A new leader for TAGM...
As many of you know, one of the key roles of the TAGM group I'm part of is to connect with and support the technical user groups around the world, working with the Microsoft field and more importantly with associations such as Culminis, INETA, PASS and others. A few examples of the things we provide are: -
- Funding to the major associations and for some of your local meetings.
- Technical content to help with your user group meetings.
- Community Led Launch Events (over 7000 last year)
- A communications channel between yourselves and the various groups within Microsoft.
- LiveMeeting accounts!
- Advice and guidance (from you as well as to you!)
Many of you will have met either Christine Betts or Michael Alcock, who have been very active with the User Groups over several years now. Both are moving on to new opportunities within Microsoft, and I thought I should take the opportunity both to let you know this and also to introduce you to Rick Martinez, the new leader of the Technical Audience Global Marketing Team, or TAGM.
Christine Betts is moving on after almost 4 years of leading the mission for technical audience connection. Christine will be continuing to work on our cross-company strategy for audience satisfaction until she transitions to a new role later in the year. As you may know, Christine is a 25-year veteran of Microsoft, having done many and varied roles across the company before this one. Christine wants me to pass on the following words to you all - "One of the greatest pleasures of the past 4 years has been the opportunity to meet and work with members of the technical community across the world. Microsoft is improved and completed by the amazing work that you do with technology every day. I'm delighted to have done what I can to enable that. I am confident though that we are still only at the beginning of an even stronger partnership and I look forward to watching it continue to flourish. Keep giving the feedback and helping Microsoft to step up its game to help you all do bigger things to realize your own ambitions."
Michael Alcock was my manager, has had a key role in driving broad community connection for Microsoft, and was the IT Professional Champion for the division. He had responsibility for the Microsoft user group, influencer and community content strategy programs, and his new role builds on his experience from working with User Groups to bring those learning deep within Microsoft.
Michael would just like to say that "User Groups Rock! I'm glad I met you all and don't think I'm going very far. My new role is to help bridge the community of Microsoft's technical professional s better with all of you!!! I'm so glad to have been a part of the past 3 years of transformation for how we serve the community at scale. It's so cool to have roles within Microsoft that interact and listen to you and work with all of you to improve how this company works with the community. I'll see you all again soon."
I am excited to announce that Rick Martinez has joined Microsoft to lead the TAGM organization going forward! Rick is joining us from Disney and has a rare blend of skills that are a natural fit for this role. He is a developer, IT Professional, community technologist and an Internet strategist. Rick has built software products, run datacenters and is constantly striving to understand the next generation of technical opportunities. Rick's most recent role at Disney was the VP of Technical Operations - leading a team of IT professionals managing the datacenter and infrastructure for some of the most successful Web sites in the world: ESPN.com, ABC.com, and Disney.com. While there he also drove Internet strategy for all of the Disney Parks and Resorts, using technology to create innovative customer experiences and improve operational performance.
Prior to Disney, Rick held engineering roles at a startup and at a large university, building products and managing IT infrastructure. As Director of Engineering and Manager of Database Engineering for Starwave he led teams, built software, and was responsible for all back-end and client side systems. These roles have given him a wealth of experiences as both an IT Pro and a Developer - he has walked many miles in your shoes.
Rick asked me to tell you that "I am very excited to take on this very important role connecting the technical community with Microsoft. I look forward to continuing the momentum started under Christine's leadership and over the coming months will share with you my thoughts and perspectives on how we can work together to take this up to the next level."
We will try and get an interview with Rick on UGTV as soon as he had had a chance to get himself settled in his new role. If you've got any questions you would like to ask him, please let me know - I can't promise we will get to ask everything, but we will try!
