Weeks 9 and 10! but still 2 more to go... almost there!

Hello Rossers!!


It has been two more weeks, weeks 9 and 10 have gone by and I am close to the end of my internship. I still have 2 more weeks of work but this is likely my last post.


These last two weeks have been socially busy since we have our two signature events, the Interns Signature event for all the interns (about 1200) at the Seattle zoo featuring a Dave Matthews concert and free Xbox with Kinect for every one!! Yes, it was amazing and even when there were rumors no one could confirm it. The next week we had the MBA signature event, featuring a Casino Night on the 76th floor of the Columbia Towers in downtown Seattle (incredible view!). Two weeks ago MS organized a hike to Mt Rainier which was pretty amazing too. So, this is just to let you know how well does Microsoft treat its interns.


On the work side, things are going well. My project is slowly coming to life and if everything goes well I will have my campaign website go life on August 15th, the last week I am in MS. I had to pressure the agency and get the media team for an exception but it seems it was worth it if I see it online before I leave.


I have started a small "visibility" project so that I can have some presentation time with the senior management of my business group, I still have not started it but at least I know what I have to do. One new member joined my team to take over my project once I leave, it is nice to know that I am being replaced by a Sr. Product Manager, it makes me feel important and not just an "intern". I think I have had the most "hands on" and "impactful" project from what I have heard, my project has a target, a goal, a website and it will continue to live after I leave.


This is my last post so you won't know if I get an offer or not, I hope I will get one from Microsoft, not only because of the company, the challenges it faces but also because they have pretty nice benefit packages. If you think MS is doomed let me tell you it is not, don't believe everything analysts write.


Hope you have had a good time reading this blog and you have learned something or at least took some of the tips for doing a better job while working in the US.


Have a great MBA and enjoy Ross!! It is one of the best places to do an MBA.


Gabriel.

Weeks 7 and 8 at Microsoft

Hello Rossers!


It has been two weeks since my last post, mid point review already passed and it did not go bad. So, after week 7 and 8 I feel my internship is entering a valley of death, at the beginning it was very hard to catch up, know who to talk to, learn procedures and realize that CPG is different from High Tech, the next couple of weeks were good, once I got into "work mode" I felt like I was running the campaign, I had everything controlled, and everything seemed to be running smoothly (besides having to push the campaign back). Now, I feel like I am on an uphill again, I feel the campaign has stopped and that we are not moving fast enough, it might actually happen that I don't get to launch the campaign (which I would really like to do, see my campaign life before I leave).


I have discovered that working with a US Agency is harder than working with a subsidiary agency back at home, they take a longer time to get things done (since they have an "expert" for everything) and they don't react to feedback as fast or well, I guess they feel like the client is stepping on their toes. Luckily, most of my campaign is done for Phase 1 which is the one I am responsible for, we are planning Phase 2 but I definitely will not be able to see it.


This last week was calmed at work since most of my team was at MGX (Microsoft Global Xumit) in Denver, basically where they "inject" the Microsoft thinking into the new employees. I still need to start working on my final presentation where they want me to compare my CPG experience with what I have done during the summer, I am not sure how to do that yet.


One advise for your internship (if you are not from the US) you have to sell yourself, it is not enough with doing your project well and having it under control, people also have to know that and know what you are doing (and sometimes even how you are doing it), that is something I am struggling with because it is not the way I am used to do things. I like being accountable for results, I don't like having to check in just so that people know what I am doing.


Anyway, hopefully the valley of death will finish this week and I will feel better.


On better news, summer finally arrived to Seattle! When I am almost done with my internship the sun decided to come out and play (and stay for a while) I hope it stays like that.


Come back in two weeks!


Gabriel.

Hello Rossers!

So it has been again two weeks since my last post. I am right in the midpoint of my internship which means my midpoint review is due this Friday and I am writing this post before that so I will not know if they “recommend” me for future opportunities at Microsoft Corporation (hopefully I will have a nice weekend with a “yes”).

These couple of weeks have been interesting, we are finally getting to a point with the agency where we are all comfortable with what they are developing, drafts have been presented and approved (or at least not vetoed) by senior management, the rest of the team has been a bit late on presenting what I need (I guess part of being an intern is having to make other people work *for* you when you are an intern) so this last week I have been stalking all of them (since before I was stalking the agency). The project is going well and if nothing (bad) happens we will be online with the campaign in early August just a couple weeks before I have to (sadly) leave.

One of the things that MS encourages its interns to do is to go and talk to people around the organization, so this week I decided to go and do that. I went and talked to a Group Program Manager to understand what they do, how they do it and how they relate to the marketing team. It was fun (and interesting) to learn how they do work, how they plan it and then how they develop it (though PMs are considered part of the engineering team they are more of a business part of engineering and the liaison between marketing and developers/testers). They write the specifications for any given feature and it was interesting to see on how they have to think about a problem to be able to solve *every* possible outcome (decision trees!! Remember them? They do come in handy).

Other than that, I had a very nice 4^th of July (if you end up in Seattle, you should go to Bainbridge Island it is not amazing, but the ferry ride is nice and only $7 and they have an amazing ice cream shop – Mora) and I will be waiting for my review (if things go like I feel they are going then I should have a nice weekend) and enjoy the weekend!

See you all in two weeks!!

Gabriel.

Microsoft in Seattle, week 3 and 4!

Hello Rossers!


It has been two weeks since my last post and Seattle is sunnier now (but won't enter into "real" summer until July or such have I been told).


These two weeks have been much better than the first two, I have felt like I have been collaborating into my team, my manager is asking my opinion and she cares about what I say and we are both managing the agency. We have finally got the agency to go the way we want after we draw our ideas in a powerpoint and showed them what we wanted.


I already stated how great my team is and I get confirmation of that every week, when people get together to just have fun (or even a beer during work), when the sun comes out people leave early to take advantage of it. I am going through a reorganization at Microsoft, for a while there were two teams: Product Management and Product Marketing (or Marketing Managers), this July both teams will become one and have a more integrated strategy and way of looking at things, plan strategies and work with engineers and consumers. I will be working with the same manager and in the same team (Hotmail).


I was able to go to a presentation about what Skydrive will come up with, and it was amazing. It is just amazing to see feel how many people you are "touching" when you do anything to a Microsoft product, that was one of my main goals when I applied to Microsoft, work in a company and product that when I made a change to it I will impact hundreds of millions of people and somehow change the way they communicate.


By the way, be careful with the afternoon commute it can take up to 1:15hrs. My advice, if you get a car get two more people to ride with you so you can use the carpool lane (HOV lane) that will take a lot of time off your commuting. Happy hours are great, and are usually planned in Bellevue so you can spend rush hour there.


This week we had an amazing intern event, we had a cooking competition "Iron Chef" style, they took us to a cooking school, divided us into teams and assigned us a Chef. After that we had to cook a three course meal for the judges and for the rest of us. It was amazing, and a nice team building experience. I did the dessert in my team.


I am definitely having fun!


Gabriel.

Two weeks in Seattle... and loving it!

Hey Rossers!


It has been two weeks since I moved into Seattle, first if you are coming here do not expect a lot of sun at the start of your internship (apparently summer does not start at the same time all over the US) you will still see a bit of rain and clouds but whenever you get a day of sun everyone will be out and be ready for a very active and outdoors city, people walk, bike, run and stop for some coffee anywhere. Pike market is a must see (I personally did not enjoy it very much even when it is a novelty for Americans I am too used to them) and of course next to it you can find the "first Starbucks" shop (if you are into that).


Housing is amazing (if you got Amazon or Microsoft, hope to get Harbor Steps and be right in downtown) and a lot of other MBAs are around as are bars, restaurants and the waterfront (really nice if you like running, biking or just walking).


The first two weeks at work have been hard, yes you are an intern and they cut you some slack but it just takes a couple of days until you feel overwhelmed with information and with all the people you have to work with in order to be able to finish your project. Do not worry, you will feel like you are not an MBA intern but a high school intern where you barely know what to do (or at least, that is how I feel).


My Microsoft team is amazing and I am currently working in developing and managing the Hotmail campaign for July 2011 (yes, you are right I am managing the campaign which involves dealing with the creative agency, the research agency and with a lot of teams inside of Microsoft). This last Friday we had something they call "Demo day", where different teams (this time it was the Developer managers) demonstrate how some of the new features work... I got to see how Windows 8 works and some improvements across the Windows platform (let me tell you, it was amazing!... I think I know why I decided on High-Tech now, you are changing how people will interact in the future).


I am still trying to learn how to navigate through a big organization (I come from a country where organizations are usually lean and where it is better to "ask for forgiveness than permission" to get your goals done).


Oh! by the way, I am not crazy about the commute, the morning one is not that bad it will take about 30-40 mins to get from downtown to Redmond, but in the evening it can take up to 1:15 hrs to get back! So, for your convenience, leave at 5pm sharp, or stay in Redmond (the gym is amazing! and it has tons of things to do from racquetball to saunas to pools to cardio rooms and weights) until 7 or 7:30pm.


I will see you in the next post!


Gabriel.