It all started when I got my Pong Machine. From there I got an Intellivision, then a PC. Jr which gave me my first taste of social networking with Bulletin Boards and got all my tips for the Sierra’s Quest Series (esp. King’s Quest).  My uncle had Atari so I played Pole Position a lot and got my exercise with my Nintendo Power Pad.  Of course the rest of the consoles followed like SEGA, Playstation, Nintendo 64, etc.  In High School I played around a little with DOS and QBasic. The other day an old friend reminded me that we used to secretly trade floppy disks under the desk b/c it just wasn’t cool. 

In college, I got a taste of Gopher and Veronica but didn’t know how that was going to help me get a job, so I decided that consulting was where it was at and joined Yaletown Technology, a data warehousing consulting firm.  I was a sysadmin for email, time tracking system and also did project mgmt and dev’d some web applications for Group Health Cooperative.  I decided that I hated the company webpage and decided to re-build it and after quickly becoming tired of notepad, discovered Vermeer’s FrontPage. I had the fun experience of figuring out how to get Exchange up and running in the Vancouver and Kirkland offices and move the mail over from the Sun machine. After a couple of years I moved over to BCAA and built out an Intranet for their 24 service centers across the province of B.C. I also implemented their Document Management System and Project Managed their online insurance quoting system.  Then, one rainy day in May 2000, I got a call asking if I wanted to interview at Microsoft in sunny California. I looked outside and said “yes!”. 

I got the job at MSN Calendar down at SVC but actually started working on MSN Address Book. That project got transferred to Redmond and so I worked on MSN Calendar DAV for the MSN Client. I tried out Hailstorm for awhile then worked on Intellisync for MSN, and then got asked to work on Outlook Connector (OLC).   I was a bit homesick for Vancouver, B.C. and wanted to experience the mother ship so I moved to Redmond. I worked briefly on the MSN Messenger team focusing on the OLC and Small Business and then was asked if I wanted to join the MSN Small Business team.  From there Office Live was formed and I’ve been on Small Business for almost 3 years focusing on the Business Applications. In December 2007 I transitioned to Microsoft Office Live Workspace focusing on Social Productivity in Office. 

New!  As of July 16th, 2008 I no longer work at Microsoft.  I decided after 8 years it was time to take my career in a new direction and I accepted the position of Program Manager at Topspin Media at their San Francisco office. 

BTW: I AM CANADIAN from Langley, B.C. If you are also a Canuck or just love Canadians, be sure to let me know!!  Here's a little music for ya. 

I uploaded my Insights Discovery profile which will give you a pretty accurate insight into my behavior!