Billions With Zero Knowledge

Hugh MacLeod posted a link to my Valentine’s Story and must have caught on to my Calgary background when I get the Redneck mention in his great cartoon. I guess you can’t avoid your roots, even on the Internet. I get called loser often enough - it’s the Redneck one that I haven’t heard in awhile

Those kind enough to wade through my monstrously long post about Microsoft’s sense of humor and Hugh MacLeod’s Valentine videos left some great comments including a comment from John Wilson with a link to Microsoft’s Steve Clayton’s collaboration with Hugh on the Blue Monster.

This is how the Blue Monster is described by Hugh,

The Blue Monster was designed as a conversation starter. To paraphrase the ongoing dialogue between Steve and I:

For too long, Microsoft has allowed other people tell their story on their behalf- the media, their competition and their detractors, especially- instead of doing a better job of it themselves.

We firmly believe that Microsoft must start articulating their story better- what they do, why they do it, and why it matters- if they’re to remain happy and prosperous long-term.

If they can do this, well, we don’t expect people in their millions to magically start loving Microsoft overnight, but perhaps it might get people- including the people who work there- to start thinking differently. Small moves.

[Afterthought:] Granted, none of this is rocket science. But maybe that’s Microsoft’s main problem.

[Disclosure: gapingvoid is more evil than Microsoft. Just so you know.]

Steve himself was kind enough to drop by and made a very kind offer to send me a copy of the Blue Monster lithograph. I’ve taken him up on the offer with a lot of thanks.

I really liked the Blue Monster video that was on his site, and since he was cool enough to post both the Youtube and Soapbox version of the video on his site - I decided to embed the Soapbox version here.

Small moves - but they are needed ones. It’s good to see people at Microsoft listening and reaching out and engaging people like this.

Microsoft faces a lot of challenges in the coming years and I think the company Microsoft will be in 5 years will be very different from the Microsoft of today.

Microsoft comes to the table with lot’s of smart people and huge existing franchises. At the same time they are facing an array of new competitors and massive industry wide adoption of new software models (open source and Web-based software as a service).

More people like Steve engaging conversations with people can only help them navigate these changes and I wish him the best in his Blue Monster campaign. I’m meeting a friend who serves on the board of Microsoft in a couple of weeks and am anxious to get his opinion on it

Video: Microsoft: Talking Blue Monster

On Sun 18 Feb 2007.