Rafe Colburn says he’s gone soft on Microsoft. I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately. What good are blogs to Microsoft? Well, OK, we’ve put a human face on the borg. Wonderful. But what’s next?
To me I think something deeper happened in 2005. You can now talk to Microsoft’s employees directly. Here, go to Google. I use Google cause that’s what most of you are using. It works just as well on MSN or Yahoo, though.
Pick a product of ours. Add the word “blog” and you’ll probably find an employee who is blogging from that team and look at the top link. Here, let’s try a few.
Update: I decided to see how MSN and Google compared on these results. Interesting that Google values individual webloggers higher, but MSN puts team blogs higher.
Office 12 blog (same search on MSN). Google pulls up Jensen Harris. Google and MSN are same.
Flight Simulator blog (same search on MSN). Here Google doesn’t do as well (MSN Search does slightly better). I was hoping it’d pull up Steve Lacey, developer on the Flight Simulator team. Or one of the 12 Flight Simulator blogs that Steve links to.
OneNote blog (same search on MSN). Pulls up Chris Pratley. Google and MSN are same here.
Xbox blog (same search on MSN). Pulls up John Porcaro. MSN is better here.
BizTalk blog (same search on MSN). Pulls up Scott Woodgate. Google is better here for top result, but MSN is better for other results.
Windows Vista blog (same search on MSN). Pulls up the IE team’s blog and John Montgomery. Google is better here.
Sharepoint blog (same search on MSN). Pulls up John West and Ryan Rogers. Google is better here.
Infopath blog (same search on MSN). Pulls up the InfoPath team blog. Google and MSN are same.
IE blog (same search on MSN). Pulls up the IE team’s blog. Google and MSN are same.
FrontPage blog (same search on MSN) pulls up an MVP’s blog in top position, but Rob Mauceri’s FrontPage blog is close to the top. MSN is better here than Google.
Microsoft Live Blog (same search on MSN). Pulls up the Live team’s blog. Google’s better here than MSN.
That’s significant. There are very few companies in the world where you can search for the product name and find someone who works on that team and is communicating about it and listening to customers.
I used to be an MVP. I used to hate that there were intermediaries between me and the people who built the products. If I thought a product sucked, I wanted to tell that team directly AND I wanted to be sure that team saw my feedback. Back in the 1990s my only option was to go to a newsgroup or a CompuServe forum and leave my feedback there. I had no idea whether anyone saw my feedback that actually worked on the team. Yeah, once in a while I’d see a Microsoft employee show up, but I really had no idea who they were. Interns? Temps? Someone in product support?
Or, I could always try the email route. Send email feedback to mswish@microsoft.com. What’s funny about that is I’ve worked at Microsoft for 2.5 years and I STILL don’t know who reads that email.
But, now, if I care enough to tell a team their products/services/technologies suck, I just go to a search engine and add the word “blog” onto the end of the product name and I have a pretty good chance of finding someone who actually cares about their product enough to write a blog.
So, in 2006, where is this going? Better products because now you know where to leave a comment and who is responsible.
Is there a team you’d like to see blog that isn’t yet? We’ll bug that team in public to start one.
Which, brings me to why this works. Social pressure. Nothing works better to get a company to change. Nothing. If there’s a company you don’t like, write about it. If they are listening, they’ll respond. If not, well, at least you’ve warned everyone else not to do business with them.
Scobleizer 
Windows Media Player blog, where is it? There’s a reason I use Winamp for my mp3’s, and the open source Media Player Classic for my videos.
I’ve all but given up on the Messenger team, they blog about emotion icons for the love of god. I complain about the UI all the time but they think it’s ok just as it is. Oh well, with google saying they’ll be supporting the AIM protocol, they’re minimalist approach to IM will work perfectly for my needs!
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Windows Media Player blog, where is it? There’s a reason I use Winamp for my mp3’s, and the open source Media Player Classic for my videos.
I’ve all but given up on the Messenger team, they blog about emotion icons for the love of god. I complain about the UI all the time but they think it’s ok just as it is. Oh well, with google saying they’ll be supporting the AIM protocol, they’re minimalist approach to IM will work perfectly for my needs!
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Stefan: yeah, that would be a good team to get blogging.
I have Scott Swanson of the Messenger team coming on Channel 9 in January. Will work to get him blogging.
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Stefan: yeah, that would be a good team to get blogging.
I have Scott Swanson of the Messenger team coming on Channel 9 in January. Will work to get him blogging.
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You know, I used to be a “MS is evil” tech consultant down here… and maybe it’s because of you guys blogging and showing the human side of the corporation or maybe it’s about the things google seems to be doing now… or maybe it’s because some of the things you do nowadays are simply cool.. but it’s really changed my mind about that MS=evil thing…
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You know, I used to be a “MS is evil” tech consultant down here… and maybe it’s because of you guys blogging and showing the human side of the corporation or maybe it’s about the things google seems to be doing now… or maybe it’s because some of the things you do nowadays are simply cool.. but it’s really changed my mind about that MS=evil thing…
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Hmm I tried “windows desktop search blog” and got similar results on both, though MSN placed my old blog a bit higher.
Neither of them has my new blog yet. But one thing I’ve written about is how Google refuses to index my new blog site. MSN, without any prodding, found my new site in about a week and a week later it was in the top 3 results for my name.
No query you give Google will return my site, only sites that link to it. I submitted it on their crawler submission page to no avail. I’ve started to wonder if their engine won’t index purely blog sites anymore (Google’s BlogSearch will return results from my site. Just the web search doesn’t).
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Hmm I tried “windows desktop search blog” and got similar results on both, though MSN placed my old blog a bit higher.
Neither of them has my new blog yet. But one thing I’ve written about is how Google refuses to index my new blog site. MSN, without any prodding, found my new site in about a week and a week later it was in the top 3 results for my name.
No query you give Google will return my site, only sites that link to it. I submitted it on their crawler submission page to no avail. I’ve started to wonder if their engine won’t index purely blog sites anymore (Google’s BlogSearch will return results from my site. Just the web search doesn’t).
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I think you do a very good job for MS…but It is striking that every area above you compare MS to Google. Where are your enterprise guys when it comes to blogging – MBS, SQLServer, etc and why are they nott talking similarly about their competitive positioning vis a vis SAP, Oracle, Java, open source. MS has spent almost $ 20b in R&D the last 3 years and does not appear to have much to show for it in enterprise innovation. Your 85% margins are a bullseye for a number of CIOs – they think they are just subsidizing your new focus on Google.
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I think you do a very good job for MS…but It is striking that every area above you compare MS to Google. Where are your enterprise guys when it comes to blogging – MBS, SQLServer, etc and why are they nott talking similarly about their competitive positioning vis a vis SAP, Oracle, Java, open source. MS has spent almost $ 20b in R&D the last 3 years and does not appear to have much to show for it in enterprise innovation. Your 85% margins are a bullseye for a number of CIOs – they think they are just subsidizing your new focus on Google.
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How about some blogs from the MacBU folks. All I can find are former MacBU folks blogging, but no current MacBU folks.
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How about some blogs from the MacBU folks. All I can find are former MacBU folks blogging, but no current MacBU folks.
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Mark: I’ll have to get on my friends in MacBU (Andy Ruff, for instance, is a PM on Entourage).
Vinnie: there are a bunch of SQL Server bloggers. I’ll have to find them later tonight.
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Mark: I’ll have to get on my friends in MacBU (Andy Ruff, for instance, is a PM on Entourage).
Vinnie: there are a bunch of SQL Server bloggers. I’ll have to find them later tonight.
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“the people who built the products”
Who cares about developers? Do I have bidirectional access to people who actually make the strategic decisions and write the big checks?
Why MSFT has kept IE frozen for half a decade or why there’s been no Access, Visio, WMP, DRM for Macintosh or why MSFT bends and breaks standards, etc has absolutely nothing to do with blogs.
Those are strategic decisions MSFT makes to maintain its monopoly and they are not about conduct their business out in the open.
Blogs? Tactical issues at the margins. It’s the circus. Sure diverts attention, though.
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“the people who built the products”
Who cares about developers? Do I have bidirectional access to people who actually make the strategic decisions and write the big checks?
Why MSFT has kept IE frozen for half a decade or why there’s been no Access, Visio, WMP, DRM for Macintosh or why MSFT bends and breaks standards, etc has absolutely nothing to do with blogs.
Those are strategic decisions MSFT makes to maintain its monopoly and they are not about conduct their business out in the open.
Blogs? Tactical issues at the margins. It’s the circus. Sure diverts attention, though.
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Robert, RE: Email feedback — I saw a minor typo on one of Microsoft’s product or MSDN pages last month. They wrote “Microsoft Professional” when they meant “Microsoft Project Professional” within the context. I emailed whichever general feedback email was at the bottom of the page. After a few hours I got an autoresponder that said my issue was being investigated. Two days later I received a reply that the issue was resolved, plus the attached forwards of the 3 people in the chain to get it fixed.
The forwards were really interesting because it went from me -> general feedback rep -> specific site feedback -> specific developer and all the way back. The issue was fixed in TWO DAYS even though it was a one word typo. I wasn’t even expecting a response, but hopefully if this kind of feedback is resolved that thoroughly, then hopefully the other teams and products have hope!
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Robert, RE: Email feedback — I saw a minor typo on one of Microsoft’s product or MSDN pages last month. They wrote “Microsoft Professional” when they meant “Microsoft Project Professional” within the context. I emailed whichever general feedback email was at the bottom of the page. After a few hours I got an autoresponder that said my issue was being investigated. Two days later I received a reply that the issue was resolved, plus the attached forwards of the 3 people in the chain to get it fixed.
The forwards were really interesting because it went from me -> general feedback rep -> specific site feedback -> specific developer and all the way back. The issue was fixed in TWO DAYS even though it was a one word typo. I wasn’t even expecting a response, but hopefully if this kind of feedback is resolved that thoroughly, then hopefully the other teams and products have hope!
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“minor typo on one of Microsoft’s product”
Wow. Blogs correct a minor typo. Imagine that! MSFT so open. So responsive. So attuned to what customers want. You really should write to EU telling them to drop the fines for MSFT’s lack of compliance. After all, they correct minor typos through blogs, how could they be.
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“minor typo on one of Microsoft’s product”
Wow. Blogs correct a minor typo. Imagine that! MSFT so open. So responsive. So attuned to what customers want. You really should write to EU telling them to drop the fines for MSFT’s lack of compliance. After all, they correct minor typos through blogs, how could they be.
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You can now talk to Microsoft’s employees directly.
Until they volleyball rotate every few months/years and/or every few re-org’s. And talking to developers and marketingese twizzleheads is but an entertaining sideshow. You really need access to the strategy makers – the real managers. And if those managers are any good, they have better things to do than twiddle with blogs. Where’s the Software Assurance bloggers, eh? (Fully agree with Anona).
Example: I saw a few Tablet PC page glitches back in the day (wrong units, wrong OEMS listed, wrong part #’s and etc.), something like more than dozen forwards, MSN IM networking hell, and 3-4 weeks later before fixed, and then by some third-party group. And then everyone ended up mad at me, for pointing out problems and being “nitpicky”. Geee, where do I sign up for that experience again? But I guess feedback, however bureaucratically convoluted, does eventually work at Microsoft, which is more than you can say about California government. But heck, that email culture, sure makes everything a crisis with zero prioritizing. How many forwards does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop? 😉
But why should I even bother to do your work for you? Hey, as a customer you should be asking ME (well assuming if I was a big CIO player again). The arrogance of ‘come-to-us-blogs-make-it-easier’, is the wrong way to even look at the problem. You go out there, you investigate, you sniff things out, you play reporters, you don’t just accept the blogging-feel-good narrow-demographic “feed-back” spoon-fed info. The key is thinking in terms of anthropology.
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You can now talk to Microsoft’s employees directly.
Until they volleyball rotate every few months/years and/or every few re-org’s. And talking to developers and marketingese twizzleheads is but an entertaining sideshow. You really need access to the strategy makers – the real managers. And if those managers are any good, they have better things to do than twiddle with blogs. Where’s the Software Assurance bloggers, eh? (Fully agree with Anona).
Example: I saw a few Tablet PC page glitches back in the day (wrong units, wrong OEMS listed, wrong part #’s and etc.), something like more than dozen forwards, MSN IM networking hell, and 3-4 weeks later before fixed, and then by some third-party group. And then everyone ended up mad at me, for pointing out problems and being “nitpicky”. Geee, where do I sign up for that experience again? But I guess feedback, however bureaucratically convoluted, does eventually work at Microsoft, which is more than you can say about California government. But heck, that email culture, sure makes everything a crisis with zero prioritizing. How many forwards does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop? 😉
But why should I even bother to do your work for you? Hey, as a customer you should be asking ME (well assuming if I was a big CIO player again). The arrogance of ‘come-to-us-blogs-make-it-easier’, is the wrong way to even look at the problem. You go out there, you investigate, you sniff things out, you play reporters, you don’t just accept the blogging-feel-good narrow-demographic “feed-back” spoon-fed info. The key is thinking in terms of anthropology.
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“The key is thinking in terms of anthropology.”
Or in the case of MSFT, paleontology. 🙂
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“The key is thinking in terms of anthropology.”
Or in the case of MSFT, paleontology. 🙂
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Can we add Microsoft Accessibility Blog?
There’s so much Microsoft products or service that need to improve accessibility area such as subtitle, captioning, visual issue, voice recognition, etc.
I really believe it will be useful.
gwlj
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Can we add Microsoft Accessibility Blog?
There’s so much Microsoft products or service that need to improve accessibility area such as subtitle, captioning, visual issue, voice recognition, etc.
I really believe it will be useful.
gwlj
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I don’t see a blog for the SMS team. Maybe I’m missing it, but a google search gets me MVP’s that have blogs, and an MS community site with lots of windows blogs, but I don’t see one for SMS.
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I don’t see a blog for the SMS team. Maybe I’m missing it, but a google search gets me MVP’s that have blogs, and an MS community site with lots of windows blogs, but I don’t see one for SMS.
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A team I’d like to see blogging: Digital Image Suite.
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A team I’d like to see blogging: Digital Image Suite.
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I just found this MacBU blogger: http://blogs.msdn.com/nadyne/archive/2005/12/27/507620.aspx
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I just found this MacBU blogger: http://blogs.msdn.com/nadyne/archive/2005/12/27/507620.aspx
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Robert, thanks for looking and finding a MacBU blogger.
Mark
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Robert, thanks for looking and finding a MacBU blogger.
Mark
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I hear that the MBS folks are doing some really nice stuff to the user experience in the next versions of Navision and Axapta.
Are they blogging it? Shouldn’t they be?
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I hear that the MBS folks are doing some really nice stuff to the user experience in the next versions of Navision and Axapta.
Are they blogging it? Shouldn’t they be?
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