So for the fourth time in seven months, I have a new manager. Way way way back and the end of June, I left marketing to be a solution architect. In doing so, I traded in Norman for John as my manager. Things were looking shiny but then Microsoft had a major reorg back in September. These big reorgs often cause small ripples, like the director of Architecture Strategy deciding to move back to a product group. John was promoted to head the team and Gianpaolo was hired to take over John’s previous role as head of solution architecture. Finally, it seemed like things were calming down on the management front, so I was caught off-guard by what happened next.
Last Monday, John offered me a chance to switch roles. We have spun up an Edge Architecture team to focus on the architectural impact of the next generation of computing – what some call “Web 2.0″ – and he thought I would be a perfect fit for the team. I agreed and jumped at the chance. So now I work for Michael Platt. Don’t let the infrastructure focus of Michael’s blog fool you – he incredibly deep on Edge Architecture and I am currently playing catch-up. The strangest thing so far is having to re-orient my thinking for consumer focused systems and away from the enterprise world where I have I’ve gotten the vast majority of my experience and where I have spent my entire Microsoft career to date.
In the immediate future, I’m been dumped into the MIX06 planning process. We have other stuff going on in the MIX timeframe that I’ll get to soon enough. I’m also re-thinking my personal presence. As my career progresses, the moniker “DevHawk” seems more and more outdated. Is it?