02.05.08
Windows 7 Evangelism
In response to Tim Sneath’s post about hiring a Windows 7 Evangelist
Tim,
I personally am disappointed that Windows 7 is looking at hiring someone with Dev Background. Windows Vista is reasonably well accepted by the dev/geek crowd, it is the "normal" people that just don’t get it.
Take a look at 2008 Server beta, the CDN, and Hosting Providers are chomping at the bit to get it. It has a nice spec sheet that people understand.
This is the antithesis of Vista which has a similar spec sheet and can’t gain traction the way it should. And even if the Sales numbers aren’t "that bad" on Vista it is not as well recieved as XP was, or possibly more importantly as much as the last MacOS update was.
I am hoping to see Microsoft hire someone who is willing to ground pound in Silicon Valley to get Venture Capitalist excited about putting their products on the platform, to get Hardware manufacturers to get drivers ready at release, and then hop a plane to the Midwest to work with Educators to understand why they can lower costs with a more stable more secure platform. Then go back to Redmond and talk with the dev team and the project leads about what all of those people said.
This is going to require a very technical background, but I don’t think it is a Developer background per se.
The problem with most corporate Evangelists are that they are like Televangelists. They only spread the word they don’t hear it in return. You can attend the Crystal Cathedral via television each week, and it will be an uplifting experience, but you won’t get a sense of community, and it won’t get your concerns addressed, Dr. Schuller won’t pray for you directly.
Robert Scoble did a pretty good job of reading the blogs of hundreds and discussing some of the issues that were raised, but he was a bit two-dimensional in that regard. He didn’t go to meetings with house wives and school superintendents .
In that regard Chis Pirilo or Jake Ludington were far superior evangelists to Microsoft.
Microsoft’s MVP program never seems to get the love of Microsoft’s paid evangelists. Larry Hyrb doesn’t do monthly conference calls with the Xbox MVP’s and Ben Waggoner doesn’t do a monthly conference call with the Windows Media MVPs.
All in all Microsoft has sucked at building an audience, and getting end users to feel they have a stake in the finished product. If there is one thing Dr. Rober Shuller knows, it is how to make you feel like you have a bigger part of something than you really do.