 or during the listening sessions, she will be listening as much as possible.  That's really cool.

I'm not familiar with the whole mentoring thing.  I could see it potentially having benefits and possibly causing problems.  Perhaps a waste of time...although I only speak from my experience.  I like a tight-knit subgroup where the manager and us are close as it is currently in my group. 

OK, so maybe my perspective on WM_IN is changing a bit.  Thanks Lisa for your positive attitude and focus on forward thinking w/r/t CS + other disciplines.  It's definitely high time that other backgrounds start to focus on technology and we can look forward to a renaissance in technical achievements by our younger technically-savvy students.
I refer those interested to an insightful blog by Gayle Laakmann, a work friend of mine (fellow former Student Ambassador to Microsoft like I was). She's got an interesting post on Women in CS and technical careers as well as an insightful post on teaching CS in colleges. Anyways, she was an energetic person who has been an inspiration to me personally. She's now at Google, but we still keep in contact and discuss technology. To those in HR within MS (Lisa as well) - you have a great asset with your SAs. Don't outsource the interaction to Volt or another similar agency but devote some time/effort to getting these (generally) bright students excited about MS technologies. It could use a real revamping, at least from what I've seen as an SA for two years.

This is what leadership looks like.

She's won me over. Definitely Lisa is something cool about Microsoft.

Great interview, very inspiring.

Another one with Lisa would be excellent. I think the high level stuff was very orienting and think she could have easily talked for another half an hour, perhaps expanding on things and going into some more detail on specific scenarios.

Expanding on the people in the HR team(s) would also be fantastic, talking about the personalities you look for in HR people and what kind of traits in HR staff you desire, and also what qualities really work for people in HR. Of course, it is very early days yet and the material for such discussions must occur over time and through experience.

Thanks again guys.

Just a couple of other things: Lisa does know a lot about various groups and dynamics within those groups, and I'd love to get more of a detailed view as to how she goes about getting into the lives of so many diverse people.  She's very respectful of those who criticize her policies as long as they are trying to be productive, and not taking that stuff personally is a quality too many people in the biz world lack.

My only thought is to encourage people to be themselves on camera.  She had no problem with this, but others seem very nervous.  For example, if you had the camera "around" but not actually recording for a few minutes as you discuss the weather and other small talk, some may warm up to an interview better than they have.  I guess it boils down to if people can hope to have respect when their interviews are posted and whether they ultimately care what people think about their looks, their presentation style, and other trivialities.

Sounds like Ballmer knew what he was doing.

Edit: Just reading the title of this Video post....

"Reads Mini-Microsoft and Wears Shorts in Winter - Lisa Brummel, VP of HR"

Umm....you could have made it a bit more flattering, don't you think?

Very bright and interesing women thats done it all.

I'm curious what camera/device was used in the recording.

I got quite dizzy after watching the video for 7.58mins. I think it probably got to do with the device tracking Lisa's every movement and gestures while she spoke. It kept moving up and down. It would be great if the camera focus just stay stationary on her.

Just thought I add my 2 cents worth, interesting interview so far.

Great video, fascinating woman. 1 question: who was the guy at the window, reflected in the door?

Charles wrote:

bernardoh wrote: I'm curious what camera/device was used in the recording. I got quite dizzy after watching the video for 7.58mins. I think it probably got to do with the device tracking Lisa's every movement and gestures while she spoke. It kept moving up and down. It would be great if the camera focus just stay stationary on her. Just thought I add my 2 cents worth, interesting interview so far.

The camera was set incorrectly... Not sure how that happened.
C

It's the automatic motion dampening feature in the camera. The one in the Panasonic PVS-G150 camcorders we use suck. I'll show you how to turn it off. (It gets confused).

Dear Lisa and channel 9;
I found Ch9 2 years ago and have peeked in periodically.
Lisa's video interview was so engaging, I really connected with what she had to say. I am taking a chance, registered so I could reply:

To whom should I go?  What option should I explore? I am a nurse, teacher, and have developed a passion for computers. I am frustrated by few options to help those who are not computer literate but otherwise very intelligent (women) both in the top of their careers (as nurses or teachers) but hampered by the hardware and software ideosyncracies.  My hospital IT persons blow me off and tell me it is not my job. Well, I dont think I have to take a programming course to tell the muckety-mucks in Nashville/corporated that their chosen systems are making our jobs worse and harder not better and easier.

Please refer me to a resource to channel my burning desires to help!
Thanks
Anne Tilly
Dawsonville GA

Good job Channel 9. A link to Lisa's video and some related fringe from Mini-micro has made it on the Society for HRM job-seekers' chat.

In chasing diversity, Lisa, do you really? Embrace your elders? Some of us in the egg-in-the-Anaconda generation find that such claims from many in HR (alas, even HR) hollow out around, oh, say, 55. Unfortunate since it's a pool (with jets) stocked with the very KSAs dwindling in the waters big corps mostly troll.

Anyway, as one home-grown HR pro and fuzzy-thinking liberal arts major to another, I must say you do impress. Good luck six mos. and beyond.