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January 22, 2004
Creating evangelists by humanizing mistakes
Microsoft says it overreacted by rattling its considerable legal sword at 17-year-old Mike Rowe and his domain name, MikeRoweSoft.com.
Mike wasn't trying to pass himself off as Microsoft, or steal any of its business. That his name is nearly a homonym with the world's largest software company is part happenstance, part design.
Mike's story has leapt across blogs and the Internet to mainstream television. As they say in the news biz, this story has legs. Understandably, some people in Microsoft are asking, "What do we have to do to make this problem disappear quickly?"
It's the wrong question. In the customer evangelism model, the question would be, "How can we think creatively about this situation?"
Mike Rowe is a young web designer who, by looking at his portfolio, is an avid gamer. College beckons. Or a job. Or an internship.
For Mike.
MikeRoweSoft at Microsoft. In its games division, working on Microsoft Games websites.
Microsoft's chief legal counsel would show up unannounced at Mike's house, say hello to his startled parents, and offer Mike the chance to be a programmer for the summer. Then they dash to the local TV studio for an appearance together via satellite on the Today show and explain how misunderstandings happen. We're all human, Microsoft's chief legal counsel says, and we want to make sure Mike becomes a lifelong Microsoft customer. Doing the right thing creatively in difficult situations demonstrates a commitment to creating customer evangelists. Star-struck Mike would have a new calling in life: becoming a Microsoft genius.
Katie Couric would love it.
Other blogs that reference Creating evangelists by humanizing mistakes:
» Communities @ Microsoft from KC on Exchange and Outlook
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» MikeRoweSoft and Microsoft from Jeff Doolittle dot com
Maybe Microsoft could show us a shining example of how to deal with an embarrasing situation: "Mike's story has leapt across blogs and the Internet to mainstream television. As they say in the news biz, this story has legs. Understandably, some people ... [Read More]
Sorry Ben, they did not go quite so far as you suggested. They did, however, do "the right thing" according to this news story from Seatllepi.com:
http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/microsoft/archives/001313.html
