J Allard - Chief Experience Officer

That’s the new title afforded toJ Allard this week as I noticed his presspass page was updated. He’s now actually Chief Experience Officer and Chief Technology Officer, Entertainment and Devices Division. What does that mean?

Allard works closely with technical leaders across the company to align E&D product teams with Microsoft’s overall services strategy and product architecture, and drives the technical and design agenda to deliver Connected Entertainment experiences for consumers

I know, I know…I’m not totally sure what that means either but let’s put it this way – if he had anything to do with the Limited Edition Joy Division Zune it’s a good thing. In fact, we should get Peter Saville designing some of our product packaging, websites and such. That’d be an awesome move. Seriously though, when you look around at the areas of good design (IMHO) over the last few years, Allard’s fingerprints aren’t too far from it. Zune, XBOX and their associated websites, marketing and branding are all pretty cool. Even Mary Jo agrees he has some lessons for the rest of the company.

Anyway, congrats J – one of these days I hope to meet you and ask for a job :)

Bonus Link – check out J at around 11 minutes in the BillG tribute video.