microsoft

Microsoft is Serious About Blogging

leelefever — Thu, 29 Sep 2005 13:10:50 -0400

Over the last few weeks Iâ€™ve been working with the folks at Microsoft, like Bill Reid, Korby Parnell and Jonathan Grudin, to learn more about blogging at Microsoft for a related project at the company. Here are some of my broad observations:

Microsoft is serious about blogging. They have support from the very top and the biggest reason for the support is the increasing value of transparency and putting a human face on Microsoft. See this video of Steve Ballmer.
The demand comes from individuals. More than a couple of times, Iâ€™ve heard quotes from employees saying â€œIâ€™m tired of Microsoft being called an evil empireâ€. Employees see blogging as a way to show Microsoft is a different and more human company.
External blogs outnumber internal blogs 3-1, which is vastly different than other large companies that are blogging like Sun, IBM and Intel. Why? See point #2 above.
Blogging at Microsoft is very hands off. The biggest policy is â€œDonâ€™t be Stupidâ€ and the PR and Legal teams have adopted a very open and supportive approach to blogging.
There are people within the company like Betsy Aoki and Korby Parnell who are driving the blog strategy and working every day to educate and inspire people to understand blogging.
Two Microsoft blogs that represent the most popular forms of blogging are the personal bloggers, like Raymond Chen and the Team blogs like the IE Team Blog. A number of teams are looking to follow in the footsteps of the IE team.
Microsoft Research has been studying blogs and how and why they are used within the company. See Lilia's posts about her internship at Microsoft Research.
Itâ€™s working. The company is seeing the blogs play a positive role in public relations and communications with the market at large. This is adding to the executive support.
There are very few, or perhaps zero fake bloggers or blogs.
You can see for yourself. The majority of external Microsoft blogs are found at MSDN and TechNet

Despite what some may think about Microsoft, I see the blogs as a demonstration that the company is trying to change. Blogging is becoming a part of the way they do business and if you ask me, they are doing it the right way through organic growth and openness.

Microsoft Blog Project

leelefever — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 12:41:08 -0400

Iâ€™m just starting a new project that should be really interesting. Iâ€™m working with Bill Reidâ€™s group at Microsoft, which does IT Solutions. Like so many other teams at the company, they are interested in using blogs as a way to support and connect more personally with customers.

When we first started talking about the project, it was about using blogs as a feedback loop, where the blogs would facilitate customer feedback that could be used to improve products, in this case, IT solutions. What we found was that this was putting the cart before the horse. This was about the time I wrote the Wiki This post.

Now, weâ€™re focusing the project on the blogging first- understanding best practices for building readership, listening to the blog world, writing for a blog, etc. Overall, we hope to increase the blog literacy of the IT solutions group so that the team can identify the ways in which a blog may help them achieve their goals individually and as a group.

I'm also excited to be working loosely with Lilia Efimova (Mathemagenic), who is doing an internship at MicrosoftResearch studying how they are using blogs. Like her, I hope to blog what I can.

Microsoft and Sun- Together at Last

leelefever — Fri, 02 Apr 2004 14:33:04 -0500

Microsoft and Sun Microsystems Enter Broad Cooperation Agreement; Settle Outstanding Litigation

Am I in some kind of time warp? Is it April Fools day again? This is a pretty amazing announcement.

Via: Scoble

NetScan's Graphical Analysis of Newsgroups

leelefever — Tue, 11 Nov 2003 14:18:27 -0500

A while back I wrote about Marc Smith, Sociologist at Microsoft Research who is studying Usenet Newsgroups. I met and saw a presentation by Marc recently and I've been keeping up with NetScan- the tool they use to analyze newsgroups. I've been impressed with some of the ways they are graphically representing the growth and activity of the newsgroups over time. The screenshot below came from this TreeMap.

It looks incredibly complex, but once you read the key, and view the whole thing, it becomes a really interesting representation of the changes in the newsgroups- particularly over time.

Also, the site has a dynamic representation of cross-posting in the newsgroups. Again, see the instructions to manipulate the graphic.

Bill Gates Says Email Not Dead.

leelefever — Thu, 16 Oct 2003 20:36:41 -0400

Informatics: Gates foretells death of spam

Ok, he didn't say those exact words, but he's a believer that technology will eventually beat spammers. He recently spoke at ITU Telecom World 2003 in Geneva.

He called on anonymity to be removed from internet protocols like SMTP, because it allows spammers to mimic other users, and suggested that passwords could be replaced by smart cards and biometric technologies.
"We have to know who is accessing the network. By being able to identify who the sender is we will be able to make the spam problem essentially go away," he said.

Let's hope he's right.

I also liked what the Marketing Wonk folks had to say about it...

Let's hope he's correct and that this prediction will prove more accurate than his previously-predicted demises of the Internet, open source code, Apple and the Sherman Antitrust Act.

WebEx vs. Microsoft

leelefever — Thu, 18 Sep 2003 12:51:55 -0400

Tech Biz: Microsoft's next target: WebEx - Sep. 17, 2003

It will be really interesting to watch the competition between Microsoft- who has just release "Live Event" and WebEx. Live Event is basically a repackaged version of Placeware, which was WebEx's biggest competition. Both of these are Web Conferencing platforms.

about Web Conferencing:

Web Conferences allow people to hold real-time meetings using a website. Usually, web conference attendees are sit at their computers, interact via a normal telephone, and watch a presentation that is controlled remotely by the meeting organizer.

In my experience, Web Conferencing works. it'll never replace face-to-face, but it's a great alternative to traveling for training. I think it's here to stay and will become an essential part of business productivity.

As the article outlines, we can expect this sort of technology to be integrated into existing systems like Microsoft Office in the future.

Via: Business Pundit