My Name Is Jasper

Sinklars Visa

Soldaten er ude på Kongens Tog,

Vi selv må Landet forsvare;

Forbandet være det niddingsdrog

Som nu sit Blod vil spare.

De bønder af Våge, Lesje og Lom

med skarpe økser på nakke,

i Bredebøjg tilsammen kom

med skotten så ville de snakke.

Sinklars Visa – Edvard Storm (190)

It is the middle of July. My bags are once again packed. Every summer Microsoft rallies some 15,000 of it's employees to a humid city in the South of the States for the annual internal conference: Microsoft Global Exchange, or MGX. Microsoft has a habit of abbreviating everything at any given time. Our departments have names like M&O, SMS&P, or CCG. Our fiscal year milestones are known as MYR, WWSMM (pronounced "whism") and PRISM. Even some of our leaders refer to themselves as KT or JPC. Sometimes you feel like you want to by a vowel...

MGX kicks off the new fiscal year, and is a fantastic event. The best part without a doubt is being able to (re-)connect with colleagues from all over the world. MGX this year is being held in Orlando. I took the liberty of flying down a weekend earlier to spend the weekend in Miami Beach with some ex-colleagues from Belgium. Joeri is obviously amongst them. I wonder if he is fully recovered from Graspop yet.

I'm excited for this trip. Considered it drinking, no binging on Kool-Aid, but MGX always does a great job in forcing you to let go of your day-to-day job and insights, and showing you the big picture. What are we doing, where are we going, how are we impacting the world. It is a humbling and an energizing experience at the same time. And a very big production.

The excitement I feel each time for this event is similar to the excitement I felt as a senior in secondary school, anticipating what University would be like. What will we learn? What will we discover? I remember as a 15-year-old, one of my first friends to go to university, a guy called Remco (191), was reading from one of his University books on our way to a Korfball game: "It is physically impossible for a person sitting down to stand up, without making a forward motion first." Mind blown. I didn't know what course this insight came from, but clearly University was going to teach me real stuff.

My 6 years at University (192) were mostly spent at the $olvay Kring office. We didn't have fancy fraternity houses like those in mediocre American comedy movies. I guess Belgian students prefer more privacy. As mentioned before, we were brats. Remember those rich kids' clubs (or aspiring rich kids) who were always the bad guys in those mediocre movies? That was us. We were taught by our club leaders that being part of $olvay was the most important thing in the world. And we all happily believed that simply by choosing Solvay Business School as our Major, our careers were already insured to be a success. The level of our douchebagness was quite clear as we were sporting polo shirts with slogans such as "Your future BO$$". After all we were told by alumni, business people, and professors alike that we were bred as the new generation of leaders. Clearly we didn't stop to realize there is a big difference between a boss and a leader.

Every boss should be a leader, but not every leader is a boss. You can be a leader in any situation, whether that is family, education, or as a member of team. Leaders cause things to happen. That was a valuable lesson taught to me at my very first MGX,

This year will be my 6th MGX in 7 years. My first was quite the experience. Overwhelming. One of the best parts was listening to Tim Hynes' presentation, and later in the week discussing leadership and many more things with him over a beer. Tim is a senior Microsoft executive from Dublin, and a fantastic public speaker. His presentations over the years, but more so our conversations, have heavily impacted my thinking and decisions these first years of my career.