Do read my post about my Microsoft visit on the Sig9 techblog.

A few personal observations… The people skills of our contacts there was amazing, and somehow I can’t stress this enough. I haven’t met many people who could convert an unresponsive and lethargic crowd into interested listeners, and they did that well. Altho the Longhorn video helped a lot 😉

Two other things that I found personally interesting… they do coach people on their language when you join Microsoft, and part of that involves something called “mother-tongue stripping”. Unlearning can also be fun sometimes I guess =). Also, the ratio of male to female employees is something like 4:1, part of the reason (I was told) is that the Support Center work is often at night, and Indian women don’t work that hours.