Q:Name:
A:Christopher

Q:What do you do?:
A:Content Publishing Manager, Expression Studio

Q:What inspires you?
A:Architecture, good design, the details, color, new music, a well-told story, landscapes from mountains to islands, and most importantly, watching my daughter learn.

Q:How did you choose to work on this team with this product?
A:This is kind of a long story…I saw a Program Manager job posting back in 2003 and thought no way Microsoft is working on product like “Sparkle” (Blend’s former codename). That’s just too cool for Microsoft! So, I contacted the Group Program Manager who then looped in the Product Unit Manager to invite me back to chat about a future user education position. When they didn’t have a role for me then, I thought they simply didn’t like me. Meanwhile, I moved from Office to MSN, then after two years since first meeting with the Sparkle team, they contacted me to see if I was interested in joining the team in a user education role. Absolutely, as this was a perfect opportunity for me to return to my Visual Communication Design roots in education and experiences. I was a lab monkey in grad school—my lab ran Adobe and Macromedia products on PCs, so this put me back in my element.

Q:What’s your favorite feature? Why?
A:I work across all of our products so it is hard to pin down one feature, but the one feature that I’ve found to be just the coolest thing is Live Encoding in Expression Encoder primarily because I can do that type of production work from my desk at home instead of in a studio! But that said, we are so just getting started…more of my favorite features to come!!!

Q:How long have you been a Microsoftie?
A:Just over 8 years

Q:What does your typical workday look like:
A:Coffee, breakfast, check email…the day begins. Meetings, 1:1s, more email, stop by folks’ offices…I generally love the face2face. More email. On any given day, I interact with our localization, packaging, marketing, community site, and program management teams. I also interface often with the group program managers and product unit managers to negotiate schedules and deliverable plans. I like to say my team provides some of the glue for the Studio as we do quite a bit of cross-product and cross-group communication. Other days, I’m conducting interviews, writing, fixing documentation bugs, logging documentation bugs based on customer feedback, doing project reviews, and authoring vision and planning documents. Oh, and I did I mention checking email?

Q:How do you like to spend your time outside of work?
A:Now that my daughter is a noticeable sponge (aka a toddler), I spend lots of time with her playing and learning. I love to travel, but these days, I don’t vary up the travel as much as I’d like, as I’m finding that I’m either going to Vegas, Hawaii, or the East coast for visits with family and friends. I’m obsessed with fantasy football, so that occupies much of my spare time during fall and winter. I’m also a big fan of higher-altitude hiking, but I don’t do that nearly as much as I used to.

Q:Anything else you'd like to share with the community?
A:The thing that always seems too personal to reveal, but really isn’t a big deal, is that I have two Mickey Mouse tattoos and grew up fascinated by Disney animation and Imagineering (and roller coasters). Though my younger-year memories are fading now, I once knew a Disney World guidebook inside and out—down to the most minute details of each ride/attraction. In my studies, I’ve done some research and documentation on urban planning and planned communities. Oh, and I tolerate two Jack Russell terriers.