BlueBadgeMojo.com

West Campus Progress (WCP)

                               

Now that Building 92 is up and running, the Company Store, MSLibrary, Visitor Center, and other celebrations of the Microsoft campus experience are soon to find their way into their new - and very beautiful - West Campus digs. On a recent visit, I took a couple photos of the buildings still under construction, only hinting at the hidden splendour soon to be unleashed upon Redmond. That's right kiddies, once the West Campus has been completed, you will have no need of those fanciful flights to warmer climates with sun and fun and white sandy beaches. All of your vacations will become staycations, as every workaholic whim will be met. Watch the video here. The building with the huge gray roof is 92, which is the old Eddie Bauer building.

Spacious, energy efficient design, connection with outdoors, tons of common areas, large cascading pools that could double as a swimming facility (just an idea), even more free soda, room for all of your 4600 cars underground, a soccer stadium, several restaurants and a pub, all surrounded by man-made natural beauty (?). Personally, I'm pushing for a Days Inn so that my staycations can be complete.

Surface Computing

I laugh out loud every time I watch this. "Instead of using one of today's more popular compact devices to get directions to where you're going, why not use a device the size of a small car to do the same job?" Ha! I love this parody.

The Ugly Sumo Ceremony

                               

These past few months have been hard: we've switched over to a more agile development methodology, moving from a 4-6 month release schedule to 2-3 weeks. We've gone through a couple minor reorgs in the past 6 months. And delays in internal and essential tool development schedules have made a steadily increasing workload more difficult to manage. So what do we do to help out the troops? That's right, we throw together a couple morale videos!

It began with AdSupport:

Video: Job Shadowing

 

Having finished the first video, of course we had to expand to BizOps:

Video: Living In Fear

 

In recognition of the stellar performances in these videos, at our all-hands meeting this past Monday we handed out the coveted Ugly Sumo award to Francis Yung, for his breakout performance in the BizOps video. Officially (in the press releases), the award was presented for "Best Dramatic Performance / Over-Acting in an OSG Team Morale Video, To The Best Of Our Knowledge." The Ugly Sumo, pictured atop this post, is a prestigious quarterly award within the BOAS organization, with varying qualifications. The first award was handed out for most unread technical books displayed on a desk (nice going Liz!), and the most recent winner was recognized for his fire alarm gaffe, forcing the entire building out onto the street until the fire department showed up to ensure no lives were lost, and to allow us back into the building (alright Joseph!). Thanks Mike for pulling together these videos for us!

And here are the Ugly Sumo nominees:

Video: Ugly Sumo Award

Conference Call Mojo

I just came across this funny video about something we've all done, or thought about doing, while waiting for a conference call to get underway. I was at a meeting this week where 2 or 3 of us sat waiting, and spontaneously added to the music by tapping fingers and pens on the table. What I'd love to see next is a break beats remix of the song. Hmmm...something fun to do this weekend....

Napoleon Dynamite

Two nerds, one short film - from PDC 2005

Video: Bill Gates is back to College

Bill's Last Day

Here's the video shared at CES 2008

Video: Bill Gates - Last day at Microsoft - CES 2008

Microsoft's iPod Video

I was speaking at a New Employee Orientation (NEO) meeting last week, discussing Microsoft culture and some of the hilarious videos that the executive team puts out each year, and someone asked why I didn't collect them as part of BlueBadgeMojo. And I thought -- that's a great idea. So I am going to post a flurry of items here (while I am sitting and listening to the fantastic Q2 results webcast!), and will attempt to catalogue the best Microsoft videos going forward.

For those who have not seen the following video, a design/packaging team here at Microsoft put together one of the best videos I've seen, illustrating Microsoft's history of over-thinking our branding and packaging. Enjoy.

Video: Microsoft designs the iPod package

Zune Envy

I'd love to see the storyboards behind the creation of this viral video for Zune. And I'm sure the conversation between creator and manager was worth recording:

Designer: "It's artsy. It's odd, and therefore hip. Oh, and it's eye catching. Literally."
His Boss: "Um, don't you think it kinda looks...well....phallic?"
Designer: "I hadn't noticed."
Boss: "Really. And you went with a flesh color."
Designer: "It's called 'Sahara Tan'."
Boss: "Ok, I'm sold. Let's run with it."

Video: ZUNE WTF EYES 

People have been posting comments about it all over the web, trying to understand the "deeper meaning" behind the choice of creatures, colors, storyline. But I think the spot was brilliant, because it achieved exactly what was intended -- people are talking about it.

I was walking througha  building last week and came across one of the many Zune posters flanking our halls these days, and noticed a similar design theme:

               

Ok, someone has been listening to a lot of Pink Floyd.