WLast week I was in Washington state, for my 2nd summit in as many weeks (the first being the MVP Summit).  Rather than hosting it on campus, our wonderful leadership team decided to hold the event at the Tulalip Casino resort. 

I must admit that I was a little sceptical about the quality of the hotel, since I had previously been to the casino which is situated next to a shopping centre, with little else around and is frequented by people who I would not consider typical to the affluent population of Seattle, Bellevue and other areas around Redmond which have an established above average middle class due to the size of Microsoft and other high tech companies.  My expectations of the quality and service at the resort were FAR from the reality. 

As soon as we arrived, we were greeted by super friendly and eager staff (OK, that’s not exactly unusual in the U.S. service industry) and were handed card keys to BEAUTIFUL and luxurious rooms!  I have stayed in a fair number of nice hotels in the past 10 years (including the amazing Bellagio in Las Vegas), however I consider the room I had at Tulalip to be one of the most luxurious I have stayed in…

Considering I was in a standard room, I would rate the quality as superb and way above my expectations.  As a person who is currently going through the process of renovating his ensuite, I really appreciated the spec of that beautiful bathroom (which was a little elongated, so is not represented well in this photo), which included a three head shower to make sure you truly do get a full body wash every morning.  I couldn’t resist a cheesy pose…

So, I was totally impressed by the room! And then there was the event itself!  With 400 people, we had practically the whole hotel to ourselves and exclusive use of the 4 enormous ballrooms for our meetings.  As with most offsite meetings, we are fed generously, with a variety of buffet style meals with food to suite all tastes (pretty essential considering the 40+ countries represented at the event).  We even had a ‘special’ meal on the Wednesday evening where we served a preset menu of deliciously  petite sized courses, at set table places along with some smart thought leaders from Microsoft…

Our Microsoft admins along with the hotel staff organised an incredibly motivating and original event, with lots of activities to keep everyone amused day and night.  An artist was hired to draw cartoons portraits of anyone who was patient enough to wait in queue for their turn (I was not).  Some clever person had the idea of also pointing a video camera at the artists work area so that everyone could watch their colleagues being sketched whilst they ate dinner.  I’m going to copy this idea at my wedding (need to fall in love first)…

Whilst we spent most of the day time in the ballrooms, we also had one event hosted in the cabaret rooms.  Whilst the ability to plug in a laptop was lacking (we ended up watching a video from a camera which aimed at a laptop screen for demos), it was a nice change to be sitting in a night spot venue with a band playing random songs in between presenters.

The band was even made up of Microsoft PQO employees! Great stuff…

Bjorn Rettig, our General Manager delivered an inspirational talk about work culture for the first 30 mins of the cabaret session.  We then were treated to Bjorn interviewing his direct reports to discuss business, and have a bit of fun at the same  time.  Here is a video of Jaydeep (one of our Product Unit Managers) demonstrating how to wrap Bjorn in a turban, just after he explained to the regionally diverse audience the meaning and history behind his head piece…

I have many more great memories from the offsite, but do not want to make this blog post too long (not even sure if anyone will read this far! Congratulations if you did!).  Since we work in a global team, the opportunity to get everyone in a relaxed environment, face to face, where they can discuss work, have fun and engage in random conversations which are not structured around a meeting or goal, is for me invaluable!  I lost count of the number of people I met/saw again and the variety of topics which I discussed or overheard.  I certainly walked away feeling energised, motivated and keen to expand on the connections made and the ideas discussed.  The sessions delivered by the management team were informational, motivational and perhaps most importantly during a full week’s worth of conference (including the 2 day leadership meetings) – FUN!

I have so many great memories from the week including the buffet and bar next to the hotel swimming pool on the first night, the Microsoft illuminated posters in the hotel lifts, the team building activity on the first day which had us running around the hotel completing mini missions (may do a blog post about that on it’s own), Bjorn’s dinner with private bar and delicious food, familiar faces dotted around the casino black jack and poker tables at every hour of the day, relaxed light night conversations in the hotel lobby next to the beautiful Indian artwork, fireplaces and waterfall and the challenge of getting all 400+ PQO employees in to a group photo in the hotel lobby!

When an even such as this goes as smoothly as it did, it’s SO easy to take for granted the incredibly hard work of our Microsoft teams, along with that of the hotel.  We even had our own Microsoft branded rooms keys!…

Great job to everyone involved! I hope you are reading this blog post

Whilst we had lots of sunshine during our week skiing in Courchevel, we also had a day where visibility was less than perfect (to say the least).  Whilst it is not very easy to ski in a grey (cloud) or white (snow) out, it’s certainly an interesting experience!  At one point we were skiing along a thin path, next to a steep drop off piste and we were unable to tell the difference between the sky and the snow! Very weird experience – it felt a bit like we were floating in a dream surrounded by clouds!  Very cool   Here is a bit of video Mark took when we stopped to try to figure out where we were (at which point the visibility was actually a little bit better!)

The new Microsoft Commons campus is one of my favourite places to work.  I spent the afternoon in the Mixer, listening to music and working on my slide deck for the SEO presentation tomorrow at the Microsoft MVP summit.

I left just as the sun was about to disappear and managed to catch the lovely light to dark blue sky, with the moon shining down over the empty campus…

We’ve all been drinking way to much for me to do a proper blog post, but here are a couple of video clips from the lift experience tonight, one from the outside (on Chris’s iPhone) and one from the cramped inside (on Mark’s iphone)…

From outside the lift…

From inside the lift…

Today we found our favourite mountain bar/restaurant of the trip so far! La Folie Douce appears to be quite a new place, with very trendy decor, an amazing outdoor terrace with chill out chairs and a delicious buffet style restaurant with a great selection of food.

We were actually trying to find another bar which has an outdoor champagne serving area made of ice, however our navigation of the slopes was a little off and we had to ‘settle’ for the nearest hut we could find….we were very pleased to find this place

Whilst dinners in the chalet have been amazing all week (thanks to Matt and Christie), our lunchtime meals have been a little more basic, usually consisting of burgers, crepes or sandwiches.  A few of us have been craving a spaghetti bolognaise all week, so were very pleased to see it on the menu at this restaurant.  We were even more surprised when our lunch turned up in a glass jar!  The (fresh) pasta was on the bottom, the sauce next and then some parmesan cheese.  Take a look for yourself in this video…

Very tasty! Although next time I will make sure I mix the sauce and pasta up right at the start, as the pasta in the bottom of the jar was a little dry.

Here are a few shots of the interior and exterior of the bar (click for larger images)…

Last night we decided to wonder down to the sledge run which is walking distance from our hotel.

Before we could start we had to find a place to hire sledges, which we did relatively quickly for a mere 3.50 Euros.  Due to the fact that kids were allowed to the use the sledge circuit, I had assumed that it was going to be easy and perhaps a little boring…I was VERY wrong…

The first couple of turns do start off very slowly, giving you chance to get used to the steering mechanism on the sledges.  However, as you pass the 2nd or 3rd corner, the drop becomes a lot steeper and the whole experience changes from a leisurely slide down the snow, in to a scary out of control rollercoaster ride down the winding bends of the track.

Whilst we were not going as fast as we were when skiing, it feels a LOT faster when you are sitting on a plastic tray only a few centimetres above the snow.  The handles on the side of the sledges provided a means of steering, however they were SO sensitive that they could only be used in short correcting bursts.  Every time we encountered a sharp corner, or an unexpected obstacle (i.e. some kid who had fallen of their sledge), we had to improvise a method of steering using feet, hands or anything else which was available to change direction quickly.

Of course Mark decided to strap his Flipcam HD to his goggles and film the whole thing, so here is the footage complete with Ed flipping his sledge upside down, Mark crashing in to the back of random French people and me falling off the edge of the circuit in to fresh powder snow…

Yesterday (Sunday) was our first day of skiing in the Three Valleys.  The conditions were amazing!  There was heavy snow on Saturday (before we started skiing), and it’s been sunny ever since, so we could see where we were going easily, get a bit of a tan and enjoy lovely smooth powder.

We were skiing mainly around the Courchevel area (which is where our chalet is), on a variety of blue, red and black runs.  I haven’t skied off piste yet, but I am getting more confident each day, so hope to do so before we leave. 

We did not have pack lunches prepared on our first day, so we went to Courchevel for lunch….VERY expensive  I ended up spending nearly 40 Euros on a crepe, so chips and 2 Diet Cokes.  It was a very nice spot though, we even managed to get a bit of a tan…

After getting our ‘ski legs’ back, Mark and even decided to do a bit of filming as we went down the slopes…

We finished the night off with a lovely meal in the chalet, lots and lots of wine and a very messy game of 21s (which I SO lost and ended up passed out in bed by about 11pm). 

Mark and I spent this afternoon on our own whilst the others went for a ski lessons. 

Whilst we did actually spend most of the afternoon skiing (honestly), at about 4pm we were pleasantly surprised to get to the top of the chair lift to hear TUNES!

A local bar called ‘Le Roc’, which was a traditional wooden French mountain style building, with an outdoor deck area for eating and drinking, along with a less than usual set of deck chairs along with a DJ playing some funky/electro house tunes to entertain the passing skiers…

We initially stopped to take few pics and videos, but were too energised by the music to ski away, so instead we ended up sitting on a lounger, ordering some mojitos and chilling to the cool (see what I did there!?) tunes…

Whilst we planned to just stop for one drink, the mojitos were (relatively) cheap, the tunes were good, the views absolutely breathtaking, so we ended up having 3 or 4 mojitos each…

The (slightly drunken) ski down back to the hotel was interesting to say the least!  We actually ended up staying a little too late which meant that some of the ski lifts were closed.  A nice French lady who was in charge of one of the closed lifts instructed us to ski down the bottom of the resort, get a cable car back up to the top of the mountain and then ski back down to the hotel.  That worked a treat and we got back to the 17:45, plus we met a nice Chinese lady during the trip up the mountain – good times!

We set off at 4:30am this morning, heading to Gatwick, flew to Chambery airport in France, and then sat on a bus for 2 hours for a transfer to our chalet in Courchevel.  The Peti Chapi Teah chalet sleeps 10 pepole (5 rooms), and comes complete with two chalet people who are cooking dinner for us right now…

Ed and I are sharing our room.  We have the smallest, darkest room, but it doesn’t really matter too much.  I think we’ll spend most of the chalet time in the communal area which has a huge dining table, a fireplace and a TV area…

We have just been down to get our hire skis.  There were three standards of skis available – Bronze, Silver and gold.  We opted for gold, although to be honest there was not a noticeable difference in the quality – will probably go for silver in future and save 25 Euros. 

It’s been a long day, so we’re chilling tonight, having dinner, maybe watching the rugby down in the bar, and then get a good nights sleep in preparation for a full days skiing!

Will try to stay active on the blogging front, but to finish it off today here are a few photos of the view from our chalet…

I was working in the Amsterdam offices for a few days last week (a longer trip than my unscheduled visit 2 weeks ago).  Schiphol airport is a great place to be if you have to wait for flights, there are a huge number of shops to choose from, a casino, a museum, restaurants, bars and even a spa.  However one of my favourite things about the airport is that it is a walk-able distance away from the new Microsoft offices…

The Amsterdam offices are unique due to the fact that the entire Dutch subsidiary effectively works from home, but uses the office as a social hub to meet colleagues and customers.  There are no offices, or even any assigned desk spaces, instead everyone simply turns up and finds a spot in one of the variety of different styled working areas around the two buildings. 

It is surprising to see how this environment makes everyone in the office naturally socialable and chatty (or perhaps that was because they are Dutch?!).  Everyone kept saying hello to me, which confused me at first because the first couple of times it happened I thought they were people who I had met, but forgotten.  Whether it was the receptionist (who perched on a random spot in the atrium with a laptop), women serving coffee in the common area, the random stranger in the lift or the people sitting around the area near us, everyone was constantly smiling, saying hello and never trying to avoid social interactions with those around them (unlike in other office buildings I have been in). 

The mix of funky decor, friendly Dutch people and a flexible working philosophy definitely seems to have worked in Amsterdam and creates a very dynamic working environment.  Here are a few of my favourite pics from around the office…

The atrium can be seen in the bottom of this pic, with a funky fabric wall above it on the 1st floor…

Here is a hot desk area with soothing low lighting, cool coat hangers and another fabric wall in the background…

And yet another style of working space, with yet another set of colours for the fabric wall (I loved those walls! )…

There is even an Asian style low table which can be used for meetings, lunch or anything else you like…

Definitely a new way of working, which REALLY works in my opinion.  I wonder when we will get the same  concepts in the rest of the world?!