... does amazing things. Or should I say: "amazing employees do amazing things"?
At the end of the year, many companies and corporations announce that they'll do a big donation to some charity organization. It is important that they do that, because without their genorisity those charity organizations would not be able to do their work as good as they do it now. But for many companies such a donation is, well, just a bank transfer.
But what if the employees of a company get together to support the charity organisation even more. For example, by using their knowledge and skills in advantage of that organisation... This gives, IMHO, an extra dimension to that charity work.
Just as last year, Microsoft Belgium & Luxembourg decided to support Simon & Odil. This project wants to lighten up the days of children that are hospitalized regularly and for long times. Therefore they created an internet portal site with the little dude Simon and his crocodile Odil. But Microsoft doesn't help them only with money and software licenses. At least one consultant of Microsoft Services (but there are more, I sure of that) is working on the getting the infrastructure in place. He does this during his spare time.
A number of other creative and musical employees at Microsoft decided to create and record a song. Therefore they joined forces and gave their group the name ".Music"... These Microsoft Belgium employees are probably the first employees of major corporation that make a record and sell it - with the support of that corporation. After preparing for days, weeks, yes, even months, they were finally ready to go to a recording studio. All the time they spent on this project was also in their own free time. Talking about a commitment. Even though I personally didn't participate in this, I must say I am impressed by the final result. But then again, I guess I'm a little biased. :) So, here's a little shout out to Katia, Mieke, Geert, Patrick, Roel, Raf, Erik, Wilfred and Gunther for their hard work to support Simon & Odil...
Unfortunately all this information is only available on the web in Dutch or French, the two major languages that we speak in Belgium & Luxembourg. You can hear a 30 second preview on this page of MSN Music. Just press the play button in front of the title of the song (under the cover). If you want to buy it, press the "Kopen" button.
The following links redirect to a page in Dutch or French:
Update: read more about .Music's video clip (and stream it) [9 December 2005: link no longer valid]
Updates 9 December 2005: several links are no longer valid.