The anatomy of "noise"

[WARNING: EXTREMELY LONG POST]

First, the standard disclaimer: I used to work for Microsoft so it's either former employee shill or ex-employee sour grapes, you pick but that's where I worked.

Second disclaimer: I present these types of 'case studies' as important learning experiences for you as you grow/manage your company, I'm not bashing/slamming anybody.  Plus it's entertaining.

Today, many people believe Blogs are solving lots of problems. One problem now believed solved is more transparent communications inside corporations with customers, partners, employees, and other shareholders.

Here's a good case study to look at as it winds its way through the blog sphere, etc, etc.

The summary:

Steve Ballmer is asked a question about RSS. He answers it. Microsoft uber Blogger Robert Scoble jumps on it, Dave Winer jumps on Steve Ballmer and we have ourselves an itsy bitty little controversy.

Let's now take this apart and see what we can learn from all of this.

It all started with a guy named Amit Malhotra doing up a blog entry on his talk/interview with Steve Ballmer. The full post is here but there a couple of things worth pointing out.

First, Amit says in plain english the interview was NOT VERBATIM.

Good for him, 10 points. More points in making it totally clear that he isn't a reporter, wasn't sure he was even getting into the event and, in general, it was really really clear (at least to me) this wasn't a recorded/formal transcript of an interview.  It's a key point, I'll come back to it.

Lesson One: Be straight up. I can't tell you how refreshing it is when you get somebody to give this type of context before you have to draw conclusions.

The question he asked was about RSS and it's impact. The actual, direct, verbatim question isn't known or remembered by Amit but the point is he was asking Ballmer, basically, what do you think of RSS.

What Amit heard and/or remembers, he wrote in his blog.  He believes Steve said, interesting stuff, not gonna change the world, other technologies allow for more complex stuff, it will be around, lots of work and debate regarding RSS is going on inside Microsoft.

Even more points for Amit, he asked the PR people for transcripts and said he would post them.

Amit's blog entry was entitled, in part: "RSS not huge but important."

All in all, nicely done by Amit.

Enter Scoble, Microsoft's uber blogger, budding young book author, speaker, and all around nice guy (so I'm told, never met the man).

Robert tosses out a blog entry with the title: "Ballmer tries to cool the RSS hype a bit?" In that blog entry, we have a link to Amit's story with a summary line about what Steve said.  Scoble credits Steve Rubel for the link. Steve's post has the title: Ballmer to RSS Enthusiasts: Chill.

Scoble blogs that Ballmer said RSS is important but won't change the world while Steve Rubel blogs that Ballmer threw some water on the RSS party, according to Amit's posting.

Next up, we have Dave Winer, a long time industry dude, super smart, very forward thinking, and a super nice guy that I have met and would vouch for.

Dave offers up a blog entry with the title: Is Microsoft of two minds on RSS?  In this entry, Dave jumps on Ballmer for spreading FUD regarding RSS. Dave follows with his, agenda free, RSS will rule the world commentary. Just kidding, don't flame me, a little simple humor.

And back we go to Scoble with a blog entry entitled: "Dave Winer calls Ballmer out over RSS comments" In this installment, Scoble points out he is working with RSS teams in Microsoft and he believes that Ballmer "did seem to throw mud in the water" but everybody is checking with PR on what exactly was said.

And we round all this out with a post from another MSFT person named Dare Obasanjo. He blogs that "our CEO decided to downplay the importance of RSS this morning in favor of XML Web Services.

Whew!

Let's start with what should be the obvious. We don't know what Steve Ballmer said. Period. And that's important. The person who wrote the blog made that clear.

As of when I'm typing this, nobody including Scoble has posted a transcript of exactly what was said.

This, of course, means we have a raging rush to judgment (Johnny Cochran: RIP) before the facts are even know.

Lesson two: Find lots of these incidents and study them. You can get really really good at anticipating reactions by reading this stuff.

No amount of PR/Press briefings/training can prepare you. You have to get the gut instinct to understand how information is moving in today's world.

This topic of this episode is classic. There are always debates of technology, always people with agendas on what is better, what's coming around, what's old, etc. 

The CEO of Microsoft probably should get some credit for hiring smart people and letting those groups work out what makes sense for the company.

Lesson three: Corporate Blogging, jury continues to debate it.  I'm using Scoble as the poster boy for this lesson because he's out there doing his thing. It's not personal and it's not directed at him/Microsoft rather a lesson for everybody. 

When you study this adventure, you can't help but notice a clear sequence of events.

1. Somebody writes something they heard from CEO. Not verified yet.

2. Still unverified, employee comments and cranks it up a notch. That's strictly my opinion of Scoble's comments regarding what Ballmer knew, who he talked, and the witty 'come on channel 9' invite.  You have to read it and be your own judge of his style.

3. Others pile on with still no verification of the original comments.

4. After a few hours and multiple bloggers making entries and running commentary, the CEO's unverified comments have become fact and taken on a "mud in the water" meaning that nobody knows to be true.

5. Rinse and repeat.

I'm not going to pick apart Ballmer's words nor nit pick Scoble's words. I do think that Dave Winer calling Ballmer's comments "FUD" is unfair and wrong, but that's Dave.  Steve saying Firefox may have a problem with diabetics and those with flat feet, okay, that's FUD.

But what was reported he said, that we don't know for sure, in no way rises to FUD standards as Dave knows em. Dave's been around and has lived through standards FUD and, well, Dave should know better.

But, Dave jumped in, which is fine, he is still a good/smart guy.

And to be clear Ballmer didn't say anything about diabetics and people with flat feet.  Something about Firefox, loosing hair and not getting dates but I can't remember exactly what he said.

On Corporate blogging, here's what I think your company rules should be, in this order:

A. Don't embarrass our customers.

B. Don't embarrass us.

C. Don't embarrass yourself.

Again, since Robert Scoble is out in public and there is a good set of opinions/comments regarding his writings, I suggest you study his postings to get a sense of what can go right and wrong with corporate/employee blogging.

In his case, here are some things you can learn from.

Scoble is a tech geek of the highest order.  He is also, in my view, a reactionary. By that I mean, he has enough watch tags, alerts, and people tossing tips his way, that he is in that trap of wanting to jump on everything as fast as possible. I've got the same bad habit of ready, fire, aim but I'm getting much better as I get older.

In my opinion, Scoble could have sent the link he got to WagEd, asked if there was an actual record of (or witness to) what was said.

And waited.

It seems to me that if it turns out that Ballmer was making the same type of comments he's been making for 15+ years regarding technology, it's not news. For years (and years) Ballmer, when asked about MAPI, WOSA, XML, ASP, .NET, OLE, etc, he basically says exactly the same thing. It's interesting but that piece of technology, in and of itself, isn't the be all end all, it's about applications, usages, people, passion, etc, etc. 

In other words, Ballmer may make comments about Open Source vs. Windows or FireFox vs. IE but when it comes to the components that makes it all work, I don't think he is playing favorites, dissing one over the other, or pouring water on any geek party.

That's part of balance and that's where I think many corporate blogs go a bit too far. Mis-quotes, bias, clips, unfair attacks, are all things we hate.  If corporate blogging is supposed to put a human face on a company, I'd like to believe those humans will work hard be straight up. 

I'm not suggesting corporate blogs become shills for your company nor am I suggesting there is a free for all where people with agendas advance those agendas in a public forum. I know that sometimes change only happens when enough noise is being made, I just observe it can be a slippery slope.

Finally, on corporate blogging, there is a sense of fairness that should be put in place and it should be the cornerstone of every corporate blog. Heck, maybe every blog or everything, but I digress.

Remember, we have an unverified set of comments. And to those unverified set of comments, we had a smart industry player (Dave Winer) call these comments FUD.  We had a corporate blogger, Robert Scoble, point people to this FUD comment and drone on.

Fine, except, it isn't fair to Steve Ballmer, Scoble's fellow employees, or people trying to keep up with the Microsoft happenings.

It can't be FUD if the comments aren't confirmed to have been made by the speaker. Period.  Simple and, in my view, Scoble should have called Winer out vs. giving some defacto creditability to this unfair characterization of somebody's unverified commentary.

So, again, this isn't a rant on Scoble nor debate on RSS, rather my pointing out to you that these are the kinds of episodes that are just super valuable lessons you just can't get out of books. 

We live in an era of open and transparent communications.  That means all of us have more responsibility for what we write and say because the impact is far greater then ever before. 

Happy Victoria Day, folks, enjoy the weekend.

Comments

[Dave Winer]

Rick I understand your larger point about corporate blogging, but this is why I thought Ballmer's comments were significant, with the caveat that they may have been mis-reported.

The one technology that Ballmer didn't express caution about was XML. He was irrational about it, over-promised about it. Of course now that XML is achieving some of the promise he had for it, he spins the other way, presumably because the innovation didn't come from Microsoft.

I linked to your piece, and I might have checked with Wagg-Ed too, but 24 hours have gone by and there haven't been any emails from either MS or Wagg-Ed, but that isn't unusual for these days. Back when you were at MS, there would have been a half-dozen emails from all sides of MS in protest. It's become really quiet these days. Not sure exactly what to make of that.

[Robert Scoble]

Rick, I think that's a totally cheap shot you just took at me and I wrote why I think that over on my blog.

[Matt]

It seems odd to me that you left off the obvious Lesson Four. "If misquoted or misleadingly paraphrased, be prepared to immediately release an accurate quote." (Possibly, depending on whether Ballmer's actual remarks turn out to have been problematic or not, followed by Lesson Five: "Never say anything in public that you don't want your enemies to quote on the internet". Of course, I don't rule out the possibility that an accurate quote would exonerate Ballmer...but it's still a prudent Lesson either way.)

[Robert Scoble]

Matt: video is a lot better for answering misquoted quotes. Why? Cause we get a lot more human detail that way. Look at the Jim Allchin video over on Channel 9 for an example of how we responded to the community misunderstanding stuff coming out of Microsoft.

[paul]

Robert is a great guy but he gets irrational when it comes to RSS because ATOM is an upgrade and we always upgrade.

[Dave Winer]

Paul, when you resort to ad hominem attacks, that's a sure sign that you don't have a factual argument, so you attack the person instead of challenging the ideas. God help Microsoft if logic like yours plays a role in the company's decision-making.

[orcmid]

Interesting. I didn't see any ad hominem attacks, and I see both Dave and Robert being touchy here, so that's even more interesting. I thought the "straight up" part was pretty clear and I don't see any cheap shot. I also think we do way too much reading between the lines on each other (as well as not reading the lines that are here very carefully, like failing to notice that Paul has no current relationship with Microsoft).

I'm not going to add to that over-interpretation distortion-feedback squeal here other than to notice that I make all of those slips too. I will clean it up when they are pointed out to me. When I catch myself heating up about something, I find that is a pretty good warning that I am about to humiliate myself, if I haven't already.

Off-topic: Here's something I'm mildly touchy about. Every time I visit a typepad.com-hosted blog, I am remembered even if I've not been here before. That's eery. It is kinda handy except when I check-off "remember me" I think I'm interacting with the blog I'm visiting, not its hosting system. That also tells me I've got a cookie on my machine that catches my visits to all typepad.com blogs, not a separate one for each one. Either way I suppose this permits visitor-behavior tracking. Ewww, now I'm talking myself into it being creepy. I have no reason to believe that visit information is being misused, but I as a visitor here have never been exposed to any terms-of-service or privacy agreement with regard to typepad.com (nor have most of the 8 visitors to my Blogger-hosted blog where Google does the same stuff). I bet if I change my URL to a blog with different topical focus, here, I'll find it changed when I'm "remembered" on other typepad.com blogs too. Ahah, abstraction breakage.

[John Dowdell]

Rick, thanks for that emphasis on source evidence, and how the lack of it can lead to TooManyWords Syndrome.

I'd differ with you on this part, however: "In my opinion, Scoble could have sent the link he got to WagEd, asked if there was an actual record of (or witness to) what was said. And waited."

I'm not sure about "waited". Scoble was the first I heard with that line "Blog on good news or bad." and this is often pertinent advice. If a story is a risk for flareup, then an early acknowledgment that it has been observed is useful.

This is particularly true if the source event could be redefined elsewhere -- once Slashdot or BoingBoing get ahold of a story, they can redefine it for all time. Being in front of a potential wave can be helpful.

But such an acknowledgment link does need to be carefullly put in context, with what the staffer does and does not know about the situation, the uncertain aspects of any story, what they're doing to learn more -- factual stuff. Extra opinion can be a risk in such situations, agreed.

Even if something appears in quotation marks in a newspaper, you still have to check what the person really said...!

tx, jd/mm

[Rick Segal]

Hi John,
The blog on good news or bad news is an interesting point that I'm thinking about. I guess that approach carries with it the responsibility of being more careful but it is an interesting point.

On waiting, Dave Winer, in his comments makes a good observation. I was assuming that there would have already been a zillion emails flying even before I post anything!

Thanks for stopping by.

[Amit]

This has stirred up quite a hornet's net. The comments were made in a Q&A session in front of 400+ people. Steve did make those comments - I have verified with my peers, the transcripts are not going to change the question or the response - as this is what was said - very clearly.. If nothing else, the transcript might even be less flattering.

I found it really odd that he was comparing RSS to Web Services coming up- much like MS was creating a new MSN from scratch as the Web was taking off. If there is a popular open standard taking, embrace it and ride the wave! Alas, Microsoft cannot invest in any business unless they know they will dominate it and it will be a multi-billion dollar revenue stream .. only because they are a public company with a huge market cap and they have to maintain. Anyone with that kind of a valuation and street expectation will do the same.

At the same time, I agree with Scoble that RSS has not quite hit the mainstream, I had a hard time pitching Enterprise RSS to some of attendees esp. since they tended to subscribe to Steve's point of view after that Q&A - clearly did not get 'it'.

amit - at - well - dt - com

[paul]

ATOM is an upgrade, it is so clear and simple.

The RSS cult does not want to have this conversation.

[Dave Winer]

Paul, I've been told by various Microsoft people that this is about Indigo.

http://archive.scripting.com/2005/05/21#When:10:48:16AM

[Robert Scoble]

Paul: beta was an upgrade of VHS that was rejected. It had sharper picture quality. I wanted the world to go with the Beta format too. It's the geek's desire. I lost.

Why? Cause the market had already decided and there was too much cost to switching over.

So far I have seen very few reasons to switch from spitting out RSS 2.0 files to Atom files.

And you are being VERY anoying with your evangelism. Just saying "it's the future" will not make it so.

[paul]

XML Web Service is the future.

[Robert Scoble]

Rick, read the Corporate Weblog Manifesto. I wrote this before I started working at Microsoft and it has largely been seen as the defacto document for how to do a corporate weblog.

Rule #2? Post fast on good news or bad.

http://radio.weblogs.com/0001011/2003/02/26.html

[Robert Scoble]

Clint Sharp's post about this topic was interesting: http://typhoon.org/archives/2005/05/21/how-to-further-blow-something-out-of-proportion/

[Michael Ferris]

Wow, Scoble, I don't know you fron squat, but you and Winer come off looking really, really bad here. Chill, dude; it sounds like Rick is giving you more respect than you deserve. You did fly off the handle and are more worried about sucking up to Winer than you are in commenting on what really happened. Ballmer has been pretty well-known for pushing XML; why is it FUD for him to continue doing so? Or do you really believe RSS would become a widespread standard if XML were not in the picture?

Amit -- in your blog you said these comments were made directly to you, and you intimated you had a one-on-one with him. Now you're saying they were part of a Q&A discussion. Which is it? Sounds like you have some accuracy issues here as well as you try to puff up your importance.

The lesson: you're all amateurs when it comes to collection and disseminating news.

As for Winer: we all know he's a bully and an insecure fascist who erupts when people don't buy into his particular vision of how things should be. Still looking for people to sponsor your sorry butt to conferences?

[Michael Ferris]

I wrote this before I started working at Microsoft and it has largely been seen as the defacto document for how to do a corporate weblog.

By whom? I oversee blogging efforts for a Fortune 100 firm and I don't see it as the de facto document.

You're way too full of yourself, Scoble. Get a grip.

[Robert Scoble]

Michael, it's been quoted in two blogging books, Fast Company, the Economist, Business 2.0, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and hundreds of weblogs. It also was handed to all the PR employees at Target and Boeing as a guide to best practices on business blogs.

Which Fortune 100 firm is blogging? You work for GM?

And why am I even replying to someone who resorts to ad hominem attacks? Do you behave like this at work? How do you stay employed.

[Robert Scoble]

Not to mention that when I Google for your name, Michael, I find no blog of yours. So, what do you know about blogging if you don't even have one? And what right do you have to tell me off? None. Next!

[paul]

Who do you work for Robert?

Steve Ballmer must have been referring to;
http://www.microsoft.com/BusinessSolutions/default.aspx

Why does Dave link back to his own blog...Indigo isn't finished.

[Michael Ferris]

"And what right do you have to tell me off?"

Ah, Scoble, you're showing what you really think of a "conversation." You view it as a process where you preach and someone else nods in agreement. Do you always get so worked up when someone questions you? I never did attack you (except to say you didn't come off looking so good, which hardly qualifies as an attact), and it's pretty poor form to try to brush off valid criticism by whining about it being an ad hominen attack. Other posters in this thread have remarked on the lack of ad hominem attacks, despite attempts by you and Whiner to disregard any disagreement by labeling it an ad hominem attack. Poor, poor Bobby; we're picking on you by actually questioning you. It's an ad hominem attack to question your credentials? When you try and shut down debate by calling yourself the Grand Poobah of Corporate Blogging, you should expect a little negative feedback. Shame on you.

The irony is you're whining about ad hominem attacks while immediately resorting to them. Isn't the point of blogging to overcome this? Oh, wait, it's not when you're an A-Lister like the grand Robert Scoble dealing with a lesser being. Do you really not see how poorly you come off in these comments? Rick put together a really thoughtful post here, and all you can do is preach back at him. Shame on you.

I checked out your blog. Pretty pathetic, really; between your shrill defenses of Microsoft and your attacks on those who don't buy into your ideology, you come off as this insecure child who can't a) handle another viewpoint and b) can't abide anyone who isn't on your A-list. If Doc or Whiner had said these things, you'd be nodding in agreement. But a lesser being says them and you resort to a lecture. Shame on you.

And as for my blogging efforts: you know you're a mondo loser when you assume Google knows all. Tell you what, pal: it doesn't.

[Robert Scoble]

Translation: Michael doesn't have a blog and is just pretending to work for a Fortune 100 company.