I gotta take more days off

March 14, 2006 By

You know, I gotta take more days off. I realized that during lunch. Sitting on the top floor of the Iron Works in the Austin sunshine. Eating BBQ. Damn, I’m getting fat but I’m fat and happy. Lots of great memories from SXSW. Sitting at the table was the Liz Lawley. Craig Newmark. Lili Cheng. Jenny Lam. (Jenny and Lili do a lot of design work on Windows). Nothing important got said, just a fun lunch relaxing in the sun. I just pinched myself and thought that at some point someone will wake me up from this dream.

Speaking of fun stuff, yeah, Microsoft did the iPod box design parody video. Yes, we can laugh at ourselves. The marketing team did it to challenge the box designers for our products to do better. We need more of this stuff. Microsoft is a consensus culture and consensus (which means everyone has to sign off on things) does avoid trouble, but it also makes for uninspired products and marketing. That is our internal challenge to figure out, that’s for sure!

Speaking of designers, I love Alan Cooper. Some of my favorite memories of the 1990s are sitting around with him having conversations with him. I was lucky enough to record part of a conversation I had with him recently after he spoke at a conference so you can see part of his interesting personality. He says bombastic things. But he always gets me to think and that’s why I love him.

Welp, I’m off to get on a plane heading home.

Oh, one other thing. Some people said “get over yourself” because of my last post. I’m so tired of people telling me I can’t (or shouldn’t) be irritated, egotistical, or just a jerk. It’s my blog. Deal with it. Sometimes I +am+ an arrogant, egotistical, jerk. But, who are you to tell me I can’t be that way? What? You trying to outdo me in the arrogant/ego/jerk department? Heheh!

Have a good one. 134 emails to go.

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  • http://mihailm.wordpress.com/ Mihail Molin

    >for everyone

    Does anyone realize it?

  • http://mihailm.wordpress.com/ Mihail Molin

    >for everyone

    Does anyone realize it?

  • J. Random Poster

    That video is the best work I’ve ever seen from Microsoft. It even tops the Z80 softCard.

  • J. Random Poster

    That video is the best work I’ve ever seen from Microsoft. It even tops the Z80 softCard.

  • http://mihailm.wordpress.com/ Mihail Molin

    >Does anyone realize it?

    or I will retire as an engineer ;-)

  • http://mihailm.wordpress.com/ Mihail Molin

    >Does anyone realize it?

    or I will retire as an engineer ;-)

  • http://www.futurecatalyst.com/ Betsy Burroughs

    So, Robert, speaking of Microsoft’s marketing…what’s your opinion of their “Your Potential. Our Passion” ads?

    Oh, and just for the record, I didn’t read your post as a complaint about being overworked as much as I read it as a “this is cool, I oughta do more of this” story. You know, where “fat and happy” is GOOD thing…

  • http://www.futurecatalyst.com Betsy Burroughs

    So, Robert, speaking of Microsoft’s marketing…what’s your opinion of their “Your Potential. Our Passion” ads?

    Oh, and just for the record, I didn’t read your post as a complaint about being overworked as much as I read it as a “this is cool, I oughta do more of this” story. You know, where “fat and happy” is GOOD thing…

  • http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/ scobleizer

    Betsy: more BBQ on a sunny day with friends IS a good thing!

    dmad: if my boss isn’t happy with my work, he can tell me. The fact that I’m getting more employment offers now than five years ago tells me that my work has value.

  • http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/ scobleizer

    Betsy: more BBQ on a sunny day with friends IS a good thing!

    dmad: if my boss isn’t happy with my work, he can tell me. The fact that I’m getting more employment offers now than five years ago tells me that my work has value.

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  • http://matsu.wordpress.com/ matsu

    Taking time to slow down and smell the BBQ. Now, that’s a good day! I feel better just reading about it. I must do the same.

  • http://matsu.wordpress.com/ matsu

    Taking time to slow down and smell the BBQ. Now, that’s a good day! I feel better just reading about it. I must do the same.

  • Dmad

    @52. Yes, I’m sure he would. But, as others have mentioned, you’ve managed to make yourself “unfireable”. Imagine the hue and cry of MS fired you. It would be front page news in the blog world. And I’m sure you would parlay it to your advantage. My point is, if one were merely to go by your blog as a resume one would see you have prioritization and focus issues.

    As for getting more employment offers than 5 years ago..well.. how hard is that? You have MS on your resume…er..I mean blog. I’m sure 5 years ago not many people wanted to hire pseudo-journalist majors from SJSU.

    And, again, you have MS and “MS’s primer blogger” associated with your name. Doesn’t really say how well you can execute. I mean, ex-boxers get plenty of job offers as Casino hosts, too. If you want to be the token blogger for a company, I guess that’s cool. I’d rather hire somebody that can be a bit more productive and add to the long term shareholder value. I’ve yet to figure out how this blogging has lead to a postive movement in MS’s stock price.

  • Dmad

    @52. Yes, I’m sure he would. But, as others have mentioned, you’ve managed to make yourself “unfireable”. Imagine the hue and cry of MS fired you. It would be front page news in the blog world. And I’m sure you would parlay it to your advantage. My point is, if one were merely to go by your blog as a resume one would see you have prioritization and focus issues.

    As for getting more employment offers than 5 years ago..well.. how hard is that? You have MS on your resume…er..I mean blog. I’m sure 5 years ago not many people wanted to hire pseudo-journalist majors from SJSU.

    And, again, you have MS and “MS’s primer blogger” associated with your name. Doesn’t really say how well you can execute. I mean, ex-boxers get plenty of job offers as Casino hosts, too. If you want to be the token blogger for a company, I guess that’s cool. I’d rather hire somebody that can be a bit more productive and add to the long term shareholder value. I’ve yet to figure out how this blogging has lead to a postive movement in MS’s stock price.

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  • Migs “Blog Monkey”

    I hadn’t noticed your blog before, but I’m responding to an old post because its the first I’ve read. I think that your blog enables a more homey feel when it comes to thinking about microsoft. e.g. your last paragraph in this post humanizes ms, which people in the past have been afraid of (think future matrix/robots take over world etc). And Dmad is correct, you hit the submit button on your posting interface at 4:52 pm on a Tuesday. That means you must have been workin on this post since at least 4:30. The average workday is 9-5, so comon, stop stealing your company’s time and concern yourself more with stock prices.

  • Migs “Blog Monkey”

    I hadn’t noticed your blog before, but I’m responding to an old post because its the first I’ve read. I think that your blog enables a more homey feel when it comes to thinking about microsoft. e.g. your last paragraph in this post humanizes ms, which people in the past have been afraid of (think future matrix/robots take over world etc). And Dmad is correct, you hit the submit button on your posting interface at 4:52 pm on a Tuesday. That means you must have been workin on this post since at least 4:30. The average workday is 9-5, so comon, stop stealing your company’s time and concern yourself more with stock prices.

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