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Marc Holmes

The Unauthorised Autobiography of Marc Holmes

Microsoftie thinking about dialogue with developers. Brit in Seattle. Windswept and Interesting.


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Weeknote 0 - in which I prepare to leave on a jet plane

It’s Weeknote 0 which can mean only one thing: my final week in the UK.

What’s happened:
  • The aforementioned Mid-Year Review (MYR) took place on Monday. Not much I can talk about as it’s all confidential stuff but it went well for us and our team in particular. Phew. It’s the culmination of a number of weeks worth of preparation and now it’s time to kick on with the rest of the year with a lot of food for thought as we move towards the next big process: planning.
  • The rest of the week was a mix of connecting with people for the last time, clearing the final bits of todo list (as far as possible) and then people reviews for the whole team. As you might expect Microsoft has a comprehensive set of tools for people development (which is what these particular reviews are about rather than performance), and if you take them seriously then they can be helpful for thinking about personal development and actually having a useful discussion and common understanding of those needs.
  • Also as usual, those conversations throw up a bunch of new ideas too.
  • All of that stuff then needed handing over to colleagues.
  • Finally, a bit of cake, a bit of champagne and an hour in the pub and that was me done. (Thanks again gang – I love you all.)
  • Oh, did I mention I’ve been really ill this week too? No? Well I was.
Apart from this stuff I also:
  • Packed the wife off to the embassy to sort the rest of the family visas out. Well done her.
  • Discovered that my colleagues are just way better than me.
  • Kindlemania continued to sweep the office with more purchases amongst the team.
  • I also spent a final few hours in Oxford and decided there was something deep and meaningful about brunch at the Grand Cafe* (oldest coffee house in the UK – est. 1650), getting sized up for a suit at Ede & Ravenscroft (oldest firm of tailors in the world – est. 1689) whilst reading The New Capitalist Manifesto on the Kindle and selling some old electronics on Ebay but I just couldn’t think about what the meaning was. Something to do with worlds colliding rather than everything changing I suspect**.
Next week I’ll be:
  • Experiencing the delights of being a Microsoft Corp employee
  • Settling in to Bellevue life and trying to tackle mundane stuff – like buying a kettle, and finding tea bags
  • Going to San Francisco for a couple of days to pick up some sunshine (hopefully)
  • Panic buying the stuff I forgot to pack and then searching for somewhere to dump it all.
  • Missing the family :(
*Yeah, I like Pie Minister too, but somehow Scrambled Eggs on Rye and a Bloody Mary seemed like a better brunch than Pie and Mash.

**Now I remember – it was do with Ede & Ravenscroft offering an incredibly scarce resource – bespoke measurements – for free, whereas most businesses are seeking to find new scarcities and then selling them.

Data Expiration and Erosion

I’m sure this was one of those ideas I dreamed up ages ago (like this sort of thing) but I’ve searched and can’t find a blog post so maybe I didn’t.

Anyway, I like the principle behind X-pire which intends to add digital expiration dates to photos which means those embarrassing photos will actually fade away from the internet – so decreasing the half-life of such radioactive incidents. I’m sure it could also be subverted so you control your personal profile (like, I know I’m still a really good looking bloke, but I’m sure I looked better 10 years ago so we’ll leave the expiration dates off that one). There’s probably a load of technical challenges to implement this kind of thing, but good luck to them.

I was thinking a while ago that it might be nice for databases to have “data erosion” features. So for instance, locations, addresses, dates and so on “erode” over time and become less specific. It would actually make me feel more comfortable about entering that kind of specific into the current set of location-aware services as – eventually – I wouldn’t need to worry that I’d be exposing too much personal information if the service was hacked (or whatever).
Similarly, the same kind of erosion could occur with loose relationships such as social graphs – friends are only actually friends if you interact with them right? Presumably this is the kind of smarts that services such as Facebook already have, but it would be cool to have simple datatypes that handled this stuff automatically: e.g. “Weighted Relationship” or “Erodable Date/Time”.

You heard it here first. Probably.

Kindletastic

I do love my Kindle. I may have mentioned it here or elsewhere. Though it is dangerously addictive – as if Jeff himself is pushing my hand down on that “Send to my Kindle” purchasing button. Anyway, if you needed further reason to go and get one then take a look at this smart list of ‘Kindle hacks’ from our own @simonster on the Ubelly site. The Instapaper tip is really cool. There’s also a WP7 app for Kindle which will sync as you’d expect with your existing collection.

Finally, if you’re still not convinced then marvel at Kindle Quest which is a “sort-of” implementation of Zork for the Kindle browser – though it’ll work happily in other browsers. (I always wanted to create a cult that could only speak using the Zork vocabulary but writing the manifesto and organising the meeting proved to be troublesome...)

Surrounded by notable people like @markjo and @stevecla

Talking of Narcissism,  Wikipedia tells me that one of the seven deadly sins of Narcissism is Envy. Now just to prove I’m not at all envious, here I am telling you about my superb colleagues...

Firstly, take a glimpse at this excellent profile of @stevecla in Fortune: “people with bizarre job titles” or something or other. He is “Senior Director of Storytelling” after all...

Next up, my partner-in-crime @markjo is recognised as one of the “30 under 30” of rising star talent.  Brilliant achievement for him!
Quite how it was decided I have no idea (I left an anonymous tip-off that he’s actually 34. (NB. rules people, I didn’t and he isn’t)). And now that I look closer I notice he’s at position 18. 18-30 makes a lot of sense. Now I get it...

Anyway, envious? Me? No. Not... At... All...

Weeknote -1: Storm before the Calm

I’ve been a fan of the Weeknotes style of blogging since I saw Matt use it effectively on his blog.

So in an effort to get me rebooted in 2011, and also considering the move to Seattle in a weeks time, I thought it might be a nice way to catch up on general goings on. I’m saying this is Weeknote –1 as “the new project” doesn’t start until 31st Jan.

What happened this week:
  • Mainly we spent time completing pre-work for next week’s “Mid Year Review” (or MYR). It’s an annual process that sees the entire business run a bottom-up and top-down and side-to-side analysis of current performance. There’s a lot of paperwork as you might expect and the process can be quite laborious but actually I’m a fan of it – it’s a real chance to come together as teams, vTeams, and individuals to learn about the business, and spend time thinking about “what next” and then capture that for execution. As I write this, our actual review is in around 12 hours time.
  • We trooped the colour on the MSDN editorship with MikeO handing over to TheBeebs.
  • Quote of the Week from The Beebs on the subject of crack (I forget why): “I hear it’s a bit more-ish.”
  • I had a bizarre 3-way conversation with removal people which went:
    • This is how we wrap a piano...
    • We can’t take a piano.
    • Yes, we can take a piano.
    • Oh, you can?
    • Do you have a piano?
    • No.
    • Would you like a piano?
    • Not really.
    • Are you getting a piano?
    • No.
    • Why are we talking about a piano?
  • I spent considerable time improving my bureacracy-fu with American visa applications. It’s OK when you get used to the numbers of the forms. American bureaucracy doesn’t fill me with dread – it’s all fairly logical - but much like the customs forms when you enter the country I’m always left with a sense of “Why?” and “But what do they do with them?”. (Don’t send answers on a postcard).
Next week:
  • We’ll be thinking about the outcomes of MYR.
  • It’s my last week in Microsoft UK so it’ll be time to close down with some people reviews and a bit of desk clearing.
  • I’ll be thinking hard about maximising that baggage allowance and hoping not to be sat next to the toilets on the nerd-bird.

An Englishman in New York(ish)

epic fail photos - Oddly specific garbage...?

About five years ago now, Andy Stopford – a great developer active in a number of communities I was involved in – wrote a short blog post called “Marc takes the Red Pill” as I prepared to leave BBC Worldwide for Microsoft.

5 years has passed by quickly and I’ve held a number of roles within Developer & Platform Evangelism. 2011 marks a new challenge as I’m about – in Morpheus’ words – “to see how far the rabbit hole goes” as I head to join the DPE team in Redmond. We’re very excited about the move as it gives me a bunch of new challenges and opportunities but also the chance for an adventure as a family as we all explore the delights of WA. (I told my wife it’s called the Sunshine State. Say nothing.)

Working in Microsoft in the UK has been an amazing experience, and I’m totally excited to be able to grasp an opportunity to work at the heart of an amazing organisation.

Thanks to all of you (both of you!) for reading the blog and a big thanks to everyone who’s helped me over the past 5 years: teams, mentors, managers, drinking partners, customers.

What of this blog? Well, I’ll keep blogging away as a “solipsistic indulgence” as my friend PT would say, with some reflections on life in the US amongst the mixed bag of stuff that catches my eye, and occasionally some technical content.

Thanks to Fail Blog/Oddly Specific for the picture of the moving truck they’re sending to my house.

Pip pip!

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