Barbara Stone

MIMS 1999
Program Manager, Hewlett-Packard

What I studied at the I School:

I took a broad range of classes — Economics of Intellectual Property, Usability, User Interface Design, E-Marketing. I was always trying to take too many classes because I thought they were all interesting.

What I do now:

Program Manager for Hewlett-Packard in the Software Division. I work with the web services and portals that support HP's software sales, marketing, and support group. I wear three hats: Architect for the services/portals, vendor manager for our India engineering group, and manager of project processes, checkpoints, and training for my group.

An interesting stop along my career path:

My path has not been straight. I've been an industrial real estate developer, large-scale banking operations manager, and now, technology program manager. Least likely stop along that path was my undergraduate degree from UC Berkeley in Classical Languages. I took a lot of grief for that choice. Surprisingly, its how I got my first job in banking. The Ivy-League executive staff thought the degree had snob appeal. Go figure.

Information issue that interests me today:

This is an interesting time to work for HP. Our products are commodified and our markets are saturated. Expecting hardware sales to continue to support 140,000 employees isn't realistic. We are exploring 'how' are products are consumed and developing a business plan that aims at extending their use through services, software, and the Web.

I School memory:

Interviewing with the HP recruiter and watching him reel from an answer to his question about how to handle competing designs from two developers. Thanks to Professors Van House, Hearst, Larson, and Messerschmidt, I had the perfect answer. Maybe I was paying attention after all.

Something few people know about me:

I'm not exactly taciturn — is there anything I haven't told someone? I don't think so.