John Porcaro: mktg@msft

Thursday, August 21, 2003

Don't Come Around Here No More...

MY WEBLOG IS NOW ON TYPEPAD...

New TypePad RSS Feed is here

1:59:00 PM

Thursday, August 07, 2003

This Blog Is Moving

Moving to TypePad.

New URL: http://johnporcaro.typepad.com/blog/

New RSS: http://johnporcaro.typepad.com/blog/index.rdf

8:04:00 PM

Stressed Out By Information Overload, Constant Interruption, and Increasing Personal Isolation?

See you all at 7AM tomorrow morning in Bellevue (I'll be the sleepy one in the back row).

Tim Sanders
“Conquering ‘New Economy Depression Syndrome’”
Venture Breakfast
August 8, 2003, 7:00 a.m. at the Bellevue Hyatt

Imagine feeling totally exhilarated to be at work. You love what you do, the people you work with, the responsibilities you face, and the simple fact that you—on a daily basis— make a difference. Each Sunday evening, you find yourself anticipating the coming week with a mixture of eagerness and satisfaction.

Not the case for you? According to Tim Sanders, the Chief Solutions Officer of Yahoo!, you (and many of the rest of us) could be suffering from “New Economy Depression Syndrome (NEDS),” a form of work-related stress that is caused by information overload, constant interruption, and increasing personal isolation. NEDS is best understood, in a workplace scenario, as carpel tunnel syndrome of the mind. Think about it: today’s business world is armed with technological tools designed to make communication effortless and enhance productivity, yet we all seem to be suffering from a downward spiral of information overload, no-nonsense rationality, and social shyness.

There is an antidote. Join us on August 8, 2003, when Tim Sanders, the chief solutions officer of Yahoo! and author of “Love is the Killer App: How to Win Business and Influence Friends,” reveals his secret system for defeating NEDS and increasing our levels of effectiveness and personal satisfaction. Nice, smart people succeed, Sanders maintains, by sharing three critical elements of themselves: their knowledge, their networks, and their compassion. “The most powerful force in business isn’t greed, fear, or even the raw energy of unbridled competition,” he explains. “The most powerful force in business is love [the promotion of growth in another]. It’s what will help your company grow and become stronger. It’s what will propel your career forward. It’s what will give you a sense of meaning and satisfaction in your work— which will help you do your best work.”

Sanders, a former musician and early hire at broadcast.com, is a senior vice president and chief solutions officer at Yahoo!, where he drives some of the company’s largest partnerships and delivers next-generation marketing programs for world-class brands. Prior to his current position, Sanders created and led the Yahoo! Value Lab, an in-house think-tank for top clients and partners.

The Venture Breakfast is scheduled for Friday, August 8, 2003, at the Bellevue Hyatt, located at 900 Bellevue Way NE in Bellevue. Doors open at 6:30 a.m. for Early-Bird Networking, and the breakfast begins at 7:30. The cost of the breakfast is $25 for preregistered Northwest Entrepreneur Network members and $40 for preregistered nonmembers. An additional $5 fee will be charged for on-site registration. You may register on-line at www.nwen.org or by calling 425 746-1973.

About the Northwest Entrepreneur Network
The Northwest Entrepreneur Network, with more than 700 members, is a nonprofit, professional association dedicated to helping entrepreneurs succeed. The Network provides unique networking opportunities for entrepreneurs, investors, and service providers. In addition to its Venture Breakfasts, the group provides monthly seminars and workshops designed to help businesses grow and prosper. For more information about the Northwest Entrepreneur Network, call (425) 564-4074 or visit www.nwen.org.

After this breakfast, Sanders will be hosting a book signing of his newly released paperback, “Love is the Killer App.” Members of the Northwest Entrepreneur Network will receive a 10% discount off the book’s purchase price.

6:53:00 PM

Do THEY Know What You've Done for Them Lately?

Today, I found a great article on self-promotion, from Harvard Management Communication Letter. Self-promotion is a fundamental expectation here, and virtually nobody is promoted unless his or her boss's boss knows all about what they do, and sees value in it. There's a fine line between being a pest, and doing what's best for your career.

Tom Krattenmaker is director of news and information at Swarthmore College, near Philadelphia, and shares his insight (lots more worth reading in the newsletter):

"Mastering the delicate art of selling yourself is critical to career success, but it isn't easy. Overdo the self-promotion, and you can get a reputation as a grandstander. But duck the limelight, and miss out on well-deserved plaudits.

The difference between right and wrong
Arch Lustberg, the author of How to Sell Yourself: Winning Techniques for Selling Yourself ... Your Ideas ... Your Message , sums up the difference between effective self-promotion and obnoxious boasting in one word: likability. ... "No one is going to buy your message or your idea," Lustberg says, "until first they buy you."

Skip the "aw, shucks" routine.
When the team leader compliments you on the job you did organizing the client meeting, Klaus says, don't brush it off with an "Oh, it was really nothing." Say how much the recognition means to you. Acknowledge the good effort you gave. And add something worthwhile that underscores the importance of the contribution you made.

Make your accomplishments known to others besides your boss.
Your boss's boss might be in a better position than your direct supervisor to give you a promotion or plum assignment. And a manager who shares rank with you today might be in a position of greater decision-making power tomorrow."

6:49:00 PM

Six-Sigma-ize Your Marketing

Bryan Eisenberg of Future Now has an article in ClickZ called 'Six Sigma' Web Marketing.

I personally think Six Sigma is highly under-rated among marketing folks, and is a lot more applicable than most think. Once you've discovered the customer's pain, finding the things to “six-sigma-ize” are pretty easy.

Six Sigma (3.4 defects in 1 million opportunities) isn't an impossible goal. It doesn't mean that you have no defects. Our goal, for example, is that a customer (or internal employee, etc.) can find what they’re looking for in our website in 30 seconds or less, 90% of the time (because what’s most painful is NOT finding what they want). It’s not that there are zero defects on our web site.

I was surprised by how relevant this is to marketing planning. I initially signed up to see if I could learn how to better manage improvements in our processes (for example, reducing the number of “errors” in data feeds to [our B2B partner site)). I learned that this will be valuable to almost any discipline that requires improving an existing program, process, or product. I’d recommend this to other marketers because:

· Six Sigma offers a framework for determining what’s critical to a project, and prioritizing to what has the most impact.
· The entire mindset was entirely focused on addressing things critical to customers
· Underlying this is a disciplined structure of using measurements before, during and after.
· Most Six Sigma projects can be started and completed within four months.
· The approach works for any area where there are problems that impact a customer’s perception of quality (even if our customers are channel partners, sales associates, other employees, etc. For example, Canada is running a Six Sigma project to improve forecasting for licensing.).

What is Microsoft’s Six Sigma Vision?
Drive sustained improvements in productivity, customer satisfaction and loyalty in order to reduce cost and increase revenue and profit.

What is Six Sigma?
Six Sigma is a problem solving methodology that helps drive improvement to the bottom line by designing and monitoring business activities in a way that minimizes waste and resources while increasing customer satisfaction. It focuses on driving defects out of the product and/or services provided to our customers as well as the processes used to create these product and services.

Six Sigma originated at Motorola in approximately 1979 and has since been adopted by a number of companies including: General Electric ($2 billion annual savings attributed to Six Sigma), Texas Instruments ($600 million), Johnson and Johnson ($500 million), Honeywell ($1.2 billion) and Sun Microsystems.

The term Six Sigma comes from statistics, and (using standard deviations), measuring defects per million opportunities. By definition, Six Sigma is less than 3.4 defects per million (99.9997% success). Most companies perform at a 2 (69.10%) to 3 (93.5%) sigma level. 4 Sigma is a pretty good goal for most companies, with only 6,210 defects per million (99.38% success).

Where can I find out more?
A good external site: http://isixsigma.com

What is the Six Sigma Philosophy/Mindset
· Identify what is “Critical” to your Customer
· Understand how well you are performing “today”
· Leverage facts and data to drive process improvement
· Sustain improvement

What are the major steps in Six Sigma
· Define (D): Zero in on specific problem with defined return on effort
· Measure (M): Determine current performance of process
· Analyze (A): Validate key drivers of performance (root cause of problem)
· Improve (I): Improved performance and validated realized results
· Control (C): Implement controls to ensure continued performance

How could Six Sigma help with Marketing and Sales?
· In Defining our charter, it forces us to be very clear on exactly what we want to improve. For example, with our intranet site, we can think about not just “improving efficiency” or even measuring “number of page hits” to focus on what’s critical to quality for the customer. We may choose to improve the amount of time it takes to find a relevant document, contact, or piece of information from 2.3 minutes to less than one minute, in 90% of cases.

· In Measuring, we can then focus on gathering information that leads to better controls and improvements. In asking “5 Why’s” using a measurable goal, we can find variables that might not have been obvious. The goal of Six Sigma is to improve quality by eliminating opportunities for failure along the way. Instead of reducing the cost per head of a given online training module, we focus on improving the % of instances of an sales associate recommending a Microsoft product to a customer. We then find all the “opportunities for failure” of that happening, and fix those.

· In Analyzing, we focus on the clear customer outcome, and avoid fixing problems that don’t impact the outcome. It takes a lot of the guesswork out of things. Since we don’t have any relevant data yet, we shouldn’t make guesses at what to improve (unless opportunities are obvious, which often they are).

How long does it take to implement a Six Sigma project?
The goal of the group is to implement projects in 4 months or less. In fact, the team has created a “Rapid DMAIC” process to drive measurable results (with a benchmark of at least $250,000) in a matter of weeks. By involving the right people (and only the right people), a clear charter, strong sponsorship (at a VP level), and following a structured process, key projects can be identified and implemented in a few weeks.

What Resources can the company provide?
We have [deleted] “Black Belts” whose job it is to implement Six Sigma projects. Part of their charter is driving projects, and mentoring “Green Belts” (part-time project leads). If we have a project, we can involve them early on. In addition, our internal Green Belt training takes place regularly for any interested employee.

How does someone get certified as a “Green Belt?”
To be eligible to receive your Green Belt certificate you must have completed at least one Six Sigma project, where you were the project manager, that has a value of $250k or greater. The process for applying for your Green Belt certification is as follows;

· Six Sigma GreenBelt workshop completed
· Six Sigma Project completed, documented and approved by sponsor
· Project template completed
· Document tools used
· Submit the completed project template or other project documentation as appropriate to your course instructor.

6:29:00 PM

Wednesday, August 06, 2003

Seven Deadly Sins of Web Writing

David Jung at B2Blog points to a very interesting post called The Seven Deadly Sins of Web Writing, by Gerry McGovern. My favorites are 5 and 6. Luckily, the guys I have doing our web content (Ed, Cesar, Frank, Lori, and James) are pretty good. But even for us (see sin number one), we have lots to learn.

10:12:00 PM

Not a Bad Job if You Can Get It

Jeff Jarvis at BuzzMachine points to The Worst Job in Journalism. Tim Porter was just named Ombudsman for the New York Times. Maybe we should add that to Scoble's title? According to Tim, there is one thing that will make him successful. Really listening to readers (are you sensing a theme to my posts yet?).

"There was comment aplenty the other day about the New York Times' decision to name an ombudsman, but precious little advice for the person who's going to inaugurate what Jeff Jarvis called the "worst job in journalism." (I'm not sure about that Jeff. Here's three words for you: Carson City, Nevada.) [note from John: I used to live in Incline Village, NV, and took some college classes at WNCC in Carson City!]

So, I emailed 27 members of the Organization of News Ombudsmen's and got 10 responses - not bad for mid-summer. Here's what they had to say.

Listen. Listen. Listen. Nearly every one stressed that a willingness to be a sounding board - for the staff and for readers - is key to an ombudsman's success.
Be honest. Be fair. Be candid.
Be professional, not personal.
Be independent.
Be humble, but be strong.
Be ready to laugh.

An ombudsman, or public editor or readers representative, certainly cannot cure the aching, arthritic readership trend that afflict newspapers. That requires leadership, commitment to quality and relentless pursuit of innovation. But an ombudsman can be a salving voice amid a cacophony of complaints or confusion."
Wow. All great advice. In any industry.

10:02:00 PM

Warning...

I signed up for TypePad. I'm liking what I see. This blog may find a new home soon.
9:26:00 PM

Something Worth Saying

Joi Ito blogs about the conversation about Shure earphones that took place on his site. I was so impressed with the way the Product Manager jumped right in, and the response he got, I ended up forwarding the post to several co-workers, and one of the senior directors of our recent "Customer Partner Experience" push (that sounds pretty corporate-ish, doesn't it?).

Wow. If only our PMs felt comfortable enough to have real conversations with real customers using a real voice. And more to the point, I wonder what we'd learn if our PMs heard real conversations by listening to real customers in an unfiltered, real conversation.

"I first heard about the Shure earphones from Barak and bought the e2c's. I blogged about it. With the help of Google, people interested in e2c's including Matt, who was the product manager for the e2c's found my blog entry. When the e5c's came out, I blogged about them too. Hundreds of comments later, both of these entries have become discussions including testimonials and lots and lots of answers from Matt replying to questions about the products and distribution. This human voice dialog is why I think blogging is so great for companies with great products.

Last week, I talked to Matt and Susan from Shure on the phone about experimenting with blogs. Matt's started a blog. Hopefully we can set up some combination of a wiki and a blog to help Shure reach out to us and for us to give them feedback."

9:11:00 PM

Don’t Get Buried in Customer Data—Use It

A good deal of what my team does is develop customer- (or partner-) facing web sites. We collect a bunch of data, and we run several different reports. We're still discovering ways of doing "data mining" to spot trends, analyze usage, stuff like that.

One of the handful of newsletters I get is Harvard Business Review's "Working Knowledge". If you're not one of those that's popped the $118 for a subscription to HBR--well worth the investment in your career in my opinion (or have access to it on Factiva), you can get some good summaries of some of the best articles from this free newsletter. Always something thought-provoking.

Don’t Get Buried in Customer Data—Use It
"By the end of the decade, many marketers had come to believe that the combination of mass customization techniques, sophisticated database software, and the Internet would enable them to actually deliver on the promise of customized offerings to each individual customer.

But that hasn't happened to the extent it should have, says Cleveland-based consultant James H. Gilmore, coauthor with B. Joseph Pine II of The Experience Economy (Harvard Business School Press, 1999), because "most practitioners have taken the concept of one-to-one marketing and bastardized it into CRM. They're using CRM tools to design better processes for a nonexistent 'average' customer, instead of customizing for individual customers."

He cites the example of a major hotel chain that asks guests to complete a multiple-question satisfaction survey via their room's TV set during their stay. When one guest answered "extremely dissatisfied" to all the questions, he was not treated any differently when he checked out. Why? Because his answers went straight to a central repository where they were aggregated with other customers' responses and used to measure overall market—not customer—satisfaction. A more effective approach would be to feed his answers directly to someone at the front desk who could respond immediately to his needs and create a better experience for him.

"A company's goal should be to learn more about what each customer needs so that it can close the customer sacrifice gap, which is the difference between what individual customers settle for and what each wants exactly," says Gilmore. Steve Cunningham, director of customer listening at Cisco, agrees that it's vital to listen and respond to individual customer needs and preferences. But he believes you must also pay attention to the aggregate data—customer averages based on individual surveys."

There's definitely more we can do, and I'm really looking forward to the flexibility some upcoming web services and tools are going to provide our team.

9:04:00 PM

Tuesday, August 05, 2003

Installing Windows XP in 147 Easy Steps...

By now, many of you have seen Mark Pilgrim's post about his experience re-installing Windows XP. Mark, we've all been there! Good news is that there are more than just Scoble and me hearing about it here at Microsoft. Posts like this (thanks to News Gator) are easily forwarded to others that are taking feedback like this seriously. So keep it up!

Now, I need to do the same to our kids computer... (I'll go ahead and skip some of the Linux stuff for now, if you don't mind...)

8:07:00 PM

More on Job Sharing (In Your Client's Shoes Part II)

My brother replied to my question about what kind of response he got, and if someone actually did his management job. Here's his reply:

"Actually, I did have an hourly employee do my job for the other half of the day. I set it up with some realistic, yet not real situations without telling her (employee lost his check, employee hates her supervisor and wants him fired, employee got into an altercation with another employee, employee wanted to put in for a shift change, one of my direct reports is stuck on a difficult case and needs some advice, etc). I told her that she was the labor relations manager and that I was simply there to observe. She did the best job she could...actually held her own on some of the more emotional cases where tempers are close to the edge (pretend in these situations, of course). After about an hour and a half, she decided that "management doesn't have it so easy, either" and that she wanted to "go back on the line where she didn't have to put up with all of this stuff."

We had several layers in the organization trade jobs with the hourly employees. Some of the other participants in the plant: the plant manager, the controller, the engineering manager, a few business unit managers, a few superintendents, a few engineers, and a few HR professionals.

After going through this, I learned that even though I'm out in the plant every day (with 3,400 hourly employees, I don't get around to all of their jobs) and I interact with the hourly workforce for most of my day, I had no clue what their job was really like until I did it. I didn't realize the monotony and physical labor that those jobs entail. I now have a better understanding of some of the issues that come my way. Truly walking in their shoes gave me a better view. From the comments of the hourly employees, I know that they also had an enlightening experience.

The feedback from both sides was very positive and we (HR) plan to host a job share event every quarter now. With 3,400 hourly employee and 400 salaried/management employees, we have a lot of ground to cover."

6:57:00 AM

Monday, August 04, 2003

In Your Client's Shoes

Just got a note from my brother, who works in Human Resources at an auto manufacturer.
"This past week we had a "job share" event where the UAW workers on the assembly line (assembling rear axles) traded places with the management team. I worked on the line putting axle shafts into the tubes in the axle assembly. It was a lot of work (I was sore the next day) and a real eye-opener and I gained an appreciate for what an auto worker has to do day in and day out."

I think this is just a great, great idea. We've done this on a limited basis here at Microsoft, but I've entertained the idea of doing something more formal. How great would it be if we could work in a retailer, answering customer questions and stocking shelves? Or travel with the sales folks and present the marketing material we produce to our partners? Would we learn more about what our clients, partners and customers go through if we could really live in their shoes for a day or two?

7:22:00 AM

Sunday, August 03, 2003

Changing Beliefs...

Ton Zijlstra gets introspecitve in "Networking Stagnation: Fatigue or Growing Pains?" (linked by Dina Mehta). Great points about blogging, and I like the "lessons" he's learned over the past year. Sounds like we're on a similar journey.
"I can name a few things that became increasingly clear to me in the last 14 months of discovery, and have changed and augmented my belief system:

- the paradigmshift behind knowledge management is really fundamental, and is at its core about personal empowerment in a networked environment. It's more about philosophy than about business science.
- having tapped into a community of people with amazingly bright and provoking ideas, the need to be able to tap into (these type of) communities, to keep being provoked to grow shows itself to be vital.
- reinforcement of the belief that if I want to see change, I have to work towards that change myself
- blogging is about people first and people only
- personal relationships are the stuff of our lives
- I want to be self employed to be able to put my (new) beliefs to work
- cybernetworks are reinforced and stabilized by face to face meetings

10:50:00 PM

The Autodidactic Lifestyle

Dana VanDen Heuvel has a great blog on marketing, sales, and sales force automation. He's one of those in the marketing trenches, and I really respect what he has to say. And he helped build an awesome website for his employer, by the way. I think we could use some of his expertise on some of Microsoft's websites.

Dana makes a great point that reinvention is not a buzzword but a way of life for those of us striving to be on the edge. I love that!
"I was at a fairly high level meeting w/ a subsidiary of ours last week, discussing the nuances of Internet Marketing and doing business on the web. They asked 'so, how did you come to know these things?' To which I replied, 'simple, read lots, and fail early and often.' In a word, all of us in the 'Internet Space' are, by default, autodidactics. We did NOT go to school for this stuff, and for many of us in the web space, the web was not available or even on the radar screen in college/grad school. I remember teaching web development to seniors, as a sophomore, because just two years before, they did not have the same access to the web, nor the acumen to grasp the power of HTML. My how fast time flies.
I was at a fairly high level meeting w/ a subsidiary of ours last week, discussing the nuances of Internet Marketing and doing business on the web. They asked 'so, how did you come to know these things?' To which I replied, 'simple, read lots, and fail early and often.' In a word, all of us in the 'Internet Space' are, by default, autodidactics. We did NOT go to school for this stuff, and for many of us in the web space, the web was not available or even on the radar screen in college/grad school. I remember teaching web development to seniors, as a sophomore, because just two years before, they did not have the same access to the web, nor the acumen to grasp the power of HTML. My how fast time flies.

Fast forward. I had a 'consulting call' this week with Emery Kertesz on web marketing and his website redesign, when he posed the question 'so, how did you come to know these things?' Fortunately, I've started on a document which lists all of the e-newsletters and websites that I get, which may be of some help to all of you. There is SO MUCH to read on this subject (Internet Marketing & Sales Technology) that you really need to network and use your time wisely. And... READ LOTS!!!

So what converged, you ask. A few things:

1. Self-learning/teaching/continuous education is an imperative in this economy
2. Meeting with people, ESPECIALLY CONSULTANTS, who do not ascribe to the above, underscores why I spend so much time researching, learning, and re-learning the craft.
3. Reinvention is not a buzzword but a way of life for those of us striving to be on the edge."

9:46:00 PM

The Importance of PR

Scoble points to an article written by VentureBlog, about the Importance of PR, especially in a down market. From Abigail Johnson:
"Early in my career I learned the adage "He who wins in a down market wins." This is true today on many levels, not the least of which is strategic communications. Let me explain: if a company is trying to define and lead a market, a down, quiet market is a great opportunity to take the time for the market education process that will inevitably be needed. Regardless of the state of the market, education will be needed. But in today's market, an interesting, new idea can get an unfair mindshare compared to the way it was a few years ago. And, if a special, potential leader doesn't do this, there is a good chance that they will go through their life as an also-ran."

Interesting thoughts! Read the post!

9:32:00 PM

Disposable Digital Camera

From a press release from Ritz Camera:

"The Ritz camera chain is rolling out one of the industry’s first OTU digital cameras. For $10.99, Ritz will offer an OTU digital camera, 25 4 by 6-inch prints and a CD with the images and software. The OTU digital model will be nearly identical to its film counterpart. Consumers who purchase the camera can take up to 25 pictures, which are stored on the camera’s internal memory. They have the option to delete only the last picture they took since the camera doesn’t feature a color LCD. The company 'targets 3-megapixel quality in a 4 by 6-inch print)."
Cool!
9:06:00 PM

Microsoft Event at Seafair

Got to meetup with Beth Goza and her husband, and Jed Rose, new MLR starting tomorrow! Welcome! Jed is going to work with Beth on some community-enhancing efforts for Windows and Longhorn. I'm super anxious to find out more about their plans.

The weather was just perfect (70F/20C), and the kids were (relatively) well behaved. We saw the Blue Angels perform, watched the hydroplanes race, and saw an acrobatic airshow. Thanks to all those that put it on for our group!

Oh, and just for fun, I threw in a picture of one of our windows Steven broke yesterday. He'll be cleaning bathrooms and foregoing allowance for a while... :)

8:56:00 PM

Saturday, August 02, 2003

The Blogging Process

Dewayne Mikkelson points to an article by Dave Pollard, called "The Blogging Process." Now, I'm just tired...

9:03:00 PM

Friday, August 01, 2003

Sometimes, It Takes Us Until Version Three...

...and others, Version NINE. I've used Microsoft photo editing software for a long time, but I agree that Microsoft Digital Image Suite 9 is very cool.

ZD Anchor Desk: My new favorite way to organize digital photos (David Coursey)
OVERALL, I like Digital Image Suite 9 a good bit more than previous Microsoft products, which I never really warmed up to. This new release is significantly more attractive to me, perhaps because of the easy organization with Image Library and the easier image manipulation now possible in Image Pro.

7:03:00 PM

Action Items Due Dec. 14

Rebecca Schwoch reminds me that sometimes you need to remember the little things (or make the little things the big things). I subscribed to her blog because she tends to find the stuff I find interesting, uh, interesting. I love the serendipity of finding kindred spirits that span distance and time--it's probably the main reason I continue to blog (when asked, my most common response is that it's about community).
"I decided to make some goals for the rest of the year (renewed/new resolutions) to be completed by December 14

1. Write a children's book (see yay above. heh)
2. Paint more
3. Blog more original ideas (not this journaly stuff or just posting others comments).

Anyone else?
Let me give it some thought. I'd say 1. Get my kids to Disneyland; 2. Finalize the adoption of our 14-month-old; 3. At least finish the outline of a book. But there's probably a lot more there. I like Rebecca's #3 above. But by the way, Bec, we like the "journal-ly" stuff. It's what makes you human to us.

6:43:00 PM

Thursday, July 31, 2003

Benevolent Leadership

More from the 5 Patterns of Extraordinary Careers. Sorry to ramble on, but this stuff is golden. I'd re-print every word if I wouldn't be breaking every known copyright law in existence. I wish wish wish I'd had this book when I was 24. As it is, I'm probably 5-7 years behind where I should be (I'm 39, and am where I should have been at about 32)... Better late than never!

Practice Benevolent Leadership
A leader is best when people barely know that he exists. He is the teacher who succeeds without taking credit. And, because credit is not taken, credit is received. -Lao Tzu, 6th Century B.C.

The curse of the highly talented person is that everyone wants him to do everything. … Rather than go it alone, become fanatical about wooing, hiring, and retaining the most talented people in (the) business. Create an environment that would be the most attractive to the very best people, one of open communication and deep trust, in which (your) subordinates' success will be more important that even (your) own. (48)

We are reluctant to let go of the belief that if I am to care for something, I must control it. So many people progress in their careers hoping to ensure short-term success by tight oversight, while long-term success slips away.

Extraordinary success is achieved by makthosehose around you successful.

The benevolent leader maximizes performance through facilitation. She eliminates barriers for subordinates and leads with authority, even though at times appearing to be just one of the pack. It's easy to know when a benevolent leader is in charge. The telltale signs? Information and authority flow freely. Honesty abounds. People are free to question authority without retribution. Creativity reigns. Each member of the team feels just as accountable to the other team members as to the leader. (50)

Nearly 90 percent of extraordinarily successful executives were described as being concerned about their careers of their subordinates as much or more than their own careers. (52)

To put this lesson another way: The extraordinary executive does not claw his way to the top, he is carried there. (53)

So what really motivates the best and the brightest? In our survey we asked how respondents personally defined career success. Two key factors emerged. The first, one of the most often cited, was "freedom in my job to do the things I want." ...…The second was "to be well regarded in my company or industry." (55)

Successful executives ask "How will this job, working for this boss, help me achieve the level of respect and impact that I desire? He asks, explicitly or implicitly, about each new opportunity. Highly successful individuals also add another question: "If I am successful, will the organization or team be successful?" (55)

Professionals understand the importance of joining the best program and actively seek it out. This becomes a virtuous circle--the best people create the best results, which in turn attract the best people. ... Professionals who create a winning environment, usually end up winners. (58)

Of the four leadership styles, I find myself probably in the "Good Citizen" block. As I gain experience and confidence, I'm sure I'll move more into the "Benevolent Leader" box, since it so closely aligns with my own personal values.

By the way, for a clue on how I got a pre-release copy, look here.

5:15:00 PM

Wednesday, July 30, 2003

More on the 5 Patterns...

I've gotten several requests for more information about The 5 Patterns of Extraordinary Careers. I found the first chapter online here: http://www.bzzagent.com/downloads/5patterns_intro.pdf.

At the 5 Patterns website is also a PowerPoint deck with the key points here: http://5patterns.com/files/UnlockthePotential.pdf. Worth a read, and goes into more detail than I can.

Some of the key points of the books I've found helpful so far:

After doing a lot of research (2,000 executives interviewed), the authors found a handful of patterns. One thing they found was that executives "never took their job descriptions too literally and had always found ways to expand their responsibilities within their organizations (p. 4).

Extraordinary executives, in a process similar to compound interest, achieved success slowly and consistently, with each phases building on the prior one. (8)

THE FIVE PATTERNS OF EXTRAORDINARY CAREERS
So what are the five patterns of extraordinary careers? As the five chapters that follow will detail, they are to:
1. Understand the value of you. People with extraordinary careers understand how value is created in the workplace, and they translate
that knowledge into action, building their personal value over each phase of their careers.
2. Practice benevolent leadership. People with extraordinary careers do not claw their way to the top; they are carried there.
3. Overcome the permission paradox. People with extraordinary careers overcome one of the great Catch-22s of business: You can’t get the job
without experience, and you can’t get the experience without the job.
4. Differentiate using the 20/80 principle of performance. People with extraordinary careers do their defined jobs exceptionally well but don’t
stop there. They storm past predetermined objectives to create breakthrough ideas and deliver unexpected impact.
5 . Find the right fit (strengths, passions, and people). People with extraordinary careers make decisions with the long term in mind. They willfully
migrate toward positions that fit their natural strengths and passions and where they can work with people they like and respect. (9)

The average professional with thirty-five years of experience has worked for just over six different companies during his or her career. Yet those with only ten years of experience have, on average, already worked for four companies. (11)

Understand the Value of You
The most successful professionals have come to understand the underlying factors that determine value in the job market, and how to maximize their market value at different stages of professional life, and why some careers prosper while others peak and decline (15).

Your value in the talent marketplace is derived from two distinctly separate elements—the value of your potential and the value of your experience. … The trick is to fill the bag of experience before you empty the bag of potential.

Experiential value is usually more highly compensated than potential value for the simple reason that it is much easier to measure what you have done than what you can do. … Even if you find yourself considering a role similar to the one that you have been in, it is important to look for and discuss the growth potential of the new role itself and you in it. … You must turn your potential value into valuable experiences, which together can be converted into renewed potential. (21)

The Potential Versus Experiential Promotion:
The critical element to potential promotions is trust. It should be noted that potential promotions … are relatively rare. Because these are promotions of trust earned over time, they seldom occur when changing employers, since senior people in the new organization are usually not yet familiar with you or your capabilities. (27)

The pattern of leveraging successful experience in one company or industry for the opportunity to do something similar in another plays itself out in a majority of the four thousand searches that Spencer Stuart conducts annually. (29)

The Promise Phase
The key to building experiential value in your career is straightforward: Gain experiences that really matter. (29)

Understanding when it is in your long-term interest to do something in the short run, such as going for a potential promotion within your current organization to position you for an experiential promotion later on , is a key trait of extraordinarily successful executives.

Executives switch employers every 4.6 years on average. … When an individual is recruited to a new employer, the appointment is typically accompanied by an increase in compensation of between 15 percent and 30 percent. In general, potential promotions tend to be accompanied by the more typical 5 percent to 10 percent pay raises. (29)

Value changes throughout your career, shifting from potential to experiential to potential again.

The path of successful professionals often visibly diverges from that of the less successful in the middle of a career. (31)

The importance of the first stage is often underestimated. Start something that will begin the process of building experiential value. Early professional experience will provide feedback and input into what you enjoy and are good at. And it will certainly create the most freedom and alternatives later on. (33)

If you choose not to use your potential, you will have still spent it. Working in the promise phase is in fact one of the best times to identify your strengths and passions. … An individual’s ability to convert potential into valuable experience is one of the most important elements to achieving long-term success. (33)

There is a twofold goal for the end of the promise phase: to have achieved the endorsement of having worked for at least one recognizable company or institution while having learned enough about yourself to become directed toward a situation that plays to your strengths and interests in the years ahead.

One executive interviewed said “Looking back (in the promise phase), I am convinced that not taking a risk at that point in my career would have been an even riskier strategy, because I would have been just another associate.” (35) “It’s amazing how seemingly minor differences in momentum and perspective that you establish very early on in your career can led to such major differentiation later in life.” (36)

The Momentum Phase:
Your potential value is steadily converted into experiential value as you master functional skills, develop a track record, take on broader responsibilities, manage other professionals, and cultivate a network of business relationships. This is the phase (usually in your mid-thirties, when you shift into the momentum phase of your career. This phase corresponds to the downward fall of the swing, or the point of greatest acceleration. The momentum phase is when many professionals approach their maximum experiential value. (36)

If you are on the right track by this middle stage of your career, then you are in a position to take maximum control over your career’s direction. … The most successful executives in the momentum phase achieve positive impact an accelerating rate. (37)

Unfortunately, those who haven’t managed this phase are at serious risk of seeing their career stall. If you have been unable to migrate your career toward roles that play to your strengths and passions, enabling the kind of impact to attract the most important opportunities, then you may have lost your greatest opportunity for momentum. (38)

8:29:00 PM

Taking a Bird's-Eye View of "Social Cyberspaces"

Please allow me to publish a press release. I wrote about my lunch with Marc last week.

Taking a Bird's-Eye View of "Social Cyberspaces"
Microsoft Researcher and Pioneer in Online Communities Shows How "Social Accounting" Tools Help Computer Users Cope With Information Overload

REDMOND, Wash. -- July 29, 2003 -- Have you ever joined an online message board or newsgroup discussion only to find yourself struggling to decide which participants' advice to heed, whom to ignore, who are the experts, and who is simply making noise or "flame-bait"? Trust and identity are at the core of any well-functioning community, online or in the real world. Researchers at Microsoft Corp. are creating tools to help computer users understand these dynamics -- and get real value from what research sociologist Marc Smith calls "social cyberspaces."

According to Smith, social cyberspaces include e-mail, e-mail distribution lists, chat rooms, buddy lists, instant messages, message boards, weblogs ("blogs"), and discussion groups such as Usenet. Today, most of these virtual spaces offer little or no "social accounting" data or information that helps users get a big-picture view of the community they are interacting with. Yet the role of social cyberspaces is becoming increasingly important.

"Technology no longer consists just of hardware or software or even services, but of communities," said Howard Rheingold, author of "The Virtual Community" and "Smart Mobs." "Increasingly, community is a part of technology, a driver of technology, and an emergent effect of technology."

At Microsoft® Research, Smith leads the Community Technologies group, which is developing tools that can help people make more informed decisions on which community members they can trust, instead of acting on blind faith.

One project is Netscan (http://netscan.research.microsoft.com/). Drawing on the estimated 100,000 newsgroups and 20 million active contributing members within Usenet, Netscan offers an interface that supports the discovery of communities of interest, the selection and evaluation of high-quality content, and, as a reputation system, motivates members to make quality contributions.

In another project, Smith and his colleagues are exploring how online information can play a role in the physical world. Advanced User Resource Annotation, or AURA (http://aura.research.microsoft.com/), demonstrates how people can bridge the gap between online information and the offline world. Using a wireless Pocket PC outfitted with a bar-code scanner, users can scan any bar-coded object -- such as food, books or even works of art -- and find relevant information in real time from newsgroups, Web sites and message boards.

For example, a visitor to an art museum could scan the bar code on a painting's frame and instantly access newsgroups or message boards associated with the particular artist. Then they could read what others think of the work and even annotate the discussions with their own ideas.

Today at Microsoft's Silicon Valley campus, Smith will discuss his group's research in "Group Dynamics in Social Cyberspaces." The talk is open to the public.

Where: Microsoft Corp.

Bldg. 1, Conference Center

1065 LaAvenida

Mountain View, Calif.

Time: 12:30--2 p.m.

11:06:00 AM

Monday, July 28, 2003

5 Patterns of Extraordinary Careers

I got an advance copy of The 5 Patterns for Extraordinary Careers, written by James Citrin and Richard Smith. I'm totally devouring the information. This is probably going to be one of the more powerful books I've run across all year.

One of the case studies is Rich Bray, the Vice President of MSN North America. I worked with him when we were both Product Managers (he was PM of Money, I was PM of Dinosaurs and Musical Instruments). I've always been impressed with his decision-making ability, and his ability to take risk. It's fascinating to read about his accelerated career, and the author's opinions on how he made it as far as he has. I look forward to learning all I can from the book, and from Rich.

The authors have a website, and a "5 Patterns of Extraordinary Careers assessment." You can take the survey free.

John's Quiz Results
Your thoughts and behaviors are consistent with a Successful Professional! (60-89 points) Other ranges are 59 points or less (Average Employee) and 90-100 points (Extraordinary Executive)

In the top percentage of working professionals, your thoughts and actions in several areas are consistent with successful careers. However, there are likely numerous strategies available to you that place a career that is truly extraordinary within your reach.

Pattern 1 - Understand the Value of You
Pattern 1 Score: Average Employee (50 points)

Pattern 2 - Practice Benevolent Leadership
Pattern 2 Score: Successful Professional (70 points)

Pattern 3 - Overcome the Permission Paradox
Pattern 3 Score: Average Employee (47 points)

Pattern 4 - Differentiate Using the 20/80 Principle of Performance
Pattern 4 Score: Extraordinary Executive (100 points)

Pattern 5 - Find the Right Fit (Strengths, Passions & People)
Pattern 5 Score: Successful Professional (77 points)

Can't wait to find out how to accelerate each score!

5:46:00 PM

Busey-isms

"Imagination is the hood ornament on the car of creativity."
"Fear is the dark room where the devil develops his negatives."
"This show is like a farm birth in outer space."
"I've thought about things that Kings and Queens cannot spell."

Diane's right. I'm With Busey is a funny, funny show.

5:37:00 PM

Sunday, July 27, 2003

Microsoft Company Picnic

Wow, what a fun day in a totally picturesque setting. The kids had a great time eating tons of food, drinking their weight in soda, playing in the inflatable playgrounds, watching a magic show, and spending time with our family. And Jeri and I enjoyed the Little River Band concert, the nice weather (80 F) and sunny skies, and the chance to relax a bit. (You'll have to ignore the blurry photos, little kids tend to smudge everything they can...).

There were probably 20,000+ people there, but it didn't seem too crowded (the venue was massive!). Steven got to go onstage to help with the magic show, check out his smiling face as he tries to escape from the ropes!

11:37:00 PM

Let Go, Be Yourself, Make the Moment Matter

Diane Reischling recently did some training of folks you might run into if you're in some retail stores in the US, part of Microsoft and HP's "Experience Centers." She talks about highlights from the training in her blog:
"I stood up and said, "The only thing I want to do is to simply give you permission to NOT sell anything. All I want you to do is make sure that customer walks away being known, understands a bit more about how our software can meet some need/curiosity in their life, and believes it's a good thing for the world. If you do all three things each and every time...I'll be thrilled."

Total silence. I'm getting that a lot here. :)

And then we all decided to come up with three things to remember together as we are in front of customers. I was so inspired by them, that I'm writing them down:

1. Let go - everyone gets to play
2. Be yourself - be real
3. This moment matters
"
Good advice, no matter what your job, or to whom you're speaking.

11:32:00 PM

Stay In School! (figuratively-speaking)

Peter Provost reminds me (us) how important it is to stay current (or ahead of the curve!) in your industry. He links to a slide deck by Dave Thomas (of Pragmatic Programmer fame), who recently published the slides from his talk "How To Keep Your Job".

Peter echoes my thoughts: "It always amazes me how few people take any time for personal education once they get a job. They go to work, do their job, and they go home. Very few people allocate any time for continuing education. Read this and pay attention, it is important."

It's not enough to do your job, or even to do it well. In the days of downturns and layoffs, playing it safe is the most risky thing you can do. Don't stop studying just because you've finished school, or because you rely on your one-week-a-year professional development program. Programming changes every year, and I'd argue marketing, even management practices, changes just as fast.

11:26:00 PM

Interactive Reality-based Gaming

Marc Canter blogs about Interactive-palooza, saying that "back in 1994 - the MediaBand was part of a traveling Lollapalooza Interactive Tent that was sponsored by Paul Allen's Interval Research group. We were all geared up - convinced that the future was now - unfortunately we were 9 years too soon. But it looks like it's happening now."

From the article: "Organizer Perry Farrell (news), frontman for Jane's Addiction, said, "I would call this interactive reality-based gaming." ... He has incorporated video games, wireless (news - web sites) phones, video screens and more as part of his vision for the future of entertainment. "

The team I'm on (Xbox PR) put a lot of this together (though I personally had nothing to do with it). Cool to see it coming together. And Marc's right, the future is at our doorstep.

11:04:00 PM

Too Much to Do?

Harvard Business School's Working Knowledge has a great article called "Understaffed and Overworked: What Now?"
"The sure recipe for failure is to suck it up and try to do it all," says Isabel Parlett of Parlance Training, a Santa Fe, N.M., firm specializing in business communications. "You'll burn out, your team will resent you, your reputation will suffer, and the work probably won't all get done anyway."

1. Stay Focused. What is its economic impact? Is it aligned with the company's strategy? How will it satisfy stakeholders? What is my level of passion, talent, and energy for it? Do we have the resources?

2. Remember the Little Picture: Get out in front. Create alliances. Manage up. Focus on your new duties. To position yourself, start with your team.

Of course, we're all really busy. With the recent reorg, my team's been challenged with continuing all the work we're currently doing, plus taking on more, both from other organizations in our larger group, and more worldwide. There are some great suggestions in this article. Worth a read, and worth a subscription to the newsletter. Link from Dana VanDen Heuvel.

10:44:00 PM

My Moblog on TechTV

Sean mentioned his wife's moblog was on TechTV, and I watched the clip, and saw that my moblog was featured next. My slurpees aren't as cute as his baby, but darn close.

And the "convention" was the MGB last week.

6:59:00 AM

Saturday, July 26, 2003

Social Newsgroup Research

Just spent time using one of the tools Marc showed us earlier in the week. Netscan is available to the public from the Microsoft Research site.

The Netscan System provides detailed reports on the activity of Usenet newsgroups, the authors who participate in them, and the conversation threads that emerge from their activity. Using the Netscan tool users can get reports about any newsgroup for any day, week, month, quarter, or year, since September 1999.

Netscan can be used to:

- Find newsgroups where others share your unique interests.
- Monitor the health of newsgroups related to your interests and pursuits.
- Stay informed on current events and the latest trends.
Locate sources for technical assistance and information.
- Examine troubling issues and hot topics not covered in product documentation.
- Track the participation of your favorite authors across Usenet newsgroups.
- Use Newsgroup Reports to get an in-depth analysis of individual newsgroups including a graphic representation of newsgroup traffic, statistical changes in the newsgroup as compared to last year’s statistics, closest neighbors, largest threads, and most prolific authors.

Use Author Profile to view Usenet newsgroup usage data for a selected author. This data includes Usenet activity during the selected and previous period, known aliases, and newsgroups to which the author has posted over the past year.

Use Thread View to view all the messages in a specified conversation independent of the thread to which it was posted or from which responses were made. Both a thread view and a tree view of the conversation are provided.

Use Tree Map to view the hierarchical relationships of newsgroups in the Usenet.

Use Cross Posts to view the relationships between neighboring newsgroups within Usenet. The frequency of cross posts newsgroups is used to determine how closely related one newsgroup is to another.

9:17:00 AM

Friday, July 25, 2003

Hanging Out with the PR Team

Had a great time tonight hanging out with the Xbox PR team at our Director's home on Lake Washington. Good food, and some new good friends. I got to meet some great folks at our agency, Edelman.

I'm fascinated at the creative talent and the executional excellence these guys demonstrate, even in casual conversations. I've never met a more interesting, professional, attractive group of people.

I posted a few pictures on my moblog.

10:58:00 PM

Meetup with Martin

Had a great visit with Martin Leahy this morning, a former Microsoft genius I worked with a while back. We met at Building 10, the place we worked 7 or 8 years ago. It was quite strange walking down the halls of a building we worked at every day, and for it to feel so unfamiliar. Of course the artwork has changed, and the carpets have been replaced, but much of it hadn't changed.

We reminisced about the "good old days," and caught up on each others' careers. I was struck with how much Microsoft has changed hearing Martin bring up names from the past (Nils Von Veh, Sonya Gustufson, Gideon Rosenblatt, Mike Losh, Tom Corddry, Susan Boeshen, Bruce Jacobson, Melinda French, Marty Taucher, Mike Negrin, Patty Stonesifer, Alex Simonson, Jabe Blumenthal, Ruthann Lorenzen, and others).

I commented on his new job as VP of Sales and Marketing at Gupta, and how much marketing has become instinctual rather than so linear, strategic rather than tactical. I think we've--dare I say it--matured.

10:54:00 PM

Thursday, July 24, 2003

Social aspects of Xbox Gaming

An Associated Press story from this morning reports that Microsoft is seeking to broaden the appeal of its Xbox video game console by adding chat functions to its online gaming service in Japan. Our VP Peter Moore is quoted saying that "Xbox is about the social aspects of gaming -- not the solitary or the escapism aspects of gaming."

I first blogged about this from a speech Peter gave to our group at the MGB last week. I'm fascinated to see how this idea of "social gaming" develops. It's interesting to think that almost all my own experience with gaming has been social:

- I almost always play multi-player games with my kids, their friends, or my own friends
- My kids almost never play alone, and when they do, it's to get better so they can beat their friends when they play together.
- Most of the adults I talk to that play are either talking about their gameplay to others ("Did you pass that level yet? Are you playing at the expert level?"), or they're playing together.

7:53:00 PM

Wednesday, July 23, 2003

Researching Community

Cesar and I got to meet with Marc Smith for lunch today. Marc is a Research Sociologist in the Collaborative and Multimedia Systems Group. He focuses on the research and design of social cyberspaces, and the emergence of social organizations like communities in online environments and the resources groups need in order to cooperate productively.

He showed us some very cool technology that tracks participation of members of communities, and spoke about how we can discover relevant communities, and help facilitate them.

I was interested to hear that of the 33,000 newsgroups, 3,000 of them are Microsoft-created (*updated from 11,000, but I'm going to go back and check to get the right numbers, that's the problem from going from memory).

I asked if online communities were a "super user" or "early adopter" phenomenon, and he reminded me that almost everyone with an email account or Internet access has been part of an email discussion, "group alias," or has left a question on a website and later went back for an answer.

He said our challenge in participating in communities (like our MVP program) is discovering already existing communities, monitoring them, then slowly becoming part of the community, later having some kind of influence. We don't "build" community, but we can help facilitate growth. He used the analogy of a garden, we can make the environment fertile, but we can't yell at the carrots to "grow, grow, grow!"

Excellent stuff, made me very excited to be part of the efforts internally, and helped me feel confident that we're dedicating research money and resources (and talented people like Marc) to the effort.

10:10:00 PM

I'm an Ideas Guy (okay, I admit it)

From Discover Your Sales Strenghts

The Strenghtsfinder Signature Themes report below displays my five most powerful themes, as indicated by the Gallup StrengthsFinder Web-based assessment.

MY SIGNATURE THEMES:

Ideation: People strong in the Ideation theme are fascinated by ideas. They are able to find connections between seemingly disparate phenomena.

Maximizer: People strong in the Maximizer theme focus on strengths as a way to stimulate personal and group excellence. They seek to transform something strong into something superb.

Strategic: People strong in the Strategic theme create alternative ways to proceed. Faced with any given scenario, they can quickly spot the relevant patterns and issues.

Input: People strong in the Input theme have a craving to know more. Often they like to collect and archive all kinds of information.

Intellection: People strong in the Intellection theme are characterized by their intellectual activity. They are introspective and appreciate intellectual discussions.

To learn your Signature Themes, buy any one of these Gallup strengths publications, each of which provide an ID code that will allow you to take StrengthsFinder, and will help you think about how to best leverage your talents:

If you are a manager, "Now, Discover Your Strengths" will help you think about how you can help other people leverage their talents. You can find "Now, Discover Your Strengths" at any major bookstore, or through this link: http://www.gallup.com/publications/strengths.asp

If you are a salesperson or sales manager, "Discover Your Sales Strengths" will teach you to focus on your personal talents and strengths, then guide you to transform those assets into solid sales performances -- and successful careers. You can find "Discover Your Sales Strengths" at any major bookstore, or through this link: http://www.gallup.com/publications/sales.asp

9:34:00 PM

Cut Us Some Slack!

A judge with a sense of humor cuts Microsoft a bit of slack. Loved this PDF of what looks like an actual court document. And I love the "human voice" it was done in. Why is it that people can't be real, like this? From Garrett Fitzgerald quoting Volokh

12:08:00 AM

Is Nintendo Playing the Wrong Game?

From the August edition of Business 2.0, Is Nintendo Playing the Wrong Game? "Its competitors are turning their consoles into home entertainment centers. But Nintendo is sticking to games, a play-it-safe strategy that threatens to reduce the once-mighty company to irrelevance."

This article has generated some buzz among those that were at the MGB session where we talked about Thought Leadership.

12:00:00 AM

Tuesday, July 22, 2003

Monday, July 21, 2003

Voices from the Past

While at the Family Fun Center, I ran into an old co-worker, and someone I count as one of my friends from Microsoft (probably among the 5 or 6 that helped shape my career early on), Martin Leahy. He's visiting Washington, his old stomping ground. He's at Gupta, and has the job of VP of Sales for the Americas for Borland. In our short conversation, it looks like he's doing great! He'll be dropping by for lunch this week.

9:45:00 PM

Happy Birthday, Steven!

Steven turns seven! Happy Birthday!

I took the day off, and went to the Family Fun Center in Tukwilla. We played Laser Tag, rode go carts, sprayed each other in bumper boats, and had a great time!

9:38:00 PM

Sunday, July 20, 2003

Bumped!

So am I the only one that thinks getting a 12-hour bump is worth a $400 Delta credit? I volunteered to spent the night in a small hotel room (without wifi), got some sleep, and took a very early flight home, first class all the way.

7:18:00 PM

Saturday, July 19, 2003

MGB Round IV: Mohan Sawhney

Mohan Sawhney spoke to our marketing team (about 150 marketers of retail products, from around the world). I took a ton of notes, but a few things he said struck me as particularly profound.

Dr. Sawhney is the McCormick Tribune Professor of Technology and Director, Center for Research on Technology, & Innovation, Kellogg School of Management. He's been doing a lot of consulting for Microsoft, and has been helping run a management training program for marketing folks at Microsoft.

His website has a bunch of free articles and reprints from original papers, and articles he published in Business 2.0. Worth an hour of browsing...

Mohan focused the first half of his session on branding, and the brand experience. He demonstrated three strategic brand concepts: Functional (features and benefits), Experiential (values and lifestyle) Symbolic (sensory appeal)
(Since we're a product company, Microsoft can get stuck on first, features and benefits). The challenge for us (especially in Xbox) is to find ways to move beyond that to experiential, to be known for the experience rather than the "products".

Functional: Wal-Mart, Volvo, Dell, united
Experiential: Nordstrom, Lexus, Sony, Singapore Airlines
Symbolic: Body Shop, Harley, Apple, Virgin Atlantic

He made the point clearly that successful brands don't try to be everything to everybody (with some, that can be tough to understand). Simplicity and clarity of purpose are key ingredients. Great companies are equally defined by what they don't do. SWA won't fly to Japan, because it doesn't fit their strategic positioning, low cost domestic US travel. Great brands stake out a territory that they own to a degree their competitors never will.

One point he made caused me to ponder. He said it's important to not be afraid to alienate some customers (since you can't please everyone). Some have to hate you for others to love you. Sounds obvious, but profound in many ways.

Later in the afternoon, he spoke of "Customer Experiences" and gave a lot of good input into what we could do to better create them. We have some things to improve upon in this area, but I also came away feeling good that the things we're planning with Sales Associates at retail are on the right track.

One interesting point was when he gave a nod to the DMAIC process of Six Sigma. Cesar and I took a week-long green belt certification, and the key takeaway for me even then was that Six Sigma was about understanding customer needs, then finding ways to measurably meet them. Great to hear a noted marketer make the same point (and I felt a bit vindicated!).

When asked about the ROI of quality programs, he reminded us that quality is not free. It costs more. Customer Service is a leading indicator, Sales is a lagging indicator. He cautioned us that cost/benefit is more than about dollars. Good reminder.

I think everyone learned a great deal. More importantly, everyone was buzzing with new ideas, and a passion for their jobs that I haven't seen in years. It was inspiring to see everyone publicly sharing ideas--seemed that the expectation or the "permission" to think creatively caused everyone to want to share ideas for the rest of the afternoon--a testament to the speaker, but also proof that we do have a bunch of creative people working in our division.

10:49:00 PM

MGB Round III

Verrrry interesting day! We took broke into two sessions, with sales going into one track, and marketing into another. I attended the marketing track, but also attended a bit of the sales track from time to time.

The sessions started at 8AM, and we finished up at around 4PM. I felt really sorry for the guys visiting the US, who were attending meetings "in the middle of the night".

The presentations focused on "best practices" (sharing ideas from a lot of our subsidiaries). We also had a detailed session on branding, and heard from the guys managing the Xbox, Windows, and Office brands. Interesting.

The highlight of the day was listening to some guest speakers we brought in for training. Mohan Sawhney spent two hours in the marketing track, and Benson Smith, the author of Discover Your Sales Strengths ran a half-day workshop for the sales team. I got to hear most of both of these sessions (I snuck into the sales session to hear from the author, since I had just finished the book). You can get a few of the chapters online at the Gallup Poll Website.

It was fascinating to listen to the many different styles the sales guys, a wider range than I would have thought. I didn't take the actual "strengthsfinder" survey (I will and report back!), but I know i find my greatest passion with ideation and relationships and belief and learning.

In one example, a successful business development director on our team took the test to find that his signature themes included Ideation and Intellection. He told us why he loved his job so much, since it was exactly that kind of work he gets to do every day--a testament to finding your own strengths, and then finding a job that leverages those strengths. I'm not sure if every job in our sales (and marketing) organization will be such a perfect fit, but as a manager, I think it's imperative to make it work that way.

I had lunch with one of our VPs today, and brought up this topic. He also talked about how he was pleasantly surprised to see how great of a fit this job was for this person, and he agreed that there is real power in organizing the team around strengths.

10:18:00 PM

Friday, July 18, 2003

MGB Part II

Disclaimer: My thoughts. Not company policy. My notes, the way I heard things, not necessarily what the speakers said. No warranties. Void in all 50 states.

Today was the first of two break out days. We had a full-day session for our products (Home and Entertainment, including Xbox, consumer products, games, keyboards, mice, Pocket PCs, other stuff sold at retail). I'm a bit blown away, and definitely living the super-sugary-Kool Aid-buzz. And Red Dye #2 to boot.

Steve Ballmer spoke to our group of about 300 this morning. Yesterday in the opening session to 14,000 he said that the number one group to focus on was (guess who) developers. I thought something like "ya, but not for our products." Wrong. Today, he told a group of Home and Entertainment sales and marketing guys that the number one group to focus on/understand/listen to/work with is developers, that the guys developing Xbox games and Pocket PC apps and other consumer stuff for Windows--they (in many cases for readers of these MS blogs "you") are our number one focus. Interesting.

It's strange and even a bit eerie to hear Steve Ballmer so clearly define our division's issues, and to explain how important our business is to the company. It's inspiring to have a leader who knows so clearly what we do, what our concerns are, what our challenges are, and what our opportunities are. It was conversational enough and detailed enough to see it wasn't just a "prepared" speech. Ballmer is an excellent example of Primal Leadership. Inspiring. Smart. Visionary. Resonant.

Later we heard from Todd Cunningham, a Sr. VP from MTV, who's done a bunch of research with teens. Very, very cool. He told me after the sessions he knows Dina, from her work on researching teens and working with MTV in India.

He said one of the things they learned was how the computer is moving to public space in home, now that the parents want to be more involved with using the PC as a tool. He brought up a point I'd never thought of: That when we were teens, we'd shut the door to "tune out' the world and be alone. He said teens who have computers today will shut the door to OPEN a new world, not the other way around. The computer becomes their portal to their social world. With Xbox Live, our positioning (vs. Sony's "escapism") could be thought of as connection, not isolation. Community, not escapism. Oh ya, that and rockin' gameplay...

One of our newest VPs came from Sega, and gave a very inspiring speech about "changing the game" and being thought leaders. Thought leaders may not be market leaders, yet. (It may be similar with "personal brand"--how I am perceived/valued with my peers/management). Gotta get the heat, fuel, then lead the market. He challenged us with examples of companies that are "market leaders" vs. companies that are "thought leaders." Check out this list (all in his humble opinion, you make your own conclusions):

Market Leaders: AA, United. Thought Leaders, jetBlue, Southwest.
Market: CBS, NBC, CBS. Thought: Fox, CNN.
Market: Blockbuster. Thought: Netflix.
Market: Sony. Thought: Samsung
Market: Esquire, GQ, Rolling Stone Thought: FHM, Maxim.
Market: AOL. Thought: MSN

Then he asked us: Is Microsoft considered a Market Leader (most would say yes)? Who is the thought leader in our space? He then challenged us to be innovative, to be daring, to be thought leaders.

Much more I could post (and may as I finish up the debrief), but it's 12:30AM, and I need to be up at 7AM. This'll be my third night with less than a handful of hours of sleep (and my timezone is only a few hours off--I don't know how the other guys from around the world handle three days of presentations...).

10:36:00 PM

Thursday, July 17, 2003

Whaddya Call 14,000 Softees in a SuperDome?

The MGB (Microsoft Global Briefing).

Strangely enough, wifi has been a bit few and far between, but after an hour on Bourbon Street, I'm ready for some email and blogging.

Great day. Lots to talk about. I won't bore you with a blow-by-blow (where's Heath when you need notes taken?), but I'll say this. (Echoing Steve Ballmer): "I love this company."

There are days I think we're not moving far enough fast enough. There are times I'm bummed out about reviews, or projects running late, or high expectations, or lack of overwhelming cross-group collaboration.

But there are days like today when I see the impact I have with the job I'm doing, and I see the passion of my leaders, the vision of the part we can play in changing our world, and the camaraderie of 14,000 of my peers (most of whom I'll never meet), all excited about doing the best they can.

And to be very clear, the message was overwhelming. We must hear the voice of the customer. Then innovate with our own responsibilities. Yes, the product guys need to innovate, but innovation in our jobs as marketing or sales is just as important as the job our developers play. And Steve made it very, very, very clear that he wants happy, happy, happy customers and partners.

The tides are changing. Maybe too slowly for some. And maybe too quickly for others. But they're changing. And I'm happy to be playing a role in it all.

10:58:00 PM

Monday, July 14, 2003

On the Way to Louisiana

Thanks one and all for the suggestions on places to visit. Scoble's friend Ernie the Attorney lives there, and I hope to get together with him. A bunch of us Microsoftees will be in town (or rather will deluge the town!) for the week. I've gotten a bunch of suggestions, and I think I'll get to at least a few of them. This'll be my third time in NOLA.

Here are some suggestions on stuff to do:
Anita Rowland: Do you read Chuck Taggart's Looka? He lives in Southern California but comes from NO, and talks a lot about where to go, what to eat, etc. http://www.gumbopages.com/looka/

Jorge Curioso: I'd highly recommend a ride on the St. Charles street car (catch it on Canal and St. Charles) pas the Garden District and Uptown mansions to Carrolton (Riverbend) where you can grab a snack at the Camelia Grill and head back downtown. About 30 minutes each way.
http://www.streetcarmike.com/stcharles.html

For Jazz Clubs aside from the must-see Preservation Hall (next to Pat O's), I'd recommend crossing Esplanade over to Frenchman.

Mitch Walker: I won’t be there, but I have a suggestion for a place to hang out for dinner: Mulate’s. Right across the street from the Convention Center, where it and RiverWalk meet. Great food, casual atmosphere.

Shawn Morrissey: "You should take the time to make it over to the Nat’l D-Day Museum. It’s a pretty close walk from the Convention Center. It’s one of those humbling experiences that will stay with you for quite some time.

Also, go check out the area down by the House of Blues – I find it a lot more interesting that Bourbon Street….

Robert Scoble: "John Porcaro is heading off to New Orleans for a big Microsoft employee event down there. He's asking for tips on what to do. Dude, you definitely MUST visit Preservation Hall. Make a commitment to do that. Sit on the floor up by the band. It'll be hot. Sweaty. Crowded. But it's the real deal and it's like being in church. You can drink yourself to death anywhere else. But no place else has the musical heritage of New Orleans.

If you can, take Ernie the Attorney out for drinks. He'll take you to all the good places in New Orleans. He lives there.

Oh, and whatever you do, don't tell your wife you're having a great time down on Bourbon Street. Tell her instead "Steve Ballmer needed me to rework this demo, so I'm staying in my hotel room tonight." Trust me on this."

10:50:00 PM

Friday, July 11, 2003

Heading for New Orleans

I'll be leaving 75 degree Seattle for 250 degree New Orleans mid-next week. Any tips beyond Burbon Street? I hear Mother's is the place for a po' boy or jambalaya...

11:04:00 PM

Common Errors in English

Me very like her internet WEB sight hear. Link via Garrett Fitzgerald

10:50:00 PM

On The Nightstand

Literally...

Your Child's Growing Mind
What to Expect: The Toddler Years
The Heart of A Leader
The 12 Simple Secrets of Microsoft Management
Leadership By The Book
The Pursuit of WOW
Purple Cow
Small Pieces Loosely Joined
Leadership
Fish! Sticks
The Tipping Point (second read)
Smart Mobs
Buck Up, Suck Up (just added)

10:28:00 PM

Speaking at Harvard

To celebrate Frank's acceptance to MBA school, here is part of a speech by SNL's Will Farrell, given at the 352nd Harvard Commencement. Here's a link to a video clip.
"Today's speech is going to be a little different, a little unorthodox. Some of you may find it to be shocking. I'm not going to stand up here and try to be funny. Because even though I am a professional comedian of the highest caliber, I've decided to do one thing that a lot of people are probably afraid to do, and that's give it to you straight.

As most of you are probably aware, I didn't graduate from Harvard. In fact, I never even got a call back from Admissions. Damn you, Harvard! Damn you! I told myself I would not get emotional today. But damn it, I'm here, and sometimes it's just good to cry.

I'm not one of you. Okay? I can't relate to who you are and what you've been through. I graduated from the University of Life. All right? I received a degree from the School of Hard Knocks. And our colors were black and blue, baby. I had office hours with the Dean of Bloody Noses. All right? I borrowed my class notes from Professor Knuckle Sandwich and his Teaching Assistant, Ms. Fat Lip Thon Nyun. That's the kind of school I went to for real, okay?

Thanks for the tip from PureContent...

10:10:00 PM

PR Tips

Michael O'Conner Clarke is becoming one of my favorite reads. Especially since my world is intersecting with PR more and more. Michael answers Scobles request for tips on handling yourself in a press interview. Here's just a few. Read the post for more!

1. Always call reporters back promptly
– Their lives are ruled by deadlines - help them out.
– Whether it’s good or bad – always return the call.
– Every interaction is a data point – if you don’t call back, what does that say about your company?
– You don’t need to engage in the full dialogue until you are ready.
– Gather information, show respect for deadlines, buy time.
– Never duck a call – you forfeit the opportunity to influence the story.

3. Set the tone at the outset
– Remember it’s your story - there's no one better able to tell it than you: so be the storyteller.
– Tell them your story, the whole of your story (and nothing but your story).
– Don’t wait for that one right question to come along – get your point over.

9. There is no such thing as "off the record"
– Every moment is on the record – from the reception desk to the farewell handshake.
– Every interaction is a data point, remember?
– Even if your name isn’t used, your comments will still colour the story.
– If you can't or don't want to say it on the record - don't say it.

10. If you don’t know - don’t try to answer
– Don’t be afraid to admit what you don’t know rather than faking it.
– Don’t get drawn into speculation – but offer to find out the answer.
– Never lie. Never bluff.

9:59:00 PM

Matrix Ping Pong

From a link on The Scobleizer Weblog:
"This is the funniest video I've seen in a long time. Yeah, you need Windows Media player to see it. It's a video of two guys playing table tennis, 'Matrix style.'"

Indeed!

9:47:00 PM

Leadership Development at Microsoft

An invitation from the Tom Peters website:
"Leadership Development at Microsoft: Learn how the world's largest software company is building its future leaders. Register today for this free PlaceWare Online Seminar. Date & Time: Thursday July 24 at noon EDT"

"Join Ron Crossland from the Tom Peters Company, Sabina Nawaz, Microsoft Senior Director of the Leadership Development Group, and Joe Whittinghill, Microsoft Group Manager of the Management Development Group, as they talk about the tactics being employed to achieve Microsoft’s leadership development strategy"

Ought to be interesting, if only to other 'softees.

9:37:00 PM

Thursday, July 10, 2003

On the Soapbox

From the virtual company meeting Tuesday with Steve Ballmer, Bill Gates, John Conners, and all the rest. My favorite quote, a true Steve-ism:
Steve Ballmer:
"We need lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of happy happy happy happy happy customers."

Amen to that, brother...

By the way, I think it's very cool that one email from our president could go out in the morning, and by 2PM 40,000 people could be "virtually" assembled. It was kind of eerie to hear echoes of the webcast in the halls, and no emails coming in for an hour.

7:29:00 PM

Wednesday, July 09, 2003

Tom Peters Knows His Stuff

Just got a short note from Tom Peters in my inbox. He quotes James Dean: "Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today."

Tom is so right on. Just this morning, I bought a copy of a book my new director recommended (Buck Up, Suck Up... by James Carville and Paul Begala). Tom has a quote on the back jacket that amuses and inspires me: "Carvill asked me to blurb this book. He doesn't know me from Adam. He kissed my ass. I read the manuscript. ... There's real wisdom here--1,000 miles from the usual self-help crap."

I need to learn more about being passionate and convicted and human and real. It's inspiring.

Perusing Tom's website, I ran across a section from his latest book series, the 50 Series (Brand You, Project You, Professional Service You). He shares his 50LIST WITHIN A 50LIST: THE RENEWAL50. I'm tempted to post them all, but I won't. Here are my favorites:
4. Buy a packet of 3x5-inch notecards. Carry them around with you. Always. Record cool stuff. Awful stuff. Daily. Review your card pack every Sunday. (Obsess on this!) [I call this my blog! jp]

6. Project stuck in a rut? Look through your Rolodex. Who's the oddest duck in there? Call her/him. Invite her/him to lunch. Pick her/his brain for a couple of hours about your project.

8. New habit: You're in a meeting. Someone you don't know makes an interesting contribution. Invite him/her to lunch...… in the next two weeks.

9. You run across somebody interesting. As a matter of course, ask her (him) what's the best thing she/he's read in the last 90 days. Order it from Amazon.com this afternoon.

15. Read a provocative article in a business journal. Triggers a thought? E-mail the author. So what if you never hear back? (The odds are actually pretty high that you will. Trust me.) [I've done this, and have struck up nice conversations with Tom Peters, Seth Godin, Tim Sanders, and others! jp]

18. A crummy little assignment comes along. But it would give you a chance to work with a group of people you've never worked with before. Take the assignment.

22. A really cool job opening overseas comes up. It fits your skill set. You couldn't possibly consider it. You've got a nine-year-old and your husband is

24. The eighth grade teacher is looking for chaperones for the natural history museum. You're a law firm partner, for God's sake, making $350,000 a year. Volunteer.

30. You know "the action is at the front line." Spend a month (two days a week) on a self-styled training program that rotates you through all the front-line jobs in the hotel/distribution center/whatever.

34. Institute a monthly Brown Bag Lunch Session. Encourage all your colleagues to nominate interesting people to be invited. Criterion: "I wouldn't have expected us to invite ---------."

45. Develop a set of probing questions to use at meetings. "Will this really make a difference?" "Will anybody remember what we're doing here two years from now?" "Can we brag to our spouse/kids about this project?"

50. Build a great sandcastle!

My goal, get through them all by the end of the year. :)

7:03:00 AM

Partnering with our Partners

I really like what James posts in "Who's Helping Whom?"
"A coworker recently described an online initiative that's meant to help retail sales associates advance our cause. How they'll "do a good job for [us]."

Instead, what if we jointly advance each others' causes? Persuasive as money can be to get people to attend events or pay them to visit our site, isn't a more long-lasting effect created by taking the time to advance anothers' interests or goals and taking the time to respond on a relevant level?"

12:23:00 AM

She Knows Funny

Diane: "Why is [I'm With Busey] funny? Well...I can't explain it - you just need to watch it and experience it. It's the funniest thing I have ever seen in my life.

And I'm funny. I know funny. This show is funny."
Gary Busey? BTW, she'll kill me for this, but I caught her on my moblog...
And for the record, she is pretty funny... :)

12:19:00 AM

Tuesday, July 08, 2003

Marketing For Geeks

From Eric Sink, (the author of Marketing is Not a Post Process Step) here's the latest in what he's calling "Marketing for Geeks" series: Act Your Age. This is a great overview of Moore's "Crossing the Chasm" concepts, written with developers in mind. Very well done, and worth the read.
"Several of my recent articles could be considered a series which I would entitle "Marketing for Geeks". The central theme is that if we demystify marketing, it can be competently done by technical people."

'In most small ISVs, it's important for at least some of the developers people to have an understanding of basic marketing. However, most geeks tend to shy away from marketing, citing their lack of creativity and graphic design skills. But these are typically not the differentiators which determine whether marketing is competent or not. Marketing efforts tend to succeed or fail on their strategy and tactics, not on their artwork."

So much for job security! Just don't tell too many that this stuff can be so simple! :)

11:47:00 PM

They're Dying to Know

Debbie Weil asks 5 Key Questions (You’ve Been Dying) To Ask About Business Blogs
What is a blog?
What's the definition of a good blog?
Why should businesses blog?
Do I really need to know about RSS?
Will blogs replace e-newsletters?

11:28:00 PM

Repeat After Me

It's the little things that count. Tim Bourquin posts that "Being Just 10% Different is Enough."
"1) Twice this week the milk canister was empty or missing from the cream/sugar/stirrer area
2) I heard an employee yell at another employee the other day when I was in line and the store was busy - you could just feel the whole mood in the place deteriorate.

Think about that - I've been going to this Starbucks every day for nearly two years and I am ready to find a new place because my expectations have not been met just three times. Consistency in business is one of the most difficult things to achieve, yet absolutely essential to build the kind of successful, steady flow of customers we all want."

I'm sure it's not company policy to ignore such things (in fact, probably just the opposite). But sometimes it's one interaction or one conversation or one ignored phone call. What am I doing to make it harder for my partners or customers? What can I do just 10% better? How can we go from being "good enough" (because it just isn't) to being extraordinary?

11:12:00 PM

All the Buzz Internally

Today was an interesting day. Now, I've had five or six Seattle PI readers forward this. I know most of you have seen this article now many times. But here you go if you haven't seen it: All the New Kids On The Blog. I liked the quote from Rebecca:
"The relatively informal nature of blogs can make them an effective way for companies to communicate, said Rebecca Blood, a San Francisco-based weblogger (www.rebeccablood.net) and author of "The Weblog Handbook."

"It's not a press release, and it's not marketese," Blood explained in an interview. "It's someone talking about real things in a real voice."

10:26:00 PM

Sorry for the duplicate RSS

I've been having trouble with publishing, because I moved my archives, so I've "republished entire site" a couple of times. I'm hoping it gets sorted out soon. Apologies.

10:21:00 PM

Games: Not Just For Nerds Anymore

I loved this headline from Wired News: Study: Gamers Not Reclusive Nerds
""There's this stereotype of game slackers wasting time, goofing off, that really isn't valid," says Marcia Grabowecky, a Northwestern University psychologist who has studied visual perception in humans, including those who play computer and video games.

Playing games is so common for this age group [college students], it's almost second nature, Jones says."

10:20:00 PM

Putting Our Money where the, uh, Money is...

For those of you that think this whole "customer connection" is something only a few of us care about, check out this quote from today's press release about upcoming executive compensation:
"As part of the changes, the company announced that a significant portion of stock-based compensation for more than 600 of Microsoft's senior leaders will depend on growth in the number and satisfaction of Microsoft customers."

I love working for a company that puts an emphasis on listening to our customers. It's hard to go wrong as a marketer if you listen first, then decide what to do (or in Stephen Covey's words, "seek first to understand, then to be understood"). I'm always amazed at what we learn when we listen. It makes setting strategy so much easier, and it makes the programs we implement so much more successful.

2:00:00 PM

Monday, July 07, 2003

Blogs in the Workplace

Yet another New York Times article on Blogs in the Workplace.
"But a growing number of businesses, government organizations and educational institutions are using Web logs to manage and improve the flow of information among employees. These blogs, not accessible to the public, typically allow many people to contribute entries that can be read by others in the organization."

"On one internal (Google) blog, called Google Love Notes, the customer service staff posts thank-you notes from users. One is from a woman who nursed her sick dog back to health after researching the illness on Google; the posting includes a photograph of the healed dog frolicking in a stream. Another came from a woman who was able to find a long-lost love through Google — and who happily reports that she wound up agreeing to marry the man's brother. "

I'm working with Cesar and our internal communications team as we grapple with this. As I've mentioned before, the type of blog I have here isn't what we're talking about. It's more of an ongoing "discussion" about what we're doing internally. I'm not sure where it's going to go, since we're just in the brainstorming phase of it. I've seen it work somewhat successfully for our more technical folks (posting bits of code, bugs, etc.). I'm not entirely sure how we'll use it as an augmentation (or replacement eventually) of email.

Email is so entrenched in our company (probably most of the corporate world) that I'm guessing 80% of our communication is done through email. We use it to send status, send proposals, send feedback, share documents, chat, gossip, get work done. I'm amazed at the amount of email that flows between those that sit on either side of me.

Question is, will another "medium" take email's place? Will anyone take time to jot down their thoughts or meeting notes on a team blog? Or will it just be one more thing to do?

10:36:00 PM

Sunday, July 06, 2003

The Purple Blog has RSS

Seth Godin's books are a must read. And his blog ranks right up there too. He tells me of a top-secret RSS feed the I couldn't seem to find it anywhere on his site. His trusty sidekick Red (and talented web designer) sent it along. Enjoy!

5:43:00 PM

Saturday, July 05, 2003

In Need of a Twelve-Step Program?

Frank thinks so. I give him a few weeks, we'll see who needs the intervention.

7:07:00 PM

Jeri Dives Into Summer

Having four kids under six years old is tough, but Jeri talks about what a blessing it can be. She gives a good glimpse into the other half of my life (though I'm the first to admit she's a much better mom than I am a dad...)
"I can get lost in the laundry or the art of filling up endless days that childhood and dreams are made of with stuff that really matters and makes a difference. I already am more than a kool-aide mom, because I am Steven, Alex, Alyssa and Emily's Mommy and not only do we make the best chocolate chip cookies in the world together, I know how to make gack! And there is no one else in the whole world that I would rather be today or tomorrow or any other day."

6:00:00 PM

Emily's Been With Us One Year Today!

Updating our family website, I was reminded that Emily joined us as a foster child a year ago today! We're so lucky she's here. We hope to adopt her sometime this fall. If you ever had any desire to learn more about Foster Care, let me know! How could you not fall in love with a face like this?

5:42:00 PM

Friday, July 04, 2003

Happy July Fourth!

We had a great time as a family. Thursday night, the kids decorated their bikes for the children's parade. The morning of the fourth, we made a big breakfast, then went to the Carnation parade. After, they had things for the kids to do, and we hung out for a while at the "Yellow Park." The kids took a nap, then we made our way to Tolt Middle School for the fireworks extravaganza. Not too shabby for a small town! Emily especially had a good time watching the fireworks.

After reading Scoble's post, I'm reminded at all the things I take for granted as an American. I know our country's not perfect, but I'm glad I'm here. And I'm also glad to be getting to know so many of y'all worldwide, who remind me that there is freedom to be cherished in many parts of the world. For that, I'm grateful.

11:34:00 PM

Thursday, July 03, 2003

Participating in the Conversation

Brazilian Paulo Colacino posts a comment to Frank's entry about the difference between PR and Marketing. Paulo writes (adding a wink at the end):

"You don´t have to know anything about PR... this a bull[****] way to make branding... Look http://www.cluetrain.com and get out of Micro$oft"

For the record, I kind of agree with his first point. Of course there actually is a lot to know about PR, and to be fair, it is a lot of work, but it's about communication--not simply publishing a press release. It's about knowing customers, creating some buzz, being passionate and playful and open and fun. Inspiring instead of cajoling. Leading instead of demanding. Being part of the conversation instead of broadcasting a one-size-fits-all marketing message.

Now about Paulo's second point... If it weren't for folks like Frank and James and Diane being at Microsoft, I'd be getting out myself. We're all going to make a difference because we're going to listen more carefully to customer like Paulo. And at the end of it all, we'll actually make products that fulfill our mission of helping folks like Paulo reach his potential. It really is why most of us work at MS.

1:19:00 PM

Wednesday, July 02, 2003

A Twist on a Classic

Brian Dear posts his thoughts on the classic Crossing the Chasm curve. We've been discussing some of the same issues internally. And I think I'm convinced that the same consumer can fall into various parts of the curve.

"We're all early adopters of some things, sometimes even extreme technology enthusiasts of some things. Think about it. We're also pragmatists, late majority conservatives, and even laggards or skeptics of other things."

We've been debating internally about recent downward trends of excitement levels by PC software purchasers. Is it to be expected, since PC Purchasers fall further along the curve? I'd argue that more "conservatives" and "laggards" are buying PCs now, and that would explain lower excitement levels for "consumer software and hardware."

10:47:00 PM

Is Microsoft Interesting? Part II

Bill Gates answers Stewart Alsop in a response to USA Today.
"Let's see. He wrote that column every year for the last 15 years. That's really exciting. I mean, he's written that column on a regular basis. I think next year when he writes that it's really going to be exciting."

8:42:00 PM

Amazon.com Developer Blog

Ted, a developer working across the bridge (in Seattle) writes about working for Amazon. Cool!

As a blogging marketer, I'm all over this. It's important that the customer feels the company is human, blah, blah, blah. (Thanks for the link, Joy!).

7:40:00 AM

Beautiful Morning

I got up just as the sun did (around 5AM, since we're so far north). Going outside into the yard to go to work brought back memories of being a kid. I remember my dad going to work early on summer days. I remember him turning on the hose to water a plant, and walking around the yard. I remember going out early to pull weeds in our garden, to beat the summer heat. The cool air, the bright, clear colors, the promise of sunshine makes that time of day magical. These pictures from my phone cam don't do it justice, but it was a beautiful morning.

6:35:00 AM

Esther and RFID

I've been fascinated recently with RFID technology, and what it's going to do for the retail industry. I think we're just beginning to understand how the technology is going to change everything. Esther Dyson made me think about it this morning in a post on Release 4.0. She talks about the "object identity" as a corollary to "personal identity." Very interesting.
"There are a lot of parallels between personal identity and--call it "object identity." There are also lots of ways the parallels break down. For starters, each person born is in charge of his own identity. There's someone there paying attention. By contrast, most products are born without an identity (though they certainly have characteristics, makers and other associated information). To the extent that the information is explicit, it resides outside the product; it doesn't know itself. So the first difference is that RFID is in a sense a way of conferring DNA, or an identity that is inherent rather than attributed (in theory, and as long as the tag stays on)."

In my business (retail marketing), I'm imagining we could find out a lot more about the shopping experience, or the customer interaction with the product while they're in the store. For example, it would be great if we could learn when a product gets picked up, where it moves in the store, how long it remains in the shopping cart, etc.

Not to mention the consumer benefits. Privacy issues aside (I'm assuming the market will regulate that at least for a while, but then I'm known for being too trusting, bordering on naieve), I like that products--especially consumables--are a bit more "self aware." Esther goes on:
"On the plus side, you can imagine a system that manages interactions between products -- pharmaceuticals, for example, or that monitors the products in your household so that you can automatically reorder them -- most likely with a shopping list that says something like: "You have reached [based on past consumption patterns] one week's supply of the following products. Check the ones you wish to reorder: Sunmaid Cinnamon Raisin Bread. Swiss Miss Sugar-Free Cocoa Mix. 16-oz Grape-Nuts...." Of course, there needs to be a lot of software to manage all this, from recognizing the incoming signals to fetching product IDs from the Web and recognizing what kinds of things fit into what categories."

6:34:00 AM

Tuesday, July 01, 2003

My Empire Builds...

...mwaaa haaa haa haa.

Frank Maslowski, another stellar Microsoft employee (who happens to report to me) started up his blog. I'm officially adding blogging to all their review objectives for the new fiscal year! I'm looking forward to hearing what he has to say, you'll want to stay tuned to this one. And I expect a good dose of humor sprinkled throughout.

"My role here at Microsoft is Retail Marketing, so I could be another Marketing guy. However, I'm moving over to the PR team, which I'm very excited about. So, what does PR mean? Is it just getting in the face of our customer? Is it an interruption that makes an initial short lived impact? What about developing buzz or a viral effect? How do you develop buzz, or a sustained message that others can communicate for you? could blogging do it?"

(By the way, I'm working on getting Diane, James, Mike and Frank to move to Blogger Pro so we can get RSS feeds... And if we're all lucky, we'll see blogs by Cesar, Lori, Ed, and Robyn before too long!)

7:01:00 PM

Dave, When You're Right, You're Right...

Dave Weinberger says, in an article in the Star Tribune:
""If companies allow their employees to blog, [they] have the opportunity of engaging their customer in the sort of genuine conversations that build real customer loyalty," Weinberger said. "There is a risk that a weblogger will criticize a product, but in the post-marketing world of the Internet, being frank even when negative can build a stronger relationship than when they are mindlessly positive."

It's not why I blog, but it's nice to get to know so many of you (Dina, Ton, Charlie, Paul, Bernie, Denise, Thomas, Rob, and a host of others into marketing). I'm learning so much from you all.

6:42:00 PM

The Oracle Speaks

How can you not love hearing from Diane Reischling? She runs a successful program for working with our retailer community. To better get to know our channel, her team holds regular "Advisory Council" meeting every month or so (we have a few going across the country, not just in Seattle). We learn the most amazing things, and always come away with information that helps us build better tools, a marketer's dream!

"...it is exhilerating and humbling that people who affect our business through their recommendation to the customer are willing to share their experiences and offer advice."

"I could not pay a researcher enough money to get that passionate and clear of a response. I really like these people."

"They remind me that in every single situation...there is more than just one right answer. Tonight, I walked away with more than I had when I came in. And for me, that is a successful day."

For those of you doing anything that requires making decisions on behalf of customers (or partners), meet with them! Get to know them! This is a low-cost, easy-to-run program, and everyone benefits. Start one up today!

5:57:00 PM

Monday, June 30, 2003

Happy Fiscal New Year!

For all my Microsoftee Readers!

11:37:00 PM

Sunday, June 29, 2003

Never Say Never...

Congratulations to James Martin on his first blog post! He writes:
"I told John P. (my previous manager and a serious blog-aholic) that I wouldn't start a blog, but alas, the day has come to start my very own! After reading blogs from people I work with, I really get the sense that people are more open in their blogs than with each other outside the hallways at work. I plan to do the same with my blog, too."
James has worked for me for years, and starting next week (part of the reorg I talked about below), he will work for a new manager (and close-to-becoming-blogoholic-herself). I'll continue to work nearby, so I hope we'll continue to learn from each other. I've had long talks with James, and he's inspired me with his insight, challenged me with his intellect, and made me look good with his excellent work. I look forward to hearing what he has to say going forward. He's got a lot worth sharing.

3:45:00 PM

Saturday, June 28, 2003

Conspiracy Theory

You're all gonna love this twist of fate, regarding corporate blogs and the role of PR.

I started blogging because of my role in communications and my personal interest in building community. For years, I've worked as part of a sales and marketing organization focusing on the retail sales channel. I wrote recently about a reorg.

July 1 (Tuesday), my team begins to report into the our division's PR group. I will be reporting to the Director of PR (and yes, she's seen my blog). I don't make it a secret (in fact, I put the URL in the footer of every email I send).

If I fall off the face of the earth, and you cease to hear from me, you'll know the black helicopters are circling. :)

11:36:00 PM

This Ain't a Corporate Blog...

...in case you haven't noticed.

Dina Mehta has been writing about how the discussion about corporate blogging is evolving. It got me thinking again about how what I write relates to my company.

Let me point out that my blog isn't much about Microsoft as it is about my job as a marketer. I see it as a way to build/extend my own community of practice. I'm learning more from you all, and in turn I hope I bring up something interesting to you every now and then.

I also see it as a way to teach some co-workers about some of the stuff I find important to the future of Microsoft. I have folks who work on my team who read what I write, and I think it's making a small difference there (at least gets some conversations started).

I imagine at some point I'll find an audience of "customers" who might be interested in what I have to say because they are customers, but my current blog ain't it. Funny how all this works, huh?

11:23:00 PM

Putting the Humanity Back into Marketing

Maybe I'm naive, but if marketing's not about human connection, what's it about? We heard you. We're meeting your need. You give us your support because what we made adds value to your life.

Ton Zijlstra got to meet with a group writing an upcoming book, Beyond Branding.
Beyond Branding is the title of a book due to appear in the fall of this year.

In it, a group of very interesting people describe their vision of how branding can move beyond its current limitations. In the words of one of them, John Moore, it's about putting humanity (back?) in marketing.

I've had the pleasure and privilege to join them for a day of inspiring conversations last January, and it is extremely refreshing to hear marketers speak about trust, authenticity, self knowledge, and transparency and be completely sincere about it.

11:11:00 PM

It's a Matter of Trust

Paul Goodison tells of his experiences at a big telcom company in the UK. It's interesting how many companies have a mixture of good and bad managers, and has examples of great customer service, and poor.
"One key area I see as missing is trust. Managers don't trust Associates. Associates don't trust themselves. Associates don't love customers (as per Nordstrom's view) and definitely don't trust them.

On a course last week even the trainer was pointing out the 'Cover your arse' culture. Perhaps this is why we don't get things right as a company?Although individuals do."

Why don't folks trust each other? People are fundamentally good, and only a small minority actually aren't trustworthy. When people are trusted, they do better work. They're more engaged. When their opinions are valued, they are more accountable. When the environment is open, they communicate more. And when teams cooperate, and when purposes are aligned, arses don't need to be covered...
10:54:00 PM

Discover Your Sales Strengths

I had the chance to get some sun, and mow my lawn today. Which means I got three hours to listen to another Audible book on my Pocket PC. Today, it was "Discover Your Sales Strengths" by Benson Smith and Tony Rutigliano. Few books have had such practical, yet inspiring advice as the "Discover Your Strengths" series from the guys at Gallup Poll.

Key to this book, like the others, is that talent is the key to building your career, or as a manager, engaging your employees. Everyone has a core set of talents, and either finding a job that matches those talents, or changing your job around to take advantage of them is the key to doing great in your job. The title of the first book "First Break All The Rules" refers to the general management practice of expecting good behavior, and "fixing" areas for improvement. At no time is that more evident than review time (mine is due tomorrow).

One key quote for managers (from memory since I don't have a copy of the printed book): Take a look at your business card. Managers aren't expected to be makeover artists. There's a difference between what you can teach new people, and managing the talents employees bring to the table.

10:08:00 PM

Who Says Computers Aren't Making Your Life Easier?

...He hasn't tried IntelliToast!

From the makers of the amazing Linux Switcher ads. (I gotta send this one to the guys on the Nexus team!)

Disclaimer: "Warning. Computers will not make your life easier. And putting toast inside your toaster is a stupid idea."

9:25:00 PM

Cranium Presentation Video

If you missed it, we have a (home-video quality) clip of the presentation online. Thanks to a developer partner we work with, Pacific Northwest Software for hosting the file.

We're working on a better version (from a different camera, with integrated PowerPoint slides), so stay tuned. In the meantime, enjoy the video. Very inspiring.

12:09:00 AM

Friday, June 27, 2003

In Our Own Image

Lara writes an impassioned post where she wonders what prejudices her children will come upon in their lives. Lara is a friend who has adopted her children from China, and is just the most incredible mother. Every now and then, we share adoption stories, and talk a bit about what we're reading, and share computer tips.

I have learned so much from her about service and tolerance and giving. But reading her post tonight gave me some newfound respect for her--something I probably wouldn't have seen if she hadn't written what she did.

I'm not sure why I'm so tuned into this wavelength. And I promise to get back to the regularly scheduled program soon.

I don't know if it's a case of the teacher appearing when the student is ready, or that I'm opening my social circles with what I write here, or that the tide is really changing, here at work, with my friends, and with my family. Probably a combination of everything.

11:23:00 PM

The Secret is You

If you read no other blogs today, read this.

Diane is a co-worker who joined us several months ago from Nordstrom. She recently gave a speech to one of our OEM partners, giving away the Nordstrom's secret to the group who managed their sales associates. I spoke with her today about the unbelievable reaction she got from the team she presented to. And after reading the post, I think I understand why.
"I told them to stop wasting associates' time with talking about how great they as a company are and instead, spend a little bit of time knowing the associate's name and getting excited about how great *they* are. To make the moment about them...not about you. Because in the end, its the associate who is in front of the customer - not a big vendor flag. No one really cares about you - they don't care about Microsoft - and they shouldn't. They should care about why the products work in a person's life and how they work in a customer's life.

Period.

11:03:00 PM

I mentioned that I've been reading Smart Mobs. I was particularly impressed with the chapter about socialogy theory, and the discussions with Microsoft Research employee Marc Smith. Then today I see that Beth got to hang out with Smart Mobs author Howard Rheingold recently. Oh, oh, oh, that would be so cool. I think I'm a sociologist at heart.

I've especially been thinking about it with regard to annual reviews since we're all doing ours this week and next (competition vs. cooperation), blogging (I blog because I'm helping other marketers learn, and I'm learning from them), and leading change (more below)

I had a long discussion with a very smart manager in Dublin about Microsoft's push to be more customer-centric, team-oriented, and "human." We both commented about how good it felt to know that many of us (some at even the ground level) are leading social change internally. Then I read this paragraph on page 45 of Smart Mobs.
"Within a pool of entirely uncooperative strategies, cooperative strategies evolve from small clusters of individuals who reciprocate cooperation, even if the cooperative strategies have only a small proportion of their interactions with each other. Clusters of cooperators amass points for themselves faster than defectors can."

This stuff is so interesting!

10:49:00 PM

There's a Truck Out on the Four Lane...

...hey, it's good to be back home again.

Ain't it like a Microsoftee to fly all day, work on the plane, get home in the evening, and still make it in the office by 7AM the next morning? Folks back in the office asked me what I learned in my trip to visit the folks in Dublin.

I think the main thing is that I have a lot to learn about what's going on with our partners in retail, and we could be doing so much more to make it easier for them.

I learned that in some accounts (think Wal-Mart or CareFour in France), the banana buyer has more pull than the software buyer. I learned that I wouldn't mind moving my family to Europe for a year or two. I learned that SAS has a fairly comfortable economy section (though I'm still not sure what that meat patty was made of...). I learned that every day I'm away from my kids, I miss a day of magic and wonder of watching them grow, and it's passing far too fast.

7:16:00 AM

Wednesday, June 25, 2003

1:35 AM in the Irish Capital

So off to bed I go, plane to catch early tomorrow.

5:38:00 PM

SmartMobs

Denise Klarquist writes about recent innovative uses of cell phones, and the link to moblogging and photoblogging. I read about half of Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution on the plane (maybe I can finish it tomorrow). The book made me think way, way outside of the current use of cell phones. The authors also have a great blog. There's something dramatic that's taking shape. Denise says "...this is probably something to keep an eye on..."

5:37:00 PM

Is Microsoft Interesting?

Stewart Alsop laments in Fortune Magazine, Alas, Poor Microsoft ... You Used to Be So Interesting. He states that he thinks "Microsoft's greatest hope for growth is the next version of Windows, called Longhorn, which the company sees as its competitive response to Linux." He also says that he thinks Microsoft software is "good enough."

Does Stewart really think that all we're working on is the next operating system for Personal Computers? Longhorn will be cool. Huge? Yes. Revolutionary? Yes. A big bet? Yes. Rock the World? I personally think it might.

But, don't rule out the minions that are working on other stuff... There are additional ways to rock the world, and we're looking at the role software will play in all kinds of devices. My kids will see the box under my desk as an antique in the not-too-distant future.

4:57:00 PM

Why you shouldn't work your employees to the bone

When my employees send me links to articles like this: Why you shouldn't work your employees to the bone", am I dilusional to think it's because we have such an open, active, trusting relationship so they feel they can share anything? Or is it only because Frank can be quite a comic? Or is there truth behind the smile? Probably all three...

4:36:00 PM

Excellent Company...

I don't know if it's the charming people, the endearing accent, the sunshiny, cool breeze, the excellent food, or the stimulating conversation, but I had a lovely dinner with some brilliant folks tonight. We met some of our colleagues (Angela, Paula, and Ciara). We talked a lot about our corporate culture, and had a good discussion about how understanding our customer and doing the right thing will almost always yield good fruit. And negativity and bureaucracy and micromanaging and distrust will almost always not.

I commented that after so long at one company, I'm fascinated at the changes that are taking place. There are pockets of "doing things the way they've always been done," (and to be sure, some of them are best practices), but there's a groundswell of people who are seeing things anew, and driving real change by being passionate and engaged and determined to listen, to make changes, to do the right thing (or do more of the right thing, or continue to do the right thing).

I love this company. I feel in many ways that I've helped build it (for better or worst). I love the team I'm on. I love the potential I see in those around me. And I love the hope that's springing--especially since there were times not long ago I had little hope.

After meeting with the folks I met with tonight, and seeing the programs we're working on take shape, I'm happy to be doing what I'm doing today.

And it helps that I'm working with brilliant, lovely, charming people (with endearing accents), and visiting in a time of sunshiny, cool breezes... Ah, the luck of the Irish.

4:10:00 PM

Blogging in the Corporate World

Interesting article in the New York Times, reflecting a few of my own thoughts about why I blog.

"Christopher Ireland, the chief executive of Cheskin, a marketing consulting firm in Redwood Shores, Calif., vetoed a proposed newsletter this year as "too tired and overused" and instead created a space on the company Web site for employees' blogs. On hers, www.cheskin.com/weblog/cilog/ciperspectives.html, she chats about a gadget-oriented scavenger hunt in which she participated and frets about how fast time seems to be going these days.

"It's very personal, almost like writing a journal," Ms. Ireland said. But you have to hit just the right tone or you will turn off customers, she said, by making it seem "like you're trying to market the company."

Blogs have drawbacks. Ms. Ireland has already been unsettled by a query from a reader for more personal information. And because blogs are supposed to contain spontaneous, sometimes provocative musings, they may have trouble gaining favor at companies that want to control what is being disclosed.

Another point worth making:
"Once you get to the point where lawyers review everything in a blog, it ain't a blog anymore," said John G. Palfrey, executive director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at the Harvard Law School, who keeps a blog himself, at blogs.law.harvard.edu/palfrey/."

By the way, I really like this response to the article by Tom at Commonplaces, called the 12-step whiff of whuffie: So are we at step 8, 9, or 10? (I think most of my team still snickers when I use the word: Step 4.)

3:37:00 PM

Tuesday, June 24, 2003

The Marketing of No Marketing (or taking PBR to the tipping point)

A co-worker and great writer himself, Ed, posts an interesting story about customer evangelist marketing in its purest form. New York Times Magazine tells of a local sales rep who got to know his customers, and worked to move his brand to the "tipping point."
"So Stewart went to Portland, visiting bars like the Lutz Tavern near Reed College and the Ash Street Saloon, a bike-messenger hangout downtown. He learned that the kind of people who had ''embraced the brand'' were also the kind of people who detest marketing. But this was not necessarily bad news. He would walk in -- wearing street clothes, never a Pabst logo -- tell the bartender who he was and ''really just sit there,'' he said. ''The word would leak out -- 'Hey, the Pabst guy is here.''' He carried a bag of P.B.R. keychains and T-shirts. Stewart had once been a cog in the gigantic Anheuser-Busch marketing machine in St. Louis and had firsthand experience with barging up to drinkers and foisting trinkets on them. For the Pabst Guy in Portland, that wasn't necessary. ''I was mobbed,'' he says."

4:51:00 PM

Retail University

It's been great to hear from collegues and experts from Accenture that are briefing us on the intracasies of retail. As I mentioned earlier, there's a lot to learn about what our partners go through. It's great to see a roomful of folks from around Europe who are spending significant time understanding what issues are important to Dixons, Carefour, MediaMarkt, and others. There's certainly more complexity than I imagined, and ultimitely there's lots we may be able to do to make it easier for our partners. I'm especially excited about what RFID can do.

5:13:00 AM

Ireland Photoblogs

Bernie Goldbach posts a link to several Irish photoblogs from around Ireland. Perhaps we'll meetup. I'm here through tomorrow. My pics don't warrant further publicity, but the country is beautiful. Today is especially nice, in the 20's/70s.

5:00:00 AM

What Do You Think of Plus Digital Media Edition?

I like that Sean is genuinely interested in collecting feedback. Plus Digital Media Edition is a great product. I especially like the dancers, and I've sent a movie or two to family using Photo Story. In fact, a few months prior to getting Plus DME I downloaded a shareware version of a dancers product and paid $29 because I thought it was so cool--and that was just for one part of what DME provides. $20 seems like a little bit to pay for some pretty innovative features. Sorry to sound like a marketing guy... I promise not to forcefeed you marketing drivel too often... :)

Send your feedback to Sean! I love that he's open about it. I hope every product manager at Microsoft does the same thing.

3:26:00 AM

Monday, June 23, 2003

Fun with Digital Image Pro!

I had some free time on the plane, and came up with this, with a little help from Microsoft Digital Image Pro. Jeri and I love this picture, and have it hanging in our kitchen. With our pasta eating kids, this was a natural...

4:25:00 PM

Great Irish Day

Spent the day at our Microsoft offices in Dublin. I was with about 25 folks from our European subsidiaries doing a pilot of some internal training. I'm amazed at the similarities to our US business, but I'm also equally amazed at how different the business is (especially in Germany and France). I'm learning a ton, and I'm coming away with some good ideas for our US training. And I'm (once again) pleasantly surprised at how brilliant my European co-workers are. That's me on the stairs, with a couple of pix of some co-workers.

3:51:00 PM

Jeri Catches the Blogging Bug...

...I'm gone for a day or two, and it seems that my wife's done a great job posting one of her first blog entries. She's such a great writer, and so emotionally connected that I'm sure she'll do a great job. I know she did what I did, which was spending most of her time reading what y'all have written before jumping in fully. I know she like Rebecca's Pocket, and Dooce, and a few other blogs.

Have a look! If you like what you see, you'd make her day if you dropped her an email. When I get a chance, I'll update the blog to Blogger Pro, add an RSS URL, etc.

3:36:00 PM

Sunday, June 22, 2003

Flight Sim the Right Way!

Scoble points to "the coolest way to run Flight Simulator I've seen. When I die and go to geek heaven, I think this just might be how it looks."

2:32:00 PM

Dublin, Temple Bar

What a great city! This place has good music, lots of food, and friendly folks.

2:21:00 PM

Sunday in Dublin

Made it! Doc's right. No wireless in Boston for the layover, so arriving in Dublin, I have a clean Inbox, and about 80 messages in my Outbox when I connected here at the hotel! More later. Off to see the sights!

8:41:00 AM

Saturday, June 21, 2003

On The Road

I'm sitting in the Seattle airport, logging in from a T-Mobile Hot Spot. 10 cents a minute. I'm in planes, trains, and automobiles today and tomorrow. I'm off to Dublin to meet with the team piloting a two-day "Retail Training" course. We're going to be doing a similar program here in the U.S., and the Europe subsidiary graciously invited me to sit in. I've never been to Ireland, and I'm looking forward to it.

One of our IT contacts, Hillary, is from Dublin. She and I met yesterday, and she told me about some interesting places to visit (funny, though, that all of them included pubs and clubs--since I'm married, and don't drink, and traveling alone, I'm not sure if that's what I'd consider fun...).

Going from 60 degree F Seattle to 60 degree F Dublin. I should feel right at home!

7:23:00 AM

Friday, June 20, 2003

Make The Connection

I won't pretend that CRM is the end-all, be-all, and that it's going to "artificially" replace legitimate contact. But there are ways to connect with people using CMC (Computer Mediated Communications) in a human way. All of you reading this understand what blogs are about, and most of you are "Cluetrain" disciples (or at least are familiar with the concepts).

Thomas Warfield was Thinking Like a Customer in a recent post. He sends email confirmations after each purchase, and he wonders how to make it more effective. "I don't know what you can do to get people to read it. If you try to emphasize the content and say it's really important, then people will think it is spam because spam does that. What could I say that would make people read that email?"

I like what Stephen Dulaney (FM Radio) does. He sends a personal note. A bit different in blogdom, but the idea is solid. Use a human voice. The idea behind shareware is different than the idea of buying a corporate product off a corporate website. The user feels a sense of "sharing" the code, and they probably feel a sense of community among other gamers in the arena. I'd make it really personal, add a tip they might not know, something like that. If they felt a "connection" with you as the developer, they'd also be more likely to pay the fee.

9:42:00 PM

Don't Neglect the B Performers

Harvard Business Review has an interesting article this month called Let's Hear It for B Players.
It's true that A players can make enormous contributions to performance. Yet, as the authors have found, companies' long-term performance--even survival--depends far more on the unsung commitment and contributions of their B players. These capable, steady performers are the best supporting actors of the corporate world. They counterbalance the ambitions of the company's high-performing visionaries. Unfortunately, organizations rarely learn to value their B players in ways that are gratifying for either the company or these employees.

8:41:00 PM

Thursday, June 19, 2003

Stretchy Pants

A bunch of folks from the Xbox marketing group were given tickets to the premier of "The Hulk" to celebrate the launch of the Xbox game. I took Steven and Alex. You get to hear it from them:

Alex: "Daddy, can I have some more paah-corn?" He then fell asleep about 1.5 hours into the movie. Not exactly a ringing endorsement from a four-year-old.

Steven: "I liked it, but it was kind of boring."

Dad: "Yep. 2.5 hours for a "comic book" movie, a bit long. The effects were great. The animation was impressive. The transitions were pretty cool, though I think they got in the way a bit after the first hour. Okay movie, but the kids (and I) liked "Finding Nemo" quite a bit better."

Interesting article about the Keeping the Pants on the Hulk: "Some might think the more pressing question is what anyone past wearing Grranimals is doing wearing purple trousers, but Josh Lucas, who plays the Hulk's rival, thinks it's more a matter of function rather than style. 'Those pants he's wearing is that elastic one-size-fits-all stuff that comes from Walmart. It stretches real good.'". I was wondering about that... :)

Also a bit eery, since Banner looks a lot like a friend and co-worker, Steve Munk.

11:20:00 PM

XML as a Data Model

Dare's convinced me to try RSSBandit. I'm especially intrigued with his idea of an aggrigator being more than just a way to read blogs. Dare patiently helped me understand that XML is a (how did he put it?) data model, not just a way to tag text. Very interesting.I think because of his passion about the topic, and his skill in making it understandable, I'm beginning to understand the "vision" of .NET, and the possiblities it holds. Then again, Dare probably is just shaking his head and mumbling something about those guys in marketing who'll never get it... :)
12:55:00 AM

MSN Messenger 6

I like it!

12:12:00 AM

Cranium, Inc. - Creativity and Innovation in Business

Tonight I attended a very inspiring speech by Richard Tait, "Grand Poo Bah" of Cranium, Inc. For a really cool online version of the game, check this out!

Richard is a former Microsoft Business Unit Manager I worked with about six years ago. He left Microsoft after ten years to strike out on his own, and co-developed a line of fascinating board games. His talk was inspiring, touching at times (especially since the company was founded around the idea of creating moments), insightful, and interesting.

Cranium is deeply tied to their purpose and their principles. The purpose: To Lighten and Enlighten peoples lives. The Promise: Fun moments and memories that igve everyone a chance to shine. Their Princples: CHIFF: Clever, High quality, Innovative, Friendly and Fun

I'm going to try to post the video if I can find a place to host it. In the meantime, he gave a handout with what he calls the "secret sauce" of Cranium, their operating model for success. Here's the PDF.

1. Have a Clear Sense of Mission
2. Create a cuture and celebrate it every day
3. Don't be afraid to change the rules. In fact encourage it and celebrate it.
4. Hire for smarts and rent experience
5. Focus on your core competencies
6. Your customers are your sales force.
7. Beware of the giant hairballs.
8. Be a company with a heart, and give back when your company does well.
9. Lead by example.

12:05:00 AM

Wednesday, June 18, 2003

Microsoft Blogs

Tosh is right. It was odd (but fun) being in a room and seeing some of the faces of those whose blogs I read every day. I feel like these guys are my friends, and it seemed a bit surreal to hear them speak with words. Nothing prescriptive. Just a discussion. The only time the representative on the panel from legal said anything was to answer a question, and she freely admitted she was there to be part of the discussion, and not to bring down any pronouncement from "corporate".

Benjamin J J Voigt says it best (and he's from Switzerland, so that should count for something!):
"In the last 2 years Microsoft Corp. got the message, and I believe is now ready to communicate, things are getting increasingly interesting. In the beginning several people have been sceptical whether Microsoft would pick up the basics of the "market communication" philosophy, but here we are..."

After the meeting, I had lunch with Scoble and Dare, and I'm really impressed with their passion, their intelligence, their openness, and their sincerity. You couldn't have had lunch with a more diverse Microsoft bunch. Me on the marketing, non-technical end, Dare on the brilliant programmer end, and Scoble easily transversing somewhere in the broad middle between the two.

11:47:00 PM

Blog Policy

I was at the meeting. Just for the record:

The only policy that exists for blogs is the same one that exists for any communication to goes out externally (including email). Bottom line is that we were hired because we were responsible adults who are being paid to support the business health of our company. Microsoft's culture reinforces strong individual accountability, autonomy, and mutual trust. My manager trusts that I'll do what's best for Microsoft, our division, our team, him, and mostly our partners and customers. Anything I write can't betray that trust. Seems pretty simple.

And the issue of disclaimers? A good idea, but still not a "policy". So in that light, be aware that I'm not a lawyer (in fact, as a marketer I'm on the other end of that spectrum), and I'm not on the team that sets policy, and I wouldn't know if there were a policy, so "this post is submitted 'as is,' and makes no warranties, expressed or implied. Not valid in all 50 states."

11:07:00 PM

Tuesday, June 17, 2003

Write It One Hundred Times...

(in my best Bart Simpson scrawl):

"I will not write anything in my blog to embarrass my company, my family, or my customers. I will not write anything in my blog to embarrass my company, my family, or my customers. I will not write anything in my blog to embarrass my company, my family, or my customers. I will not write anything in my blog to embarrass my company, my family, or my customers. I will not write anything in my blog to embarrass my company, my family, or my customers. I will not write anything in my blog to embarrass my company, my family, or my customers. I will not write anything in my blog to embarrass my company, my family, or my customers. I will not write anything in my blog to embarrass my company, my family, or my customers. I will not write anything in my blog to embarrass my company, my family, or my customers. I will not write anything in my blog to embarrass my company, my family, or my customers. I will not write anything in my blog to embarrass my company, my family, or my customers. 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5:56:00 PM

Kevin Gets the Feeling He's Being Watched

Kevin Dente, a customer, makes a great point about the "power of listening to customers." I just read through his weblog, and subscribed. Kevin, it's intelligent, witty, honest, and human folks like you that can teach us the most. Thanks for speaking so we can listen!

12:13:00 AM

Monday, June 16, 2003

Be a Bullfigher!

Great site by a (ghasp!) consulting firm, Deloitte, Touche & Tohmatsu. Check out the amazing website, then download the software and make your documents bull-free (works with Word and Powerpoint 2000 and XP)!

11:54:00 PM

Morris Sims Bringing the World to You

Morris is doing quite a job recruiting bloggers, and some of 'em marketers! Cool! Here's a new blog by Tyson Dowd that I'm anxious to read!
What is important is what kind of blog will this be? Will it be full of political rants railing against the government, smiting their short-sightedness while hurling venom at their veracity? Will it complain about mass media and television programs, howling at the programmers and admonishing the editors? Will it brag and blather about the gizmos and gadgets that I am currently playing with, only to be immediately distracted by the next shiny toy to saunter into my path? Will it link to everything rather than generating my own content? Will it boggle and bore you with breakfasts, breakdowns, bludges, blunders, banking and other banalities of my everyday life? Will it link obsequiously to the blogerati in the hope pandering to their ego will make them link back to me when they check their logs? Will it detail the debaucherous life of a debonair single guy in Sin City? Will it lambast the industry pundits and tease out the foibles of analysts and tech writers? Will it revel in the geeky delights of technical articles, asbestos lined programming language discussions, hard-core tool comparisons and heavy technical development war-stories? Or perhaps it will just wither and die as I become bored of the whole venture within mere days, taking up kayaking, decoupage or cross-country skiing instead of blogging.

All of the above!

11:39:00 PM

MBA. Blog. Microsoft. International.

All in one sentence! Ash Jhaveri begins his blog.

11:34:00 PM

Knowing What Your Employees Know

One of my interests (and frankly business objectives) of mine is keeping abreast of knowledge management principles. I've had discussions with my director a few times about corporate memory, and what we can do to better keep track of what employees know (if that's possible!).

David Weinberger points to an article in the Boston Times, where they comment about last week's Weblogs Business Strategy conference. He quotes the article:
Consider: Every business needs to know what its employees know. Companies are crammed with experts on various topics whose knowledge goes to waste — because nobody knows what they know. Now give these workers an internal corporate blog, and encourage them to use it. Let them natter away on every topic that intrigues them. Harvest and index the results. You've mapped your workers' brains. With a few keystrokes, a manager can find out who's been blogging about skiing or bowling or restoring classic cars — just the thing when you're trying to sell something to an avid collector of '64 Mustangs. The company's hidden experts will cheerfully reveal themselves, and the firm's institutional memory gets an upgrade."
Another great reason for employees to blog (where else could you get a stunning, blow-by-blow account of my fascinating day!).
11:27:00 PM

The Mystery Unfolds...

Joe Bork begins to peel back the onion, in a post describing how he got to where he is now...
"...My father is by degree a mechanical engineer, although he spent many years in the petrochemical industry where (I assume) he learned a thing or two about blowing things up. I'm not sure if my father is the original computer geek in my family either, but he is probably the only one to compose a love letter entirely on punch cards. Once I found the stack of cards in a collection of my father's old textbooks and notes -- I think it was made up of FORTRAN comments. (He wrote it during his college years, and the letter was to his then-girlfriend. I guess the letter was effective; I call her Mom now.)

I've never heard the complete story, but when I was about six years old, he brought home a Texas Instruments TI-99/4A computer, complete with manuals and a variety of cartridge-based games. A computer! Wow, now we could do all sorts of things, like... well, we weren't quite sure." ...

Great story! I remember my big sister's boyfriend bringing home punch cards from his job as a computer programmer at a local bank!

11:14:00 PM

What Does a Marketing Manager Do?

Not that you're the slight bit interested, but today was kind of a typical day:

7:15AM: Begin commute on a sunny, cool morning. Drove mostly down country two-lane roads, past many cows, pine trees, and school children waiting for busses.

8:00: Arrive at Campus, pick of the parking lot (typical day for most begins at about 9AM). Catch up on email (Down to 250 messages!)

8:30: Call with a vendor we're working with on some employee training, covering the basics of our retail business (GMROI, Inventory Turns, etc.)

9:00: RMT Meeting: Retail Management Team meets bi-weekly to discuss divisional issues for retail sales and marketing management. Majority of time today spent on planning for the Office 2003 launch, and Holiday plans

10:45: Drive to building across campus. I went with Diane, and we had a good discussion about a meeting she had with one of our retail partners last week, who is excited about the idea of building community among sales associates. Cool!

11:00: Consumer Outreach Team meeting. I blogged about this a while back. We talked about some new consumer research we got in today, were briefed on plans for supporting user groups for the Office 2003 launch, and saw some plans for beefing up some of the consumer sites on Microsoft.com. We talked for a few minutes about blogging (of course, with Beth and me in the room, how could we not?)

12:30PM: Drove back to our building. Picked up tickets to Hulk for my son and me on the way back.

1:00 Lunch in our building cafeteria, outside! 75 degrees F, and very pleasant!

1:30: One on one with one of my direct reports, James. Large part of the discussion was about a new job he's moving to, and the important role he'll play in--guess what--supporting communities (see, at least somebody is forced to listen to me!). Look for a blog from him soon (if I can talk him into it!).

3:00: A chance to catch up on email, and approve a couple of purchase orders before our fiscal year ends (June 30).

3:30: Conference call with a company we're considering hiring for some customer research. After the meeting, one of the people in the meeting asked me what a blog was. I got to show her mine, and describe why it's opened my eyes to the possibilities of sharing our voice with customers.

4:30: Talked with a co-worker who started his own blog. Soon as he has something in it, I'll link! While we were at it, talked a bit about our marketing efforts around our response to Lindows and StarOffice.

5:00: An employee had some questions about our upcoming reviews. I gave some advice (after 13 years, I've now done 27 reviews. Another story for another day).

5:30: A co-worker asked for some help setting up a new laptop. I don't know how I've become "tech support" for our team, but I have to get my sense of self-worth somewhere... :)

6:00: Back to email, finally a minute to check out my RSS feeds, see if anything interesting's going on. A reminder about tomorrow's blogging meeting from Scoble.

6:30. Email's now up to 325. But it's time to head home to see the kids before bed.

7:00: Out the door, 25 minutes from Redmond to Carnation.

Fairly typical day where I have meetings, but two days a week I keep pretty light if I can. I tend to catch up on email in the evening, or in power bursts every few days. I like to keep my inbox at around 25 or less (using David Allen's technique when I'm being disciplined about it, lots of Microsoft folks do).

I'm reminded almost every day how incredibly lucky I am to be doing exactly what I want to do, what I love, and what I think is helping our company fulfill its mission of helping our customers realize their potential.

10:39:00 PM

Worried About Barbie

Brian Keller is worried about Barbie.
"She hasn't blogged in over two weeks. Her last entry says she was feeling stressed and that she had a "mini meltdown" (which, for plastic figurines, is a serious cause for concern!). If anybody sees her, please let me know.”

(Editor's Note: Even marketing people miss their deadlines sometimes... Bet their annual reviews aren't coming due in June...)

10:19:00 PM

Sunday, June 15, 2003

Influencing, or Being Influenced Part II

Sean Morrissey sent me a comment about my post Influencing, or Being Influenced. He makes a great point that "we need to go further than being influenced by the community. Microsoft should [lead] the community. Every community has thought leaders, who may or nay not be approachable. We’ve got to become more approachable…"

I think in the dev case, he's 100% right. As long as we're already a member of the community, it’s possible to emerge as thought leaders, and lead that community. The company can provide resources, but it’s still members of the community that lead the community, not a company (of course), and not someone who is not a member of the community.

In my role, I’m thinking more specifically of customers of consumer products (Xbox games, Pocket PCs, Encarta users, etc.). I’m also thinking about retail sales professionals, 21-year-olds who work at CompUSA or Best Buy. I hear product managers get excited when I talk about community because they want to instantly increase sales by cramming a marketing “campaign” or “message” down their throats. Problem is, in some cases, they don’t really know the customer, what they need, what they like, what language they use, etc.

Since we’re just getting started, we need to dip our toe in, check the temperature, and slowly become part of the conversation. Then allow that conversation to influence us. Once we’re trusted, and once we’re accepted, we can begin to influence the conversation.

Many Microsoft developers are already members of the community, some of the most vocal and passionate, and are already influential. And Sean's right, we all need to be more approachable.

1:53:00 PM

20 Questions

Tommy Williams, Dare, and JP Stewart point to a fun site where it'll guess what you're thinking in 20 questions or less. Took it a bit longer, but it guessed toenail clippings in 26 questions. Weird!

1:28:00 PM

Dramatic Rescue, or Dramatized Story?

Last weekend, I got a link sent from Factiva about a dramatic boating rescue in Utah Lake. I have a search folder set with my last name (so I can see if relatives are doing anything stupid or great), and I was surprised to see a story set in the lake near my hometown. I was more surprised to see my 22-year-old brother's name as a "survivor". Our family grapevine is usually pretty good.

More interesting, though, is how different the account is coming from my brother. Compare the two. Salt Lake Tribune:
Pair safe after boat overturns on Utah Lake Utah County authorities said life jackets likely saved the lives of David Porcaro, 22, of Provo, and Andres Gianfelice, 32, of Payson, who spent more than an hour in Utah Lake on Thursday after high winds overturned their sailboat. They were tired and hypothermic after they were pulled from the lake by a search and rescue team and a citizen volunteer, said Sgt. Dennis Harris of the Utah County Sheriff's Office. Both were treated and released. A pilot flying his plane over the lake at about 6:45 p.m. noticed what he thought was a boat in distress and reported it.

My brother's account:
This report heavily dramitized the tale. Our boat flipped (it happens all the time with these size boats, and we were pretty trained on what to do). However, the lake being so shallow, the mast got stuck in the mud. After signaling to some boats for a while we decided to swim back to shore because no one was coming. We were almost there when two jet skiers picked us up and took us back. When we got there the Search and Rescue was all over the place. "What's this for?" I asked. "It's for you" they told me. I wasn't expecting this commotion, it was not serious at all. But a plane flying overhead saw us and called 911. Yes I was a little cold, but they gave us blankets and within a few minutes we were fine. Yes, I was praying that someone would see us, but only because I was getting a little tired, not because I thought I was going to DIE or anything. So, I have learned that not only our family grapevine, but the news as well are great sources for exaggeration. :) I am fine.

Is this how things started at the New York Times?!
1:17:00 PM

Creativity in Business

Speaking of Maxwell's book, in Thinking for a Change he mentioned fellow-blogger Charlie Park's company Play, as an example of a company that has incorporated creativity into all aspects of their business. Charlie's company has a tag line of "Look at more stuff. Think about it harder". I love that!

Play publishes a white paper called Business Unorthodox: Creativity and the Bottom Line, definitely worth looking at.

12:41:00 PM

Thinking for a Change

I just finished listening to John C. Maxwell's book called Thinking For a Change. Maxwell has some pretty good ideas about being more prescriptive about taking time to think strategically and creatively, including taking time out to learn, ponder, and share ideas. The book talks about 11 kinds of thinking, including reflective, shared, creative, unselfish and big-picture. There are lots of examples, and some useful tips, like how to discover your gifts through focused thinking, ways to break down complex issues with strategic thinking, and how to understand the value of examining the worst-case scenario through realistic thinking.

One of the things I like about blogging is that it gives me time to reflect, and put into words things I'd probably just let evaporate. I also enjoy the time I spend browsing other blogs, and I find myself learning, and being influenced by what you write.

I once was speaking with a co-worker about a book I had read. I mentioned that I should give it to someone on our team who could learn from it. He mentioned that it was a waste of time, and that he didn't think the person would read it, or if he did, he wouldn't change anything. I remember being shocked a bit by that comment, since it seems so foreign to me. I can't help changing something about the way I think after spending hours in someone's (virtual) presence, especially after reading a well-thought-out argument. At the very least, I remain convinced that the author is wrong.

12:33:00 PM

25 Dumbest Moments in Gaming

Gamespy presents the 25 Dumbest Moments in Gaming. Quite a fascinating read. Funny how all failures look so clear in retrospect. Seems like the recurring themes are rushing development for a promised launch, abusing the trust of partners, and not being close to the market/customer.

11:13:00 AM

Worth a Thousand Words

JP links to Worth1000, an image manipulation contest site with 38,000 submissions. There are some simply amazing creations, including this sea cow, and a gallery of Martha Stewart redecorating ideas for her new place. I'll honor the copyrights by linking and not posting. Check it out!

6:29:00 AM

Thursday, June 12, 2003

Magazines (Snacking)

The other day, a new friend Lori asked me what I read (at least 50% of the articles). She's co-hosting a Fast Company Company of Friends meeting with Cranium co-founder Rich Tait, here in Redmond June 18 (you're all invited!).

Anyway, here's the list:

Fast Company
Business 2.0
Harvard Business Review
National Geographic Adventure
Rock & Ice
EContent

11:45:00 PM

Heath Row Types Really, Really Fast

Secret Revealed! Heath talked about "conferenceblogging" the recent Weblog Business Strategies Conference, and mentioned that he catches almost every word verbatum. Wow!

Even more exciting, he confblogged (like we need another new word) a recent Fast Company Real Time event. Must read!

11:28:00 PM

Influencing, or Being Influenced?

Based on an earlier exchange with Dina, I later had two great conversations with co-workers, Lance and Frank. We were discussing some of our team's efforts around building community, and I put into words something I've been trying hard to convince everyone I work with. Hearing about Dina's brilliant approaches to learning more about the youth market (we dabble in that with Xbox!), I had this thought:

We shouldn't try to influence the community. We should allow ourselves to be influenced by the community.

Subtle difference, but perhaps profound. Marketing is about knowing the customer, understanding their needs, and meeting those needs in a way that's efficient.

If we want to use community to understand our customers, we're not "building" that community: it either exists or it doesn't. I think the best we can do is (unobtrusively) monitor what's happening. If we're really lucky (or happen to have $40 billion in the bank), we can facilitate communication in the community with some good tools. That's where my team comes in.

How can we make tools to make it easier for us to hear our customers? How can we help them have more open conversations with each other? How do we keep the finger on the pulse of our important markets? How can we add value? Most important (at least to me), how can we really help our customers reach their potential? In their jobs? In their play time? In their volunteer work? With their families?

11:01:00 PM

Blah Blah Blah

So JP thinks I have too much to say (okay, I should quote him accurately, he says it can be hard to keep up"). Okay, I type pretty fast and I have lots of random thoughts... :) I hope I make the titles clear enough, and the entries short enough (or at least scannable) so it's easy to quickly scan. And I appreciate the nod, JP.

JP also pointed me to a longer shot of a Space Shuttle launch here. I watched it straight for about 20 minutes. Just fascinating. I don't know why I was so enamored.

10:45:00 PM

Stunning video footage of Rocket Launch

Wow. This is great. I love talking to my 6-year-old son, Steven about space, and he's convinced he wants to be the first person on Mars. With his love of math, curiosity, and physical skills, he just might do it.

MSNBC covered the launch of the robotic rovers heading for Mars. Click on the picture of the rocket to see a video clip of the launch from the ship's perspective. Very cool!

7:58:00 AM

How to Work With a Designer

Charlie also points to a great article on How to (and not to) work with designers written by Daniel Will-Harris, and summarizes it on PureContent.
1) Choose your designer carefully.
2) Leave your preconceived notions at the door.
3) Tell your designer what you want to say rather than how you want it to look.
4) Be clear about specific features you need.
5) Do your research and be specific about your needs.
6) Make sure your message and content are clear.
7) Design for your customer ...
8) Have good reasons for your preferences.
9) Don’t design by committee.
10) Don’t tell your designer how to design.
11) You can’t please all the people all the time.
12) Trust your designer.

7:01:00 AM

So Tell Us What You Really Think

Not sure why anyone would ever want to search for a "bag of plagues," but Charlie Park at PureContent did on PriceGrabber, and found this.
Your search for "bag of plagues" was unsuccessful, try a more specific search term. Did you mean Office 2000 Pro (Full Product)?

6:54:00 AM

Wednesday, June 11, 2003

Writing More About Customers Than TO Customers

Chuq mentions that he's encouraged other marketing folks where he works to take a look at my blog. I really like the idea of community among other marketers, and I’ve learned some from reading others’ blogs, but there’s still not a lot out there yet about marketing that I've run into (see my blogroll for as many as I've found so far).

It got me thinking, though, that I find myself “meta-blogging” too much—writing too much about our customers, and not writing much to our customers. I know many of you reading my blog are MS customers (or at least potential customers) at some level, but I haven’t found my voice yet (or even a clear mechanism yet) to share what I’m thinking to more day-to-day partners, co-workers, or customers. I need to do that. I expect that at some point soon, I'll branch out into a second or third blog, or find a good way to categorize my posts, and publish relevant content.

We're close to rolling out a more interactive B2B platform (using SharePoint Portal Server instead of pure ASP pages) for our channel partners and channel sales reps.

In the meantime, I like that I’m connecting with other like-minded bloggers, and I'm learning a lot about community by becoming more a part of this one.

6:34:00 PM

Sun Microsystems Memory Lane

Chuq Von Rospach and I worked together at Sun Microsystems back in 1989 or so. It was fun remembering Sun as a small but growing company, intent on launching the SPARCstation. I worked in a small division selling TOPS networking software, connecting Macs and DOS PCs and Unix workstations, all using "Flashtalk", a version of Appletalk. Chuq reminisces:
The time I spent at Sun was a fascinating time, not just a small company growing and going public, but it was a time where the industry was really starting to change the larger world around it.

2:23:00 AM

Tuesday, June 10, 2003

Excellent Transcription of Weblogging Conference

Wow. I don't know how he did it, but Heath Row got almost every word down. Worth a read.
9:16:00 PM

Summertime

Some pix from the weekend!

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8:40:00 PM

Blogging Do's and Don'ts

Clarke posts a summary of Blogging Do's and Don'ts by Catherine E. Reuben, a labour and employment lawyer at Robinson & Cole.

Don’ts

- Don’t do personal blogging on company time or company equipment.
- Don’t talk about your employer on your personal blog.
- Don’t fire off stuff on your blog without being prepared for your employer or your potential employer to see it.
- Don’t sign form “confidentiality” or “intellectual property” agreements without reading them very carefully and consulting with counsel. Many such agreements are way over-broad, and you may have more bargaining power than you think.

-Oops
-Oops
-Hmmm. Okay
-Oops.

6:09:00 PM

Charming and Incandescently Bright

Michael O'Connor Clarke was on a panel with Beth. He says it all:
When I sat down, I thought: "well, there's two flacks and a Microsoftie up here - I guess the other two guys should be pretty safe ;-)" (yes - I think in emoticons). Strangely it kind of went the other way. Beth Goza, who I'm sitting right next to, is just so charming and incandescently bright that she instantly had about 90% of the room on her side (or at least that's how it felt from up at the front).

That's what I'm talking about. We're all more similar than we are different.
6:05:00 PM

Make It Emotional

Learning Lab Denmark: Neuroscience Speaks for Practice-Oriented Learning (quoted on elearningpost)
"The fact is that we are not even masters of our own conscious memory. What we remember and what we do not is subject to an emotional control, which follows a simple principle. If a given impression has emotional meaning we learn it. If it does not trigger emotional response it is not learned. In this case amygdala works as a kind of ‘emotiometer’, which regulates hippocampus and conscious learning. This serves a purpose: to economise the resources with regard to what to learn. So, if you want someone to remember what you say, make sure that it has emotional meaning for the person who has to remember it."

Great learning for the online training my teammate Lori is responsible for. We've recently moved from a "read and test" system to an interactive system (Microsoft Retail Training).
5:57:00 PM

Weblogs in Corporate Marketing

Alan Karl writes and article called It's Time For Marketing To Embrace Weblog Concepts & Technologies

I'm already hearing rumblings of RSS feeds showing up on SharePoint team sites. And I'm encouraging our team to think about daily posts on our B2B sites to update everyone on what we're doing, and to make them human.

5:39:00 PM

Customer Partner Experience

Had a great meeting today with a Marketing Manager from our CPE Team (Customer Partner Experience). Yep, it's a serious initiative, and as a company, we're making plans to change our culture in dramatic ways, one manager, one employee at a time. I get to work with other managers in our division (Home and Entertainment) to roll out this initiative more formally. Not that an "initiative" can change people by itself, but it's a start. And as a marketer, I know the power (and limitations!) of a "program" to influence change.

I get so motivated and passionate when I get to work with others that share the same vision I have of a more responsive, more open, and more "human" Microsoft. It might take some time, because our culture is a powerful thing (it served us well for many years). Changing the focus is going to be slow, but the power that comes from really stepping back and remembering why we're here is an amazing thing, and when you do it, you can't help but be changed.

5:20:00 PM

Empathy for Customers

In Themes in User Experience, Part II, Peter Merholz writes about the struggle between engineers and marketing. Thanks to a great little blog, elearningpost.
Through our empathy, we inevitably become advocates for our users. When people in the organization try to get end-users to do things they would have no reasonable interest in doing, we pipe up, saying, "You can't expect people to do that! They have no motivation for it, there's no value in it for them!" When people in the organization dismiss those who can't use a product as "stupid users", we shout, "They're not stupid! They're just being people! They're being themselves. You haven't bothered to understand the context in which they're using it, their capabilities, their desires. Don't call them 'stupid'!"

And then we often turn around, and complain about those "stupid engineers" or "stupid marketers" or "stupid management." They don't understand anything. They're just making our jobs harder.

5:07:00 PM

Beth Called "Outside Person at Microsoft"

I love that title. Highest compliment a fellow blogger could pay, especially if it's coming from Dan Bricklin!
Here's another picture of Beth Goza. Meeting her was kind of exciting: Not only is she a Microsoft employee who has a personal weblog (dumped on by the Register), but she and her husband have his-and-her Segways. He maintains the cool "Book-of-Seg" website. (My regular readers know I write about the Segway once in a while.) She's an "outside" person at Microsoft who works on community around Windows.

5:01:00 PM

Creativity and Innovation in Business

Wednesday, June 18
RedWest E, Emerald Room
6:30PM

Richard Tait, Founder and "Grand Poo-bah" of Cranium

Here's a great opportunity for marketers, sales folks, or brainy game players and their friends to spend an evening with Cranium co-founder Richard Tait. In this free workshop, you'll learn from Richard and other Fast Company readers about Innovation, Strategy, and Leadership.

Ex-Microsoftee and Cranium "Grand Poo-bah" Richard Tait speak about creativity, innovation, and business, and we'll break into functional groups for an interactive activity. Ought to be a great evening!

Invite your friends! No solicitation or donations will be requested, it's just a chance for business folks in the Seattle Area to get together and learn from each other.

(I'm part of a group of Fast Company readers who get together to learn from each other, and marketing professionals in the Seattle Area. I've helped arrange this "user group" meeting for Microsoft employees and the business community.)

Let me know if you have questions, or any kind of special needs. Please RSVP so I can make sure we have enough room for everyone. And please forward as appropriate.
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Background on Cranium, Inc.:

Cranium was recognized at the end of last year by Fast Company Magazine as a "Fast 50" Company. For background on Fast Company Magazine's definition of a "Fast Company" go to: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/71/uptospeed.html

When Richard Tait and Whit Alexander set out to start a company in 1998, they had a distinct mission: create a lifestyle brand fueled by products and services that would lighten and enlighten people's lives. Their goal was to create special moments, memories, and emotional touchstones that people could celebrate at home, at work, and with friends and family-all the while laughing and learning. Tait and Alexander's vision was to create the brand for the brain, and Cranium, Inc. was born.
With more than 15 years of combined experience creating award-winning software products, the two former Microsoft executives applied the innovative product development methods they learned at the software giant to build great products that would delight customers and deliver incredibly fun and rewarding moments. Using the "iterative design" process honed during their days in the software development business, Cranium, Inc.'s founders blended intense consumer feedback gathered during prototype play tests with original game concepts.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

No Cost to Attend. Bring a friend!

Non-MS employees can SIGN UP: Forward an email to lori@smileanddial.com as your RSVP (Please do not reply, but forward). If you are driving, and are not a MS employee, see below.

Seattle CoF coordinator: Lisa Boerner seattlecof@attbi.com
Venue/Speaker coordinator: Lori Richardson lori@smileanddial.com (206) 972-0265

7:40:00 AM

Monday, June 09, 2003

My Wife's Calling...

...gotta get home.

Not to diss my laptop or tablet, but...

...It's SO MUCH EASIER to blog on my work PC with a full keyboard and mouse!

11:48:00 PM

Focused Performance

Interesting post quoted by Focused Performance called "You Know a Project is Failing If You Can't Stop It," originally posted by Third Wave.

Great concept. I know that when we get projects too far along, or too late, or too over budget, everyone forgets the bigger picture. I often have to remind myself of the business school 101 concept of sunk costs. If the money's gone, don't count it. Make any decisions based on looking forward, how much you'll have to spend, how much time it's still going to take, and what the alternatives are. Often, doing nothing is a better alternative to finishing a project.

11:29:00 PM

Marketing is Not a Post-Processing Step

Great article by Eric Sink about how marketing positioning is vital to the success of a product, and how it has to be built in from the ground up.
Marketing is not just telling the world about your product. Marketing is also deciding what product to build. You have to design and build your product to fit the market position you want it to have.

11:17:00 PM

Speaking of Flow

I'm about halfway through "Good Business: Leadership, Flow, and the Making of Meaning," by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Lots of great suggestions for creating an environment where flow can happen. It focuses a lot (so far) on how managers can create a condusive environment for employees.

A co-worker Madeleine (the marketing manager behind "Microsoft Insider") introduced me to the concept a year or two ago, and the thought's stuck with me. I think I'm in flow with these blog posts tonight.

11:12:00 PM

Action or Motivation?

Dina asks "which comes first, action or motivation?" Wow, great question. For me, usually the first. If I can get just enough motivation to get started, I'll keep it going.

Whenever I start a long document, I spend the first hour messing with the format. I get all the style sheets just right, I put the pages in order, I write the TOC. By then, I'm in "flow" and can just get going.

BTW, Dina's got a great, great blog.

11:06:00 PM

My Wife's Mom Bought Another Mac

Yep. I talked her into her first Mac when I worked at Sun Microsystems in 1988. Most marketing folks back then used Macs exclusively. I asked for one when I joined Microsoft, just prior to Windows 3.0 launching. I was told to deal with it.

She wants a copy of Office 10. I owe her (and Joy!) a copy.

10:54:00 PM

GreatAuntKate Thinks I Need to Say More

My friend Lara thinks I need to say more about my adopted kids!

Four kids (actually three adopted, one foster child). Oldest from foster care. 3 year old twins from a private adoption, and one year old foster child we plan to adopt this year. We've had 24 foster kids in our home in the last six years. Some for a weekend, some for 2 years, some (Steven) for forever. We first had him placed when he was about 18 months old--he's almost 7.

If you have any questions about adoption, let me know! I'll talk your head off!
10:48:00 PM

Thanks Chris

Maybe it was because Scoble was there, but I wanted to thank Chris Pirillo for sending me an email and telling me that my RSS feed is actually 1.0, not .91 (I changed the link). I told him in an email I need to read others blogs less and write more. He responded by pointing me to his OPML file. Holy smokes!

I'm catching up on my blogging with SharpReader. I installed NewsGator, and there are things I like about it (being able to easily forward a post in an email, for instance).

10:45:00 PM

If You Can Say Anything Nice

Speaking of Scoble, he points to a comment made by Dare about the "Microsoft Blogmania" going around. I've done my part to recruit co-workers, friends and family...

His comment is great, though, and made me wonder about the energy I put into my blog, and how much more (or better or different) it would be if I did the same writing emails to co-workers and executives. Or made content for microsoft.com. Or wrote more marketing plans. (Of course, I do that too).

10:44:00 PM

Blogging the Bloggers

In case you haven't seen it, Beth does a great job blogging the Jupiter Weblogs Business Strategies Conference. Doc is there, and David Weinberger (Beth's notes from his session here), and a host of others. Who is not there? Scoble. And me. :(

I like this quote from Dr. Weinberger: At the back of the conference are some round tables at which people are sitting, laptops sprawling. They're doing what the rest of us are doing: listening but also IM'ing, checking email from time to time, looking up links. Somehow it reminds me being at a drive-in: there's a movie playing at the front, but attending to it is a social event....

10:35:00 PM

Fotolog Revolt

It's not the revolt at Fotolog that is interesting to me. It's that Scott Heiferman is writing about it himself, and using this interesting photo in his photolog as an illustration. I'm not sure what the right answer is, but I like that the company is listening.

10:28:00 PM

Dear Reader...

Chris Hollander writes an especially inspiring blog entry.
Most importantly, though, I've spent alot of time thinking. Thinking about you, reader. At the end of the day, there's a pretty simple reason for all of this; The reason that I wrote this blog engine in the first place... the reason that I write the way I do... the reason why I've invited friends of mine to share this software... the reason is You. I want you to know what its like to be in your mid twenties, in New York City, during the turn of the millenium. These really are interesting times. Your still reading this, so you must think that I'm somewhat interesting.

Everyday, I'm finding more and more folks here who share my perspective, my need for better connection. There are folks here who are here because they really do want to help you (dear reader) to realize your potential. As the ads say, it's why we do what we do.

10:14:00 PM

Reorg Day

Today we announced a pretty substantial reorg. In my time here at Microsoft, I've been though at least one a year. I've had many, many jobs, more managers than I can count, and lots of different responsibilities.

My team is being split into two groups: Internal Communications (worldwide Knowledge Management, Intranets, B2B sites, internal training, etc.) and Channel Training (retail store sales associate training).

We have a month before it takes place, and I'm sure I'll write more about it.

I'm really proud of how everyone's reacted, but mostly I think I'm proud of our VP, Steve. He's exhibited remarkable leadership, has been sensative and professional, and set a great tone for our division. A year ago he and I discussed some of the principles in "Primal Leadership," and since that time I've learned a lot from him by watching him lead our division through some rough times (as you know, the retail market ain't the best right now...).

I'll be reporting to a different team a bit higher in the organization, and I'll really miss this group I've come to see as my family here at work. Good news is, though, many will be coming with me to the new team, and we'll all be working together no matter where we sit. "We are all retail."

5:46:00 PM

Sunday, June 08, 2003

A New Marketer

The other day I was doing a Google search for a marketing manager, and I found this post on Chelsea Harms' website. She tells about becoming a new Marketing Manager at a mall in Alaska. I remember my first days doing marketing. How exciting, and overwhelming, and interesting, and boring, and full of potential. I started out volunteering to stuff envelopes, just so I could hang out with Mari Baker and Scott Walchek at a company called Migent Software. I worked my way into a job as their group assistant, then went from there.

Welcome to the world of Marketing, Chelsea! You'll do great!

Also reminded me that most of the other 500,000 folks blogging aren't in high tech!

11:35:00 PM

Why Does Barbie Blog?

Great post on The Digital Tavern, another fascinating marketing blog (at least fascinating to marketers...). Why Does Barbie Blog?
Ok. So you blog or you don't blog. But this plastic figurine that represents the best and worst of American marketing, Barbie, has been blogging for some time. What? She's not in your blogroll? I mean no holds barred here. This is fictional blogging. Not some bloggers fantasy or twisted reality. Barbie is - well, she's Barbie. And Mattel has her blogging.

Don't be looking for a blog from Clippy anytime soon... Oh, wait, this sounds almost like a blog!
11:22:00 PM

Unshrink Part III

Looking at the comments, I see that unless you're running a "popular browser" the link might not work. Kind of ironic. Anyway, thanks to the folks at the CS Dept at BYU, by deleting the actual page from the link, you can see the raw files. Here is the WMV File. Sorry... :)

4:38:00 PM

Unshrink Your Organization

A while back I did a post called "Microsoft, Ever Think Some of Your Customer's Hate You?" Max McEwean spoke at Microsoft, and made quite an impression. I was wandering around his site, and found a link to a similar presentation he gave at BYU a while back. Here's the link.

2:03:00 PM

Friday, June 06, 2003

Tales from a Retail Computer Tech

One of the customer segments I work with is retail sales professionals. A few weeks back, Frank and I got a backstage tour at a Micro Center in Ohio. We met the tech guy there, and he told us about a few stories of repairs brought in by customers. This site cracked me up, as I was amazed at the stuff they get to deal with! (I've seen 3-4 of these on my own computers, since I have four kids under 6!). Thanks to Joy (G33K)

8:38:00 PM

Thursday, June 05, 2003

We Must Take the Microsoft Story to the Next Level

Steve Ballmer sent a long email (coming soon here) to every Microsoft employee yesterday, as reported in most business publications. Most focus on the fact that we're facing a large battle with Linux.

They got it right that we'll be increasing our advertising budget (I wonder how much that's going to do for us in the age of inattention). The part of the story they missed is Steve's commitment to changing the culture internally, to one of more external facing.

My favorite quotes that affect my team directly (and the reason I started blogging) (emphasis added):

"To generate enthusiasm for our company and innovations, we must also communicate more broadly and in a more human and compelling voice. Â… We will explain our mission to help people realize their potential and discuss the amazing work we and our partners are doing."

"...people would appreciate our innovations more and the value we deliver if they knew the company and its people better. This not only helps customers feel good but also helps them understand more of what we do and how to take advantage of what we do. We are putting effort into this by encouraging our developers to participate more in the communities around their products and by communicating broadly to the industry regarding important and often emotionally charged issues and trends such as security, privacy and rights management."

"We must take telling the Microsoft story to the next level. We need to significantly step-up participation in community and on-line forums. We should look at communicating about new product design to customers earlier through on-line design discussion. For some products it makes sense to publish regular builds of new products on-line, for community feedback. More of our headquarters people should spend time talking to customers Â– not just CIOÂ’s but users, school kids, large groups of IT users and developers. All of this work should let people know us better and help them understand more about what we are doing and how to take advantage of it. ...">/blockquote>

I'm proud to be here during this (potentially) transformational time, and I'm proud to have people like Robert and Chris and Beth and Diane (and Frank and Lori and Cesar and James) leading the charge.

   5:07:00 PM

Wednesday, June 04, 2003

Altoids? Slurpee? Advanced Technology Watch with Subscription?

Now here's an idea for distributing Microsoft's new SPOT watches (I'm on the channel marketing team, and I never thought of that...):
"(In the future) the watches will be shrink-wrapped in 7-Eleven next to the Altoids, and people will get them for $20 with service,"

   9:13:00 PM

It's the Little Things

Beth blogs that she loves US Airways because there's power in the seats. Because American Airlines has power in a good number of their planes, I've switched my preferred airline to American. I'm not a huge, power-flyer, but I fly enough that United is going to miss my reimbursements from my employer. And I'm going to get more work done while I fly.

It's not the clever ads. It's not that the airline is employee-owned. It's not the on-time departures. It's not the number of hubs. It's not even the frequent-flyer program. It's that there's power in the seats, and I have lots of email to catch up on.

Jet Blue did research with customers, and asked them "what do you want?" New planes. A business class feel. And they found that for less than the cost of a hot meal, they could put TVs in every seat. It not only saved them money, but it dramatically increased the loyalty of customers (who can get excited about a rubbery chicken meal?).

It's the little things. What do our customers (partners/clients/users/employees) consider to be the most important feature of our products (services/relationships)?

   7:23:00 PM

Hey Southwest Airlines, Do You Know Kristen?

Kristen wants to introduce herself:

now, i would imagine that you're the kind of multibillion dollar corporation who really wants to know your customers, so let me tell you a little about myself. i'm 5'8, i'm a college junior, I CANNOT SURVIVE FOR ONE WEEK WITH ONLY ONE PAIR OF SHOES.

But all is not lost, Southwest. Because of the blogging community leaving comments, Kristen later states:
keep the vacation horror stories coming. southwest is starting to look not-quite-so bad.

In fact, a few of the comments were left by those defending Southwest. Who says Blogging isn't used for marketing?

   10:16:00 AM

Tuesday, June 03, 2003

How Many Blogs Are There?

410,756.

   11:17:00 PM

The Games Industry Crisis

Interesting post from Greg Costikyan about how dev costs are rising exponentially (due to Moore's Law demanding better graphics/art/interactivity), but that the market is growing only linearly. Something's gotta change...

   11:12:00 PM

Microsoft Home Titles

The aforementioned article (Dvorak) mentions that Microsoft Home Titles drove the CD-ROM market. I was around for that, and was a Product Manager in the "Consumer Division" (later the Interactive Media Division, then the Interactive Media Group, then the Home and Retail Division, now the Home and Entertainment Division).

I was the Product Manager of our first "educational/entertaining" CD-ROM "Musical Instruments". By then, we also had out Bookshelf (first multimedia CD-ROM from Microsoft) and Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Here's a review I Googled.

Over the years, i was the Product Manager of Dangerous Creatures, Ancient Lands, Dinosaurs, Art Gallery, Isaac Asimov's Ultimate Robot, the Ultimate Frank Lloyd Wright, Dogs, World of Flight, and several other titles. Fun!

And I do think we helped pioneer publishing multimedia apps. We spent millions on the first titles, building our own "hyperlink" system, anti-aliased fonts, graphics palates (remember, we only had 256 colors to work with), our own audio codecs, our own animation engine for the videos, our own sprites for anything that moved, our own index and search function--all written by hand). We paid a bunch to license content (Dorling Kindersley, Byron Preiss, National Gallery, Scholastic, others). Our dev teams were pretty large by today's standards.

Interesting that you guys could build a title like Dinosaurs in a weekend using HTML: 200 pages, 100-200 words per page, 6-8 illustrations per page, one or two audio clips per page, and 6 30-90 second animations.

   9:00:00 PM

Who I write for

I just read a comment from Thoman Warfield title Marketing and Blogging. He has some good thoughts about how companies are using blogging for marketing. In it, he commented that he liked that my blogs were in English (no offense to my techhie friends, me talk pretty one day like you). I like his tone, and what he writes about. I'll be checking in every day or so.

Made me wonder whom I write to. As I write, I think I'm writing to:

50% Those that work for me, or maybe with me internally, in a "mentoring" kind of way
30% Other marketers (like you!)
10% Other MS internal folks (Scoble, etc.)
10% My mom.

I think for it to be successful (whatever that means) I need to move the "other marketers" to be the majority. And then I need to find things to say that would be of value to folks like you.

I really liked what he had to say about disclaimers, etc. It's been a big issue internally, and we're all talking about it. I found myself actually pausing a bit when I wrote about a product I use (SharePoint) but that I don't know all that well (I'm not super technical, and I don't work for that team). I got the sense that in that case I might be promising a feature that might not exist, and I got nervous. I agree that the concept of "filtering" is what may cause the medium not to work as well as it could.

Finally, he points to an article by John C. Dvorak, where he claims that Blogging is the Next Big Thing. He claims that Microsoft will somehow take this over, and that Steve Ballmer keeps a secret blog somewhere. I seriously doubt it. I think I like it better having Mr. Dvorak rolling his terrible eyes and roaring his terrible roars. We don't need his nod.

   8:29:00 PM

Make Your First Experience the Best Experience

Today I helped a friend set up her first blog. I pointed her to Blogger as an easy way to get started. This is from her first entry:

I have to tell you all that the customer experience of getting hooked up to blogger and blogspot is not the easiest.

It's too bad that the very first experience she had was negative. I'm a happy Blogger user, but partway through the installation (after entering several usernames that came back as "already taken") I suggested she check out Radio. She wanted the option of having a free site (rather than Radio's 30-day trial), even though she's planning on moving to the BloggerPro site soon (to get spell checking, RSS, titles, etc.).

Two points to make:
1) In this case, the "totally free" hook got her, even though Radio is easier to use and the same cost for a "serious" site. Something to consider...
2) The first experience almost drove her away. Programmers/Marketers take note: If you have trial software, IT BETTER WORK. Blogger almost lost a user. It's easier for "currently satisfied" users to forgive a little hassle. People trying your service out have no incentive to not walk away.

   8:11:00 PM

Clever Popups

Gary Stein points out that some companies are actually adding value to their interruption marketing. It's clever that Forbes is adding a thought of the day to ads, something to get us to not completely ignore them. Good idea.

   11:14:00 AM

Now Here's a Blog Everyone Can Use...

Great discounts. Just ordered a toy for Steven... Thanks to Shawn Morrissey.

MoreStuff4Less
   7:02:00 AM

Monday, June 02, 2003

What I Love About Sharepoint Portal Server 2.0

I just saw the beta of our new internal portal (msweb instead of msw if you're internal). There is lots of stuff I love about SPS2 (as a user, not a marketer). I especially like webparts, and that the Digital Dashboard is finally a reality.

Mostly, I like the "My Site" feature, that keeps track of documents you've written, who you work for, and with the addition of a bit of XML code, my blog in a web part. Now that's cool.

Imagine finding a document through a search engine or on a team site, then clicking on the author's name, and having the option to instant message them ("are you done with that draft yet?"), see a picture (I think I met him a year or two ago), see an org chart (ah, so that's who he is), see other docs I've written, seeing how many had opened the doc in the past (internal google-juice), its rating (ala Amazon), seeing links to my family page, and seeing the RSS feed of my blog.

All without any programming, FrontPage editing, or anything. That's powerful stuff.

And since I'm not a product manager (some things I've said here might be wrong), I'll leave you with my disclaimer: this posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

   7:36:00 PM

Communities of Practice

We have several marketing disciplines on our team (communications, merchandising, demand generation, packaging, etc.). Each has people dedicated to managing strategy and tactics, and every person is great at what they do.

When my co-worker asked about building new skills, I brought up the concept of developing Communities of Practice, both internally and externally. How do you get to be best at what you do? How do you become the "resident expert" in your group, in your company, in your industry?

I've found that by meeting with others in my area of specialty, I can share idea, learn from others, and keep my mind in a mode of expanding. You can start formally (there are several books on developing such communities, such as Cultivating Communities of Practice).

Probably even easier (and in some ways maybe more effective) is begin getting together informally with a few folks you've met that do similar jobs. Go to lunch. Exchange email. Attend the same meetings. Teams like this can build into a strong network of friends who share ideas and learn from each other.

Go into your immediate community. I attended KM World last fall, and heard James Greenhouse from Eddie Bauer. He has a very similar job to mine. We met afterwards, and later in the year, my team met him at the Eddie Bauer HQ. We've extended the invitation to do the same. No trade secrets--just sharing ideas, successes, etc. Now with a little more strategic foresight I could extend this out to Comm Managers at other retail businesses in Seattle.

Finally, attending groups like the AMA or Fast Company's "Company of Friends" can get you involved in others that are passionate about marketing. I'm helping set up a meeting for COF later in the month here at the Redmond Campus (Richard Tait, who started the board game "Cranium" is confirmed to lead a workshop on Creativity in Business! Set for June 18, around 6PM. More details later, you're all invited, and it's free).

   7:16:00 PM

The Brick Testament

Dave Barry's Blog: "HOWEVER MUCH SPARE TIME YOU HAVE

The person who did this has more."

   6:52:00 PM

Finding Nemo

All of you are raving about the Matrix on your blogs. My family and I saw Finding Nemo. Given its opening of $70 million, looks like a bunch of other families joined me.
   6:50:00 PM

Sunday, June 01, 2003

The End of the Thirty-Second Commercial?

An article from MediaPost predicts the end of the TV commercial, but not as soon as some would think.

"PVRs are not going to go away and video on demand is increasingly going to challenge traditional television advertising," said Aditya Kishone, an analyst with the Yankee Group who specializes in ITV and PVR. The Yankee Group predicts that both video on demand and PVRs will increasingly gain a foothold in American homes. More than 32 million households will be VOD-enabled by 2006, the same year that there will be 19.1 million PVRs operating.

   9:46:00 PM

Seth Godin and the Purple Cow Seminar Online

I was able to listen to the live presentation, and now the free archive is online. Great presentation with good examples of how being remarkable is the way to avoid being invisible. Interesting hour if you like Permission Marketing and other Godin books.

I really enjoyed Purple Cow (Check out his supplementary e-book, 99 Cows. Download it here).

By the way, Seth keeps a pretty good blog.

   9:13:00 PM

Friday, May 30, 2003

Aaaah. There he is!

There's Eric's voice. Nice to hear from you!

   9:24:00 PM

I'm Here! Now What?

In a post titled inAudible, Frank Koehntopp tells how he tried to log into Audible to download a book. As you've seen below, I really am a big fan of Audible.com, but I sympathize with Frank.

Summary: this was one of the worst shopping experiences, and I ended up not buying anything at all.

It's interesting how often customer experiences end in someone not only walking away, but actively disengaging and vowing never to come back (you'd never do that because of bad experiences with Microsoft products, would you???). Companies spend most of their marketing budgets attracting customers, advertising, giving out samples, paying salespeople, often with results. In the best of cases, an engaged customer evangelist (me in this case) convinces someone to give the service or product a try.

All of it is wasted if the customer experience is bad. Whether a buzy signal (or endless phone trees), or a nasty (or absent) receptionist, a rude cashier, an inflexible customer returns rep, or bugs in software (ya, I know, I know), one bad experience--particularly if it's the first experience--can drive customers away.

Sorry the experience you had was bad, Frank. I hope Audible takes your feedback seriously.

   8:33:00 PM

What Started Me Blogging?

Tosh Meston asks us "What Started You Blogging?"

For me, it was brought up in a conversation by Beth Goza in a meeting of Consumer Advocates internally. A group of us meet every few weeks to brainstorm, share best practices, and talk about what we're working on. She said blog. We said (pretty much collectively) "huh?" She said the only way to get it is to try it.

Two Months later, here we are.
   5:23:00 PM

Solving Customer Needs or Creating Confusion?

In a story called Bluetooth: The truth gets worse, ZD Net writer David Berlind explores the perception that the Microsoft Bluetooth-based wireless mice and keyboards aren't compatible with built-in Bluetooth radios. In fact, "after buying Microsoft's Bluetooth peripherals, you will encounter a warning from Microsoft that you must disable that built-in Bluetooth (that you paid extra to have and thought to be interoperable) and use Microsoft's USB-based Bluetooth transceiver instead."

In a customer comment, Bruce, a (potentially lost) customer responds "I went out this week to buy one of Microsoft's BT keyboard and mouse packages and was disgusted to see a note on the side of the box indicating that I would have to disable the internal BT and use the Microsoft external USB BT adapter. Is this really true? And if so, is there another alternative out there?

Berlind researches the issue, and finds that it's due to early Bluetooth adapters being incompatible with HID. Microsoft wireless architect Mike Foley reports (in the article):

"The Microsoft keyboards and mice will most definitely connect with third party radios," says Foley.

Describing how those radios must support the Bluetooth's Human Interface Device (HID) profile (the Bluetooth standard profile for supporting interface devices like keyboards and mice), Foley continued: "When our mouse and keyboard first shipped, most if not all other Bluetooth stacks for the PC didn't have HID support. Thus, the mouse and keyboard wouldn't work with them. This has changed over the past year, and the packaging text is being reviewed."

I'm glad that Berlind did some more searching, and found (and published) the real answer. I'm personally (and in my own opinion) baffled that Microsoft wasn't more proactive (including updating the packaging and web site earlier) in getting the word out.

We're not building walls, in this case, we were trying to do the right thing (provide a complete solution that solved the problem with HID).

   7:51:00 AM

Thursday, May 29, 2003

Ambient Orb

How cool is this?
   10:55:00 PM

Did I Tell You Lately Sharepoint 2.0 and Office 2003 Rock?

My team runs our division's Intranet site, called Retailweb (internal link if you're a Microsoftee). Cesar, our able, willing, and quite personable Mktg. Mgr. does a great job keeping things fresh, updated, etc. Lately, he's been getting more and more into Knowledge Management, and he's impressing me with his level of passion and ability to understand the customer issues.

We met with the folks who run our company Intranet Portal, MSW (MicrosoftWeb). With web parts, and SharePoint 2.0, and the work they're doing, we're going to have a solution that will be fairly easily implemented, and will save everyone a ton of time finding information.

In Office 2003, I love the feature that allows you to send a doc to a SharePoint site when you're sending an attachment. That feature alone is going to change the way we do document management. I love this stuff.

   9:37:00 PM

To my customer, "Business is Closed"

While I was away from work for four weeks, I didn't check email. Like most companies (and most ISPs for that matter), our IT group has a policy that gives email users a set limit of storage for email. At one point, you begin to get warnings. Later, you can no longer send email. Finally, they refuse incoming email. And with Unified Messaging (integrated voice mail), voice mails are included in this quota.

With loads of spam, a few mailing lists, daily newsletters with graphics from ClickZ, BusinessWeek, Business 2.0, etc., and with employees sending 3MB PowerPoint decks for review and cute videoclips, these mailboxes fill up pretty fast.

Imagine what happens when someone goes on leave for four weeks. Two weeks into my leave, Microsoft refused all my incoming email, voicemail, and faxes.

As far as those wanting to communicate with me, I didn't exist. I had clients/customers and family calling me on my cell phone asking if I still worked for the company.

I understand needing to work with finite resources, but to turn a deaf ear to a customer, co-worker, or client, simply to save a few dollars on disk space (or worst, to enforce an arbitrary policy)?

Bad Business, I think.

In a related story, our receptionist leaves for lunch, and for two 15-minute breaks during the day. Same issue. If a client happens to come at 12:05, we have no receptionist. What difference does it make to the client that she's there 7.5 hours a day, if she's not there when the client arrives? Might as well have no receptionist. The customer perception, N=1, is reality. At that moment, everything comes to a halt.

When we see things from the eyes of our customers, decisions become easy.

And don't forget, this posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. I speak for me. Good ole, frustrated sometimes me.

   9:28:00 PM

Classic games from Nintendo, Namco, Capcom, Atari, and others

Just for fun: Shockwave Flash Games: Classic games from Nintendo, Namco, Capcom, Atari, and others

I worked in an arcade when I was 16 or so, right around 1979. This brought back many fun memories...
   9:19:00 PM

Beware of Business Processes

From someting I read a few weeks ago, still rolling around in my head. Dave Weinberger links to an article in his Loosely Coupled weblog to an article on Patricia Seybold's site called "Beware of Business Process Management."

. "If you attempt to design business processes a priori, you're going to design in a set of assumptions and requirements that may not be adaptable enough" — especially in customer-facing environments. Instead, she recommends thinking of all the separate functions in a business process as independent services (such as inventory management, shipping, returns handling):

Quoting Patricia: "The advantage of taking a services approach to your former business processes is that the flexibility and adaptiveness is automatically built in at precisely the right level ... The basic difference between business process design and collections of services is the adaptive property of emergent behavior. Patterns of behavior among services emerge in response to customers' improvisations ... start thinking of choreography as a way of capturing the patterns of useful and pleasing improvisations that services do for us on our behalf."
.

Part of the group I'm in manages business processes, and for a few years I was part of Marketing Operations team that was responsible for researching and managing business processes for the Home and Retail Division. I enjoyed the discipline involved, the creative thinking, and seeing it improve our business.

Recently I took a Six Sigma green belt certification course, and learned quite a lot about connecting customer needs with processes. So often we jump from defining a problem loosely to coming up with a fix, all without asking any questions or doing any measurement. I know several groups that have saved millions already with better processes because of the discipline that Six Sigma provided.

Of course, business processes are a lot more than just a nice timeline on a "placemat" (our term for our laminated 11x17 Gantt chart). There are people involved (certainly part of the "system" as well): marketing folks who procrastinate, those that are overwhelmed, those that have different priorities than our "process", those that don't know the process, those with their own processes, some with egos, and the occasional marketing folks who don't play by the rules.
   8:59:00 PM

Wednesday, May 28, 2003

Real Conversations

I was recommended FM Radio (and subsiquently Radio UserLand). As part of the signup process, I was asked for my email address. I was later personally contacted by the CEO of SocialDynamX, Stephen Dulaney, with personal comments about things I'd written in my weblog. He writes about it here.

I am learning that this is a great social way to meet new people. I ask for the email before they can start the evaluation. I have been trying to find their blog and read about their interest and then write them a personal note asking them to tell me what they like and don't like about our work. In this short very non scientific study I clearly see the corrilation between human and social capital.

I am finding great intrest in web logging from peoples who are in occupations where they meet and work with lots of people every day. Occupations like doctors, laywers, teachers, journalist, and youth ministers. Oh and the one Marketing guy from Microsoft.

As a customer, I really liked getting a personal email from him. I think there's no better way for a person, company, or CEO to get to know their customers than corresponding with them. And there's no better way for me as a customer to feel a personal connection with a company. Because of the peronal touch, I've installed the software, and I'm a lot more serious about switching now than I would have been.

And on top of that, I feel I've made another relationship with someone I could be friends with. I'm enjoying reading his blog, and I really believe he's onto something with his ongoing discussion about Social Capital. Fascinating stuff.

   9:41:00 PM

Morale Events

Today we had an infamous "morale event" for our group. We spent the afternoon in the cool Seattle springtime having a barbecue and playing volleyball on the Microsoft courts, just off the main campus. There's a large sports field with a full-size baseball diamond, two full-sized soccer fields (normally used for Ultimate Frisbee), and a tournament-sized volleyball court. It turned out to be a perfect afternoon, all for the cost of a catered lunch.

One of the things I enjoy the most is hosting events like this (though our administer planned this one completely). I've been on the team responsible for three annual Road Rally events, with puzzles, picture clues, and activities at various stops. We've done everything from ropes courses to helicopter rides to spam carving to rock climbing.

All in all, as far as morale goes, I enjoyed the time with the team, the relaxed pace of the afternoon, and the chance to get some grub.
   9:28:00 PM

Officially Humbled

Okay, now that I spend a bit of time browsing some Macromedia blogs, I'm sufficiently humbled. They're doing a great job with blogging! I like what I see. Especially this one: Kevin Lynch, Chief Software Architect. I wonder if we can get our Chief Software Architect to blog? His site's kindof like a blog (it has dates and content and stuff he says)...

And don't forget, this posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
   1:51:00 AM

Can Blogs Be Used for Marketing?

So after a day back, the thing that's on my mind the most is the amazing exchanges I've had with many of you over the past month. Several discussions I've had today have come back to blogging. And the most frequently asked question is about the marketing value, and if how they could ever be used to sell something.

Oh, by the way, this posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights...

Here are two responses I sent to Microsoft employees, the first to Joe:

Are blogs part of the answer? I think so, but only after they “cross the chasm” and ordinary people write (and of course read) them. I imagine our customers will read a daily update of what we’re thinking if it relates to them. For sales reps at retail, it might help if we could give them ideas for how to better sell our products, or how to answer tough customer questions, or offering glimpses into what we’re doing in the future, or linking to the latest download of a game or a patch.

Mostly, I think a blog could give them a sense that they’re being heard, and that they have an insider contact at Microsoft. The thing I love about blogs is that they scale, but they remain personal. You might have 100 people reading your blog, or 10,000, and they all feel like they know you personally. That’s really cool.

And another, to a Microsoft Sales Manager in Australia...

My job is to build community for our retail partner’s sales associates, and I’m beginning to think about how blogs can be used there. I think I’ve learned over the past two months of blogging (and reading others’ blogs) that it really is hard to put into words.

I think having (others at Microsoft) blog could bring about a bit of “social” change, showing that we have a “human face” and maybe begin to build some trust. I think that if a (potential) customer was reading a blog, and could read (and comment/contribute) to what we’re working on, they’d know that we're listening, and I think they’d be more prone to trust us. The nice thing about blogs is they have a very personal feel about them, but they scale infinitely (I feel like I know Doc Searles from his blog, even though he doesn’t know me).

I'm just happy to be engaging others in the discussion about something I care so much about: communicating with customers!

Did I mention that this post is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights?...

   1:14:00 AM

Tuesday, May 27, 2003

Back to Work, Young Man!

At Microsoft, we have a long-standing tradition of battling with the issue of "work/life balance." As a management team, we're always looking for ways to make sure a decent balance exists. In our annual employee polls, and our management offsites, we talk about how to achieve a good mix for ourselves and our employees. It's one of the things I like about the group I'm in. In fact, in a conversation I had with a senior VP a few years back, he mentioned that it was one of his most important challenges, and that he saw it as a bad thing when individual employees worked late night after night.

What I've found in the past four weeks is that my work/life balance is off!

I had too much life, and not enough work.

I'm actually glad to be back. I missed the stimulating (and even challenging) discussions with co-workers. I missed the daily dose of my regular business newsletters. I missed the cafeteria food (beats Mac and Cheese and Top Ramen, perennial kids' favorites). Most of all, I miss the quiet. With my office door shut, it's such a peaceful (if not stressful sometimes) place.

By the way, our LCA Group (legal and corporate affairs) wants me to say this whenever I talk about work: This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

   7:22:00 PM

Sunday, May 25, 2003

Gonzo Marketing

I read for the second time Chris Locke's book Gonzo Marketing. It's funny that long, long before my blogging lifestyle (which only started two months ago when Beth Goza turned me onto it), I had read Gonzo Marketing and got only a little out of it. I believed the Internet was going to change everything, and I even subscribed to the thought of markets as conversations. But I didn't understand how a company could move to actually having them in a systematic, ROI-returning way.

Not to say that webloggin is it, since in many ways it hasn't crossed the chasm yet. But it (or something like it) will be the way we'll be able to have conversations with our customers. For now, I like that it allows us to show a "human" voice, rather than the "press-release-ese" of some marketing communications.

So after reading the book again, I realized that the concept behind Gonzo Marketing is about allowing employees to build (or participate in) communities (or sponsor already-built communities), and have real conversations with a human voice. Chris toys with the idea of having them work full-time (we do have a handful of folks who work with corporate-sponsored communities, like the Club Pocket PC that Beth helped start, the MVP Program Tony Russel manages, and the Mindshare User Groups, run by Alan Chitlik for example). I'm mulling over ideas of how to do that with my areas of responsibility, but I think I'm at a different level of understanding than I was a year or two ago.

   11:04:00 PM

Another Microsoft Marketer!

Becky Dias has returned from vacation a new blogger. From what I can tell, she's posted more in the past four days than in the past month! Great!

I enjoyed what she had to say about putting the customer first. Sound like yet another who may be able to put the pieces together in helping those who use our software realize their potential in new and exciting ways.

I wonder how many of the 1,300 "officially classified" as Marketing folks at Microsoft have blogs. So far, I've found the four of us (Beth, Diane, Becky, and me).

   9:45:00 PM

Friday, May 23, 2003

Playing the Customer

My team is in the process of picking a research company to do some detailed customer profiling to help us better understand what our customers are experiencing while shopping at retail. In the process of hiring a company to help, we put out an RFP to three companies. We're not talking about a quick phone-and-publish survey. We're talking several hundred thousand dollars over the next few months.

We had two of the three present their proposals to us today. (Remember I'm still on leave? I went in today to attend the meetings.) The two proposals we saw looked great, and both companies had the right experience to do the job. One company, however, very nearly got the job on the spot. And it all comes down to two things:

1) This company had done their homework, and really understood what we were looking for. In fact, when asked to reiterate back what we were looking for, they just nailed it. They knew what we wanted, and they had spent a lot of time preparing the proposal. Part of this came from them already having experience in the area we're looking for, but part of it came from their preparation.
2) They came across more professional in the (spoken) presentation. We felt more at ease, and better represented by these guys. They had the right answers. They were in "tune" with us during the presentation. The other team lacked the same communications skills, and came across unprepared and unprofessional.

Interesting. Our decision on whom to partner with comes down, again, to a personal touch. A personal voice. The proposal will be studied before a final decision is made, and we'll ask clarifying questions. But in the end, it's about who we're most comfortable with, not even so contracts and RFPs and proposals.
   9:09:00 PM

Thursday, May 22, 2003

PhotoStory

Beth Goza does a pretty cool PhotoStory (part of the $20 Windows XP Digital Plus Pack).

I don't really like the audio blogs, but this has some potential. Seeing what she's talking about as she narrates really brings it to life. I've used PhotoStory (see my family web site for my semi-weak Christmas video). It was cool because it only took 15 minutes or so, and I've never really used this kind of software before. I should do more of these myself.
   11:10:00 PM

What If You Built a Blog and No One Came?

ClickZ recently ran an article called What If You Built a Blog and No One Came?, written by new blogger Jared Blank. Scoble points out that this is "another example of the "corporate types" coming in and trying to make weblogging work for them." Not that I completely disagree, but effective communications "tools" will always be used to further free enterprise, as long as they work. I give Jared a lot of credit for making the posts, they're actually pretty good. As a marketing guy myself, the only reason I cracked open this universe is that I thought it would give my team and I a good way to understand our customers better (assuming they're reading us, or we're finding what they're writing--but that's another story).

I think three problems exist:

1) The right people don't know the content is there. Those who would be interested in the content need to know the content exists. Buying keywords on Google is one way. Emailing links to the blog (treating it like a newsletter almost) to clients is another. Putting the word out to prolific and widely-read bloggers is another (though probably the least effective for now).
2) The blogging community is largely tech writers and personal users (from my perspective). The blogging world is divided up into a lot of subsets, but the one he's stumbled into (Scoble, Doc, Winer) is largely a tech one. Marketing as a discipline, or executives, or sales people, are just getting wind of it. Be patient. For now, consider the "blog" as just another way to have a conversation with current or potential clients or customers. There's a lot of blogging about blogging (metablogging, I've heard it called) going on.
3) The conversations can't sound like corporate marketing. As Scoble points out, the blogging world today is a large conversation, with lots of dialog. In the comments section, Jared responds: "We can't link to other bloggers. My blog is part of the Jupiter corporate site and for whatever reason, we've chosen not to link to other blogs." This as much as anything speaks to the feeling that this is just a marketing tool, not a conversation. I highly recommend reading the Cluetrain Manifesto and Permission Marketing to those marketing and PR folks who still live in the world of "broadcast" marketing.

Personally, I think the content is interesting, and as a frequent flyer, I think I'd peruse the site every now and then. I'll add the link to my already-way-too-long Blogroll, and pull it off if I don't find myself on the site at least once a week. I might even pull in the RSS feed.

As someone who does market research, I'd be interested in hearing how these analysts think, and if one of them resonated with me, I would hire them. My team will be spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on market research this year, and finding a company or an individual analyst that I trusted would help me in finding partners to work with (the marketing angle).
   8:15:00 PM

The Onion: 80% of Human Discourse in Web Product Reviews

A co-worker (Cesar) sent this to me. While there's always a bit of truth in everything The Onion posts (which is why it's so funny), I think my team might be mocking my blogging ways...

From the tens of millions of consumer reviews posted on retail giants like Amazon.com to the more specialized message boards of Motorcycle.com and Macaddict.com, Piersall estimated that 80 percent of all human discourse now takes the form of product reviews on the web.

While some online reviewers give little more than basic pros-and-cons of a product or a one- to five-star rating, many use the write-ups as a vital means of self-expression, providing in-depth anecdotes about their own experiences with a particular product, or even their autobiography. On Amazon.com, some reviewers create deeply personal Listmania! lists, such as "The Best Kung Fu Movies Ever" or "Things You Absolutely Need To Survive Working In A Cubicle." Full Story

   2:55:00 PM

At the Crossroads

Very interesting discussion at the informal Seattle gathering of bloggers. I got to finally meet Robert Scoble and Dare Obasanjo and Joshua Allen and John Lambert and Joe Bork (not Joe Beda, sorry Joe!). We were joined by Simon Phipps, and Ted Leung. Ted has his notes, and a picture of Joshua and his daughter here.

I was totally impressed with the openness of the conversations, the calibre of the discussions, and the fact that these guys "have a clue."

I had a great conversation with Scoble and Phipps about how big companies become bad companies, and at what point they quit caring for their customers. He brought up the idea that at the point some companies become successful, they develop some kind of a "hitler youth" movement, where those working for the company believe the company can do no wrong, that the competition really is the enemy. It's interesting to have watched that happen, after I joined Microsoft in 1990. I think many of us began to love our products more than what our products were doing for our customers. I see a subtle, yet hopefully profound shift occuring, maybe from necessity, maybe from fear, or maybe from a movement by those that really believe our company vision, or by those (like Diane) that really love our cusomers. I hope to count myself among the latter.

We had an indepth discussion about how marketing is changing. It was refreshing to be among a bunch who believes how I do, that markets are conversations, and that broadcast doesn't work (see Searles, Weinberger and Godin). In fact, even PR has changed significantly. Rather than the old notion of "posting a press release" and getting people writing about your products, it's really more about face-to-face than it's ever been. Since it's so easy for anyone to post a press release to the news wires, they're being largely ignored (just like any other kind of interruption marketing). Journalists rely on personal relationships more than they ever have, not less.

I reiterated to Scoble that we hired the right person for his role, and he'll do great. He really cares quite a bit about Longhorn (good for him), but I really get the feeling he cares as much or more about the community he's a part of. And that really rocks.

In a side note, since we had Sun Microsystems folks in our midst, we spoke a bit about the Open Source "movement". In an interesting conversation, Dare explained how he built RSSBandit. He described that by using the got.dot.net community, he was able to put code for RSSBandit out there (on his own time), and that several developers contributed ideas and even bits of code. No money involved. No corporate edict. It sure sounds a lot like "open source" to me.

   2:28:00 PM

View of Earth from Mars

Oh, how cool is this?! I love Google News.

   1:28:00 PM

Wednesday, May 21, 2003

Google Ads

A while back, Doc Searles asked if the context-sensative ads were related to the blog, or the person who logged in. Today, I went to DianeR's blog, and found the following ads. Should answer that question...

Diane James Bouquets - www.peacockalleygifts.com
Stunning Silk Floral Arrangements Delicately Handcrafted
Hire Diane Loomans - www.bigspeak.com
We arrange keynotes for self-esteem expert, Diane Loomans!

   6:34:00 PM

Tuesday, May 20, 2003

Supporting Community and Blogging

I sent a co-worker this email:

The more I think about this, the more I'm convinced that there is a place for us, and whoever else is along for the ride, to really become the face of Microsoft to these Retail Sales Reps.

Using these blogs as a tool, what could we write about to help them with their jobs? Could we give them tips on great customer service, the cool new "slashdot" (http://slashdot.org/) or "Tom's Hardware" tip of the day? Could we link to our blogs right from microsoft.com/retail? Could we build a "wiki" (a multi-user, public blog) -- essentially what slashdot is?

I want these guys to feel like we're helping them, and that somebody is listening, even if it's the other RSPs who are the ones listening to them (and responding). We can deliver ot these guys everything they want, not just online training, and become their voice to the rest of the Microsoft. And we'll learn a lot about them, and the "mechanics of retail" while we're at it.

The think I like about Scoble's blog is that I really do feel that he's a friend, (ironic since we never met), because once--only once--he quoted me (linked to my blog), and responded to a comment I left on his blog. I feel more a part of "his" community (which is really the dev community) than I ever have in my career, even though I've worked for a software company for 13 years. It really is the power of "voice".

Or maybe I'm delusional, and nobody is going to read this stuff…

In response, he sent me this:

   2:39:00 PM

Monday, May 19, 2003

Why I Love Mowing the Lawn

I have a pretty big lawn, and I've (so far) refused to buy a riding mower. I spend close to three hours once a week (from May-Oct in Seattle) mowing the lawn. Apart from the only appreciable form of exercise I get regularly, I love it because I can really get into an Audible book on my Pocket PC.

This week, I listened again to the first few hours of The Cluetrain Manifesto (in addition to the reading I'm doing of Small Pieces Loosely Joined hard copy). There are lots of gems there I've missed. As the team I'm on works to build better community among sales folks at stores that sell Microsoft software (including Best Buy, CompUSA, Office Max, etc.), I want to learn more about them. I'm encouraged that we're on the right track, and having a conversation rather than "marketing to" them is going to be the key.

Once I'm back to the office, I'll likely do more cross-referencing, but won't from home since most of the books I access in hard copy are at work.
   11:14:00 PM

Saturday, May 17, 2003

Duvall Days 2003

The whole fam damily spent Saturday at Duvall Days, our neighboring town's annual celebration of "Country Living." The kids got to walk in the Children's Parade, and they had a great time! We missed the cow pie bingo, Fireman's Pancake Breakfast (postponed until the new firehouse is built in September), and the fireworks (cut due to budget constraints). It was sunny and nice, and it was a great day for everyone.

   7:18:00 PM

Monday, May 12, 2003

Real Internet

Well, maybe not really really real, but better than Starband. We just got our cable installed (after six years), since our no-charge "beta" of MSN Satellite (after two years) is expiring, and we had to begin paying the $50 monthly bill. Millennium Digital Media came out and found the 1000-foot buried line to our house (with some pretty cool gadgets). Now I'm getting 1.5MB down (okay, on a good day), and much, much faster uploads than before.

With satellite, downloads were pretty zippy (up to about 1MB), but uploads were limited to about 14.4 bps, slower than slow (if I had to upload anything of any size, it was quicker via our phone line--of course, this basically eliminated the ability to VPN to work). On top of that, there was a good 5-6 second delay after every request, so nothing "real time" (Xbox Live, phone, etc.) would work.

So, we're linked. And even though MSN Satellite was free, I'm not sure why I put up with it for so long.

So with wireless rocking, you can tap in if you're in the neighborhood (maybe taking a walk up the Tolt Pipeline Trail). Be sure to bring along your PocketPC. You might need to bring your Pringles can...

   8:51:00 PM

Day at the Beach

This blog is starting to look like our family web site, sheesh. We had a great day as the sun peaked out in Duvall. We spent a few hours at the McCormick Park Beach on the Snoqualmie River in Duvall. There's a great little (but steep) beach at McCormick Park, right near downtown Duvall.

   7:56:00 PM

Internet from the Library Parking Lot

So I just dropped the kids off at preschool, and I have our one-year-old in the carseat in the back. Rather than drive home for the two hours the kids are in their class, I drove to the library in Duvall. It's closed, but since I have my Tablet PC with a wireless connection, I'm able to access the Internet from the King County Library parking lot. I love that a pervasive, free, always-on connection is becoming a reality! Our kids will laugh in ten years when we describe logging into an analog phone line a 1200 bps, linking into BBS's and CompuServe...
   1:48:00 PM

Saturday, May 10, 2003

The Power of Full Engagement

Currently reading The Power of Full Engagement by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz. Great book so far. The premise is that just like training athletes with periods of intense workout then rest, full engagement takes proper training and proper rest between periods of intense stress. There's a case study of "Roger B." that sounds a bit familiar in some ways.

After taking the free self-assessment at the LGE Performance Systems Website, I see that I'm Engaged to Fully Engaged on all counts, cool! I really do like what I do.

You'll notice I'm taking less time to reflect on work stuff since being out on leave from work. And I'm feeling more rejuvenated and ready to tackle work when I return in two weeks.
   9:30:00 AM

Friday, May 09, 2003

Seattle Center with the Kids

Forgive me while I make more family posts than normal!

I had a pretty amazing day taking Alex, Alyssa and Emily to the Seattle Center. We had a great time playing on the grounds, checking out the hermit crabs, seeing the live butterfly exhibit, watching the Stomp IMAX movie, and running in the fountain near Key Arena (the kids got soaking wet, even though it was a cool day).

Jeri went to a special "Mother's Tea" at Steven's school, so she stayed behind. They had a great time.

As we were driving home, I got a quick glimpse of Alex sleeping, just as one of the kid's CDs played Colin Raye's "I Wish I Could"
"I wish I could take these moments, and put them in a jar.
I wish I could stop the world from turning, keep things just the way they are.
I wish I could shelter you from everything, not pure and sweet and good.
I know I can't, but I wish I could."

   9:26:00 PM

Tuesday, May 06, 2003

I Have a Dream

I love this quote from Robert Scoble in his The Scobleizer Weblog. He starts next Monday!

"I have big dreams and I'm working for a big company with big products and big resources. I dream of a day when everyone likes Microsoft and loves using its products. If Microsoft gets there, I'd like to have played a part."

   12:09:00 AM

Monday, May 05, 2003

Meeting with BillG

No, not me. Even though I've been at Microsoft 13 years, I think Bill knows me by sight, but probably doesn't know my name or what I do (nor would I expect him to). We have about 1,300 marketing folks in our company, and I'm just part of the crowd. I know Bill and Steve meet with product managers occasionally, and often with executives, but the "rank and file" (whatever that means) don't really have the opportunity (or rather need) to meet with them.

I've presented to Bill a few times, mostly early when I was a product manager (Musical Instruments, Dogs, Dinosaurs, etc.). When I first started, Steve Ballmer ran the division I worked in (Networking), so I met with him a few times to present plans for our marketing programs. I've been on stage with Bill, doing a demo of Encarta. Everyone has their stories about Bill, like this clip from Rob Howard's Blog

The first thing I notice as the meeting starts is that Bill is left-handed. He also didn't bring a computer in with him, but instead is taking notes on a yellow pad of paper. I had heard this before - Bill takes amazingly detailed notes during meetings. I image he has to, given all the information directed at him. The other thing I noticed during the course of the meeting is how he takes his notes. He doesn't take notes from top-to-bottom, but rather logically divides the page into quadrants, each reserved for a different thought. For example, it appeared that all his questions were placed at the bottom of the page.

When I first met Bill, I was working on a video we needed him to appear in. As my co-worker and I went into his office to "pitch" him on doing a short intro, we brushed aside his lunch (a bag from Taco Bell with wrappers and food strewn across his desk). He glanced at the script we had prepared, and said he'd be glad to do a quick video. About a week later, he went to the Microsoft Studio sound stage, sat in a chair on the prepared set, and told us he was ready. We asked if he wanted to see the script and he said it wouldn't be necessary. He then went on, in one take, to repeat almost word for word the script he had only seen once a week earlier.

On a different occasion, I was doing a presentation of Encarta with him as it was first being released. I would "drive" the demo while he walked the audience through. I was showing him the demo just before going on stage, and I mentioned that a button I would click would take us to the "topics" area. He interrupted, and said "don't you mean 'Areas of Interest'?" I imagine somewhere he had seen a specification, or read a development overview, and knew details of the product that I barely realized.

Finally, one time I got to present in a product review (like Rob mentions above) to both Steve and Bill, in a very small conference room in the "Office of the President" conference room (there were probably 10 of us). We spent hours preparing the smallest details of the presentation, and made sure that every possible question had a prepared answer. Probably due to that, I sailed right through, and they both agreed with everything I said.

Most of my "presentations" today are to either the director of our division, or the VP of our division, and it's usually more of a conversation than a presentation.
   11:01:00 PM

Saturday, May 03, 2003

Happy Birthday, Emily!

Our youngest, Emily, turned one today!

I'm not sure where it got started, but we have a tradition of eating birthday cake with our hands, so even at the tender age of 365 days, Emily got a handful. Her system is likely in shock, since she's had little more than formula and ground up, saltless baby food.

We enjoyed the day, had breakfast at Denny's, and spent hours at the Outlet Malls in North Bend (the kids all got to pick a present for themselves).

By the way, I read the "Kid Version of Small Pieces Loosely Joined" to Steven last night. He wanted me to open up a Hotmail Account for him (I was glad to see they had me verify his account with my Passport information, allowing me to set up parental controls, like his "allow" email list for now). I like that it's natural for him to want relationships with his cousins outside of Washington, and for him to realize that it's easy to communicate with them instantly. Thanks again for the discussion-starter, Dave.

   9:22:00 PM

Friday, May 02, 2003

Will the Real Hussein Please Stand Up?

Dave Barry's Blog is just awesome. I love the fact that his full-time job is keeping a pulse on the quirky side of Americana. Every few days, I enjoy five minutes wading through his posts. Every so often, something catches me as particularly hilarious. Check out this post:

IN CASE YOU HAVE NOT BEEN KEEPING UP WITH THE NEWS

This should clear everything up.

(Thanks to Ted Habte-Gabr)
posted by Dave 3:53 PM

   10:36:00 PM

Small Pieces Loosely Joined

I just went online to order David Weinberger's "Small Pieces Loosely Joined."

While there, I found the Kid Version of Small Pieces Loosely Joined. I will be sitting Steven down and going through the kids version online. I'm convinced the Internet will be more integral to his life than any of us can imagine. Here are a few of my favorite lines:

"This is a most peculiar thing. The Web is a web because of hyperlinks that connect the pages. But every hyperlink expresses someone's interests and recommendations. If you were to make a map of the Web, showing all the sites and all the links, you would be making a map of things the 500 million people on the Web find interesting. ... The Web shows what we have chosen to care about. ... And that's exactly what's so special about the Web place. It is made not out of mountains, oceans, deserts and forests. It is made out of humans caring about things together."(7)

"We are human because we are connected to other humans. And why do we connect? Because as humans we care about each other and about our world. Statues don't care what happens to them. Robots don't care. Humans do. We care together." (13)

"In the real world, we meet people who happen to live nearby. On the Web, we meet people because they share an interest. ... You have instantly found a group of people who are interested in what you're interested in. You have connected based not on the fact that you happen to live in the same place but because you both care about the same thing." (15)

   4:04:00 AM

Thursday, May 01, 2003

World's Worst Father

I think I'm officially the world's worst father. It's day four of my Infant Care Leave, and I am so ready to go back to work. Now before you think you agree with me, you get to hear me whine.

I've had a pretty nasty cold, so I've spent the last few days in and out of bed. I'm telling everyone I have MARS (m for mild). Don't you hate it when you have vacation time and you are actually sick? Should I count these vacation days as sick days, and take sick days when I'm healthy? Nah, probably not.

On top of that, my kids sense a "disturbance in the force" because Steven's in school, but I'm not at work. So they are gnashing their terrible teeth, and rolling their terrible eyes, and roaring their terrible roars. And saying no. And bickering. And whining. And making messes. AND NOT TAKING THEIR NAPS! Okay, I thought people I work with are hard to manage...

But there have been some good moments too. I really do have great kids. Steven came home from a tutoring class with a near-perfect report card. Alyssa is taking good care of me. Alex's preschool teacher said he's making great improvement too. And Emily is starting to walk (she turns one tomorrow!). And I'm feeling better today. So life is good.

And I'm catching up on my blogging (notice my blogroll is approaching the size of Doc Searls'?).

   6:00:00 PM

Laundry Mountain

Did a little excavating today, and actually found a pair of socks in Mt. Laundry (untouched photo of clean laundry from our bedroom floor). I know there's an XML data metaphor in there, just not clever enough to find it...

Since I've been home, I've spent quite a lot of time doing laundry, mopping floors, mowing lawns, cleaning cars, and various other chores (Heide, you thought I was kidding about the laundry, eh?). Four kids are a lot of work. Glad to be catching up...

   12:34:00 PM

Blogging on BillG's Radar Screen

From Microsoft Watch: Blogging's on BillG's Radar Screen By Mary Jo Foley

It was just a passing mention. But Chairman Bill noted at yesterday's Newspaper Association of America Annual Convention that Microsoft is very interested in making sure blogging tools are there to support folks doing "bottom-up publishing."

   2:00:00 AM

Wednesday, April 30, 2003

Emotionally Engaged Managers

In a blog entry I read tonight, a good friend asks some questions that I'm guessing (hoping) most engaged, and emotionally-intelligent managers face sooner or later:

"How much integrity do I really have with regard to leading my employees? How responsible am I for their engagement? How well do we know the people who depend on us for vision and leadership? How aware are we with the daily interactions that build perception? How much power do we really give them?"

In addition to being impressed with her insight, it really gave me something to think about. I think I take it for granted that everyone that works in my group is super smart and is capable of doing great things. While I try hard to be involved enough to set the direction, and practice good "situational leadership," I think I fall short in my answers to these questions. Do I balance the fact that these guys know what they're doing with the fact that I have a leadership position in their careers? Do I take it even further and realize that my decisions, my own engagement with my management team affects their lives, their families, their careers? Do I think too much about the "business" and the fact that they're "human resources?"

I think I need to be more aware of what they're doing, what they're going through, what their talents are, and what their goals are. What I realize is that the perceptions of their work might be shaped by me more than I know. And with that there is some responsiblity. Maybe not in a purely pragmatic, "annual review" kind of way, but in a human kind of way. I'm just beginning to get that. I'm so glad to have someone I work with who is helping me learn about not only being a better customer advocate, and better manager, but being a better person. Thanks, D.

   4:25:00 PM

Tuesday, April 29, 2003

For Whatever It's Worth

My Blogger Code: B1 d+ t- k+ s- u f+ i o+ x- e+ l+ c--
   2:34:00 PM

Why Do I Blog?

I just saw this post from John Udell, I was impressed with the discussion.

As the blogging community begins to grow, many (including almost everyone I work with I've spoken to about blogging) asks this question. Is it just an egocentric trip for me to post my seemingly brilliant insights, or my chance to rant against those that cause me frustration, or my attempt to contribute to my ecosystem (sorry, Frank), or just a therapeutic way of putting my thoughts into writing in a public setting? Dunno. Probably all of the above.

For me, the biggest benefit is that an admitted introvert (officially a Myers-Briggs INFP) can connect with like-minded folks. Truth is, I've never met Don or Chris or Robert, but I've found a sense of connection with a community that inspires me to better understand our customers, to more fully develop my thoughts, and to become more engaged with our company's mission. So even if nobody reads this blog, it doesn't matter. Because I'm better because of it. And one or two others mightsee the human side of the Microsoft machine.

   11:49:00 AM

Monday, April 28, 2003

A Kindred Spirit at Microsoft

A kindred spirit! Welcome, Diane!

For those of you non-Microsoft readers (all two of you, hi mom!), Diane is someone you're going to want to watch. She has a fresh perspective, and has a "clue." She's one of the "faces" that will be famous a year from now.

   12:55:00 PM

Infant Care Leave

One of the awesome benefits Microsoft offers is four weeks paid leave for Infant Care Leave (in addition, pregnant women get eight weeks paid medical leave, which I--regretfully--don't qualify for :) ). I've seen a marked shift in the culture of our company in the past several years to being more family-oriented, with a better focus on work-life balance (I've been with Microsoft 13 years).

We adopted our son about a year ago, and to celebrate and spend some quality time with the family, I'm taking the next four weeks off.

Strangely, I'm at a point in my career where I'm more personally engaged in my work than I've ever been, and I think I'm going to miss working closely with my team. I enjoy the creativity and energy that I get from working with Frank, James, Cesar, Lori, Diane, Mike, Louise, Gerrit, Shannon, Anne-Marie, Lance, Troy, Kellini, Mark, Lara, Travis, Joe, and lately John, Beth, and Joy. I think I'll sneak away from home a few times a week to stay involved in what's going on.

Great goal, I think, for managers to have for their employees--to get to a point of engagement where teammembers want to come to work, to contribute, to accomplish goals, to leverage the assets of the company to accomplish big, hairy, audacious goals. I love that concept.

To celebrate my leave, and to give the team something to chew on while I'm gone, I've invited Ben McConnell to speak to our group today. He's the author of Creating Customer Evangelists (see this post for more). I'm excited to have our team meet him, and see if they have the same reaction I did to his message.

And, as a father, I get the chance to engage at a deeper level with my kids. I plan to spend more time with my family over the next four weeks (and beyond), to really connect at an even deeper level. I have a great family, who are fun, interesting, creative, intelligent, and curious (and, maybe a little frustrating and willful at times--four kids under six!).

I hope you'll see these posts reveal a bit more about me as a father, and now that I might have a bit more personal time, I hope to develop some of the ideas I have about management and marketing. Let's see...

   8:43:00 AM

Sunday, April 27, 2003

The World as a Blog

Now this is pretty cool. By putting a Geo Tag (from what I'm told, these coordinates could send an ICBM missile right into my living room) on my site, whenever I ping Weblogs, my RSS feed gets sent to the "World as a Blog" site and a thumbnail of that post is shown on a world map. I talk about how easy XML is making it to aggrigate and display real-time data (my job involves several B2E and B2B websites)--this is a great way to describe how simple data feeds can do fairly remarkable things. You can check out what blogs are being written near me.

   9:04:00 PM

Friday, April 25, 2003

The Honda Ad is Buzzing

It's buzzing! I just got email from a co-worker with a link to the Honda ad I wrote about last week. I can't remember something that's buzzed so well over email. There's a great article talking about the making of the ad here, as captured by an interesting blog from a creativity consultant company called Play.

   11:44:00 AM

Cross-Group Collaboration Starts with Trust

One of the areas we're really trying to focus on as a management team is cross-group collaboration. To me, it all comes down to trusting each other. I think when your employees (or co-workers for that matter) believe you really know them, and that you really care about them, they begin to trust you. They know you'll do what's best for them. It all comes down to trust, and I think as a company we have a lot to learn about developing it.

I loved the overall message in the book "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team" (and no, that isn't the five members on my team!). Really building a strong team starts with Trust. Without trust, you can't show your weaknesses (so others can make up for them with their strengths), and if others don't show you their weaknesses, you can do the same. Without trust, you don't engage in positive conflict, you won't commit to things you don't agree with, you will avoid accountability, and you'll focus not on team results, but personal results.

As a company, we've built a culture around personal passion, being action-oriented, and being smart. All those are good, but we are so competitive we can be pretty bad at working collaboratively. I'm confident that as we break down the walls of distrust, as we get to know each other personally, and as we build on each others strengths (see Follow This Path), we'll build amazing teams that can make unstoppable progress.

Marcus Buckingham, co-author of "First Break All the Rules", said this in a Fast Company article:

"Weakness fixing might prevent failure, but strength building leads to excellence. Focus on strength, and manage around weaknesses."

   10:45:00 AM

Managing By Blog

Just got this in my inbox, from Business 2.0 (probably my favorite biz mag, better than Fast Company): Managing By Blog .

I'm a firm believer in the power of community, and personal connections can be facilitated in a powerful way through the medium of the Internet. In fact, since publishing this blog, I've had two or three co-workers comment that they shared my passion for our customers, and it made them feel more passionate knowing their beliefs (and frustrations) are shared by others in the company.

A co-worker of mine (Beth) is a real customer evangelist (and one of my biz-heros), and I share a lot of her passion. She mentioned her blog, and so about a month ago, I started this blog, just to see what all the fuss is about. I've found it quite, uh, liberating and maybe even therapeutic. And just a bit addictive.

Not that I think anyone (other than my wife and maybe my mom occasionally) will ever actually read it, but it allows me to publish my somewhat-rambling thoughts. Just by writing them down and putting them out there, it's forcing me to take a stand, and solidify what I believe.

As I dive further into the community (I'm somewhat already a cluetrain-believer), I'm just starting to get it. From my viewpoint, at least in the business world, blogging seems to be used most by developers (at least here at Microsoft). In fact, I'm still on the lookout for a few good marketing sites (though I really love reading Seth Godin's blog, probably the only marketing-type blog that actually adds to my body of knowledge, and then it's even sketchy).

I'm not a developer, and my HTML skills kind of suck, but it's me.

   7:31:00 AM

Thursday, April 24, 2003

An Extraordinary Team (and the Purple Cow)

I just got a pre-release copy of Seth Godin's upcoming book, Purple Cow. The book is about being remarkable. The premise is pretty simple. As Seth's family was driving through France, they were impressed with the picturesque farms and their perfect cows. As they passed farm after farm, the cows quickly became ordinary. What would have been extraordinary? A purple cow! Read an excerpt from Fast Company here. When you're done reading that, check out Seth's Blog. Good stuff.

At work, what can my team and I do to really be extraordinary? How can we build buzz for our projects? How can we go from being simply great at our jobs to being outstanding? What can we do to really make a difference with our customers, enough that they can't help but be engaged and excited, and become evangelists for our products, or our company?

It starts with finding out what the customer wants. It comes from knowing them, and solving real-world problems for them. It comes from being real, and human, and genuinely caring about what they need. And in really building this connection, I'm finding that my job is really gratifying.

I'm still struggling with finding my team's place in Microsoft's vision of helping customers realize their potential. How can I continue to connect the dots, so that what my team does actually inspires our customers to become great? How does our Intranet site, or our Online Training site, or our B2B sites really make it easier for our customers to do their jobs? Or to help their customers? Or to build excitement in their own lives?

I think there are ways. And I remain resolute in finding them. If you have ideas that have worked for you, please let me know!

   11:25:00 PM

The Human Face of Microsoft

From John Udell's Weblog:

A week ago Robert Scoble posted an item to his weblog that began: "Microsoft is jealous (and scared) of Slash Dot and Scripting News." His posting, which sparked a lively cross-blog conversation, continued:

One thing I've noticed is that Microsoft does not have a human face other than Gates and Ballmer. Everything you see about Microsoft has been "approved" by PR/marketing professionals. That's the way it was supposed to have been done in the old days, but today, one little jerk like me can post something on his weblog and, within hours, have several thousand very important readers. Today, we need human stories to tell about Microsoft, and we need human connections so we know who to start a conversation with. [The Scobleizer Weblog]

I couldn't agree more. All that talent and passion and brainpower, but so few faces seen, and so few voices heard. One of the few public faces, David Stutz, left the company this week, with parting advice about openness.

Max McEwean brought the same thing up a few weeks ago, and I completely agree. I love that this company is full of vibrant, intelligent, creative people. I have some that work for me. And I have some I work with. And with my passion around making a personal connection with our customers, I'd love to see more of this happening. Max brought up the new "ThreeDegrees" software. Folks should know Tammy Savage and CJ Saretto and Erika and Kate and the rest of the team. Why not? I love what these guys have done. I love that they hear the voice of the customer. I love that they feel proud enough to put their names out there.

And speaking of the human face, I'm glad we got this one (finally!). Welcome Chris.

   12:47:00 PM

Wednesday, April 23, 2003

BNL Blog

I love the practical, real-world aspect of the Barenaked Ladies blog (let's see that show up in our HR database, I'm sure all "words" I send over our firewall are being closely watched...).

Bands can be measured by popularity, and while the music has a part in that (hopefully most), the community the band creates can be just as important. I like that BNL is keeping us up-to-date on what they're doing. It makes me more "engaged" in the process of the music they're making, and it makes me more of a participant than a consumer.

Was it in Cluetrain I read that the future of the music industry might hinge on bands making money from participants rather than just the "license" from the song? I love that concept.

   8:10:00 PM

Tuesday, April 22, 2003

What Can You Be Best At?

Just responded to an email my brother-in-law sent. I sent over a copy of one of my favorite biz books, "Love is the Killer App," by Tim Sanders. My bro-in-law commented that he's known for being a "nice guy" at work. I know what he means. I was there.

The book was profound for me in other ways. For me, the biggest impact was the credibility that comes with having knowledge that management values.

It's one thing to know about your field of expertise (in fact, you should always find ways to be best of breed in your expert area, and find ways to expand it). For example, one person I work with does online training, and she's becoming the best in all of Microsoft in e-learning. She's finding others that know about it, learning from them, going to industry conferences, building a small community of practice with others, until she's the go to person in the company in this area.

In this scenario, you'll keep your job in layoffs, you'll build your career, you'll try new things, and you'll have a lot more freedom than others because you don't wait for your boss or management to decide what you should work on.

However, it's equally important especially if you aspire to management to have expertise in things your management cares about. Balancing resources to obtain business objectives, understanding customer need, thinking strategically, driving the business forward, creative thinking, employee development, cutting costs, etc. etc., etc. This requires that you 1) learn about this stuff, and 2) that you know as much or more than your management. This is where keeping current with business books comes in. Chances are, your management isn't keeping current, but wants to. Nobody takes time to actually read the books everyone is talking about (Good to Great, Jack Welch, Lou Gerstner, etc.). If you do it, and actively share it, and find ways to interject what you know in team meetings, hallway conversations, etc., you'll be amazed at how your credibility grows. You'll be seen as part of the in-team with other managers, and they'll think of you first when it comes to building the team (or not laying off team members). Of course, there's a hidden benefit, because by continually learning, your job becomes more fun, decisions get easier, and you see the connection with the rest of the company. It's very rewarding.

Being nice is a small part of what the book is about. That's why I don't like the title, but I love the concept. It's important to share and network, but it can be equally important to be objective while you're seen as being nice. In fact, I think being nice may have hurt my career early on (mainly because I relied too heavily on it).

   6:35:00 PM

Monday, April 21, 2003

What's On The Nightstand?

Currently Reading:
Purple Cow: Seth Godin
Creating Customer Evangelists: Ben McConnell
Leadership: Rudy Guiliani

My Top Ten for 2002-2003:
(In no particular order)
Good to Great: Jim Collins
Execution: Larry Bossidy, Ram Cheran
Jack: Straight From The Gut: Jack Welch
Primal Leadership: Daniel Goleman
Follow This Path: Curt Coffman
Tipping Point: Malcom Gladwell
Leading Change: John Kotter
Permission Marketing: Seth Godin
Love is the Killer App: Tim Sanders
Cluetrain Manifesto: Doc Searles, Chris Locke, Rick Levine, David Weinberger

To see what other bloggers are reading, check out the All Consuming website.
   6:51:00 PM

Too funny! Live Radio through your iPAQ, played Live through your Radio!

And they think technology is getting too complicated!

   6:24:00 PM

Sunday, April 20, 2003

On the social and cultural impact of the remote control.
   5:26:00 PM

Saturday, April 19, 2003

Personal Accountability

Just finished reading QBQ: Practicing Personal Accountability by John G. Miller. Easy read, and quite profound. The premise is that often people can take on the role of victim, and wonder why others don't change, or think differently, or do the right things.

My favorite Incorrect Questions are: When are we going to be more competitive? Why can't manufacturing make what we sell? Why aren't they motivated? Who dropped the ball? When will they clarify roles and responsibilities? When will my child learn to listen? When will they learn to clean their rooms?

The right questions, or the Questions Behind the Questions start with How or What, contain the word I, and have an action word. They would be: How can I serve my customers? What can I do to add value for our customers? How can I be a better coach? How can I be a better leader? What can I do to be more productive? How can I improve my parenting skills?

Accountability begins with me. I can't change my company without first changing me. I can start with me, and help bring along one person at a time. I can understand our customers better. I can understand my co-workers better. And I can be more proactive about setting a better example.

   7:19:00 AM

Friday, April 18, 2003

Check out Doonsbury's take on blogs, beginning on Oct. 21.

   9:39:00 PM

Thursday, April 17, 2003

How Buzz is Built

Wow. You just have to see this ad for Honda. Very innovative. And it clearly makes the point that even though (cars) are very complicated, Honda's "just work."

I got this from a co-worker who thought it was interesting enough to send it. One way to build buzz is to create something so interesting that people want to share the message. It's just a car. Though the branding itself is strong, the way the brand message is being delivered is viral. I wouldn't have seen this ad (or considered a Honda), if this person hadn't been impressed enough to spend a few minutes sending me the ad. And now I've spent a few minutes talking about it here. Viral Marketing is powerful stuff.

I'm in Cleveland visiting one of our retail partners. Very interesting discussions today about building a community with their in-store reps. We got to have a long coversation with "Virgil" and "Joe," two reps who really had a passion for working with their customers, and learning about technology. Very invigorating.

   7:54:00 PM

Tim O'Reilly said something that I love:
I had occasion today to quote once again Edwin Schlossberg's memorable line, "the skill of writing is to create a context in which other people can think." I read that line in a Parade Magazine article in the mid-80's, and it's been "creating a context" in which I think ever since.

   5:21:00 AM

Tuesday, April 15, 2003

Innovation is Putting Creative Ideas to Work

I really love reading Fast Company. They send a daily newsletter with thoughts, and this one struck me:

"Innovation isn't just being creative. It is about putting creative ideas to work."
Blair Sheppard, President & CEO, Duke Corporate Education, Inc.
Read the Article

I love the idea, I'm just not sure how to implement it... (a little joke...)

   12:06:00 PM

Monday, April 14, 2003

One of the newsletters I read is ClickZ. Recently, Debbie Wiel commented that "a few businesspeople are beginning to use Web logs as an online -- and interactive -- marketing tool. A good example is SherpaBlog, just launched by MarketingSherpa publisher Anne Holland."

   9:49:00 PM

Sunday, April 13, 2003

SmartMobs reports that IBM is building a bunch of homes in Virginia. I want a Smart Home! Oh, wait. That's what I have kids for! Steven, go grab the remote. Alyssa, turn down that light over there...

   11:24:00 PM

Marketing Blogs

I found a couple of interesting Marketing blogs: WebSense, MarketingFix, NetMarketing, and SherpaBlog.

   10:05:00 PM

At least I have a job! The New York Times tells a story of a former Executive VP of Marketing from an Internet startup who is currently working at the Gap for $10 an hour...

   9:56:00 PM

Dave Barry posts Fight, Kikkoman! in his most excellent official Dave Barry Blog.

And another of my favorites, where Dave comments that he loves the Internet, and he can't believe how much time this site has saved him...

   1:52:00 AM

Friday, April 11, 2003

Informational Interviews

In my effort to advance my career, I occasionally have "informational interviews" if there's a job that sounds interesting, and matches my experience and talents. Informational Interviews are short (30 minutes or less) meetings where managers with open positions chat with prospective applicants to mutually understand the fit for both. This particular meeting was probably the most intense 20 minutes I've spent in an "informational," but I think I learned a lot about what I'm looking for in a job (clearly not this one).

Anyway, there's probably a ton of stuff that I could go on and on about, maybe this weekend will give me a chance to write some of my thoughts down...

On about Chapter Four of The Fountainhead. I want to be Howard O'Rourke.

   6:34:00 PM

Wednesday, April 09, 2003

People of Earth. A Powerful Global Conversation Has Begun

Wow, just got a nod from kind of a hero of mine (Thanks, Doc). Cluetrain set me on a path of, well, something!

If you haven't read the manifesto, you owe it to your readers (or all four of mine, hi mom!) to do it...

"people of earth...

A powerful global conversation has begun. Through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. As a direct result, markets are getting smarter and getting smarter faster than most companies.

These markets are conversations. Their members communicate in language that is natural, open, honest, direct, funny and often shocking. Whether explaining or complaining, joking or serious, the human voice is unmistakably genuine. It can't be faked."

i love that beth is back... i don't know why i care, but i do.

   6:11:00 PM

Tuesday, April 08, 2003

I just got my first "MSN Instant Messenger spam! Chantal is 21, and would like to Show off on her WebCam!

Later, I found an article from Tim O'Reilly about getting spam Instant Messages. They're a bit annoying...

   2:57:00 PM

Monday, April 07, 2003

Microsoft Bloggers

So after I started this blog thing, and I was up til 1:00 am reading other MSFTees blogs. I'm a bit torn about saying what I want to say, and letting people know it's me, but I think that if I really have an opinion, it doesn't matter.

One marketing person had a blog about a year ago, and a magazine got hold of it and kind of berated her for her chatter. I hope my stuff doesn't end up in the Wall Street Journal, but that may be the price of having an opinion?

The Register story
Other MSFT blogs (mostly dev stuff anyway)
Someone who shares my concern

   7:27:00 AM

Friday, April 04, 2003

The Human Side of the Internet

As I watch 24 on my Ultimate TV, I'm reminded of how little what we do in our jobs really matters. Don't get me wrong, I love what I do. But it's not fighting terrorists or saving the world. It's selling software. Pretty good software (well, some of it anyway), but software none-the-less.

And as I use the "skip" button to jump past the commercials (even the catchy "our software, your potential" commercials done by my friends in our CMO (central marketing org), I'm reminded of how much marketing as a science (okay, maybe more of an art, if even that...) has changed. I love the way Seth Godin puts it in Permission Marketing, that the message is getting more and more cluttered.

In part of the talk last night, Ben McConnell talked about how commerce was changing because of the Internet. Maybe it was the somwhat-unengaged group I was with (mostly small business owners who were looking for that nugget that would rocket them to fame, fortune, and success), but I think they all missed the truly revolutionary nature of that comment.

I think it's even more profound than just the demise of the effectiveness of broadcast marketing. It's something more human that the Internet has brought. I think maybe Chris Locke and Doc Searls and David Weinberger have it right:
"Corporate firewalls have kept smart employees in and smart markets out. It's going to cause real pain to tear those walls down. But the result will be a new kind of conversation. And it will be the most exciting conversation business has ever engaged in." (see the Cluetrain Manifesto).

The Internet is allowing us to connect in a one-on-one way we've been missing since the days of the general store: I can talk to someone inside the company I'm buying from more easily than I can someone next door. Word of mouth (or word of "mouse") is fundamentally changing how we communicate, and what we communicate about. And without a strong connection to our customers, Microsoft will be joining the ranks of Borland, Ashton-Tate, Migent (where I began my high-tech career), and WordPerfect.

   5:52:00 AM

Thursday, April 03, 2003

Just clicked on Linux Switcher and Mac Switcher. Ha!

   10:35:00 PM

Creating Customer Evangelists

I joined a few other co-workers at a two-hour seminar hosted by Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba, authors of creatingcustomerevangelists. Not quite sure if it was that I was seeking like-minded folks who have the same vision, or that the speakers were entertaining and engaging, or perhaps it was the sugar buzz from the Krispy Kreme doughnuts, but it was inspiring. I spoke with the authors quite a bit, and felt that the strategy we had been employing on our team, even at a small level, was on-track. I was convinced more than ever that the effort we've been making into spending time with our customers is worth it. For them. For us.

The authors of the book explain the six tenets of creating customer evangelists:

- Customer plus-delta: Continuously gather customer feedback.
- Napsterize knowledge: Make it a point to share knowledge freely.
- Build the buzz: Expertly build word-of-mouth networks.
- Create community: Encourage communities of customers to meet and share.
- Make bite-size chunks: Devise specialized, smaller offerings to get customers to bite.
- Create a cause: Focus on making the world, or your industry, better.

I'll be taking the book home and devouring it.

   9:21:00 PM

Strategic Thinking Starts With Hearing The Customer's Voice

Yesterday i had a meeting with a few Microsoftees that actually care as much as I do about our customers. We're toying with the idea of creating kind of a "community of practice" around the consumer and building a community. One day I feel that I'm the only one with a real passion around doing things the right way (hearing the voice of our customers, and driving to meet their needs), then I get with even a few who "get it," and a glimmer of hope shines (not that my faith is 100% restored, but maybe a percentage point or two...). These guys have a level of passion that is visible, almost tangible. It's contagious.

I had a conversation with one of the team members I work with about thinking strategically. I explained that it really comes down to one simple thing: hearing the voice of the customer. Once you really understand their needs, the rest is easy--there's very little "strategic thinking" that's required. Ya, you need to think intelligently about the business, and take into account allocating resources and gaining efficiencies, and leveraging best practices, and communicating efficiently, and managing up, but once the real "vision" is clear, that stuff is pretty easy. Seriously.
   5:04:00 PM

Tuesday, April 01, 2003

So I hear that we're moving our offices to Sammamish. It's a campus over near Issaquah, several long miles from here. We had an "all hands" meeting where we went over strategy and our director gave us an update on how everything's going. He then announces the fact that in three weeks we're moving across the Puget Sound to a set of buildings that aren't close to anything (but a Krispy Kreme and a Costco, so it isn't all bad).

This morning, a co-worked announced that she was pregnant. This coming from one of the nicest, kindest, Christian-est women I know. I was a bit shocked. I mean, what do you say? Can't really say "uh, is that good or bad?" I said, I think, "Wow." She said she didn't know how it happened, and that she really isn't sure what to do about it.

She went on to say "April Fools."

I went on to say "you're an idiot."

And, we're not moving to Issaquah.

   6:06:00 PM

Monday, March 31, 2003

Microsoft, Ever Think Some of Your Customers Hate You?

Wednesday, I got to meet Max McEwean, where he gave a speech to us Microsoftees about Customer Connection, or maybe rather Microsoft's lack of it.

The point was made that there are a number of customers of ours that hate our company. Not dislike. Not merely don't like. Hate. Viscerally. Now normally, it wouldn't matter a lot. I mean, it's just a company, right? But it's my company. I'm really proud to work at Microsoft. But lately, I end up apologizing, either because I work for the big, giant, evil empire, or because I can't provide on-demand, accurate, and infinitely-insightful technical support (after all, I am in marketing, right?).

Does it really matter that so many customers hate us? Yep. Why? Three reasons: 1) Our products--operating systems, games, word processors, server software--will someday all be commodities. When that happens, when customers have a choice, they'll (naturally) choose a company to work with that they don't hate. 2) In order to survive in this industry, we need partners. Max McEwean illustrated the difference between complicated (layered linearly) and complex (interwoven). We are in a complex industry, and need our partners to survive. And most of them don't trust us, and some hate us. 3) Our future depends on innovation. The brightest minds are either in high school, or are at small companies that hate us. They'll never come to work for us. Never, ever. Ever. This I believe.

A co-worker in the back of the room comments that it really isn't our customers that hate us, it is our competitors that we have beaten. 200 people in the room groaned. Nope, it's our customers. But he would have nothing to do with it. What does it matter that our customers hate us? It's about the software, right?? Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

Don't misunderstand me. I really like many with whom I work. We've built a company where smart, creative, assertive (some may say aggressive) people can thrive. I'm often amazed at how brilliant people I work with can be. And the team I'm on, in particular, has some very real, very honest people. It makes me sad that the few who would wield some kind of twisted power would ruin my company.

Can it be turned around? Yes. I fundamentally believe that by doggedly focusing on our customers, that we can learn what it will take to turn it all around. Only by really getting to know who is using our software can we really get to know what they're going to want in the future. And not in a statistical sort of way. In a real way. In a personal way. I have met the customer. And she is not me.

It's about the voice of the customer. And it's about realizing that our mission really is about helping that customer reach her potential. It's funny that sometimes when co-workers hear the new Microsoft mission, they actually think it's about us reaching our potential. Or it's about our partners (or specifically our partners' companies) reaching their potential. I often remind them that it's none of the above. It's about our customers, the one who plops down a credit card and takes a box home and installs our software on their PC. It's about their potential. That is why I do what I do. Really.

   9:31:00 PM

So it begins...

Interesting. So this is what this whole "blog" thing is about, huh? Now that I'm officially online, I expect to see hundreds, no thousands of comments from admiring, curious, spectacularly interesting folks. Then again, maybe not.

Monday in Seattle.

Monday at Microsoft.

   2:09:00 PM

Thursday, August 21, 2003

Don't Come Around Here No More...

Thursday, August 07, 2003

This Blog Is Moving

Stressed Out By Information Overload, Constant Interruption, and Increasing Personal Isolation?

Do THEY Know What You've Done for Them Lately?

Six-Sigma-ize Your Marketing

Wednesday, August 06, 2003

Seven Deadly Sins of Web Writing

Not a Bad Job if You Can Get It

Warning...

Something Worth Saying

Don’t Get Buried in Customer Data—Use It

Tuesday, August 05, 2003

Installing Windows XP in 147 Easy Steps...

More on Job Sharing (In Your Client's Shoes Part II)

Monday, August 04, 2003

In Your Client's Shoes

Sunday, August 03, 2003

Changing Beliefs...

The Autodidactic Lifestyle

The Importance of PR

Disposable Digital Camera

Microsoft Event at Seafair

Saturday, August 02, 2003

The Blogging Process

Friday, August 01, 2003

Sometimes, It Takes Us Until Version Three...

Action Items Due Dec. 14

Thursday, July 31, 2003

Benevolent Leadership

Wednesday, July 30, 2003

More on the 5 Patterns...

Taking a Bird's-Eye View of "Social Cyberspaces"

Monday, July 28, 2003

5 Patterns of Extraordinary Careers

Busey-isms

Sunday, July 27, 2003

Microsoft Company Picnic

Let Go, Be Yourself, Make the Moment Matter

Stay In School! (figuratively-speaking)

Interactive Reality-based Gaming

Too Much to Do?

My Moblog on TechTV

Saturday, July 26, 2003

Social Newsgroup Research

Friday, July 25, 2003

Hanging Out with the PR Team

Meetup with Martin

Thursday, July 24, 2003

Social aspects of Xbox Gaming

Wednesday, July 23, 2003

Researching Community

I'm an Ideas Guy (okay, I admit it)

Cut Us Some Slack!

Is Nintendo Playing the Wrong Game?

Tuesday, July 22, 2003

Recommended Reading?

Monday, July 21, 2003

Voices from the Past

Happy Birthday, Steven!

Sunday, July 20, 2003

Bumped!

Saturday, July 19, 2003

MGB Round IV: Mohan Sawhney

MGB Round III

Friday, July 18, 2003

MGB Part II

Thursday, July 17, 2003

Whaddya Call 14,000 Softees in a SuperDome?

Monday, July 14, 2003

On the Way to Louisiana

Friday, July 11, 2003

Heading for New Orleans

Common Errors in English

On The Nightstand

Speaking at Harvard

PR Tips

Matrix Ping Pong

Leadership Development at Microsoft