Hi everyone, I'm writing this post to introduce myself, and let you know who you're dealing with. My name is Jim Glynn and I've been working in the high-tech/information technology field for about 25 years. I've been at Microsoft for the last 12 of those years. Wow! This is the first time I've slowed down long enough to figure that out!

I'm currently working on the Microsoft Online Services Community effort. When I was asked to take on this project, I jumped at the chance. I love the energy and urgency of a startup environment, and I'm passionate about providing the best possible customer experience. I understand the delicate balancing act between getting a product running and supporting early adopter customers. We're building the community by engaging with the product team and providing valuable information to our customers and partners. We want to involve the community in the product development process and feature contributions by customers, partners and MVPs. You can follow the Microsoft Online Services Team Blog and follow us on Twitter.

I attended college during the Vietnam era, dropped out, and returned in my late 20s to earn an Industrial Design degree. I discovered computers late in my college career and seriously considered changing my major to Computer Science, but it was time for me to be done with school. My university was one of the few at the time that allowed open access to IBM mainframes via ASCII terminals. I took a few punch card based programming classes, but I learned best by playing with those terminals 24 hours a day.

In early ‘85, I moved back to the Seattle area to work with a friend of mine who had started a company that created hardware, software, and firmware for the Industrial Engineering and Statistical Process Control (SPC) industries. We introduced new products about every 6 months. I travelled extensively training customers, support and field personnel. I participated in trade shows and provided technical sales support. I also installed and managed the company's network, phone system, BBS, and eventually their web site. My favorite part of that job was walking into my friend's office/lab and hearing him say, while pointing to a bird's nest of wires "It's the only one of its kind on the planet!"

I took a year off in 1997 to decompress, earn my MCSE and MCT certificates, do some consulting, and work as a technical trainer. I joined Microsoft in 1998 as a lead Technical Writer, working on Server 2000 and Active Directory. I managed the UA team for Small Business Server 2003. After shipping SBS, I took a PM job running the Live Meeting 2005 Technology Adoption Program (TAP).

After shipping Live Meeting, and a series of re-orgs, I became one of the first PMs on Microsoft Online Services. After about 6 months, it looked like I could contribute more as a technical writer, so I became one of the first writers on their User Assistance (UA) team, concentrating on our migration, coexistence, and onboarding/offboarding documentation.

When I'm not working, I'm usually remodeling my house or outdoors hiking and scrambling with friends and family in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest.