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April 04, 2007
The Channel 9 success story
This month's Wired writes the early history of Microsoft's transparency-pioneering Channel 9 community site for developers and ends up exposing traditional public relations message management.
A Microsoft PR person accidentally emailed Wired reporter Fred Vogelstein a 13-page internal dossier (PDF) about him, his story, the angles he was pursuing, sources he was talking to and talking points for Microsoft executives to hammer home. Is compiling a comprehensive dossier smart public relations management, of being prepared and serving the needs of the reporter, or is it a reflection of the cynical view of traditional public relations and its on-message management, steering a reporter to the story you want him to tell?
For any company of 1 to 100,000, being prepared is paramount when an influential publication wants to tell your story. Anyone would want a solid understanding of a micro-biographer who's poised to tell your story. But it's hard not to cringe a bit when reading parts of the dossier; it's one group of people telling other people what to say, as opposed to them providing answers in their own words.
Despite that fender-bender of old-world stage management with new-world transparency, Microsoft continues to make smart choices and investments in other loyalty-based assets, such as its MVP program, community evangelist roles, and its 4,500 employee bloggers. Social media is the company's most effective and cost-efficient flank in steering large-scale public relations. The upshot is that PR control over those big efforts is fruitless, if downright impossible. (Disclosure: We've conducted training sessions at Microsoft on word of mouth and customer evangelism, but nothing directly related to Channel 9.)
The other interesting plank in Vogelstein's story is the internal strife and often in-your-face hostility the Channel 9 founders faced shortly after launching the site. "Who gave you the authority to do this?!" one executive barks.
Contemptuous intimidation and skepticism is nothing new to change agents who are trying to scrape away the goopy bindings of message control, but the challenge is more entrenched for some. We know of people inside well-known companies who aren't allowed to read this blog post simply because it's from a "blog;" some mid-level pinhead director tarred all blogs and social media sites as a drain on productivity, not a vehicle for fostering communication and ultimately, competitive intelligence.
Once the pinheads of overbearing control are removed or run over, then companies can start to catch up to the Microsofts of the world.
Other blogs that reference The Channel 9 success story:
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Hi Jackie,
It was a bit scary how long the "brief" was. I'm not ready to jump on WagEd on this one. I've always wondered if they had anything to do with Microsoft launching those 3000+ blogs.
I've shared a couple of briefing sheets with journalists before and after meetings. A buddy, Ben Ames (now with IDG), was flattered that we researched his background (including education) and developed briefing notes that would give our meeting structure, depth and insight into a customer implementation.
Related note about how PR folks interact with media: On starting our agency work with Computerworld magazine, we sent all writers/editors their Bacon's MediaMap profiles (the database of choice at PR agencies). They laughed, edited and appreciated the ability to share their real needs and policies with PR folks.
Cheers, Adam
"Who gave you the authority to do this?!"
On a related sidenote, you have to give Scoble and crew some serious serious kudos for facing down this kind of opposition. And perhaps more importantly, never bitching about it. He's talked about it, sure. But it's hard to face up to a regular onslaught of old school thinkers and people higher on the food chain when you're doing new, uncomfortable stuff and still come out the other end.
Really makes you appreciate Scoble.
As far as the briefing sheet.... while not "wrong", it's certainly a black mark on the PR industry, as well as Microsoft. It's a reminder of how the sausage actually gets made, which is never a good thing to see.
