One Louder

Crafty

HeatherLeigh — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 18:53:00 GMT

She would have learned her lesson if they would have left her in there for a while and let someone "win" her as a prize, only to hand her over to her angry parents, hiding outside. Guaranteed she would have been out of there when the claw came her way.

Oh, I know. That was mean. I was just kidding, but you have to wonder about the parents (and why nobody appeared surprised or angry...makes you think this is a regular activity).

Creative insomnia solutions

HeatherLeigh — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:54:00 GMT

Anyone who has been here for a while, or who reads my facebook status updates, knows I am an insomniac.It has come and gone throughout my life. My first memorable insomnia experience was in high school, when I learned that Star Search came on at 2 AM. Not sure why we didn't seek help then. I was regularly falling asleep in class.

Throughout my adult life, it has come and gone in spurts, a night here, a few weeks there. That was until March when it got hella worse. Can I explain what brings it on? Not really. What I do know is that I have "pervasive thoughts." The brain, it just doesn't turn off....like, ever. And while I have heard of people up at night with worry, I'm really just up with my head spinning around dumb stuff. "I wonder if I should buy a hammock", "What do I need at the grocery store?" "what goes with that new shirt I bought?" Seriously! It's annoying. Here is what insomnia, at it's worse, looks like for me: Lying in bed for a few hours before falling asleep, awakening in the wee hours and either not being able to fall back asleep or waking about once an hour until it's time to get up. Total suckage.

I have tried a bunch of things to address this issue:

-tried taking an herbal sleep blend. Impact: nothing.
-tried taking melatonin. Impact: nothing.
-no caffeine after 2 PM. Impact: some improvement in falling asleep.
-no alcohol. Impact: hard to tell, plus cutting it out completely is no fun.
-experimenting with TV/sleep timer (not using it). Impact: hard to tell.
-stopped taking vitamins at night. Impact: none on sleep but I feel less barfy :)
-focus on breathing. Impact: annoyance.
-reducing the temperature in the house. Impact: nothing.
-cannot do the warm milk thing...just can't do it. I am weird about dairy.
-taking an anti-anxiety medication for the thoughts (I hate that it's anti-anxiety because I don't identify with the anxiety part...I don't feel anxious, just have an active mind). Impact: Able to fall asleep most nights, not able to stay asleep. waking spells are shorter.

I'm sure that I have tried other stuff that I am forgetting. I'm just looking for the right combination. I'm really resisting taking "sleeping pills." At the same time, the insomnia has never gone on for this long. My memory and my focus are suffering (fortunately, I have strategies for dealing with those things).

So here is where I am at right now. Yesterday, I ordered blackout shades for my bedroom and the guest room. It never really gets that dark here; that's one thing I noticed after moving here. Must be our location on the map. I've seen other peoples' blackout shades and they are awesome. Hope mine get here soon.

I also, am turning the guest bedroom into my "quiet place." I try to spend some time in there every day. No clock, no TV, no music, no work or other distractions. This space is for reading and meditating. Yesterday, I painted it the same dark, calm blue that I have in my bedroom, so I am not distracted by the paint color that doesn't go with my home color palate (see how my mind works?). It's a really great space now. I'll post some pictures.

And the yoga. So far, so good. It truly is calming and focuses the mind. The challenge is to figure out when to do it. Late enough that the relaxation benefits my sleep, not too late so the exercise disrupts my sleep.

There will come a time when I go back to the doctor but I want to exhaust all options first. At this point, I am getting better sleep but I would like to sleep through the night. It's happened 2-3 times since March.

And if you think I've spent too much time thinking about this, you're right. I have. It's keeping me up at night! Maybe tonight I'll be kept up by thinking that perhaps I should not use periods at the ends of bullet points.

So what is my actual job, you ask?

HeatherLeigh — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 16:28:00 GMT

This is one of the things I like about Microsoft. It pretty much changes every year. No opportunity for stagnation around here! This year, I am going to learn a ton and do a little travel.

So as you may know, my role last year involved 2 things/teams:

1) prospect identification and engagement for marketing roles across Microsoft US. My team hit 150% of goal. Whee!\

2) US focused competitive intelligence and programs. This means that we generated leads for our recruiters and shared competitive info on our talent competitors. We also managed programs around things like hiring Microsoft alumni.

Well, it was fun, but... on to new things.

I have supported the marketing space since I started at Microsoft in 1999.It's kind of like the universe knew that if I got to ten years just focused on the same function, something bad was going to happen. I have LOVED supporting marketing and all the people I've gotten to work with. I get marketing. It's been fun, but I totally feel like I needed to focus on something new. My learning curve around marketing with respect to my role kind of petered out a while ago. And I have been asking to hand off the marketing work for a while. Guess it turns out that when your team goes well above and beyond goal, hand-offs are easier. So the marketing piece I own no longer (thanks Lisa!). I have no doubt that it will continue to be productive and fuel our marketing pipeline in the US for years to come.

As for the second part, well, I am keeping it....kind of. We will still be managing some programs for the US. One I am excited about is figuring out how we hire across the company for people earlier in their career (a few years out of undergrad). I love those "we haven't figured out how to do this yet" projects. The bulk of our work in the research space, though, will be similar to what we did last year except for one major thing. This year, we are all about international dev centers; specifically Ireland, Denmark, Israel, China, India and Boston. I can't tell you how excited I am about this. Our job is to help our dev center recruiting teams do more and better by informing their candidate generation strategies through competitive intelligence. What does that mean? That we will be providing them information on who they should go after, when and where; providing them with leads, data, e-mail campaign support, training etc. So you'll have to excuse me a little bit if I gush over my job because I am so down with this kind of work, you don't even know. And it's all greenfields stuff. Gotta love building a practice from scratch. See why I spent so much time writing my business plan (and have been getting teased about the fact that it's 25 pages long...hey, I'm complete if nothing else).

I'm also fortunate to have some great work partners, especially Declan in Ireland, in addition to the folks that report to me. He's our conduit to the development centers and, as you can see, he has his own blog. Hmm, perhaps there will be some cross-posting activity.

So you may be wondering if you should expect any changes on my blog. And I'll tell you that nothing is being taken away. I'm still a US-based employee, I am still in staffing and I am still here to represent Microsoft broadly. One of the partner teams in my organization will still have some US focus and I am ALWAYS happy to get a resume into the right hands regardless of where those hands happen to sit (do hands sit? Yes, I think they do).

The additional content that I plan to be sharing is around my experience supporting the international space. So for my regular US audience, you can expect to hear about what I have got going on (some of which is still US program focused). For the international audience, I think you'll start to see opportunities to engage our dev center staffing teams. So seriously, no take-aways. If anything, just additional global goodness.

So this is what I have going on. And if you have any questions about our international recruiting (specific recruiting internationally for dev centers), flip 'em my way and we'll get Declan to hop online and answer them.

See why I am dorky for my job?

The paradox of internet shopping

HeatherLeigh — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 15:55:00 GMT

I've done a lot of shopping online recently. And in my usual fashion, I have been trying to figure out what's going on; why so much spending, especially online? What I realized is that internet shopping has a draw for immediate gratification junkies. I can shop now, no getting dressed, no make-up, no parking or browsing. The problem that I realized that I was running into was that, although there's the illusion of immediate gratification, you end up disappointed because you don't get your stuff quickly. So there you are, off to get another fix with another online shopping experience. Yeah, I know I could do overnight or 2 day shipping, but then I would have to admit that I have a shopping problem. I'm not ready for that.

So I have 4 outstanding orders. Just waiting for one of them to get delivered. And on some level, until the goods start rolling in, I am somewhat dissatisfied with my shopping experience. There's an adjustment I have to make. If I want it now, I have to actually shop (well, I have been doing some of that lately as well). Online shopping is like your drug dealer giving you your first hit for free. You are drawn back for more. And frankly, that is going to make me go broke and necessitate much more purging.

When brainy college students around the world get green

HeatherLeigh — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 16:38:00 GMT

Microsoft has been holding the Imagine Cup annually for six years now. Here's how the event is described:

Everything that the world may become "someday" lies in the hands of young people today. As they look at the road ahead, their close relationship with technology enables them to dream in ways we never have before. Put the two together, and you have young minds holding the tools that can make their vision a reality.

This is the recipe that inspired Microsoft to create the Imagine Cup. What begins with a burst of inspiration and a lot of hard work can become a future software breakthrough, a future career, or a flourishing new industry. The Imagine Cup encourages young people to apply their imagination, their passion and their creativity to technology innovations that can make a difference in the world – today. Now in its sixth year, the Imagine Cup has grown to be a truly global competition focused on finding solutions to real world issues.

Open to students around the world, the Imagine Cup is a serious challenge that draws serious talent, and the competition is intense. The contest spans a year, beginning with local, regional and online contests whose winners go on to attend the global finals held in a different location every year. The intensity of the work brings students together, and motivates the competitors to give it their all. The bonds formed here often last well beyond the competition itself.

One of my colleagues recently attended the events in Paris and was super impressed by not only the event itself, but the quality of the students and entries. The theme this year was “Imagine a world where technology enables a sustainable environment.” If you check out the website, I think you will be reallly impressed with the creativity of these project teams. The reason why this gets me excited is that my role is now focused on global technical talent (more about that later) and seeing such incredible talent at the college level is really encouraging for our hiring down the road.

Tuned In

HeatherLeigh — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 16:00:00 GMT

Now that my new blog header is up (can you see it now?), it's time to have some fun. The guys over at Pragmatic Marketing have published their book, Tuned In. And yeah, I am mentioned briefly (I'm on page 169-170). I've already heard good things about the book and it seems that they are doing very well on Amazon. Congrats, guys.

Anyway, the fun part. I wanted to do a contest to give away some of the books. So here it is: come up with the new tagline for the top of my blog keeping in mind target audience and value proposition (and that I don't just support marketing anymore but all roles at MS). I'll pick a winner. Graham, my contact over at Pragmatic Marketing will pick a winner and we can do a readers choice winner if there are enough entries. I'll have some extra copies for honroable mention as well.

Drop your entries into comments below. I'll let you know when I am going to bring the contest to a close.

If your grandma had a radio show...

HeatherLeigh — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 01:33:00 GMT

...and watched The Bachelorette.

I imagine them taping over a nice pot of tea and ladyfinger cookies. And a big bowl of bitter.

"She didn't know the Seattle Space Needle!" She must be destroyed.

This probably won't mean anything to you if you didn't watch the show. I'm just going to meditate on not becoming judgmental and bitter when I get older.

You can't make this stuff up.

PS: I am secretly hoping I bump into Jason at a coffee shop. I'm human :)

We're not cool?

HeatherLeigh — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 01:05:00 GMT

Sez whom? I beg to differ. Scratch that, I don't beg. I just disagree.

I've just never bought into the hype around the coolness factor of some of these other companies. Cool to me is that I can work from home, no set hours. Time for the gym during the day. I'm excited to do my job every day and love my manager (who doesn't read this...swear). Free food is cold comfort when you work 80 hour weeks (so is that 20% thing....do the math). And the idea of someone playing <insert childhood game adapted for adults using technology and/or larger props> outside my office makes me think about voodoo dolls.

It all may be cool for gen Y. And once we either stop assuming that the workplace revolves around them or they age and get mortgages, gray hair and a more ample waist line, then I think people will have a more realistic view of "cool." No offense to the gen Y folks; it's just that there are "others" out here. Yeah, we are the wrinkly ones with sensible cars (and kick ass wardrobes...or is that just me?).

Cool is in the eye of the beholder +/- any media hype that gets added because it's a slow news day in Silicon Valley. Forget about that second part. I think that's the definition of media fanboyism. It's old, overblown and frankly, it's just not that cool anymore.

The middle aged decider of cool has spoken.:)

This is that stupid thing you are going to need this year.

HeatherLeigh — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 21:03:00 GMT

Move over chocolate fountain. There's something less practical.

I silently pity the blog trolls

HeatherLeigh — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 20:37:00 GMT

Not just mine, but blog trolls everywhere. First of all, I have a thick skin. But when I get a troll comment, the first thing that comes to mind is how much I pity the troll (I say in my Mr. T voice). Seriously, how miserable must someone's life be to find pleasure in leaving nasty anonymous comments? Feeling insecure? Out of control? Dog ignoring you? Pretty girl break your heart in high school? Ugly girl break your heart in high school? Doesn't hurt my feelings at all when people that don't know me hurl lame insults.

But on some level, I do sense that you are desperately seeking my acknowledgment (what does that feel like, by the way?). Seems sad to me. But here. You have it. Although I delete your little attempts at nastiness, you have my acknowledgment. You are so far superior to me that you have the time to read my blog regularly and come up with delightful little snippets of crap.

Congratulations. You're a superstar.

(I'm still feeling the afterglow of yoga....so totally feeling super relaxed and happy about me)

Yoga update

HeatherLeigh — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 18:27:00 GMT

OK, so my intro to yoga class last week was really good. I was surprised. I think I mentioned that when I tried it before, my mind was still bopping around all different subjects both important and trivial. And thusly, the recommendation to "breathe deeply....relax" only made me want to punch someone. How un-yoga-like.

So last week's class? I was actually able to focus on myself and what I was doing. No mind racing. No evil thoughts (and by that I mean that most thoughts would be perceived by me as evil since they were gettin' in the way of me and a peaceful mind). OK, I admit that I did think for a moment about how odd it appeared that the instructor was so freaking limber. But I am sure I'll get over that.

So today at lunchtime, I am off to "core yoga". It hurts to think about it. I'm trying a bunch of different kinds out to see what I like. More on that later.We can even discuss the fact that I impulsively went out and bought some new yoga gear. What a dork. Hey, maybe I'll be a present and peaceful dork soon.

Saved from blog bleh

HeatherLeigh — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 18:22:00 GMT

Like my new header? I had secretly hoped that someone would do something like this for me, but you know, I can't really ask.

HUGE thanks to Derek for making my blog considerably less bleh!

Rogue marketing by-passing the filter of good taste?

HeatherLeigh — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 17:41:00 GMT

OK, I wouldn't exactly call Burger King the beacon of good taste in America, but this is just mind-blowing.

Follow the link to Idea Sandbox. The comments are hilarious.

So I have 3 problems with this:

First, I realize that different people find different things funny. I think that Jim Carey is un-funny and I find Jon Stewart quite funny. You may feel differently. But this thing by BK is a very specific kind of funny and I'm guessing appeals mostly to young adult males. If they could have isolated the content to that target market, that would have possibly made a little sense. But just imagine the uncomfortable conversation a parent has with his child in the airport when the child asks why the onion looks so worried (and let me just tell you the joy I am experiencing imagining someone searching "worried onion" and finding my blog...whee!). I'm not about recommending that people shelter their kids from everything, but it should be the parents choice whether to expose their kids to stuff like this. Just because it's a cartoon, doesn't make it OK. In fact it makes it worse; cartoons attract kids.

Second, is really about the crapiness of the marketing itself. Specifically, associating Burger King with body cavity searches and hookers doesn't exactly give you a good feeling about the food. In fact, the message about quality ingredients really gets lost here. I mean, really, do you want to think about produce with boobs? What the?

And third, it's not funny enough to get positive viral juju. I'm imagining someone cleaning out their desks at corporate after they see all the feedback come back on this campaign. Yeah, BK, this is crap.

I feel like I also have to say that I am far from a prude. My friends that know me offline can tell you that. Yeah, I admit that the language and subject matter gets cleaned up here on my work blog. Whose wouldn't?

Anyway, I am not "outraged"...I'm not the moral police. But I do know what I find distasteful for public consumption and this fits the bill.

<edit: just in here fixin' my typos>

My obsessive-compulsive Independence Day

HeatherLeigh — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 20:38:00 GMT

I almost hesitate to tell you about my weekend plans, lest some American Revolution buff tells me I'm ungrateful and unpatriotic. I'm not either of those things. I vote and donate blood (hey, my veins are blue and my blood is red....how do you like that?). However, I do like English people. And yet, I like religious freedom. I'm somewhat ambivalent about tea but I think Boston and powdered wigs kick ass. I have witnessed ugly American syndrome abroad and briefly wished people would mistake me for Canadian. The feeling passed (not that there's anything wrong with Canada). There's enough nationalistic awesomeness to go around. We can all be proud of where we are from without having to quantify why it's "better" than someplace else. How zen of me.

So I do not have anything against the 4th of July; love it, glad I live here. But what I cannot, for the life of me, understand are fireworks and parades. I absolutely don't get it. And I acknowledge that at least part of the reason is my obsessive-compulsive tendencies. Fireworks make a mess, sweaty people gather dirt, I get claustrophobic in crowds, etcetera. If people like doing those things, more power to them. I mean, they probably would see me sitting quietly in my backyard with my eyes closed and wonder "what's up with you lady?" What's up with me is that I don't like fireworks or parades. To me, fireworks look the same every year. It's kind of like knowing the end of the story. I'm always slightly disappointed, especially after the packing up of the car and jockeying for a prime viewing spot (which always seems to be dusty and have litter involved). The ones you light yourselves freak my dog out and leave black marks on your driveway and spent bottle rocket remains in my front yard. I'm not saying that you shouldn't enjoy them, just that they are something so many people seem to enjoy but I cannot bring myself to (kind of like animated movies and ham). I wish I could but I'd rather be reading a book (I'd rather be reading a book than doing lots of things, actually).

OK, parades. Parades? I'm sure that there's a good reason why parades started in the old days, and that reason is mostly that people didn't have TVs or shopping malls. The benefit of parades is doing some hard core people watching. The thing is, you can do that any time without sweaty elbows in your face and fighting for parking. Don't even get me started on horse poop. I've never watched a parade and said "wow, that was awesome; I'm glad I sat in the sun for 6 hours." If you have a kid in a parade or something, I get it. You are there to watch your kid. Otherwise, I don't really see the appeal. The ROI just isn't there.

I'm not trying to be a grouch. I love barbecue-ing on the 4th weekend and swimming and spending time with friends and eating things that are artificially colored in red and blue. But I heard the news folks this morning start to talk about fireworks this weekend and all I could think is "Oh no, do we have to do this again?"

What happens in Cambridge (whether or not it really stays in Cambridge)

HeatherLeigh — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 17:14:00 GMT

Here's a good explanation of the kind of work that is taking place in our Boston Concept Develop Center. It's always frustrating for a recruiter when there is an awesome pool of talent, geographically, and you don't have local opportunities for them. Boston is a prime example; except now we do have opportunities...cool ones.

Anyway, if you would like to be considered for opportunities in our BCDC (primarily technical), shoot your resume over to msboston@microsoft.com. I'll make sure it gets to the recruiters that have openings in Boston.