- Understanding Thailand Politics
- Ray Ozzie: by Steven Levy
- Kitchen Installed
- A Hole in the Wall
- Bathroom: Ready for Rendering
- Private Angus Hodge
- Hodge Family History Update
- Kitchen Destruction
- “It’s Not a Sad Time”
- Field Marshal Melchett
- A Pragmatic Proposal: ISP Filters
- Edna Dutschke
- Steve Ballmer at CEDA 7th November 2008
- Liam and and I at Barcamp Sydney 4
- Bathroom Renovation: The Destruction
- USofA… just when I about to love you again
- Microformat hCard
- Tech support. Yes, this is so close to reality
- Adobe InDesign CS4 Oddity
- Live Mesh: MacOS, Windows Mobile
« Moore’s Law, More Horses, Less Chaff | Main | First Day of School. Time for XBox360 »
Let the New Journey Begin
By Nick Hodge | January 29, 2007
So, I reached 7 months before my feet started itching. Or was it that my brain was itching? Either way, I started looking seriously at contributing to the corporate world again.
After resigning from my previous job, it was clear that I was not going to do the exact same role. There were a couple of head-hunter calls, and some projects related to channel sales where I purposely said a firm no. Doing exactly the same type of thing would have probably been the easiest route to boot loads of cash, but the shortest road to insanity. Just putting the new cover pages on TPS reports was not a part of the original game plan.
Working for yourself, building a business and looking for projects to keep some income rolling in, is a tough task. Whilst self employment has it many benefits; professional companionship and intellectual stimulation are not included when self means self. No doubt, there are many things to keep your mind working: new customers, new projects, new languages, new environments, new products - however your power to influence any of these is very limited. Working with other smart people is just too darn attractive.
Knowing that I wanted to return to a technical, customer-facing, software related job filtered number of qualifying jobs diminish dramatically. Staying in Sydney, having a good manager, working for a name-brand company starts to filter down the choice even more.
So when this Microsoft Enthusiast Evangelist role appeared, I was over the moon and as keen as mustard. An excellent, well respected manager. Check. Loads of customers, buckets of technology and a strong desire to connect the two: Tick. Being a conduit; taking feedback, showing and listening in that order. Perfect.
Today, I signed on to Microsoft. Start on Thursday. Let the journey begin. WooT!
FAQs
- What are you going to miss about the time off?
- You are sucking up to your new boss, already, right?
- Microsoft is big. Can you deal with the huge-ness?
- How much Gardening did you do?
- So, you are never going to use a Mac nor Photoshop/InDesign again?
Getting up at anytime in the morning, reading lots of books, having the time to be able to research a completely new IT subject and watching TV. Chilling out and doing very little has certainly cleaned out the cobwebs.
You read me like a book. No seriously, check him out. I did my reference checks, too!
Yes, Microsoft is a huge organisation with many people and lots of tools and technologies. Their products touch virtually everyone in the digital world, somewhere. Being a small part of this bigness is coolness.
As promised, none. I did however water the garden under the draconian rules of Sydney Water during this period.
I seriously doubt that. Microsoft creates Mac software, and Photoshop/InDesign is ingrained into my system. The world is a much more complex place than "A vs. B".
Possibly Related Posts:
- Ray Ozzie: by Steven Levy
- Kitchen Installed
- A Hole in the Wall
- Bathroom: Ready for Rendering
- Private Angus Hodge
Topics: microsoft, personal, technology |
January 29th, 2007 at 9:18 pm
[...] A passion for technology and also a desire to change the world ? The 10 Manifesto: One band of passionate digital citizens reaching out to enthusiasts around the globe. Two-way communication that is based on mutual respect will lead to success. Three degrees make up the interview: The medium, the subject, and the conversation. Four corners of the world encompass millions of ideas and a shared global imagination. Five by five is how we communicate; with maximum strength and clarity. Six minutes of headlines and links isn’t enough. We want to create opinions, depth, and focus. Seven days a week we hunt for discussions on seven continents. Work and life can be synthesized. Eight bits of media will grow into more than just bytes of data. They should inform and enthrall. Nine plus Ten is much more than nineteen. Together we can teach, listen, and learn together. 10 is all of these things, but most important it is what our users make it. Listen to everyone. Want to be part of this? We're hiring We've hired! Technorati tags: On10, Microsoft Australia Published Thursday, December 07, 2006 11:18 PM by frankarr Filed under: work, geek, announcement [...]
January 29th, 2007 at 9:29 pm
welcome to the team dude!!!!
January 30th, 2007 at 8:06 am
Congrats! Should be a great change of scenery, and a world of opportunities. I look forward to reading about your experiences ...
Cheers,
Spaulds
January 30th, 2007 at 5:04 pm
Welcome to the fold dude!!!
I've been on the job for 6 days and already I'm losing my "newbie" tag - Woo Hoo!
-dg
January 30th, 2007 at 5:11 pm
Looks like I am sweeping the floor and getting the coffees as the newbie for the forseeable future
January 31st, 2007 at 8:09 am
Welcome to the family
I'm sure our paths will cross.
BTW... check out Paint.NET (www.getpaint.net)... you'll never use Photoshop again
February 3rd, 2007 at 5:47 pm
Congratulations Nick - from the dealings i've had with the Evangelist team they're a good crowd and extremely fanatical about technology. real geeks basically!
i hope you'll enjoy your time with them - mind you, David is a bit weird but you'll most likely learn to live with it. Kleefie is a biker..yes a geek biker..not many of those around.
Anyways, good luck with things at your new gig!
but urrggghh...Mac and photoshopping??? ouch..that HAS to hurt!
April 26th, 2007 at 1:31 pm
[...] at Microsoft appeared. Knowing Frank Arrigo through Mike Seyfang, thanks to http://linkedin.com, I applied and the rest is now history. It’s the first job that I saw that I really felt I wanted, and would be at >100% [...]