Category: Microsoft

One of the things I was most proud of during my time at Microsoft was my involvement with the Microsoft Political Action Committee (MSPAC).  I know that there are many, if not most people in the United States who cringe at the very idea of being associated withe a PAC.  It connotates some type of sleazy late night political meeting that is somehow illegal.  It means dollars spent to buy off politicians.  It means high-priced entertainment to buy and bribe people of influence.  It’s a Hollywood love story.  Though I am sure some of that goes on in reality it is not quite that sexy, but it’s not far from the truth. so read on and enjoy.

It started with a simple enough event.  Patrick Kennedy was coming to campus and being someone who is interested in politics it seemed like a fun thing to do during lunch.  I mean he’s a Kennedy!!?  Plus for those who do not know I am a huge Robert F Kennedy fan so that chance to see and hear someone who is related to him was too much to pass up.  the event was at the conference center on Microsoft’s campus and was sparsely attended.  Less than 50 people came.  I have to admit Patrick was less than impressive.  He started off fine.  He was here to listen and learn, but then he went off on the Republican led Congress in a very partisan manner.  Don’t get me wrong I tend to lean left in a lot of my views however at the end of the day I want members of both aisles to come together and develop solutions to the nations problems.  Unfortunately we get stuck with ideology. 

As I got more involved I actually got to meet members of government rather than just listen to them.  One of the first was the dynamic couple James Carville and Mary Matalin.   One of the oddest couples in US Political history.  She an advisor to George Bush Sr and Jr as well as Vice President Dick Cheney.  He the architect of Bill Clinton’s 1992 successful campaign.  They have a typical little spiel they do.  She gets up and talks politics while taking heavy hit sat her husband and his “bizarre” rock star status (very funny stuff).  Het get sup and tells you about his views and mentions at least ten times he is a Cajun from Louisiana.  After they spoke some of the elite members of the MSPAC got the opportunity to meet them.  We went up some stairs to what is more or less a loft and waited for them.  As they came up the stairs it became very apparent we had a fashion train wreck.  When they spoke in the conference center you did not notice because they were separate on stage.  However walking up the stair she was in a nice light soft green dress with elegant jewelry.  James however was in khaki’s, with a white shirt, a dark forest green blazer and a loud plaid tie with bright yellow and green highlights.  Mary as she approached the top just looked at everyone and said “Do we clash?  I think we clash?”.  Yes you did.  We had a chance to chat with them a nd get photo’s.  They were both very nice.  At eth time James was interested in what was (or was not) happening with Gary Locke.  Mary mentioned that Bill Maher was “not all there”.  I only mention that because when I met them again a couple of years later she brought that up again.   Next time I meet her I intend to ask her why she says thinks he has a potential mental stability issue.

In 2004 as she was trying to gain re-election to the Senate, Patti Murray.  It is interesting as I remember Patty Murray when she first  ran for office in 1992 as “the mom in sneakers” campaign.  It seemed unlikely at the time she would be a 4 term Senator.  But persevered she has.  I think there is an appeal with non-traditional backgrounds (Dave Reichert – the sheriff in the congressional 8th district is another good example).  Like this past election the 2004 campaign was a Republican year and the Democrats were playing defense across the country.  It was time to bring in the heavy hitters to help the campaign.   At that time one of the big political rock stars was Hilary Clinton.  When she attended the room was packed to capacity. She entered complete with secret service and lot s of applause.   She went onto speak for  over 30 minutes.  Primarily about the Iraq war.  The common theme by Democrats at the time was the other side of the aisle did not listen. Don Rumsfeld (quoting Don, “We know what we know, we don’t know what we don’t know, we know we don’t know”) does not tell the whole truth and deflects at every turn.  Finally she concluded about the situation in Iraq, “We started it, we own it”.  The thing about Hilary Clinton is everyone has an opinion.  Some love her, some hate her.  But there is a reason she ran for President, she is damn smart.

Her opponent at the time was Congressman George Neathercutt.  His claim to fame is in 1994 he upset then speaker of the house Tom Foley in the congressional 5th district in the  slaughter of the Democrats that mid-term elections..  He was going to try to do it again by taking on Senator Murray.  He came to campus and the room may have had 50-75 people.  It was in my opinion one of the oddest talks I heard during my time with the PAC.  At the time one of the news stories was a clip from capitol hill with out other Senator, Maria Cantwell having a spat with Alaska Senator Ted Stevens (whom Neathercutt used to work for). Neathercutt talked a lot about his previous work with Senator Stevens.  How he would mend fences etc…What I thought odd was though Senator Stevens may have been popular with hard-core republicans, however  I don’t think overall he was that popular in Washington state as he was the old-time politician in the pocket of big oil that people despised.  Not to mention every moment wasted on this topic was a free day for Senator Murray to focus on issues that mattered.  Neathercutt was also an eastern Washington guy, which is tough in a state dominated by the west side of the Cascades.  In the end Murray won re-election easily in what was otherwise a big season for Republicans.

There is a lot more to say on this era of my life, but I leave at this today as there are a few more chapters to go.

Good Night and Good Luck.

Hans Henrik Hoffmann November 16th, 2010

When I first started in this industry in 1991 having an email address was a window to the future.  As a temp at Microsoft I had a dumb terminal with Xenix Email.  I would sit there and wait for my emails to come — which usually came from the person about two cubicles down.  But it was thrilling when they came.  Maybe I had a secret admirer? Ok if I did she may be three or four cubicles down but it was a new world and I new way to communicate.

Later when I got hired on at Microsoft I got a new email account that would last for the next 18 years, hansh and later hansh@microsoft.com.  Remember at this time there was  no internet, all emails were internal, but it was still a brave new world.  The big move was to our mail server MS Mail v3.1 with a graphical client.  I know this seems rather dweebish and not terribly exciting.  At the time I could probably say among friends I was the only one who had a corporate email account.  MS Mail was great compared to my old Xenix email.  It had spell check and a global address list.   It was slow compared to todays world.  When you went on vacation and came back you had to download all your email you missed and that took 2 hours.  You could go talk to your co-workers about your great vacation.  I would say at this point I still liked it.

Several events swayed my love.  The growth of Microsoft as a company was one.  Over the years people would make careers writing massive emails to their org, their department, their division, frankly whomever would be “required” to listen and read all these emails of corporate drivel, they were in some cases painful.  I know a lot of these emails were well thought out, professional and full of worthwhile content.  However as time went on it was like an avalanche of information.  Most emails were so long that you could not take or find the time to read them all.  I cannot count the times I would let an email sit in my inbox thinking I need to read this only to a month later as I cleaned out my inbox simply delete the email.  The good side was there were training companies that offered courses on how to manage your corporate email.

An event that went almost unnoticed was the rise of mobile phones and in particular what Nokia did with the mobile phone, namely being the prime mover of SMS or simply put text messaging.  Up until text messaging the mobile phone was simply a phone that allowed you to call anywhere.    But Nokia realized you have a device that had a user interface and you could do things with that interface.  Such as type messages.  It remains largely the same today but has grown into quite an industry.  In 2008 there were over 1 trillion text messages sent worldwide.  In my view services like Twitter owe everything to SMS.

The second big event that occurred was the internet.  Now customers could email and interact with me directly.  This became a real bummer.  In addition to this now everyone could get a personal email account because the internet was “hip” and everyone needed an identity, frankly I needed more email.  Now instead of managing just my corporate email I can now manage my own personal account.  How much time do I spend each day checking and deleting email?  Way too much.  It is a nightmare.  The internet though would have benefits and as time moved on the group know as the First globalists by John Zogby would start to reject the horror that my generation started.  Enter Social Networking.

Social Networking as is so often the case in the tech industry did not start with todays current leader, Facebook.  The original was MySpace.  But despite the early success things quickly changed and before you knew it they were yesterday’s news.  In today’s world we have the phenomena of Facebook and then Twitter.  What is interesting is what occurs on these sites is a new form of communication with far less structures and far less ridiculed than traditional email.  I recently saw Obama Campaign manager David Plouffe speak and he even mentioned on the campaign as they worked hard to reach out to younger voters that they had to avoid traditional email as the primary communication mechanism since younger voters communicated via Text messaging, Facebook, and Twitter.  As he put it his views on new media communications were old.

All I can say to this new generation is amen.  I think we have reached a space in corporate america (my background) where email is actually counter productive.  I cannot count the countless  and numbing hours spent reading marketing emails, emails from co-workers, the countless fire drills spurred on by these emails, some because of their content and some because I simply either did not read or just plain missed them.  Some days I felt like my job was simply cleaning out my inbox and hitting the delete button five hundred times.

With the new trend of commmunciating via video conference I see a helpful trend where we will get back to more face-face communications.  Structured emails rarely reveal the talent of intent of the individual behind them.  There is a lot to be said about reading people s facial expressions.  But maybe more importantly is the civility of it all.  During this election season we see the scathing personal attacks that can be laid down in the print and in a large way through technologies like email we have brought that into our own lives.  Now will video communications necessarily change that?  Short answer is no.  But in the end I have to admit I am just a bit burnt out.  If a person or group of people are angry with me just say it to my face and stop this cowardly email business.  Yes email people I view your love as cowardly, but do not worry technology moves on and it will all be dead before you know it, in fact it already has.

Good Night and Good Luck 

Hans Henrik Hoffmann Nov 1 2010