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I think the latest Microsoft TechNet mailer show that they don’t understand the new realities of the “conversation“.

I recently received a marketing piece for TechNet Flash from Microsoft Canada. I looked at the copy on the front and thought “Wow, they just don’t get it!”

The copy read:

Some people believe it is who you know that gets you ahead.

When I opened the piece I saw that it wasn’t as bad as I first thought:

Members of TechNet Flash believe it’s what you know, too.

The “too” at the end made the difference. While “what” absolutely is important in the technical arena, the Cluetrain Manifesto showed us that “who” can be even more important.

As a provider of technical knowledge TechNet tries the typical approach of making their stuff “the most important thing since …”.

What’s wrong with that you might ask? Well, to really show their class I think they should have acted differently. By wording their marketing piece differently they could have acknowledged that they understand the importance of the “conversation” - and at the same time underlined the importance of technical knowledge.

Let’s face it. With 95% of all jobs never advertised you need to know somebody. Without contacts you are stuck! Thus the importance of “who”. When you know somebody you have the possibility to get ahead - if you know “what”.

So, while Microsoft got both of the elements in their message, I think they should have stressed the overall importance of “who” much more, and then played the “what” card.

One possible option:

Networking expertise is important. It is who you know that might get you ahead!

Networking expertise is important. Do you know what to do to run your network properly?

Any other ideas? Suggestions welcome!

roar at roarweb dot com

After struggeling to make Blogger do what I wanted to do with my Blog I gave up!

Blogger just does not cut it when it comes to hosting a business blog. WordPress demanded a bit more setup - and I needed my own host (which I already had) - but it now gives me access to features I did not get with Blogger. For example, categories was one of the features I was longing for!

On Monday November 28th I posted live from a seminar to my Blogger account and then used FTP to upload to my own domain. I also made a similar post to a test I was doing on the hosted version of WordPress . In checking - two days later - my Blogger entry had not been listed on Technorati, but my WordPress.com (hosted) had. It was really scary. End of Blogger for me.

It took me a week or so to move. I wanted to move my Blogger posts with me. There are scripts, but I could not get them to work properly. And having only 40 posts or so I thought I would just copy them manually. I also decided to leave the Blogger posts in my directory, so I made a change in the HTML showing only one link from each post - back to my new WordPress PHP driven homepage.

I’m sure there will be other updates I will want to do, but at least all my posts are now migrated and my FeedBurner links are implemented.

roar at roarweb dot com - reporting live with WordPress

A MarketWatch article looks at RealNetworks Rhapsody service - which now is available over the web.

Personally I’m uncertain I really want to spend my bandwidth on playing songs. Downloading is one thing, playing is another.

Anyway, I decided to have a look. I looked around for a bit, then clicked on a link to a Rolling Stones album. I could see from the URL that they had already detected I did not have their player (”http://..has-player=false”. Shouldn’t be a problem with a web based service, right?

Well, not so. While the site was advertising I could check the music out for free (or at least that what I thought it said), they just wouldn’t give me access. Why, I’m on a Canadian IP address!

So while this system might work well in the US, forget it if you are going on holidays outside the US or just happen to live in Vancouver, BC, the “most desirable place to live in the world“.

I guess, with my new iPod [story], that I can manage well without them.

I wish though they had done more for me that just to tell me “no”. Why not take me to a page showing what my alternatives were? My guess is that they would be OK selling me music???

roar at roarweb dot com

Note: This post moved from Blogger December 6, 2005

Vancouver Sun: “Stray e-mails”

Stray e-mails is a problem. Especially if you are on the senders’ side. I’m sure most of us at some point have ended up including too many people (”reply all”??) or misspelling a domain name.

An article in the Vancouver Sun today underlines the importance of spelling e-mail addresses right and not expecting e-mail messages in general to be “secure”. To me the story also raises a question about ethics.

The owner of the infrastructure.ca domain has “for several years” (WHOIS says the domain was registered in 2000) been getting misdirected e-mails, [some] containing inside information about the Liberal government.

Sender beware! You never know who will be reading your e-mails!

On the other hand, this could have been an easy problem to fix for the domain owner - especially after several years of “problems”.

Some issues to consider:

1) He probably used the “catch-all” setting for e-mail, limiting the number of valid e-mail adresses would have been simple.
2) He could have deleted the e-mails. Instead it looks like he read every little detail.

The owner is now negotiating with the Canadian government for them to purchase his domain. He’s been asking $70,000! This amount has now been reduced to $25,000. The offer from our government: $5,000!

As people are likely to continue mistyping domain names, I suggest they use an outside agency to set the value. A Google search on Domain Valuation lists quite a few providers that is willing to do this.
This will make sure the asking price is not seen as black-mail and the offer price is not seen as a “cover-up”.

For the rest of us, we need to make sure we use the right e-mail addresses, not send confidential materials by e-mail …. and maybe delete incoming e-mail not intended for us? Telling the sender their e-mail went astray is a nice thing to do as well, but maybe not that practical for higher volumes.

Oh yes, if you are interested in politics … you might want to read the whole article on your own.

roar at roarweb dot com

Note: This post moved from Blogger on December 6, 2005

UPDATE: This post moved to WordPress December 5, 2005! I have my new tool!

I’ve just lost an hour worth of work. I’ve been working on a blog piece and just wanted to add one more reference link. To do this I opened an e-mail from a friend and clicked on the link he had sent me. Which opened the this web site within my “Blog This” page, and erased all my work.

I think I need a new tool.

roar at roarweb dot com

Note: This post moved from Blogger December 5, 2005

Maybe I need glasses….

The other day we got a Best Buy Buck prize while buying a meal at McDonald’s. I was amazed to see it was a $25 prize.

For nearly a week now I’ve believed I had won $25. Turns out not!

I must be needing glasses - the prize was for $2$CDN. I’ve never seen this setup before, and with the small font size I was fooled.

I was lucky that found out before going there. I was reading about the fellow that won $1 million after kicking a field goal, and there just happened to be an ad for the McD Monopoly Game in that piece.

Back to McD/BB - I’m sure it was designed this way on purpose. This poorly, in my mind, designed game piece is impacting my relationship with BB. I’m quite disappointed with this “deception”.

…maybe I’ll shop somewhere else for a while.

roar at roarweb dot com