Submitting to Billg’s ThinkWeek

As has been mentioned out in the world, every once in a while Billg takes time to back away from whatever he’s working on to think big thoughts. Employees are allowed to influence those thoughts by sending in papers about whatever they want. I heard about this a few days before the deadline and, as I had an idea for something, I wrote up a quick treatment. In spite of the odds against me, I couldn’t let such an opportunity pass by w/o even trying!

I sent my short piece around internally and, because of it’s length (I only had time to put together 2.5 pages), I expected to get all kinds of feedback of the lack of depth. Surprisingly, I only got one of those and a bunch of positive feedback, including some useful tweaks.

After applying the tweaks and running into the limit of time I could spend on it (I did have any actual job to do, after all : ), I sent my paper to the screener that makes sure that Bill’s not bothered by trivial things, expecting to hear where to file it. But I didn’t hear that. In fact, I didn’t hear anything at all ’til today when my own patron St. VP thanked me for my submission, being all kinds of vague about whether Bill will be handed my paper or not, but pointing me to some folks internally about making my idea happen. I took this as letting me down gently, but further emails indicated that my paper *had* been sent along to Bill.

Now I’m wondering what the heck Bill will do with it. Ignore it? Shred it? Send me an email with a single line, “Make it so, #1?” I’m not sure which one is scarier. After having survive my first encounter with a VP, I wonder if I’ll survive my first encounter with it’s commander and chief. Keep your fingers crossed. : )