Freedo !: Company

MS training

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 14:11:27 GMT

微软的培训课程除了通过海报，网站查询之外，还会通过meeting schedule 直接发到每个员工的信箱里。通过这种形式参加了一次主题为 MS Office Project 在软件的项目管理中的应用的培训。

印象深刻的除了是微软的 MVP (Most Valuable Professional) 来上课之外，就是对于参加培训的 incentive. 回答问题奖一个毛绒玩具，填写反馈问卷再送一个礼品，参加培训（中午）可领免费餐券，本来是个小会议室，结果那天去了太多了，搬到了大会议。

接下来是 SQL 的，每周三中午 SQL Shanghai team 和 Beijing team 有一个 SQL Server Tech Talks, 大家交流 best practice.

上周我是冲着 Papa Johns的 Pizza 去的，却发现讲座本身也挺有意思的。

SQL Beijing 的一个工程师结合他的工作体会以及学习心得，给大家讲了关于设计模式的一课. 从 strategy pattern (copy & paste / switch / inheritance 的优劣)， Facade Pattern, 到 Data-driven pattern, 每一种模式都结合了在 SQL 开发过程中的应用来讲，并附上具体的代码分析。当然我不能把它们贴上来，但是他举到了例子有 relay engine 等. 他还举到了一个例子很易懂，在逻辑结构上如果有很多 "if /else" 的话，则可以保持逻辑结构不变，把判断中的变量单独抽取出来，并且还可以更进一步，比如储存为 XML 文件，则对于代码的后期维护十分方便。

最后则以告诉大家在公司内部网站上哪儿能找到关于设计模式的资料，以及回顾一些经典书籍，如 gang of four 的。

看来我可以把第三种 Data-driven pattern 用在自己的 web design 中玩玩。

The real work things with MS

Wed, 26 Sep 2007 13:36:48 GMT

I have not updated my blog recently, engaged in a project in Oct.

Here would like let the pictures talk:

从T恤说起：

从上次开all hands 会议大概两三个礼拜过去了，在会议上宣布的一个议题之一是：由微软员工自己design通过比稿产生的

T恤终于发到我们手上了，分男女两套，我桌上的这件是蓝色的。

上次的会议议题包括：

－介绍服务器及开发工具事业部在微软全球产品开发战略中所做出的贡献，其中也提到了SQL Server Team, 很多人熟悉的MDAC (Microsoft Data Access Components) 是由上海的小组独立来own的。

－微软新园区的建设进度，到明年十月份，完成第一栋建筑并入住，我在期望着绿茵球场，可以溜冰的食堂和自己的健身中心。

－给在微软“生存”满一年的员工发大大的带有1字的水晶奖杯；

－给在社区志愿者活动中贡献出自己时间和汗水的员工扔棒球帽；

－给大家展示入选的T恤设计；

－介绍新加入的员工等等等等。。。

和你的孩子一起工作。

一个国外工程师的四岁大孩子在玩桌球，超可爱。

迄今为止的记录是：一个老外带了他六个孩子和夫人一起上，最小的抱在怀里会娇嗲嗲地说: hello, 最大的上高中。

叹为观止。

微软的培训，会提前公布出来，哪几周什么培训，提前在线上报上名，自己搬个小板凳过去就可以听的。

内容从技术专题到general 管理知识都有。

公司全球员工大会：

几周过去了，没有机会亲临现场（包下了当地一个棒球场）的同志们用打XBOX游戏的设备在看Steve的演讲。

有很多次，有人问我，微软和别的公司的区别的什么。。。个人看法，很重要的一个区别就是我们有Steve.

当现场的音乐响起，可以看到Steve在场上不停地咆哮，吼叫，震响传遍全场，然后在场下奔跑，和大家握手，撞肚子，

回到台上，以下蹲的姿势，近乎声嘶力竭地喊出： "I LOVE THIS COMPANY！"，那一刻，全场的气氛到顶点。

对于工作，我相信有两种品质是最宝贵的值得拥有但是却会随着时间的前移而逐渐消逝：

1. 对于工作的激情

2. 对于朋友的忠诚

每一个刚毕业出校的人都饱含这两种精神，随着时间前移，工作变成近乎绝望。你不知道每天的加班，挤地铁到底是为了什么，或者自己已经成为机械，习惯自私。

在微软，从 Steve 到普通员工，从很多人身上，至少你可以感受到炙热的激情，并且谢谢Steve，他真的真的认为激情是宝贵的应该保持的品质之一。

关于开会，再罗嗦几句：

在这次大会上，盖茨正式和大家告别，Steve眼中含着泪把盖茨请上台来，而盖茨则显得特别腼腆，相形之下，仿佛大哥与小兄弟的告别。

位高为CEO，Steve的演讲进行中，下面的员工旁若无人地离场；

与此相对应的是：

在某次电视采访中，某企业的员工谈到对他们的老板是如何地尊重的时候，他们说到，开会的时候，即便位置不够，老板常坐的那个位置也没人敢去坐。我很荣幸不需要在这样的公司里面工作。

今天晚上坐班车回家，把座位调到最靠后准备睡一觉，隐约中看到上来一个人坐在我后面，我把座位向前调，怕影响到后面的人就座。他轻轻拍拍我的背说: it's ok. 回头一看，从美国来的GM。我把座位朝前靠了以后，他倒显得不好意思。

To make work a great game

Thu, 20 Sep 2007 14:00:17 GMT

Congratulations to 2 new members joining SQL China team!

This week SQL China R&D Team got 2 great new members joining, cheer for this!

Let's make our work a great game!

Congratulations to 2 shots to China Woman Soccer team!

Right after finished these words, we beat New Zealand of 2:0.

I love these girls, I love this game, for you are really playing soccer in China.

Diary 28th Aug: Sit-in with SQL Test Team

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 10:55:31 GMT

Today's sit-in is with SQL test team, unfortunately my assigned mentor Leo could not come in this AM, while I'm glad that received a warm welcome from other members of that team, we talked about current work, tools & languages using, which was explained in details after Leo stepped in.

So, cut to the point:

the daily work of MDAC test team is not simply as test execution, stare at the screen, something like that, they are also doing:

building test infrastructure;

test new scenarios;

The latter 2 means a lot of coding, which is something different from Microsoft's test job and others.

Simply telling from the job title: SDET, Software Development Engineer of Test, we are actually doing test development.

It's never going to be a piece of cake job.

WTT, windows test technology (MDAC got very close relationship to windows) is a whole test infrastructure, which is very comprehensive & solid, yet still under continues improvement. For example, the MDAC team also developed the infrastructure of "Auto Lab Run System" to improve the automation test.

BTW, according to the MS development strategy of "component ownership", China R&D now owns the complete set of MDAC components, which includes : ADO, ODBC, OLE DB etc.

I list languages & tools & platforms we are using here:

Only apply to SQL Server R&D China MDAC test team:

Programming languages: C/C++.

Others: VB, C# plus.

Code review: Source Insight.

Debug: Windbg.

What is the good to be the SDET of Microsoft?

1. First of , as I also have mentioned in previous blog, Microsoft got the unparalleled test system and infrastructure, you have comprehensive space to learn & grow.

2. Test own wider responsibilities compares with developer, approaching whole functionalities of each product, communicating with dev team, lab team in China and US, coaching / monitoring vendors' team, etc.

3. Want to be SDEV, besides the coding skill, innovation of think out of the box, we also requiring great self initiative.

Thrilling announcement: SQL Server of China R&D's blog is online now!

Mon, 27 Aug 2007 10:50:56 GMT

Bookmark the link of: http://blogs.msdn.com/prakas/

The first story, telling you the whole career experience of the head of SQL Server of China R&D team:

Quote:

"My name is Prakash Sundaresan (and I have a Chinese name as well - 孙博凯) and I lead the SQL Server R&D team in China. I just moved to China (for the 2nd time) a few weeks ago. As I begin to get to work here on building the team, ramping up our R&D efforts, working with customers and partners in the region etc., I find that there is a great deal of interest, from a variety of quarters, in what SQL Server R&D will be doing in China – hence this blog. Here, I plan to discuss not only the work we are doing in the SQL Server China R&D team, but also broader topics – the ongoing transformation of our field from Database to a modern comprehensive “Data Platform”; interesting applications customers and partners in this region are building using our technology; issues that may be of interest to students and others looking to build careers in this technology area; and anything else people want to discuss about working in China, global development etc."

Can not wait to read, check this out:

http://blogs.msdn.com/prakas/archive/2007/08/27/introduction.aspx

Together with my blog, we are going to show you a real work of Micrsoft SQL Server R&D China:

What we are doing?

What's on next plan?

What's the fun of working here?

Which position we are hiring?

and

How do we hire.....

It's a magic world, and it begins!

What can I get from Microsoft & Sql Server team?

Mon, 20 Aug 2007 15:06:12 GMT

Last time I talked the reason for working in Microsoft from my personal perspective.

Now I got another challenging topic from:

微软中国研发集团的主要工作是不是主要是本地化美国总部的程序呢? 有没有很多创新的东西呢? 作为在中国研发集团工作的开发人员是不是接触不到美国总部关于产品的核心代码，具体的工作是不是类似于二次开发的工作呢?

To be brief, he's asking about : are we doing some none core tech work here? And I believe there are a lot of similiar questions around as well.

Well, to answer this question, first of all, I'm not the guy speak for Microsoft R&D China, just throw out 2 assumptions:

1. If we are doing none core research & development, we are not going to attract top talents in the market.

The truth is: we are proud to say, we have excellent guys here.

2. If we are doing only so called "development", we will not be able to retain the talents.

The truth is: we are pretty low turn over rate here.

To give more details, I could give you an example as SQL Server, because I'm currently working here:

What's the goodness on working for SQL server, 2 reasons:

First: Database is always an attractive technology to know, and on another way, working on database, means market value, could easiler get job any time.

The second is, the technology is very diverse, you could work in SQL for many years and still changed a lot of jobs, you could work on relation engine, api, tools, xml, a lot of technologies, enough challenges.

And Microsoft SQL Server product group does have commitments on developing R&D center in China.

SQL Server has designated China as one of its 3 strategic R&D sites world-wide (Redmond, India, China). With offices in both Beijing and Shanghai, the SQL Server China R&D Center is chartered to work on a variety of established core product components .

Could forsee that the China R&D center is going to be the biggest database R&D center in South and east Asia in FY 08 and move on.

Still have not got the point? Take patience:

With Microsoft's distributor development model, we emphasize the "component ownership", that means we want to own it to end, own the development, test, program management, and new features design, each one in the group. For example,

relation engine is one a core part in SQL Server, we do that in Beijing.

I have my last piece of words to say:

You want to change your job not because you want change the work to do, you want changes in your life.

A fast view of STB

Sun, 19 Aug 2007 05:30:26 GMT

Here give you a fast view of :

What we did in Zizhu information park @ Shanghai:

微软中国研发集团服务器与开发工具事业部（中国）成立于2005年9月，它是微软中国研发集团核心研发部门之一。微软服务器与开发工具事业部（中国）与总部及世界各地产品研发机构紧密配合，致力于为微软用户提供高性能计算、互连系统、系统配置管理、中小型企业服务器、企业安全与访问、数据平台和开发工具等服务器及开发工具方面的核心产品与技术。此外，它还积极与本土合作伙伴展开战略合作，分享研发管理和产品开发的经验，并吸纳和培养软件开发人才，致力于促进华东地区IT产业的繁荣和共赢。	*Server & Tools Business (STB) China,* formed in September 2005, is one of the core divisions of Microsoft China R&D Group, and is integrated with all Microsoft’s Server and Tools product groups in the U.S. and across the world. It is committed to global engineering and multi-site development that enables engineering agility for product teams, opportunities for local and regional partnerships and increased penetration of Microsoft software and services. STB China focuses on several development areas including High-Performance Computing, Connected Systems, Configuration Management, Windows Server Solutions, Enterprise Access and Security, Data Platform and Development Tools. STB China is part of a dynamic environment that helps bring together top talent from Shanghai, Greater China and across Asia to help Microsoft achieve innovative products for customers.
微软服务器与开发工具事业部（中国）目前参与的研发工作主要为以下方向：	STB China is playing an active role in product development in the following areas.
高性能计算(HPC) - 提供可在64位商业电脑上运行的成本低廉但性能强大的高性能计算解决方案。服务器与开发工具事业部（中国）致力于Windows Compute Cluster Server的用户界面，HPC工具和可编程性的开发，并与合作伙伴积极协作，把最新的技术和创新成果带给中国的广大用户。	High Performance Computing (HPC) – One of the fastest growing server workloads worldwide, driven by enterprises embracing server clustering and desktop cycle-stealing to solve technical and business problems that only a few years ago required dedicated supercomputers. STB China works on programmability, user interface and the HPC tools of Windows Compute Cluster Server, as well as building the local HPC community to bring latest HPC technologies and innovations to Asian countries.
互连系统 - 将任何地方的任何资源(个人或系统)联系在一起。服务器与开发工具事业部（中国）目前研发产品包括.NET Framework, Active Directory, Microsoft Identity Lifecycle Manager和BizTalk Server等。	Connected Systems - Helps customers connect systems, processes and people. STB China develops features for products including .NET Framework, Active Directory, Microsoft Identity Lifecycle Manager and BizTalk Server.
系统配置管理 - 下一代系统配置管理服务器能够帮助企业用户监测客户端软件使用情况，处理系统或软件的安装和升级，并提供客户端软、硬件清单。服务器与开发工具事业部（中国）主要负责产品界面的实现和改进，以及若干关键模块的测试。	Configuration Management - Enables enterprises to better manage, support, and maintain a distributed network of computers. STB China is developing the next generation UI of System Center Configuration Manager 2007 to make it easier to use, extensively testing the product to assure the quality. It provides service pack releases, hot fixes, application compatibility, and patch management across the entire System Management Server family of products.
中小型企业服务器 - 为中小型企业量身定制端到端的Windows服务器解决方案，以适应不断变化的IT管理需求。服务器与开发工具事业部（中国）参与下一个Windows Home Server, Windows Small Business Server (SBS)版本，Windows Mid-Market Server等产品的研发，并负责SBS目前版本的升级维护工作。	Windows Server Solutions - Provides a platform for data storage, business applications, security, and communication and collaboration tools. STB China participates in the development of Windows Home Server, Small Business Server (SBS), Windows Mid-Market Server.
企业安全与访问 - 使企业能够集中、有效和便捷地保护内部信息资产。服务器与开发工具事业部（中国）致力于开发多种Microsoft Forefront 产品以提供企业环境下的信息保护与安全管理。	Enterprise Access & Security - Enabled businesses to provide secure access to network resources and protect information. STB China works on various Microsoft Forefront products.
数据平台 - SQL Server是微软为企业关键业务、互联网以及商业智能应用所提供的具有高可靠性、可扩展性的安全数据平台。其满足不同规模的企业对海量数据处理、高性能计算、高可靠性解决方案的迫切需求，可令企业拥有更高的生产力、卓越的操控力和最佳的商业洞察力。服务器与开发事业部（中国）正对核心数据平台领域进行创新，例如可编程APls，商业智能，可支持性,管理工具以及其他新兴领域。	Data Platform – SQL Server is Microsoft’s highly reliable, scalable and secure Data Platform for mission-critical line-of-business, web and Business Intelligence (BI) applications. SQL Server enables rich powerful applications by providing comprehensive data management services on all platforms for all types of data. STB China is driving innovation in core Data Platform areas such as Programmability APIs, BI Services, Supportability and Management Tools, and other cutting-edge areas.
开发工具 - 为全球数以百万计的软件从业人员提供最新、最高效、最安全的开发工具和平台。服务器与开发工具事业部（中国）致力于下一个Visual Studio版本, .NET Framework，Silverlight 和Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Software Architects等产品研发。	Development Tools – Builds and supports tools to enable developers to take advantage of the latest advances in the Windows platform. STB China works on Visual Studio of next version, .Net Framework, Silverlight and Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Software Architects.

Why work for Microsoft?

Wed, 15 Aug 2007 12:28:56 GMT

Why?

There's one simple reason for me to give an example:

My colleague played pingpong with one of the authors of <code complete> this noon.

I should take you a picture next time.

There are many reasons for join & quit a company, and tipically, I think there are 2 types of companies in the world,

one is, after you worked there, you think you could survive in any of the rest in the world.

another is, after you joined, you began to worry, probably there's no other companies in the world you could go.

Very similiar to the procedure of "Love". And Microsoft is the latter.

From the perspective of culture, I just doubt if there are any other companies allow an employee to walk into a manager's office, no matter if he/she is the direct report line and say: hey, I think I do not agree about ...

From the perspective of work, just give you an example:

Microsoft got the most advance test theory/system/people/process in the world, and which makes a test guy hard to find competitive environments, including google. Google hired a test architect from Microsoft, and he left eventually,

Because without the support of people, system and the advance infrastructure, people could perform well on that area.

activities, training & people

Sun, 12 Aug 2007 08:42:16 GMT

Microsoft got a lot of internal team activities, "all-hands" is one of them, which means to put all the people from same group at same time, and now this time was held in Beijing from 8,9,10th of Aug for all MS staffing people.

Some more explainations on MS words going to use below:

1:1 , which means one to one face to face meeting, which could be done between lead & member or peers.

S+ equals to schedule.

Belowing is something saw, experience and learned:

来到微软有个比较明显的感觉就是：
虽说微软强调员工个人的自学能力，80% on job training， 20% formal training，但是拿这近一个月来说，我就有参加了：

公司内部组织的员工培训（2天）；

HR 系统应用培训（2天）；

内部招聘培训（半天）；

Mentor 的培训（1天半）；

1:1 with manager (若干次)；

1:1 with develop & test engineers (若干次）；

Meeting with Hiring manager；

其它公司内部组织的各种培训，open door policy，所以，开发人员可以去听测试人员的讲座等等，相互交叉；

公司内部的活动：

其它部门KTV活动一次；

部门内部聚餐2次；

HR staffing北京，8月8,9,10三天，这不刚从北京回来。可以查看照片目录看慕田峪和八达领长城之不同，还是颐和圆，不足之处就是人太多了。

还有若干已经不记得了。

员工的培训和morale activities的重要性大家都讲，区别就在于“有形的支持”，就拿这次staffing all-hands meeting 来说，就包括了一天的会议，以及最后一天的上午游览慕田峪，下午游览颐和圆，聚集了来自总部，加拿大，新加坡和中国的成员，预算应该不低。

所以说，在微软内部有很多东西可以学，这也是一个原因。

另外，公司也把把自己的所在的职能部门变成员工满意的工作场所作为考核管理者的依据之一。

接下来说说微软内部有意思的“人”：

先说名字，有个员工的名字叫作 M3，这也许是最有个性的了。

再来说程序员，也许确实到了时候该改变对于研发中心的程序员所固有的成见的时候了，比方说：

同事所在的部门里有一位天才的大牛，此君为人谦逊随和，唯一有一不足就是对于流行趋势不甚了解，比方说：不知道大小S之区别，以为那是不同的三围size，大家在谈论星座他也觉得不知所云。集体烧烤活动中，他自告奋勇为大家作诗助兴。有一日此君发奋图强，以钻研之精神把自己关了三天以后，搞清楚了大小S之区别，更重要的是，成了不折不扣的星座专家活字典。

K歌高手不少见，更多的应该是“桌式足球”，桌球和乒乓球高手，因为这基本是公司休息室里的三大样。休息室里另外还有X－BOX，用投影打到墙上玩。

在微软内部倡导人与人之间的平等沟通，这种平等存在于管理层和普通员工之间，也存在于截然不相干的部门员工之间。

比如说，在面试完候选人之后，我会就候选人的技术问题解答去咨询其他工程师，只要看到内部"communicator" (Communicator 是 office 自带的一个用于有效的内部沟通的工作，相当于MSN的聊天功能，不同的是可以和内部通讯录同步，通过它可以和其它同事聊天，共享文件等。还可以把MSN里的聊络人导入，用它来代替MSN) 上有人在线，并不需要过多的解释，可以直接把问题发给对方，对方会认真地帮你回答。

比如说，关于一道建模题的解法我就曾经问过两个工程师，之前我们都不认识，他们都很快地给了我回答。

技术是内部的通用语言，而不必考虑题目来自何处，因为这里面是一群technical fans.

这种机制也是微软内部非常重要的寻求解决问题的途径。

所以，除了向外部网站寻求答案，在微软内部这个无比庞大的人才库是一个非常优秀的咨询系统。

比如说，微软光SQL Server这个产品的研发人员就有将近1400名。

刚到北京，直奔Sigma，SQL Server的产品经理和其他几位lead请我和同事吃了中饭，在饭间他滔滔不绝的侃大山，让人觉不到一点架子感，同时对招聘流程和模式的关心，又体现了对于人才的Passion。

我还想提的是，关于此次在北京跟两个技术lead的谈话，其中的一个事先发了S+，说好了谈话的主题。另外一个在告别北京的时候敲他的门说再见，结果一谈就是好几十分钟。在讲到关于沟通的时候，其中有一位告诉我，作为一个lead，如果碰到“沟通起来比较困难”的候选人，他会想办法去改进，因为，“如果你只能和某一类型的人沟通，那就说明本身你自己的沟通能力就有不足”。

Open& Respectful,微软文化中之一条，是对以上最好的注解。

Don’t let complexity stop you

Thu, 02 Aug 2007 14:30:33 GMT

Remarks of Bill Gates

Harvard Commencement June 7, 2007
http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2007/06.14/99-gates.html

President Bok, former President Rudenstine, incoming President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members of the faculty, parents, and especially, the graduates:

I’ve been waiting more than 30 years to say this: “Dad, I always told you I’d come back and get my degree.”

I want to thank Harvard for this timely honor. I’ll be changing my job next year … and it will be nice to finally have a college degree on my resume.

I applaud the graduates today for taking a much more direct route to your degrees. For my part, I’m just happy that the Crimson has called me “Harvard’s most successful dropout.” I guess that makes me valedictorian of my own special class … I did the best of everyone who failed.

But I also want to be recognized as the guy who got Steve Ballmer to drop out of business school. I’m a bad influence. That’s why I was invited to speak at your graduation. If I had spoken at your orientation, fewer of you might be here today.

Harvard was just a phenomenal experience for me. Academic life was fascinating. I used to sit in on lots of classes I hadn’t even signed up for. And dorm life was terrific. I lived up at Radcliffe, in Currier House. There were always lots of people in my dorm room late at night discussing things, because everyone knew I didn’t worry about getting up in the morning. That’s how I came to be the leader of the anti-social group. We clung to each other as a way of validating our rejection of all those social people.

Radcliffe was a great place to live. There were more women up there, and most of the guys were science-math types. That combination offered me the best odds, if you know what I mean. This is where I learned the sad lesson that improving your odds doesn’t guarantee success.

One of my biggest memories of Harvard came in January 1975, when I made a call from Currier House to a company in Albuquerque that had begun making the world’s first personal computers. I offered to sell them software.

I worried that they would realize I was just a student in a dorm and hang up on me. Instead they said: “We’re not quite ready, come see us in a month,” which was a good thing, because we hadn’t written the software yet. From that moment, I worked day and night on this little extra credit project that marked the end of my college education and the beginning of a remarkable journey with Microsoft.

What I remember above all about Harvard was being in the midst of so much energy and intelligence. It could be exhilarating, intimidating, sometimes even discouraging, but always challenging. It was an amazing privilege – and though I left early, I was transformed by my years at Harvard, the friendships I made, and the ideas I worked on.

But taking a serious look back … I do have one big regret.

I left Harvard with no real awareness of the awful inequities in the world – the appalling disparities of health, and wealth, and opportunity that condemn millions of people to lives of despair.

I learned a lot here at Harvard about new ideas in economics and politics. I got great exposure to the advances being made in the sciences.

But humanity’s greatest advances are not in its discoveries – but in how those discoveries are applied to reduce inequity. Whether through democracy, strong public education, quality health care, or broad economic opportunity – reducing inequity is the highest human achievement.

I left campus knowing little about the millions of young people cheated out of educational opportunities here in this country. And I knew nothing about the millions of people living in unspeakable poverty and disease in developing countries.

It took me decades to find out.

You graduates came to Harvard at a different time. You know more about the world’s inequities than the classes that came before. In your years here, I hope you’ve had a chance to think about how – in this age of accelerating technology – we can finally take on these inequities, and we can solve them.

Imagine, just for the sake of discussion, that you had a few hours a week and a few dollars a month to donate to a cause – and you wanted to spend that time and money where it would have the greatest impact in saving and improving lives. Where would you spend it?

For Melinda and for me, the challenge is the same: how can we do the most good for the greatest number with the resources we have.

During our discussions on this question, Melinda and I read an article about the millions of children who were dying every year in poor countries from diseases that we had long ago made harmless in this country. Measles, malaria, pneumonia, hepatitis B, yellow fever. One disease I had never even heard of, rotavirus, was killing half a million kids each year – none of them in the United States.

We were shocked. We had just assumed that if millions of children were dying and they could be saved, the world would make it a priority to discover and deliver the medicines to save them. But it did not. For under a dollar, there were interventions that could save lives that just weren’t being delivered.

If you believe that every life has equal value, it’s revolting to learn that some lives are seen as worth saving and others are not. We said to ourselves: “This can’t be true. But if it is true, it deserves to be the priority of our giving.”

So we began our work in the same way anyone here would begin it. We asked: “How could the world let these children die?”

The answer is simple, and harsh. The market did not reward saving the lives of these children, and governments did not subsidize it. So the children died because their mothers and their fathers had no power in the market and no voice in the system.

But you and I have both.

We can make market forces work better for the poor if we can develop a more creative capitalism – if we can stretch the reach of market forces so that more people can make a profit, or at least make a living, serving people who are suffering from the worst inequities. We also can press governments around the world to spend taxpayer money in ways that better reflect the values of the people who pay the taxes.

If we can find approaches that meet the needs of the poor in ways that generate profits for business and votes for politicians, we will have found a sustainable way to reduce inequity in the world. This task is open-ended. It can never be finished. But a conscious effort to answer this challenge will change the world.

I am optimistic that we can do this, but I talk to skeptics who claim there is no hope. They say: “Inequity has been with us since the beginning, and will be with us till the end – because people just … don’t … care.” I completely disagree.

I believe we have more caring than we know what to do with.

All of us here in this Yard, at one time or another, have seen human tragedies that broke our hearts, and yet we did nothing – not because we didn’t care, but because we didn’t know what to do. If we had known how to help, we would have acted.

The barrier to change is not too little caring; it is too much complexity.

To turn caring into action, we need to see a problem, see a solution, and see the impact. But complexity blocks all three steps.

Even with the advent of the Internet and 24-hour news, it is still a complex enterprise to get people to truly see the problems. When an airplane crashes, officials immediately call a press conference. They promise to investigate, determine the cause, and prevent similar crashes in the future.

But if the officials were brutally honest, they would say: “Of all the people in the world who died today from preventable causes, one half of one percent of them were on this plane. We’re determined to do everything possible to solve the problem that took the lives of the one half of one percent.”

The bigger problem is not the plane crash, but the millions of preventable deaths.

We don’t read much about these deaths. The media covers what’s new – and millions of people dying is nothing new. So it stays in the background, where it’s easier to ignore. But even when we do see it or read about it, it’s difficult to keep our eyes on the problem. It’s hard to look at suffering if the situation is so complex that we don’t know how to help. And so we look away.

If we can really see a problem, which is the first step, we come to the second step: cutting through the complexity to find a solution.

Finding solutions is essential if we want to make the most of our caring. If we have clear and proven answers anytime an organization or individual asks “How can I help?,” then we can get action – and we can make sure that none of the caring in the world is wasted. But complexity makes it hard to mark a path of action for everyone who cares — and that makes it hard for their caring to matter.

Cutting through complexity to find a solution runs through four predictable stages: determine a goal, find the highest-leverage approach, discover the ideal technology for that approach, and in the meantime, make the smartest application of the technology that you already have — whether it’s something sophisticated, like a drug, or something simpler, like a bednet.

The AIDS epidemic offers an example. The broad goal, of course, is to end the disease. The highest-leverage approach is prevention. The ideal technology would be a vaccine that gives lifetime immunity with a single dose. So governments, drug companies, and foundations fund vaccine research. But their work is likely to take more than a decade, so in the meantime, we have to work with what we have in hand – and the best prevention approach we have now is getting people to avoid risky behavior.

Pursuing that goal starts the four-step cycle again. This is the pattern. The crucial thing is to never stop thinking and working – and never do what we did with malaria and tuberculosis in the 20th century – which is to surrender to complexity and quit.

The final step – after seeing the problem and finding an approach – is to measure the impact of your work and share your successes and failures so that others learn from your efforts.

You have to have the statistics, of course. You have to be able to show that a program is vaccinating millions more children. You have to be able to show a decline in the number of children dying from these diseases. This is essential not just to improve the program, but also to help draw more investment from business and government.

But if you want to inspire people to participate, you have to show more than numbers; you have to convey the human impact of the work – so people can feel what saving a life means to the families affected.

I remember going to Davos some years back and sitting on a global health panel that was discussing ways to save millions of lives. Millions! Think of the thrill of saving just one person’s life – then multiply that by millions. … Yet this was the most boring panel I’ve ever been on – ever. So boring even I couldn’t bear it.

What made that experience especially striking was that I had just come from an event where we were introducing version 13 of some piece of software, and we had people jumping and shouting with excitement. I love getting people excited about software – but why can’t we generate even more excitement for saving lives?

You can’t get people excited unless you can help them see and feel the impact. And how you do that – is a complex question.

Still, I’m optimistic. Yes, inequity has been with us forever, but the new tools we have to cut through complexity have not been with us forever. They are new – they can help us make the most of our caring – and that’s why the future can be different from the past.

The defining and ongoing innovations of this age – biotechnology, the computer, the Internet – give us a chance we’ve never had before to end extreme poverty and end death from preventable disease.

Sixty years ago, George Marshall came to this commencement and announced a plan to assist the nations of post-war Europe. He said: “I think one difficulty is that the problem is one of such enormous complexity that the very mass of facts presented to the public by press and radio make it exceedingly difficult for the man in the street to reach a clear appraisement of the situation. It is virtually impossible at this distance to grasp at all the real significance of the situation.”

Thirty years after Marshall made his address, as my class graduated without me, technology was emerging that would make the world smaller, more open, more visible, less distant.

The emergence of low-cost personal computers gave rise to a powerful network that has transformed opportunities for learning and communicating.

The magical thing about this network is not just that it collapses distance and makes everyone your neighbor. It also dramatically increases the number of brilliant minds we can have working together on the same problem – and that scales up the rate of innovation to a staggering degree.

At the same time, for every person in the world who has access to this technology, five people don’t. That means many creative minds are left out of this discussion -- smart people with practical intelligence and relevant experience who don’t have the technology to hone their talents or contribute their ideas to the world.

We need as many people as possible to have access to this technology, because these advances are triggering a revolution in what human beings can do for one another. They are making it possible not just for national governments, but for universities, corporations, smaller organizations, and even individuals to see problems, see approaches, and measure the impact of their efforts to address the hunger, poverty, and desperation George Marshall spoke of 60 years ago.

Members of the Harvard Family: Here in the Yard is one of the great collections of intellectual talent in the world.

What for?

There is no question that the faculty, the alumni, the students, and the benefactors of Harvard have used their power to improve the lives of people here and around the world. But can we do more? Can Harvard dedicate its intellect to improving the lives of people who will never even hear its name?

Let me make a request of the deans and the professors – the intellectual leaders here at Harvard: As you hire new faculty, award tenure, review curriculum, and determine degree requirements, please ask yourselves:

Should our best minds be dedicated to solving our biggest problems?

Should Harvard encourage its faculty to take on the world’s worst inequities? Should Harvard students learn about the depth of global poverty … the prevalence of world hunger … the scarcity of clean water …the girls kept out of school … the children who die from diseases we can cure?

Should the world’s most privileged people learn about the lives of the world’s least privileged?

These are not rhetorical questions – you will answer with your policies.

My mother, who was filled with pride the day I was admitted here – never stopped pressing me to do more for others. A few days before my wedding, she hosted a bridal event, at which she read aloud a letter about marriage that she had written to Melinda. My mother was very ill with cancer at the time, but she saw one more opportunity to deliver her message, and at the close of the letter she said: “From those to whom much is given, much is expected.”

When you consider what those of us here in this Yard have been given – in talent, privilege, and opportunity – there is almost no limit to what the world has a right to expect from us.

In line with the promise of this age, I want to exhort each of the graduates here to take on an issue – a complex problem, a deep inequity, and become a specialist on it. If you make it the focus of your career, that would be phenomenal. But you don’t have to do that to make an impact. For a few hours every week, you can use the growing power of the Internet to get informed, find others with the same interests, see the barriers, and find ways to cut through them.

Don’t let complexity stop you. Be activists. Take on the big inequities. It will be one of the great experiences of your lives.

You graduates are coming of age in an amazing time. As you leave Harvard, you have technology that members of my class never had. You have awareness of global inequity, which we did not have. And with that awareness, you likely also have an informed conscience that will torment you if you abandon these people whose lives you could change with very little effort. You have more than we had; you must start sooner, and carry on longer.

Knowing what you know, how could you not?

And I hope you will come back here to Harvard 30 years from now and reflect on what you have done with your talent and your energy. I hope you will judge yourselves not on your professional accomplishments alone, but also on how well you have addressed the world’s deepest inequities … on how well you treated people a world away who have nothing in common with you but their humanity.

Good luck.

Searching on the sea

Sun, 29 Jul 2007 14:10:38 GMT

On conversation with the SQL Shanghai team's product manager, we talked about the genious on the top of, within Microsoft. And inevitablely, Jim Gray's mentioned.

I feel so regret about this mysterious missing, feel like I have met him before I joined, the Turing winner in 1998.

All the best wishes to him.

You could get the full story out of:

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/15-08/ff_jimgray?currentPage=1

Steve Silberman 07.23.07 | 2:00 AM

It looked like a fine day for a sail. On Sunday, January 28, 2007, Microsoft researcher Jim Gray woke up on his boat, a red 40-foot fiberglass cruiser called Tenacious. The water in Gashouse Cove, a cozy marina in San Francisco Bay, was nearly flat. The 63-year-old programmer phoned his wife, Donna Carnes, who was on an annual vacation with friends in Wisconsin. He said he was heading out to the Farallon Islands, a wildlife refuge 27 miles offshore, to scatter the ashes of his mother, Ann, who died in October.

As Gray steered out through the Golden Gate to the open ocean, both tide and wind were in his favor. At 10:30 am, he called Carnes again and said that he was approaching a channel marker buoy 15 miles out. She asked him if he was wearing his harness; single-handed sailors can drown if a wave pitches them overboard and the ship sails on. "Yes, dear," he replied, saying that he would get in touch as soon as Tenacious came back into range.

A few minutes later, he left an upbeat voicemail for his daughter, Heather, in Santa Barbara. "I'm taking Granny out to her final resting place. I'm surrounded by dolphins out here. It's a little cloudy but very pleasant. No whales but lots of dolphins and very pretty. Love and kisses, take care, bye." At 11:50 am, his smartphone synched with Microsoft's email server one last time, pinging a Cingular tower south of San Francisco. A couple of hours later, on Southeast Farallon Island, a naturalist named Brett Hartl spotted a sailboat with a reddish hull a mile or two offshore, sailing north.

Then Gray and his boat vanished. The Coast Guard received no Mayday call, and Gray's EPIRB — an emergency radio beacon designed to broadcast a homing signal if it sinks — stayed silent. No sailors in the area reported seeing the boat adrift, and not a single life vest, flashlight, or scrap of debris belonging to Tenacious washed up on local beaches.

The news that Gray was missing shocked the high tech community. The lanky coder had been a computing legend since the 1970s. His work helped make possible such mainstays of modern life as cash machines, ecommerce, online ticketing, and deep databases like Google. "Jim's work inspired us and many other computer scientists to seek out and tackle very ambitious projects," says Google cofounder Sergey Brin. "He never shied away from problems involving large-scale data and computation."

When Gray joined Microsoft in 1995, he convinced the software behemoth to launch a research center in San Francisco so that he and his wife wouldn't have to move to Redmond. "If Jim had wanted a lab in Monte Carlo, we would have built a lab in Monte Carlo," says Microsoft Research chief Rick Rashid. In 1998, Gray's peers gave him the highest honor in computer science, the A.M. Turing Award.

His influence reached far beyond the insular world of coding and computers. Each morning, as Gray strolled down to the lab from his rustic Victorian on Telegraph Hill, he chatted on his cell with one of the many scientists who became regular guests on his boat. He could talk to astronomers, oceanographers, geologists, geneticists, or fellow programmers and seem like a native in each field. And he felt equally comfortable hiking along the Tahoe Rim Trail or sailing up the Sacramento River delta with his wife.

Gray's mysterious disappearance inspired one of the most ambitious search-and-rescue missions in history. First the Coast Guard scoured 132,000 square miles of ocean. Then a team of scientists and Silicon Valley power players turned the eyes of the global network onto the Pacific. They steered satellites and NASA planes over the Golden Gate and mobilized the search for Tenacious on blogs and on Amazon.com. This group included some of the best minds in science and technology, among them Amazon.com chief technologist Werner Vogels and top executives at Microsoft and Oracle, including Bill Gates and Larry Ellison. Oceanographers and engineers from the US Navy, NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab, and the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute joined the effort, as did astronomers from leading universities.

The search became national news and gripped the imagination of the blogosphere. Some commentators tried to cast the programmer as a digital-age D. B. Cooper, who disappeared in 1971 with a suitcase full of cash by leaping from the back of an airplane — though Gray had no evident motive to flee.

During the search, Carnes stayed in seclusion with a security guard posted at her door, refusing to talk to the press. But as salvage boats and remotely operated underwater vehicles scanned the seafloor along California's north coast, she met with me in the house she shared with Gray. "I am determined to find out what happened to my husband," she said. "And I am determined to find Tenacious, because she is the key to Jim, and to this strange, singular, very painful mystery."

在微软的工作的若干小细节：

Thu, 26 Jul 2007 14:34:01 GMT

As I mentioned in the day before yesterday's blog, yesterday is Laptop free day, I'm not going to bring any work to home.

While the truth turned out is, on waiting for the <transformer> in the cinema, I opened laptop again.

You could imagine what looks like from my GF's face. Yes, I'm hopeless, in trying not to fall in with Microsoft.

细节一：
经理为其他员工开门与让路。
在公司里门禁比较多，经常碰到的是经理主动为其它员工开门，让路。

细节二：
庆祝生存一周年。
员工在微软工作满一周年后主动发邮件给所有人，告诉大家他已经工作满一周年，并且在他的座位上准备了小吃与零食若干，大家可以与他一起庆祝。

细节三：
高级经理与其他员工坐一块儿。
从team lead到director，都不用独立的办公室。某个普通员工边上坐的可能就是个高级产品经理，办公设施完全一样，一转身可以看到对方的一举一动。

细节四：
主动分享心得。
有了一定工作经验的员工（不论年限长短），可以给大家发个meeting request说，我想在何时做一个关于如何做好test的演讲，有兴趣的可以来听，主题主要包括。。。
微软也会从总部不定期地派遣马可孛罗（不是面包，而是传播文化的使者）-有经验的工程师到国内来工作一段时间，培养团队的成员。（想当上马可孛罗需要在内部申请并且通过内部面试）

细节五：
穿出最舒适的自己。
不会看到奇装异服的员工，更不会看到穿得公整笔挺的员工，从下至上。
在微软HR全球大会上，人事部高级副总裁穿了一条沙滩裤给大家做关于2007财年的总结和2008财年工作计划的报告。

A snap of "Casual" with MS

Sun, 15 Jul 2007 14:06:36 GMT

Last week, in HR global all hands video meeting, the senior VP was gaving presenation in pants.

As symbol of high technology culture, in almost the 30 years, now we got companies like "Google" & other new cutting edge web 2.0 companies, Microsoft is keeping his great tradition and on reformancing.