Last almost whole week I was in Orlando at MGX conference. MGX stands for Microsoft Global Exchange. Theme of the conference was “People Ready”. So Tuesday was travel day and few of us took red eye on Monday, so we had whole day Tuesday for ourselves. We were staying at a hotel inside the World Disney Resorts, called Swan. On Tuesday we got to Orlando at 7:30am EST and we went to Magic Kingdom that day, which was fun. Then on Wed, we had a training at Walt Disney world about “Service: Disney Style”, which was about how Disney treats its customers (guests) and how to provide top level of service to customers at our organization. They also gave us behind the door tour, which was awesome. I thought the best part was how they call their employees, “Cast Members” and not an employees. And how they have “Onstage” and “Backstage”. So it was a great experience and main takeaway was “Bump the Lamp” which is like going out of your way to do things for customers’ satisfaction and them not knowing about it. Its the small things you do for your customers and how you should pay attention to the detail, even though no one is ever going to pay attention to it. So that was a great experience. There was a party at “Treasure Island” for our group and it was fun.
On Thursday, we had all hands at TD Waterhouse Arena, where Orlando Magic play. They had blocked out half of the stadium. So when i got there at 8:30am, the arena was packed with 15,000 people. Yes, 15,000 people. That kinda blew me out of water and gave me perspective of how i am small part of such a huge and diverse organization. They had representatives from our offices around the world, Italy, UK, France, India, Hong Kong, China, Russia, Germany to name a few. And this conference was for Sales and Marketing, it didn’t even include our programmers. Once we found a seat (all the way at the top), breakfast was already in our seats and the stage was amazing. I felt like i was at some concert (i will put up pictures soon). All hands was all day event, discussed wins in FY 06. Here we saw some cool demos of Office 2007 and Vista (download them if you get a chance). And there was a party at “Secret Location” and it was fun, Friday was my Birthday (don’t ask me how old am i), so i stayed there until 12:15am and went back to hotel.
On Friday, we broke up into sessions and had our division all hands and we discussed our achievements in FY 06 and plans for FY 07, which was great as well. It was great to see people from our international offices and put faces to the names. Then again there was party on Friday night at “Studio 24” and it was fun and again it was awesome. It was one of the best parties i have been to. They had red carpet rolled out for us and had all kinds of food including sushi, Chinese, pizza, you name it. Music was great, overall i felt like a royalty. When your company rolls out a red carpet for their employees and treats them like kings/queens, you really want to work for that company and make sure it it successful. Microsoft knows how to treat its employees right, may be that is why it is one of the best companies to work for.
On Saturday, for half day we broke into small sessions and for other half we had another all-hands at TD Waterhouse. And this time we got a great seats thanks to some people on our team who got there early and saved the seats for rest of us. That’s call team work ladies and gentlemen. In this session we discussed FY 07 and how we are going to kick some rears. Heard speeches from Ray Ozzie and other top exec team. Bill G couldn’t be there because he was in Africa doing charity work. This was the first time i heard Ray Ozzie speak and it was great. This guy is one of the person who is going to replace Bill G in 08. I was really impressed by him and his vision and I am pretty sure company is going to be in good hands when that transition happens in 08. At the end of the speech he received well deserved standing ovation. They saved Steve Ballmer for last. Whenever he comes out he brings out this storm of energy. He is also a great speaker and very enthusiastic, he will pump you up. If you have heard him speak in person, you know what i mean. He was full of energy and at the end, he got off the stage and started giving high-fives to everyone. And guess what, he high-fived me, yeah baby (See the pics of Mr. Ballmer below). As one of my team member puts its, that’s as close to Ballmer as we are gonna get, haha. It was an awesome experience and see how much energy he has and how greatly he feels about this company. He also talked about Zune, i was expecting to see a prototype of Zune but that didn’t happen. Talking about Zune, here’s the ad of Zune on YouTube.com, I’m not sure if that is the teaser for Zune or not. So after the all-hands, there was another party/concert at Universal Studios. They had reserved the entire place for us from 8pm to 1am. They had a concert by Jewel and of course all the rides were open for us. And they had fireworks and laser show and over all it was awesome.
On Sunday, i flew back and that was the end of an awesome MGX.
On the other note, i was introduced to two new employees this week and both of them said, they read my blog about “Microsoft Interview“. Hmmm, how interesting is that? I guess that’s a good thing huh? Wait a second, i see Google Ads on my post, i didn’t put them there.
So like i said in my previous post, even though i have been at Microsoft for 6 months, i still feel like i am new. Reason being things are constantly changing for good, so if you enjoy change, this is the place for you. This is my only 4th post this month, but these posts are long. So if you are reading, thank you for making it all the way to the bottom of the post.
See you all next time.
Tejas
Learn, Have Perspective and Grow 