Azure’s revenue is not a public figure, but I wanted to try to estimate it as a business research exercise. Calculation This week, Microsoft released its Fiscal Year 21 Q1 (Jul. 2020 – Sept. 2020) earnings data. At the same time, MSFT also filed its FY21 Q1 Quarterly Report (Form 10-Q) to the SEC. I…
Author: Ellery
Getting promoted: The importance of working with your manager
TLDR: I believe the ability to work with your manager to advance your career is a key skill for professionals. It may be an uncomfortable topic due to reasons like workplace culture, but there’s no harm and a lot of goodness to work with your manager to identify career goals clearly and build concrete plan…
How to display an Outlook calendar in Google Calendar
Recently I learned how to import and subscribe an Outlook calendar into Google Calendar. I did this because I manage two different calendars: Outlook for work, Google for personal stuff — and I wanted a consolidated view of my day. It took a bit of research so I document it here for others and my…
Azure Communication Services was launched at Ignite!
I’m really proud to share that Azure Communication Services, which I have been working on since July, was announced at Microsoft Ignite by CEO Satya Nadella! What is Azure Communication Services (ACS)? You can find a lot of descriptions out there, but quoting the official ACS webpage, Azure Communication Services brings rich communication APIs to…
Doing 10-K research on Canadian public companies
In a nutshell, this article answers the following question: What is the equivalent of form 10-K for companies publicly traded in Canada? And the answer is: the equivalent consists of 3 forms, namely the Annual Information Form (AIF), Annual Financial Statement and Management Discussion and Analysis (MD&A). Summary U.S. tool Description Canadian counterpart EDGAR database…
See you later, USA!
(Image source: US Embassy & Consulate in Canada) I recently left the US to move back to Canada. In this article, I share my thoughts and reasoning on this move. I came to the US at the end of 2019 on an H1B visa, which I got on my 3rd attempt towards the H1B “lottery”….
Transcending storytelling
As a PM, I always see storytelling as one of the most important communication tools. Whether I am trying to get buy-in, build alignment, explain a strategy or share my learning, stories are usually a powerful way to retain attention and elicit empathy. But as I keep practicing storytelling, I am gradually realizing that as…
Diagnose before Prescribe: A lesson in empathetic customer listening
A few weeks ago, a customer told me that my product is so good that he plans to stop using it. A bit of context here: As you may know from my blog, I am the product owner of a wiki-as-a-service documentation web app at Microsoft. Our service offers multiple managed wiki sites to various…
WFH, self-sustainability and P/PC balance
As we enter an extended WFH (Work From Home) period of time, I’ve become increasingly aware of the importance of self-sustainability. Self-sustainability, a sense of confidence in leading an effective life completely by myself, relies on something called P/PC balance. In this article, I share some learning about these concepts from the past month of…
Fuzzier language, better UX
This is a story of a customer psychology analysis. It led me to choose less precise language in a product UI, and achieve better user experience. It started when my dev partners found an internal API limitation in a web app we own. This API limitation was causing a data visualization dashboard feature to throw…
Building product bandwagon with early adopters
This is a story where I had to re-think why my product was successful. A few months ago, I created a web app at Microsoft. It was designed to host internal service documentation for a large org in Windows team. I built the business case and product roadmap, then worked with a team of engineers…
Being a remote PM: pros & cons
In this post I share my experience as a remote PM. Being a remote PM is both a bundle of challenges and a passport to a lot of opportunities. Working remotely is without doubt a trending topic in the tech world today, but in my observation most remote workers (in long-term remote arrangements) are engineers….