Mini does a great job of simultaneously conveying the disappointment I heard from a lot of people about how my Microsoft career ended, as well as the surreality of my multi-cameo at the company meeting, which we were laughing about at my goodbye parties. An excerpt:
A lot of Microsofties interested in changing Microsoft’s internal and external-facing culture rallied around Mr. Pincus, who has had quite the distinguished Microsoft career. He gets given crap sometimes for being different or a self-promoter, but I just have to wonder what kind of leader or change-agent isn’t.
Anyway, it’s a bit sad for me to reflect on Mr. Pincus going quickly from being up on the big-screen several times at our 2007 Company Meeting to being shown that there was no home for him – and his refreshingly different spirit – at Microsoft.
Quick clarification: I feel like there were several possible homes for me at Microsoft, and it was more a challenge of trying to come up with the right role, as well as differences of opinions as to how my skills should be leveled and contributions should be evaluated. Still, the net result is the same. [At least for now — who knows what the future may bring?]
Appropriately enough, given my long-running unhappiness at Microsoft over the last three years of being ranked in the bottom 10% of my peer group,* the bulk of the thread so far is an excellent discussion of Microsoft’s review system and “the curve”. I’ve always thought the review-related discussions are one of the highlights of the blog; the anonymous posters who describe their score, compensation action, and often their reactions are a hugely valuable resource to everybody at the company — and a great example of why anonymous speech is so important to protect. This thread is one of the best. Worth checking out, and I’d say that even if I weren’t mentioned 🙂
jon
* that’s 3.0/Limited/10% for those of you into ‘terms of art’ — see the thread on Mini for more details
Joshua Allen | 14-Nov-07 at 10:18 pm | Permalink
I don’t read mini anymore, but I’ll have to check out the thread. Totally agree about the enabling of anonymous speech. I finally got my internal “history” wiki set up; we’ll see how the plan works. Cool blog name, BTW. The in-between states are where everything interesting happens!
Betsy Aoki | 15-Nov-07 at 10:57 pm | Permalink
Dang Jon I looked at the other blog and didn’t realize this one was here talking about post-Microsoft adventures.
I can’t believe you were Kimmed. That’s nuts. 😛
The innovators miss ya,
Betsy
jon | 16-Nov-07 at 10:31 am | Permalink
Joshua, the internal “history” wiki is badly needed. Hopefully people will rally around and contribute. One thing that’ll be interesting is to see how to allow for multiple perspectives in a way that avoids privileging the “official” version (constructed by the survivors and those in power). I think the combination of a wiki and discussion forums has a lot of promise for this … good luck!
And glad you like the blog name. Agreed about how the in-between states are uniquely interesting: movements for change comes from the margins, and these kinds of spaces are where it can develop, transform, and gain critical mass — without reifying prematurely. Ted Okada and I talked a lot about liminality over the last 18 months.
The Mashups and workshops were a conscious attempt to create a liminal physical space that was free from many of the oppressive elements many people experience in a Microsoft environment: too many people packed into too small a space, overly aggressive deadlines, scarce resources, specific assigned roles, micro-management, intentionally-created competition, attack-based and disrespectful interactions, etc. It took some iteration but by this January I was really pleased with how it was working. Several experiments on the Ad Astra blog tried to do the same thing in virtual spaces, and although the friction from usability and functionality limitations was a challenge I felt like we were similarly making good progress. It’ll be interesting to see how many of these lessons I can apply here.
jon
jon | 16-Nov-07 at 10:38 am | Permalink
Thanks Betsy, I miss the innovators too.
The main focus of this blog is indeed post-Microsoft adventures. Of course the future is informed by the past — and one of the major things I’m doing in my current liminal state is processing what I’ve experienced and learned over the last few years — so no doubt there will wind up being a chunk of Microsoft-related discussion here … I’ve already created a tag for it 🙂
And i don’t think i was Kimmed. It’s much more straightforward than that: my management chain viewed my contributions as in the bottom three or four of the 30-something partner-level employees in OSG.
jon
Joshua Allen | 16-Nov-07 at 4:51 pm | Permalink
Hmm, I’ll have to think about the “survivorship bias” problem.
I always liked the perspective of “oppression” thinking; it takes an open mind, but really adds perspective IMO. I was telling a friend about this and she was really impressed, “Microsoft really has people who talk about that stuff internally?!” Well, I guess one less person now…
Veronica | 16-Nov-07 at 6:14 pm | Permalink
Wow, Jon! A bit shocking, this whole story. We should mindshare. Ping me via my Gmail (or Facebook).
-V
MS Emp | 02-Dec-07 at 12:53 pm | Permalink
Jon,
Really sorry to hear that you’ve left MS. 1st heard about you on learning about PreFix way back when. Very cool tool!! And now an important one to MS engineering efforts. Next was how you attempted to shake up what now appears to be classic corporate-suit risk-averse homogenous mentality creeping into various layers of management. You were/are an outlier and guess the system couldn’t tolerate that. Extremely unfortunate for the company, and scary too.
All the very best in your next incarnation.
MS Emp
Former MS Employee | 17-Dec-07 at 8:06 am | Permalink
Wow! I left MS in August and was really surprised to see that you left. What a loss for MS! It’s amazing how many really passionate people doing important work (and doing a great job…like you) get rated poorly. I guess they are spending too much time doing great work and not enough time “managing their career”.
I never met you directly but have been to various mashups and read lots of your mail on pogo, litebulb, etc. My jaw dropped when I saw that that you were in the “3.0/Limited/10%” category and that you had left. You were on a mission…an important one at that. If MS is lucky, the seeds you planted will make a difference. At any rate, I’m sure your next adventures will be bigger and brighter.
Best,
Former MS Employee