Microsoft’s backchannel blog caught off guard
22nd March 2006 by Anders Gronstedt
Microsoft’s announcement to delay the launch of its long anticipated Windows Vista provides interesting lessons on how to manage brand communication in the “open source marketing era.” As soon as the news hit the street, everyone flocked to their favorite Microsoft backchannel blogger to get the inside scope. Robert Scoble has build a reputation as a trusted source inside of Microsoft. But this time, the Microsoft employee was caught off guard at a conference in Las Vegas. He read about the announcement in the news and his blog entry offers little insights into Microsoft’s decision.
Clearly, the rulebook of how to manage the brand message has been thrown out. Web 2.0 has wrestled control over the brand from the closed quarters of the marketing honchos to the community. Companies are grappling with how to manage the brand message at a time when employee bloggers have rendered the PR spinster less relevant. Clearly, employee blogers should not be used to break hard news, nor called upon to blindly promulgate the company line, which would hurt their credibility. But keeping them in the loop about big announcements can be helpful in integrating the brand message. What say you?
March 23rd, 2006 at 3:47 pm
Scoble’s comments aren’t anywhere near as scathing as those of Mini Microsoft, an anonymous employee blogger whose post, “Fire the leadership now,” has drawn, to date, 288 comments. One of his points: “Vista’s deployment is going to come from people buying CPUs with the OS pre-installed, not dancing down the CompUSA aisle as they clutch that boxed version of Vista to their loving chest. So not only did we miss last year’s opportunity, we’re missing this year’s opportunity, too. With the convergence of high-tech media, this holiday season would have been an explosive nodal point to get Vista out for a compounded effect.”