Moving within Microsoft
What I have been doing, instead of keeping up on my blog entries? Well,lots. One of the biggest things for me is that we rearranged a few accounts in Denver, where I live. With the help of my manager, and encouragement from local managers, I was asked/encouraged to move to the Desert Mountain geography Consulting Services. I have been with Microsoft going on 7 years, and all of it has been in Microsoft Consulting Services in the Communication Sector.
What is the Communications Sector? Well, it is a vertical foucsed on telecommunications customers. Living in Denver, we used to me a mecca for telecommuncations customers, so if you lived here and were in the Communcations Sector, life was good because there wasn’t much travel. Over the last 6 years with consolidations, coprorate scandals, and changes in the telco industry things have been moving out of Denver or scaling back with our big local telcos.
This isn’t to say that I mainly worked in Denver for the last 6 years. I have often jumped on to large, difficult projects to advance my knowlegde and career. I spent an entire year workign as a the lead on a large project in Germany, where my family and I spent a lot of time in Germany, France, and Holland. I also found a good friend and mentor who managed a large telco account in the Washington DC area, and ended up working out there a lot with his team. St. Louis, Ft. Lauderdale, New Jersey, San Fransisco, Dallas, Ricmond,….. they take a toll on your family.
So, the account that I have been working with for most of this year in Denver moved to the Desert Mountain group. The customer expressed an interest in having me back long term and in a more strategic role. So, long term engagement + local + great management team + strategic role = happy family, happy consultant. It was a no brainer in the end, but it is hard to leave Communications Sector where I know so many people that have been good to me over the years.
Starting on November 27 I will be starting a new role, called Enterprise Strategy Consultant (ESC). Actually, we have a very formal ESC role, this is more of a Senior Constulant role as an ESC so I hope to stay very hands on, but also help my customer develop a vision and strategy around Microsoft and other products.
What am I doing right now and for the last few months? I’ll have some of that in my next few posts including .NET 3.0 and my thoughts on Xbox Live and Texas Hold Em’.
