Windows Phone Manager Leaves Microsoft Over Nokia Phone Tweets

Chris Velazco is a mobile enthusiast and writer who studied English and Marketing at Rutgers University. Once upon a time, he was the news intern for MobileCrunch, and in between posts, he worked in wireless sales at Best Buy. After graduating, he returned to the new TechCrunch to as a full-time mobile writer. He counts advertising, running, musical theater,... ? Learn More

It’s usually a company’s social media reps that get caught tweeting things they shouldn’t be, but ex-Microsoftie Joe Marini was a bit higher up on the food chain than that. Formerly the principal program manager of the Windows Phone web team, Marini has resigned his post at Microsoft after tweeting his first impressions of a forthcoming Nokia-made Windows Phone.

Microsoft typically doesn’t comment on personnel matters like this, but one spokesperson broke the silence to Geekwire to confirm that Marini is no longer employed by the company.

Microsoft has their own set of guidelines [PDF] regarding how employees should approach social media, but all it really says about content is that employees should “be smart” and refrain from sharing “new features, functionalities, or innovations that have not been publicly disclosed.”

The kicker here is that the tweets themselves are hardly what one would call juicy. The original tweet, posted on September 7, simply mentioned that he got to play with a Windows-powered Nokia device:

Subsequent tweets were a bit more open with details, like these two from later that day:

So far, all he managed to confirm that the new device has a camera, a screen, and a body — hardly anything groundbreaking. Marini (probably very carefully) left out any specifics aside from some very general comments on the devices build and UI. Still, it was apparently enough for him to run afoul of Microsoft’s social media policy, which (understandbly) bars using services like Twitter to share confidential information.

Joe, however, isn’t exactly a first time offender. Back in March, Joe tweeted that he would be showing off an unreleased version of IE9 for Windows Phone while attending SXSW. Placed in that context, this new set of tweets could have been the straws that broke the camel’s back, but something about this situation leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Call me naive, but I think Microsoft and Windows Phone need more people like Joe. His Twitter account paints a portrait of a guy who was dedicated to his work, and was very excited for what Microsoft and Nokia have coming down the pipeline. The offending tweets gave people just enough to whet their interest, and left it at that. Considering that Nokia and Microsoft struck their official agreement months ago, it’s no surprise to anyone that a handset was in the works. Why try to fire a guy for stating the obvious?

My money is on Microsoft and Nokia not being too fond of his jab at the device’s screen size — a reasonable remark, but one that probably didn’t sit well with the brass. Still, given Marini’s overall vagueness about what he saw, another interesting question comes to mind: at what point is a leak really a leak?

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Joel Spolsky’s Trello Is A Simple Workflow And List Manager For Groups

Leena Rao currently works as a writer for TechCrunch. She recently finished graduate school at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, where she studied business journalism and videography. From 2004 to 2007, she helped lead Congresswoman Carloyn Maloney’s community outreach and relations efforts in New York City. She graduated from Columbia University in 2003, where she was... ? Learn More

Well-known software developer Joel Spolsky has built popular Q&A network Stack Exchange, and launched FogBugz, a project management system for software teams. Next up on the docket is Trello, a team workflow platform and list manager that is launching at TechCrunch Disrupt.

Spolsky says that the hardest things about running and managing a company is tracking what people are working on. He created Trello to mitigate this challenge. Trello is the team work system that anyone, in any industry, can use.

The web-based application is designed to be the centralized place where all collaborative team work can be assigned an tracked. The startup says that other project management systems are developer focused, too complex and don’t appeal to a broader community. Trello has been built for any type of workflow, from being a business-focused tool to even acting as personal list-management application.

Trello centralizes around one “board”, where users in a group can create to-do lists, create and assign tasks to co-workers who can then update when a task is complete. For each project you can create a card, which includes communications, activity, attachments, updates and more. You can drag and drop members into these cards, and then drag cards into lists.

Like other workflow applications, the platform is visual. And the app works in realtime, updating on any browser without a refresh, making communication efficient. Trello also has features for businesses built right in such as permissions and organizations. And for now, Trello will be completely free for users. Trello comes in an iOS app, and a web app.

Q&A
Judges: John Ham (Ustream), Hilary Mason (Bit.ly), Kevin Rose (Milk), George Zachary (Charles River Ventures)

KR: I love this as a project management software. It looks great. You could charge a few bucks per seat.

A: It is free, but when we have huge numbers of people using this a freemium model may make sense.

GZ: This an awesome product demo. I am an investor in Yammer, I like what you are taping into. Where do you go for revenue?

A: We have all ideas, similar to what kevin is suggesting. Our first goal is to get it as ubiquitous with as little friction.

HM: It looks like this is taking better parts of agile programmer technology.

A: This is the big picture for what people are working on.

HM: IS there an API? What is this built on?

A: There will be an API soon. It’s built on Mongo, backbone.

JH: There’s an opportunity to nail it. Where are you going to drive adoption? Silicon Valley? VCs?

A: I’m not sure. Our goal is to make it a horizontal app. We have a chance to shout about the fact that this is a horizontal category.

Presentation:

Fog Creek Software, a small privately held New York software company, was founded in 2000 by Joel Spolsky and Michael Pryor. The company sells a project management system, FogBugz, and remote assistance software, Fog Creek Copilot. The company also hosts a programmer job board and a software business conference. Spolsky is well known for his software development website Joel On Software.

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