Missed big HR meeting (MyMicrosoft is now improved)

Three hours from Livingston to Billings? You must drive slowly.

I didn’t know they took the towels away but now that they’re back that changes everything.

And LisaB is pure genius. To think she figured out it was all about the towels after only a *one year* “listening tour”. And I bet three months of that year was spent brainstorming the “My Microsoft” name. Give Lisa a 5.0, er… whatever it’s called now. Oh, I momentarily forgot the execs don’t have to go through that awful, nasty, icky review process anyway.

MSFT down $0.27 to $22.56. It just doesn’t get any better than this folks.

@25. Still doesn’t address why he wasn’t able to effectuate change through the proper internal channels. I’d always been told Microsoft has an “open door policy”. So, the question remains… why did he have to rant externaly in order to supposedly be heard? Speaks volumes about MS management and the creedence they placed in the past in their employee polling. So maybe the former VP of HR couldnt’ keep it in his pants… doesn’t (the things you can find out about public officers) but does that mean the buck stopped there? If so, more reason to fire Ballmer.

Dave: it took two hours or so.

Christopher: Cingular told me it was their fault cause they don’t have any towers in Montana.

dmad: one voice changing an organization of 60,000? Possible, but highly unlikely.

But add that voice to public pressure and add in other voices where everyone can watch? And change happens much quicker.

If I may ask Robert, what exactly do you do at Microsoft. in HR, Tech, Sales, Marketing, Analyst?

http://www.irin.co.uk

@31. Actually, no it wasn’t one voice at MS if you believe the comments on mini’s blog were also fellow MS employees that felt the same way. I have to believe each one of those commenters from within MS also had managers that supposedly subscribed to this mythical “open door policy”. Are you telling me that MS has no method to capture internal feedback and take it up through the ranks. I know they do a yearly “survey”. Surely these opinions had to be coming through via this survey. Moreover, are you telling me that if MS management has an
“open door” policy that there wouldn’t be consistent feedback coming from various groups within MS that were hearing the same things? The only thing this suggests is that MS middle management is incapable of effecuating change, an open door policy does not exist and that MS acted out of fear rather than compassion. Again, to believe that mini was the impetus for this change shows MS has more management problems than anyone could imagine. And is more indication that Ballmer and his team is completely out of touch.

If all it takes blogging by disgruntled employees for companies to make changes, then those currently enrolled in any undergraduate or post-graduate organizational behavior major are wasting their money on anything they are being taught, and anyone that graduated in the field of organizational behavior should ask for their money back.

“He wasn’t even influential enough when we wrote our book to get noticed.”

What arrogance and idiocy! Are you claiming that anyone not mentioned in your book isn’t influential? That if you aren’t aware of someone they aren’t influential?

“Now, let’s get back to work figuring out how to make our customers lives better.”

Could you start by having a word with the Anti-Piracy marketing team? Ask them to stop send customers rocks in the mail.

Everybody at Microsoft (and Google) should listen to this interview.

Ballmer at the Churchill Club–the podcast
http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/index.php?p=3031

Goebbels: a book has to pick and choose who to write about. It isn’t unlimited in its scope. We interviewed 188 businesses about how they were using blogging. Obviously there are more than 188 businesses blogging and there were about 30 million blogs at the time of writing the book.

Yes, we picked the most interesting and influential businesses we could when we wrote the book. Mini wasn’t a business blog, anyway, he just affected business, and he didn’t do so until the past six months. (Our book was, for the most part, finished nine months ago).

Interesting post up there MiniMS has done a lot, even among MS employees and that’s no mean deal.

BTW, since you don’t really want people to email you, have you tried this tool called http://blogdesk.org for Blogging. It really pwns. My Review

“But, don’t miss the work that Steve Ballmer, the leadership team, and Lisa Brummel did here either.[...] Now, let’s get back to work figuring out how to make our customers lives better.”

Steve Ballmer did what? Precisely what?

Judging from various issues with Microsoft software I never knew existed until I had to look after a MS Windows 98 network, which later metamorphosed into a Windows XP network, “making our customers’ lives better” wasn’t high on the priority list.

And all this talk about “firing Ballmer” reminds me of a joke I once heard about some industrialists visiting a factory in an authoritarian nation. They asked the interpreter about productivity figures, employment issues, and soforth. One of them asked, “What happens if an employee is consistently late, works at a substandard level, and shows no interest in his work?” The interpreter said, “He would be shot.” The industrialists exchanged shocked glances, but the tour had to continue. Half an hour later, after they had finished and were heading for their taxis, the interpreter hurried up to them. “I just had a look at the bilingual dictionary, and the word I should have used is ‘fired’, in relation to unsatisfactory employees – not ‘shot’!”

As Terry Pratchett has said, “Give a man a match, and he’ll be warm for a moment; set him alight and he’ll be warm for the rest of his life!”