Mentor returned yesterday, so I had to push myself to work all night long. :-(. I only had a nap about 4 am, and got up to work again nearly 7 am this morning. Usually I am the sleepiest. I remember when I was attending Mathematical Modeling Contest, I could hardly  keep waking thoughout the whole night.I usually went to sleep early, leaving the task to my teammates, and here many thanks to Chen Wei and Zhao Chao, :-).  But this time, I was not half the man I used to be. I felt tired all the time, but I was not sleepy at all.  And It was a bit weird and surprising. Whatever, I mananged, and leave this post for memory.

BTW, I have another thing to say. This morning as I stayed  in company, I found that our old professor, Huang Changning, one of the trailblazers of NLP research in China and a very old man, came to office before 7 pm! I know Huang usually leaves office late, for I often leave late, too. But it seams that he also comes to work early. But I usually sleep to 9 o'clock! What a shame I am. Highly admire Professor Huang!

Well, in fact the 2nd class MS2 was held last Saturday, on April 15. I have been unable to write this post because of my laziness. :-) However, I have to finish it today, for there will be another new class tonight.

The 2nd class started at 9:30 am in the morning. Mr. Hua made an openning speech about blogs, because he asked all of us to keep writing down things happened to our MS2 teams and posting them on our bLogs. In fact, this was another homework of MS2! And I agreed with him: writing things really helped record our lives. The value of blogs increases as time flies, and when we passed these days, those writings would be the most lively pictures in our memory of life. I used to write diaries when I were in primary school. Those writings were most short, shallow and even stupid, but they are indeed my pricious now. I remember one day when I happened to see this diary book while cleaning up my old book box, I couldn't help to stop my work and begin reading my former stories, and I was deeply attracted. Those writings helped me recall my joyous and carefree childhood. However, I stopped writing anything about my life when I was bigger in middle school and colledge. When I try to recall this part of life, in which I earned many also lost many, I feel it a bit blank, and I feel sad. That is time, and that is life.

Well, next was the formal lecture talk, given by Mr. Hua. His topic was "Microsoft in China" and he introduced main departments and businesses of Microsoft here. As I have said, Mr. Hua is indeed a well speaker and deep-sighted IT observer. In his talk, he always talked a lot of other related things and made some excellent concepts and comments. Here let me make a simple record list:

1. Microsoft's way to do business. When Microsoft earns one dollar, his partners earn as much as eight dollars. In most time, what Microsoft's doing is to build the platform and such help to build the whole industry. What Microsoft wants is to make the industry bigger, "to make the cake bigger", so as to collaborate, survive and develop together with other related companies, as well as the whole industry. As long as you have such an industry environment, when a competer comes to compete againest you, what he competes against is no longer yourself, but indeed the whole industry! Mr. Hua called such industry environment an "equal system". He said that the best company is one to build such an equal system. Hehe, great thoughts.

2. What Microsoft is doing here in China. Microsoft is help build a consciousness of software copyright in China, that is, to  recognize the value of copyrighted software, as well as the value of software and software service. This is already done in foreign countries many years ago, but still weak in China. In my opinion, the consciousness of copyrighted software is really important. It helps our software industry to grow healthily. But it will cost some times to reach.

3. Why there is MSRA and ATC here. People used to say that the cost of manpower here was lowere. However, Mr. Hua doesn't think so. There are many countries where cost of manpower is much cheaper than here in China. The advantage of China is the talent and ability of its people. We have many smart and creative scientists and engineers here. We make the coolest technologies and products here. That is why MSRA and ATC are here.

After the above talk, Mr. Hua turned to another topic, "Microsoft Culture", and it was another long talk. Keep admiring!! Again here it is:

1. What is the best and most effective way to run a company? Most newborn companies usually have a super CEO, who is in charge of everything. Some will success, some not. This way can be called "human-managed". Larger and most company would have a huge set of rules, which defines DOs and DON'Ts. This way usually somewhat works. But it will bring high cost of supervising. This is called "rule-managed". A few but most successful company is running in the way of "culture-managed", that is to use company culture to manage its employees. Microsoft and many other famous companies are of this kind. Usually people in these company are high-spirited, and do their jobs actively and effectively. It is the best way to run a company.

2. The way to make your life easy and happy, is just to kown yourself and tell others what a human being you are. What is your favorite? It is that when you get it, you feel extremely delight, and when others seize it from you, you feel extremely annouyed. :-). Find what you really are, and speek it out to let others know you. Build the trust-ship between people. Then your life would be easier and happier. What are three of my favorites?

3. Microsoft's culture can be summarized as follows:

"Integrity and honesty in all actions and interactions". Integrity is the most important thing in Microsoft, and the most serious offend against someday is arguing his integrity. :)

"Passion for customers, partners and technology." There is a famous words in Microsoft about passion, that is "I~ love~ this~ company!~" by Steve Balmer. That video is rather full of passion. Hehe.

"Open adn respectful with others and dedicated to make them better"

"Accountable for commitments, results, and quality"

"Willing to take on big challenges and see them through"

"Self-critical, questioning and committed to personal excellence and self-improvement"

It was 11:30 when Mr. Hua's talk ended. Then we had an exam on C# and ASP.NET! Although I have learned a few about these two things, I have never managed to learn them through, and I forgot totally now. :-) Therefore the next hour of exam was just full of English reading, comprehending, comparing, reasoning and guessing, :-). Sorry, hehe. In serious, we have to improve our skills expeditiously, so as to make sure that we will be able to finish our projects.

After the exam, we had lunch. We had the famous teaming building for the first time, and our leader paid the bill, :-). What a exemplar our lead had made! And hope to keep and improve in future! :)

Then athernoon's class began, and Steven Huang was in charge. First every team presented their project, and we had a discussion about it. Then Steven gave us a lecture about product life cycle. The product life cycle was "Idea -> Vision/Scope -> Feature List -> Function Spec -> Implentation Spec/Test Plan -> Coding(m1, m2, ..., mn) -> Code Complete -> Alpha test -> Beta test -> Release Candidate -> RTM/RTW -> QFE/next version -> ... ". And I learned many new things, such as "UI Ureezing", "CC(code complete)", etc. What impressed me most was the question he asked, "what is the most important thing in a software project?" The answer proved somewhat surprising, "morale". Right. If we lose our passion and confidence, our team would definitely fail. This is never taught in software enginering lessons at school, though I rarely attend the class, :).

The 2nd class ended on 6:30 pm, and lasted for 7 hours. It was rather a tired day. However, I learned a lot. Routinely, write down some excellent words I learned:

"Make the cake big."

"The biggest fortune of life is to be admitted by others." - by Mr. Hua

"I love this company."

"Passion!"

On April 13, I was accepted as one trainee of the third batch of "Microsoft Master" Program, which is called as MS2 briefly.

MS2, which was proposed by Harry Shum, Managing Director of MSRA, is a training class to help students to touch the professional employee fundamental as well as to enhance software developing techniques. It is currently open to interns in MSRA. During the next 7 or 8 weeks, we will learn many usefull skills and build a real project with teammates. This is a good opportunity to make new friends, too! :-)

Our first class started on 6:30 pm in Compass Room, 5F. Kurt Akeley, Assistant Managing Director of MSRA, made the opening speech. Kurt is absolutely a "big bull", and it is nobody but him who led the development of OpenGL, an industry-standard programming interface for high-performance graphics hardware! How luck am I to have the opportunity to hear his talk! He talked about his stories and his experiences as a computer professional for many years. Unfortunately I couldn't keep up with his speech very well because of my poor English. All I catched was that his passion towards value of tools, for he called himself a "tool user and tool builder", and his concepts on computer engineering. He said that it was our responsibility to make software "secure and reliable" for all users, for us computer experts as well as those in other occupations. I was deeply impressed. Kurt made a good example of what is a excellent computer scientist, although he regarded himself as only a computer engineer.

After Kurt's opening speech, we had a funny short discussion, just about his talk's contents, because most of us couldn't catch the whole speech. It seemed that I was not the only poor one, :-). This discussiong was summarized by Mr. Hua Hongwei, our senior teacher and class leader, who has worked in Microsoft Corporation for nearly 9 years. He also decribed what is MS2 at all and why it existed. Indeed what he made was a non-short talk.

Afther a short break, we continued our class. Next part was held by Stenven Huang, another teacher of MS2. In this part, all of us trainees, twenty-eight people, was divided into four teams, according to the mathematical module calculation and our initial seat order. And we were asked to get to known each other within the same team, and think out a team name and team slogan in ten minutes! It was really a big challenge. Fortunately we managed to complete the job: we memorized each other's name, our team is named as "Seven Star" and the team slogan is "Impossible is Noing"(this is a bit too popular, hehe). The other three teams are "ALT", "Compass" and "Seven Sword", and they all had clangorous slogans!

The next job was to assign each team one project. We were provided with four candidates. After each of the projects was introduced, I was attracted by LLK and I was a bit afraid that my team was assigned to one wich I dislike in case. Things turned out to quite well, and our team was in charge of the LLK project! It seamed that my RP has extremely bursted out. Haha.

When we got these things done, it was already 10 o'clock in the evening. I was just thinking about to leave, when Mr. Hua announced that there was another lecture to hold. And I was totally frustrated to death. I have learned that classes of MS2 often lasted to wee hours, and this seemed to be true. :-(. Hua's lecture proved to be quite a good one. His theme was "Understanding Microsoft" and he gave us a brief history of Microsoft. He told stories about three letters by Bill Gates, which have changed Microsoft's history. He also talked many such things. He was indeed a excellent humorous speaker and a deep-sighted IT observer. I was attacted by the video show of Microsoft Timelines, too. So I was not very upset when the class finally ended about 11:30 pm.

I think I've made a good choice to participate in MS2. Hopefully there starts a fruitful journey from now on.

Finally, write down some excellent words I learned:

"Learn by doing"

"To enable people and bussiness throught the world to realize their full potential." - Microsoft's Vision

"The best is yet to come!" - Bill Gates' words