About Shawn
Hi.
This is shawnlmorrissey.com, and I’m shawn. Thanks for visiting, and feel free to drop me a note if you’re so inclined.
Please read my disclaimer. I like to author posts regarding personal productivity, technology, interviewing at Microsoft, fun sites I trip across, and every then I’ll let loose on a rant.
About Shawn
I was born and raised in Arlington, Texas, and Bellevue, Washington. My first computer was a teletype terminal attached via acoustic modem to an IBM mainframe. The first PC I learned to program BASIC on was a Commodore PET - we saved our programs on cassette tapes. The first PC I owned, hacked, modded till it was bulging at the seams was the original IBM PC.
I received both my undergraduate and graduate degrees at Texas A&M University. While at A&M, I was a sysadmin on the College of Business’s IBM 4361. I fell in love with the ability to talk to students on other campuses whose mainframes were also attached to something called ARPANet. I loved it so much I wrote a chat program. I still remember receiving a message from a friend at OMo Rolla that said, “Holy shit - get to a TV. The Challenger just blew up.”
I was hired by IBM to work in the IBM Information Network group. We ran around Louisiana and Texas hooking up mainframes to IBM thoroughly underutilized internal network. It was like a private Internet. I then had the opportunity to move back to Seattle, and work for IBM on Microsoft’s campus. I even got to install the first IBM PS/2 Model 80 (with an Intel 386DX proc) in Bill Gates’ office. I rounded out my career at IBM as a program manager on OS/2. I saw the error of my ways, and joined Microsoft as a Technical Evangelist.
I worked for Microsoft for six years, then took a detour over to RealNetworks to run the client apps team, where we created RealPlayer 7 and 8, and then RealOne. I call that the best experience I’d never wish on anyone. I came back to Microsoft after that, and I’ve been here since then.
When I’m not at work, I enjoy soccer, cycling, snow skiing, and golf. I’ve been coaching my daughter’s soccer teams for the last three years. I’m a PSIA Ski Instructor (Level 1), and teach for the PowderPigs program.
Contacting Me
I have contact points littered all over the Internet. If there’s a site with a “shawnmor” user, that’s probably me. Look to the right of this contact for a list of my accounts, provided by the excellent Profilactic service. The easiest places to find me:
- LinkedIn for business stuff and career opportunities. I’m always looking for interesting opportunities.
- FriendFeed or Twitter (when it’s up) for random friend-working
