The end of the year is a blur of traditions, predictions, champagne, diet resolutions, family time and, of course, annual “best of” lists for everything and anything you can imagine.

As we don’t want to be left out in the cold, we’ve compiled a list of the Top Ten Microspotting profiles featured on JobsBlog in 2011. With one twist; our list goes to eleven.

This year, we interviewed lone employees who pioneered roles as female developers and employees overcoming challenges. We also got to know groups like Microsoft’s a cappella choir and couples who found love at the company. We met those who are exploring the frontiers of technology and others who are educating the next generation of tech innovators. And, of course, we sniffed out the unexpected from the former NFL prospect who went pro at Microsoft to the employee who moonlights as the mascot for the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks (and uses the position to raise money to fight multiple sclerosis).

Without further fanfare, here is the list of our favorite Microspotting stories from 2011. The stories are not ranked in any particular order, but all are sure to inspire.

1. Ben Martens, North America’s most ambitious ski bum

2. Our Valentine’s Day tribute to love found at Microsoft

3. Janet Galore, explaining the future of technology

4. Ryan Asdourian, Microsoft’s #1 Seahawks fan and superhero fundraiser

5. Ed Donahue & Ashley Myers, two-time Imagine Cup finalists and Microsoft co-workers

6. Sue Loh, inspiring future coders through retro gaming

7. Betsy Speare, blazing trails and building community for female developers

8. Jenny Lay Flurrie, embracing disability, finding success and helping others do the same

9. Boris Erickson, Xbox LIVE’s Enforcement Unicorn Ninja (yes, you read that correctly)

10. Albert Rocker, former NFL prospect goes pro at Microsoft

11. The BaudBoys, Microsoft’s Kings of Geek-A-Cappella

There’s no disputing that Microsoft is a big company. But along with that big company status comes an incredible dedication and investment in research and development, which in turn leads to innovative technology breakthroughs. Case in point: Kinect for Xbox 360. The fastest selling consumer electronic device ever. 

But what’s next for Kinect? And who at Microsoft is tasked with taking it to the next level? Well, you are in luck. We asked the K4W (that’s “Kinect for Windows” for those not in the know) team to photo-document a day in their life. Follow along as we discover what it’s like to work on a small startup team, what they create and, of course, the ever burning question – are they hiring?

Studio D is the home of the newly formed K4W team. Their task? Build on the success of Kinect for Xbox 360 by creating a commercial SDK for Windows developers to harness the awesomeness of this technology to develop next generation natural user interfaces and Kinect powered controls for Windows. Whew – that was a mouthful! 

Now let’s open the door and find out more about the team.

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The geek in question: Sean Daniel

The job title: Senior Program Manager, Home and Small Business Server

How did you get here? I was asked to join the company while I was locked out of my town home in frosty Ontario Canada. Ok, the longer version is that a few friends and I decided to work for Microsoft, even if it was as janitorial job. I applied for a few Internships while I was in my 3rd year at college.

At the time, Microsoft only hired 4th year students, so in my 4th year, I had an interview on campus with the GM of Small Business Server. During my 45 minute interview, I was asked to design a webpage for selling cars online. I did and was asked what the most important part of the website was, and I said the UI, then defended my position and got my first of two internships. I found out after the interview what Small Business Server (SBS) was and realized I was trying to build that exact product in my basement. After completing my internships, I joined the SBS team and have been here ever since.

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The geek in question: Jennifer Shepherd

The job title: User Experience Designer II

Tell me a bit about your job.
I have kind of a hybrid role; I'm a jill of many trades, and do Web design, UI design, graphic design, writing, content management, and project management. So, I wear a lot of different hats. My title keeps changing back and forth between Program Manager and Designer. This year it's User Experience Designer II.

I'm in Windows International, a team of about 350 people. We're the ones that enable all the functionality that underlies the different language versions of Windows. Windows is available in 98 different languages, and that involves stuff like sorting & collation, fonts, globalization APIs, stuff like that.

Where's your team based?
Mostly in Redmond and Dublin, but we also have people in over 30 different countries worldwide. And the people that are here in Redmond largely come from other countries. It's a diverse group. We have people from more than 44 different countries on my team, and we speak more than 33 different languages.

So, are you excited for Windows 7?
Absolutely! I can’t wait for it to launch. For the past 2+ years I’ve been leading the content-and-design side of a project to help Windows 7 look and feel more locally relevant for 20 of our top markets. Windows 7 includes some really cool new personalization features, and my project dovetails with that -- providing a more globally diverse range of options.

A big part of my work was in acquiring desktop photographs for our 20 markets. I worked with thousands of professional photographs, but I also organized a photo contest for Microsoft employees because I especially wanted employees in all the international subsidiaries to be able to participate. Over 2,000 photographs were submitted from employees all over the world, and then as part of the selection process I had the employees in each local subsidiary vote on all the photographs for their region.

Wow, so each region really got to voice what images worked for their area.
Yeah, employees in Brazil voted on the photos for the Brazilian Portuguese version of Windows 7, which included some of the photographs taken by employees, many of whom were in or from Brazil. In the end, out of the 270 photographs that were selected, forty were taken by Microsoft employees in a dozen different countries. I thought that was really cool, considering they were up against professional photographers. It was actually fairly competitive. Anyway, I’ve been living and breathing this project for 2-plus years, so yeah, I’m really psyched about Windows 7. It’s been a lot of work – but incredibly engrossing and fun, too.

How long have you been here?
Fall of 2009 will be both my official 10 year anniversary as a permanent employee and also the 20 year anniversary of when I first started at Microsoft in my very first “real” job out of college. During that 20 years I spent about 7 as a permatemp. I also worked at other companies for a few years, but I’ve spent most of my career at Microsoft. It feels like home to me.

What keeps you here?
A lot of reasons… I love the work I do and I work with great people. But one of the reasons Microsoft feels like home is something that seems pretty trivial and like it shouldn’t matter, yet it really does. Basically I've spent a lot of my life feeling like a misfit — I was always the artsy introvert who never fit in, and people would think I was just a weirdo. I worked for the State for a while and I felt conspicuously weird. I wasn't trying to be weird! I don't have massive facial piercings or anything. But somehow I often felt uncomfortable and like an outsider.

But when I came to Microsoft I felt I was respected for what I can do. You're treated like a grownup here. Your work isn't micromanaged. I just feel like people can be themselves, and it's what you can do, what you can bring to the team that really matters, not whether you went to the right college or if you’re buddying up to the right people or dressing for corporate success. It's nice to just be able to be who you are and focus on doing your job instead.

Links please? • www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7 • windows.microsoft.com/Windows7/Personalize • http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/goglobal/default.aspx (the Go Global Developer Center – Microsoft’s global development portal) • Jennifer's personal site: jenithea.com

The geek in question: James Lyle

The job title: Program Manager in Windows International Globalization Services.

How long have you been here?
I just passed my 9th anniversary at Microsoft. I got my PhD from the University of Washington in the late '90s and my full intention was to be a professor of linguistics. But I knew some people who were working here who had come out of linguistics and came to check it out.

I had been looking at language in a very academic way with all these abstract theories about syntax. And when I got here, I started seeing the real thing. Once you start trying to build a grammar checker, you've got to know what all kinds of language real people are using in the real world every day. I felt like one of these 19th century biologists boating down the Amazon just looking at thousands of un-catalogued species with no time to even stop and say, "That's what that is, and that's what this is." I was seeing so much language every day!

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The geek in question: Shayna Swanson

The job title: SDET, Distributed Application Server

I understand you used to be a recruiter?
Yep. I started as a recruiter at Microsoft in 2005. I interviewed mostly technical candidates, and years of hearing how excited they were about their technical roles got me really excited about it too.

I have a degree in business management and HR management, so my background is definitely non-technical. But when I heard about Microsoft's Test Apprenticeship Program, it seemed like the perfect opportunity so, I applied. I was accepted and after nine months of on-the-job training, now I'm a tester working on Dublin.

Why testing?
A new challenge. HR and Engineering are two different beasts and I was ready to be challenged in a different way. Testing really fit what I was looking for. Also, it's multifaceted. I like to be creative and have variety in my work. With the testing you get to code and also write out plans. You also get to really think about the product in a different way: "how and why would the user do this, or how would even a hacker try to attack this?" You get to put on different hats and be different people.

Was it intimidating, making the switch from a non-technical role?
Yes and no. Yes, because you're around all these super-smart people who have experience in what they're doing. But then no, because at the beginning the understanding was that I didn’t have a CS background so the initial expectation was just for me to learn — so it's kind of easy to live up to that one.

What was it like, telling your recruiting manager that you were not only changing gigs, but completely changing worlds?
My manager knew I was technically inclined, so when projects came up that involved more technical aspects of the applications we used in HR, they were assigned to me. During a mid-year career discussion, I brought up doing the Test Apprenticeship Program and my manager was totally receptive. Career development isn't just about climbing the ladder at Microsoft — it's about the opportunity to work on a lot of different things too. Where else can you have a paying job and get trained with completely new skills at the same time?

What's the biggest different between working in HR and working as a tester?
It's lot noisier in HR! You're talking with people all the time, that’s your job. On the technical side of things, people can get heads down and focused on their own thing.

So, first recruiter. Now tester. What's next?
Currently, I’m focused on ongoing test training and trying to learn and contribute as much as I can. I just made the move so I’d like to get really good at this position first. …Weeeeell, actually I have written a design spec for a project and right now am working on some test plans, so the whole PM side of things might pique my interest down the road.

Links please? • Microsoft's Test Apprenticeship Program • Microsoft's Dublin project

The geek in question: Latika Kirtane

The job title: Product Manager, Internet Explorer 8

I understand you've recently crossed over from the engineering side of the tracks to the marketing side.
I've wanted to be in computer science since middle school. I grew up with the Internet and remember logging into dial-up and getting charged by the minute, and getting yelled at because I spent 40 minutes on the Internet while I was updating my Geocities Web site. I got my Computer Science degree in 2005 and started at Microsoft as a Program Manager intern over on Windows.

After I got hired on, I spent two and a half years working on Windows. But I'd see these marketing campaigns like "The Wow Is Now," and I was like, "Who comes up with this stuff?" I was really curious about the marketing side of things, and it's been eye-opening to get to see how the marketing team prepares for a product launch.

Which of your geeky engineering skills have you brought over to the product marketing side of the tracks?
There's a fundamental understanding of how things work that marketing tends to gloss over because they are more focused on delivering the 30-second spiel and the elevator pitch. But I think that in order to produce a convincing and effective elevator pitch, you need to truly understand how the product works inside and out. I've been told that when Microsoft was much smaller, Marketing and Engineering sat in the same building, on the same floor, and there was a lot more communication. I believe that both the teams need to work together hand in hand and I feel really grateful that I can communicate directly with the engineering team.

So wait: did I see you in the now-infamous Songsmith video?

How did that happen?
Last summer, the Songsmith researchers put out a call for a usability study. The pitch in the mail was "Do you like to sing but can't write music?" and that's the story of my life. I love to sing but I definitely lack the ability to play a musical instrument. Well, I can play the flute, but you can't really do that and sing at the same time. I went to go try out this piece of software, and I was totally in love with this product. I got to meet the two guys Dan and Sumit who were working on it and they are so passionate — they love what they do. I got a random ping from Dan and Sumit a couple of months ago saying, "Hey, our code base is closing tomorrow, do you want to come record some things, we have to have a default voice in the product. Can you come record something for us today?"

So if you buy the product and you don't want to record something yet, I'm one of the two sample voices. Then they were like, "oh, and we're filming a video and do you want to be in it?" It was amazing to see how these two researchers brought the idea to implementation, and now they're owning the marketing for it. People have all sorts of opinions on whether that was a good idea or a bad idea, but it was fun. The whole video took maybe three hours to film. The original video is four minutes or so, but they edited my little barista segment into a separate video and threw it on YouTube just for fun. They didn't promote it anywhere … but it turned into this viral thing. I think there are something like 30,000 views at this point?

What's the feedback been like?
As fate would have it, I just happen to be in the main screenshot for the full length video, it's my little "leaning over look" face. So, that screenshot has circulated everywhere — my friend called me and said, "You're on the front page of Gizmodo!" I had so many friends on Facebook and stuff who sent me messages, asking "Was that you? I thought it was you, oh it is you." It was really hilarious. The YouTube comments have been hilarious too, like, "Girl needs to lay off the tanning bed." Or like, "Oh, her voice is so soothing."

So, what's next?
Who knows! Maybe I'll try out for American Idol now that I'm "the Songsmith girl."

Latika's Links: • Latika's Youtube channel: youtube.com/user/onlyelkay • Latika's team blog: blogs.msdn.com/ie • Latika's favorite charity, Be a Slumdog Millionaire: mscen.org/

The geek in question: Mark Aggar

Job title: Environmental Technologist

What's up with that job title?
I'm Microsoft's only Environmental Technologist. My business card says "Director of Environment Technology Strategy," which is more a job description and just has too many syllables for every day use.

I work on the Environmental Sustainability team, and our charter is to look at Microsoft's footprint, the footprint of information technology, and how information and communications technology (ICT) can actually help the environment. I focus on the latter two areas, and while I don’t focus on Microsoft’s footprint directly, the fact that we are such heavy technology users means that I often get involved with internal “greening” projects – plus the fact that I am passionate about reducing waste and it’s hard for me not to get involved!

Prior to starting this job this year, I was the Director of Windows Server Product Planning and had been a part of that group for six years. I also founded Vegetarians at Microsoft, and all the little signs in the campus cafeterias that indicate whether something is vegan or vegetarian were a result of the creation of that group. We have over 600 people on the distribution list now and I have the collective power of those people’s voices to thank for the increased number of environmentally friendly food options that are now available on campus.

What kind of green initiatives are you working on?
I've been working closely with the Windows Power Management folks. Power Management and energy efficiency on PCs and servers really takes a village. It requires not only investments in the operating systems, but also the applications. One application that is energy inefficient can undermine everyone else’s efforts.

Driving Windows client and server applications to focus on energy efficiency is a long term project of mine. I'm also looking at what software can do to help the environment. That's really the most interesting aspect of my role. The IT industry uses maybe 2% of the world's electricity -- the other 98% is used by other industries and activities, and software can play a strong role in making them more efficient. And its not just about efficient use of electricity – software can help make more efficient use of other resources as well, such as water and oil.

Take transportation for instance. There are lots of opportunities for software to help improve -- it's not just about avoiding transportation all together with things like Office Communicator and LiveMeeting, but looking at ways that software can make transportation itself more efficient. For instance, how can software make it easier to find a car pool match, especially if you’re like me and have a variable commute schedule? Carpooling is an inexpensive way to save huge amounts of fossil fuel while reducing congestion at the same time, but its just too difficult, inconvenient or scary for many people to seriously consider. Software that builds on existing calendaring, social networking and location awareness technologies can change that. One of my jobs is to drive thinking in this direction.

How do you respond to critics who might say that your job and even your team are examples of Microsoft hopping on the green trend?
There's a natural tendency for marketers to want to jump on the bandwagon and “green-wash” their existing products. I'm very much of the opinion that it's much better to be up-front with the customer about the company's motivations for doing something and THEN talk about the environmental benefits, rather than claim you did it just for the environment. The original value proposition of many products probably had nothing to do with the environment, but if it has a nice environmental side effect, then there’s no harm in talking about it.

There’s a natural tendency for marketers to want to jump on the bandwagon and “green-wash” their existing products. I’m very much of the opinion that it’s much better to be up-front with the customer...

For instance, I’m not big fan of the term “Green IT” because it’s really hard to assess whether IT is green in the sustainable sense – rather than simply being more efficient. As I read somewhere, unless your servers are literally sucking carbon out of the air and storing it underground, don't talk to me about how green they are!

The primary reason that businesses should be doing “Green IT” is simple economics -- it saves you lots of money. In an industry where the cost of energy and other raw materials is going up, that's just the right thing to do for the bottom line. That it also helps the environment to some degree is useful for boosting its priority versus other similar cost savings measures. Whether using a certain amount less of something is sustainable is another question altogether. That’s where computational science can help – to build virtual models of the world to figure out what how the world’s ecosystems are going to behave given certain volumes of inputs and outputs.

Oh and I hear you and your wife just had a baby. Congratulations!
Thank you! I had somewhat mixed feeling about being out on paternity leave for 6 weeks. It was very nice to be with my family, but although I did feel a bit guilty that I might be missing out on opportunities to help the planet at the same time! Having kids is a strong daily reminder that we have to leave this planet to them in as good, and preferably better, state than we inherited it.

Links, please?
• Mark's blog: blogs.technet.com/markaggar • microsoft.com/environment • Microsoft's Environmental Sustainability blog: blogs.msdn.com/see