One talk - two perspectives - you decide

The fact that everybody has an agenda is not news.  Today, we are being told about the new world of transparent communications. Hmm..

Bill Gates was interviewed at Tech Show by Walt Mossberg (of WSJ fame).  Two people blogged what they heard.

Dan Gillmor and Tim O'Reilly.

Dan's entry can be found here.

Tim's can be found here.

I suggest you bring up both entries, side by side, and scroll through them. It's an interesting exercise.  Assume you know nothing about either of these gentlemen.  You can certainly draw some interesting conclusions about one person's opinion versus the other.

I happen to catch Dan's first. He posted the entry, it appears, three times before he was done. It was interesting to watch, via my RSS reader's fetching style (NewsGator) what changed, what was added, etc.  I learned something about his style and got to watch his entry evolve to where it is.

Tim's was next up and, as you will see for yourself, there are some notable differences in perceptions. For example, there was a film spoofing Bill. It's the first thing both guys mention.  Interesting what they wrote.

Two other interesting points to look carefully at.

There is a comment about Brazil the choice of desktop operating systems. The difference in what they each wrote is, to me, pretty striking, but take a look and decide.

Finally, the Q&A as documented by both.

I point all this out for a couple of reasons.

First, training. The Internet, blogging, etc, is giving everyone an amazing amount training in a number of places MBA schools can only dream about.  After reading both of these entries, you can start adding on individual agendas.  Tim O'Reilly and Dan Gillmor are both pretty well known so you can add what you know, what you've seen, etc, and layer it on as you decide what's accurate, what's bias, what's whatever. It's not for me to tell you, it's an exercise for the reader.

In my opinion, being able to read this kind of material with a critical eye, being fully aware of styles, history, agendas, etc, affords you training to make better decisions with data that is coming at you from all sides.

The second item is your own public persona. Everybody is blogging everything and while the jury is out on where the 'norm' will be, train yourself now to expect your spoken word to be heard and filtered through a thousand different people with agendas, bias, etc.  Try to remember this as you make off the cuff remarks or comments about competition. 

Years ago, odds were good it would stay in the room unless is was over the top outrageous. Today, odds are excellent the boring snooze-fest will hit the blogging airwaves seconds after you open your mouth.

Worth thinking about.

Comments

[Marc Orchant]

Very interesting exercise Rick - thanks for posting this. I read both Tim and Dan regulalry and certainly know their biases on a subconscious level. But the stark contrast between these posts - covering the same event atthe same time - really brings the different perspectives each brings to his coverage to front-of-mind.

[Rick C.]

I understand your point, and agree in general that it's interesting to look at how two different people report the same event. It's an example of why (in general) "journalism" strives to be as "unbiased" as possible (recognizing that this is an ideal never to be attained). I look at blogging more as op-ed writing, not journalism. I think that's a good perspective to maintain when reading most blogs.

I'm confused however by your comment about "First, training. The Internet, blogging, etc, is giving everyone an amazing amount training in a number of places MBA schools can only dream about." Training in what? Real-world experience, yes--and no school, MBA or otherwise, pretends to compete with that. But real-world experience isn't book-learning/formal training, either. They're different (but complementary) forms of learning.

Anyway, my two-cents' worth...

Thanks,
Rick C.

[Jacques Surveyer]

What was most interesting about this two perspectives was the nature of the "D" event and what was being asked - candor from the IT Executive elite. Perhaps the financial analysts calls are too guarded and choreographed (plus 2 questions and you are out) while published "exclusive interviews" are not too far from being PR pablum (otherwise they simply would not happen). In short the opportunity to ask top IT executives to be candid and forthcoming about their rationales in the marketplace are few and far between.

So I fully expected two quite different "takes" from colorful and opinionated people. What I found more interesting was the continued practiced deference accorded to say Scott McNealy or Bill Gates. Don't get me wrong - there were some tough questions asked by Walt Mossberg but they appeared to stop at the first response. Elegant questioning would have returned to a theme - and might have elicited comparative contrasts.

For example, Steve Ballmer speaks about being a good IT partner while Microsoft VP Lewis Levin says that Microsoft wants to dominate the BI marketplace and is prepared to dish out some of that old fashioned "cut off the oxygen" zero pricing for all of its BI stack. Now I suspect a few members of the VC audience who might have capital out in such BI ventures as Infinium, Omniture, VisualIO, etc, etc - also might be interested in a line of questioning that went like this:
WM: Steve Ballmer has been saying that Microsoft recognizes the need to act as a good partner and be mindful of some of competitive limits in the marketplace. Do you think he should be reining in some of VP Lewis Levin's zero pricing for a complete BI stack that only charges for the SQL Server SKU ? And as a follow up how is this different from the zero pricing that got you into trouble with the DOJ re Netscape ?
BG: "....have to answer that ....."
WM: So does that mean you are fully behind the zero pricing for a complete BI stack now, and like in the case of IE and IIS forever into the future - or do you see circumstances when those freebies could disappear ?
BG: " ....this is totally ...."
WM: So can I assume that you, Steve and Lewis are all on the same page and at the upcoming Partners conference you will be able to address any concerns that BI partners like ProClarity, Cognos, Crystal, Hyperion etc might have ?
BG: "....none of your...."
WM: Lets return to what you said before - the Windows marketplace is a dynamic investment opportunity. Can you tell some of the interested VCs here what specific segments you are thinking of and how long will they be immune from zero-pricing from a division of Microsoft ?
BG: "....whenever I...."

Of course this line of questioning would have been more useful about 8-10 years ago...but heaven can wait.