The Last Office Casual: Leaving Microsoft
By Doug Thomas
Summary
## Key takeaways - **Post-it Note Sparked Video Pivot**: Doug created a Post-it note video demoing user stories for cloud computing after rejecting a bad ad, shared it with three people including his manager, and they insisted he star in it despite his protests. [00:42], [01:32] - **Unexpected Video Launch Success**: The Post-it video featuring Doug's face performed really well despite his doubts, leading weeks later to requests for more videos and the start of a video team he didn't know was planned. [01:32], [01:50] - **Happy Accidents Drove Career**: All of Doug's long path at Microsoft, working on hundreds of videos with wonderful teams, stemmed from solving a problem he saw, even though it wasn't the solution he initially thought. [02:09], [02:28] - **Windows Clipboard Hidden Gem**: Windows key + V opens the Cloud Clipboard holding your last 20-25 cut items from the day, allowing easy retrieval hours later, pinning of frequent items, and syncing across devices—unlike Apple's version. [02:53], [03:36] - **DougT Era Ends After 27 Years**: Doug used dougt@amazon.com for 8.5 years at Amazon and dougt@microsoft.com for 18.5 years at Microsoft, totaling over a quarter century as 'DougT' in big tech, and now seeks to be just 'Doug.' [03:44], [04:07]
Topics Covered
- Happy accidents launch careers
- Pitch solutions, not yourself
- Windows Clipboard history beats Mac
- Shed corporate identity for freedom
Full Transcript
Hi, my name's Doug and I'm leaving Microsoft. Now a lot of you may not know about this post-it note. It
was kind of my calling card here at Microsoft. Uh, it wasn't my first job that why I came here from Amazon and came here as a site manager. The support site for Office products back then wanted to see if they could get more interesting content and we started doing several things and then what some of it wasn't panning out that well.
I mean, it was a support site. They didn't need like magazine content and after about eighteen months, I was thinking, maybe this is not for me. And then I got mad at something one day. I got really mad: I had heard that we were gonna put a video for the first time on the home page of the support site. And it was
this ad, this really bad ad, I thought, for this new service, cloud computing. It's
what one drive turned out to be OneDrive. And I thought no, no people have webcams, YouTube had just started up a year or two before, and I thought we should find people who can tell stories about how they would use these products. And so I put a little video together. I had some Post-it notes and I kind of acted out what I think we should find other people to do and
together. I had some Post-it notes and I kind of acted out what I think we should find other people to do and then I sent--I didn't send it off a big thing--I didn't think I was on some career thing. I just I saw a problem... I saw a solution I thought to a problem and I told just three people about it including my manager who I trusted. I said, "What
do you think?" And they came back to me and they said "oh, we like this. We want you to do the video and we'll put you on the home page." No no no no no no no no no no no....
...no no it's not what I was talking about--I mean--hey, face made for radio, folks. And they said "let's just see what what happens." And so that's why I start the video where the Post-it, because I thought, Who was gonna click on my face. We did the video and it did really well and a few weeks later they were
like, well, let's try that again with something else. I didn't even know that they were looking at starting a video team. I wasn't even in content at the time and that started this long path of jobs at Microsoft and teams and wonderful folks I've been able to work with and lots of videos, hundreds, thousands
hundreds and hundreds of videos I've helped work on and done a lot of things and it's all because of this problem that I wanted...that I thought I had a solution for. It wasn't the solution that I thought it was but those kind of "happy accidents" have happened a lot during those years and I've
really appreciative of the folks I've been able to work with over time. Now, look, when I was doing...
When I have a camera on likeI usually feel like I had to show you about a feature or a new something to save you some time. So let me let me do that one more time. This is in some new fangled thing that that AI just invented
time. So let me let me do that one more time. This is in some new fangled thing that that AI just invented last week. This is something that's almost 10 years old but I'm surprised a lot of people don't know about it. Cut-and-paste has
last week. This is something that's almost 10 years old but I'm surprised a lot of people don't know about it. Cut-and-paste has
always been Control-X, Control-Y, but on a Windows keyboard if you move your fingers a little bit, hit Windows key-X, Windows key-V. That opens up the Windows Clipboard, the Windows Cloud Clipboard and it's got a lot of great stuff in it. Now there's a thing like this on Apple, but it doesn't do this: It
doesn't keep your last 20-25 things that you cut that day. So if you did something and then a couple hours later remember, what was that URL??? It's right there you can find it in the clipboard and paste it in. Or a lot of times you find a document you have to cut something and then paste it, and then cut it and paste it and... Now you can
cut cut, cut, paste, paste, paste. You can even pin things that you use a lot that will always be there. And
this will go across all your devices. At Amazon,
my email was dougt@amazon.com for for eight and a half years. And then I came to Microsoft, and my log in here was dougt@microsoft for 18 and a half years. So more than a quarter century of being "DougT" in big-time tech. And I'm thinking, well, maybe it's time to be just "Doug."
I'm not at office.com.
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