Transparency at Microsoft is being debated in the blogosphere today, with the discussion sparked by a blog by Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine, whose April cover story is about “radical transparency”. The story includes a feature by contributor Fred Vogelstein about Microsoft’s blogging intiative, which supports 3,500-plus company bloggers.
In the spirit of transparency, Anderson has posted an executive briefing memo from Microsoft’s PR team, Waggener Edstrom, which was inadvertently sent to Vogelstein. The memo has a list of the questions Vogelstein would likely ask Microsoft executives and the answers they should give. It also contains a dossier on the reporter’s writing and interviewing style and how he likes to “dig for tension where it does not exist”.
While this inside look at the process of spin at a big PR firm should come as no surprise, there is a deeper question that the Wired story throws up. As Mary Jo Foley at ZDNet writes in her blog: “With many of Microsoft’s old management regime retiring/quitting/moving on, will Microsoft employees be allowed to keep blogging as openly as they have been? Will self-policing set in? Or, worse, will bosses start cracking down on employees who dare to acknowledge the existence of a service pack, a manager’s resignation or a shift in strategy?”
The other question worth considering is whether there are any Microsoft bloggers left who are worth reading, ponders iBLOGthere4iM, with the likes of celebrity blogger Robert Scoble, having left Microsoft a while ago. Citing the impending departure of Alex Barnett from Microsoft, who are the “a-list or b-list bloggers left in the Microsoft barn?” asks iBLOGthere4iM.
