This past week things have not been quite business as usual around the office. It’s been long understood by Vista marketers that we have a serious perception problem around Vista. So what if we showed it to you but you didn’t know it was Vista? What if you saw a new operating system without any preconceived notions about what other thoughts? (Tasters Choice ring a bell?) I’ll tell you what happened because that’s exactly what we did. We showed a new operating system called Mojave to customers participating in focus groups in San Francisco. After they saw a demo of whatever features they asked to see we asked them what they thought of it and 90% said they would absolutely try it. Then we said, Well…. this is Vista.  They were all shocked. I know, I was there. There's more about the study on the Windows Vista blog.

The first buzz of the experiment was covered on Thursday by CNet. It’s been getting some good viral growth through the tech community, including threads on Twitter. This morning we’ve posted the first videos of the experiment.

The challenge for this campaign is to make it into the mainstream press. Vista gets lot of attention, good and bad, from the technical community. They are always our biggest critics, rightfully so. One thing Vista has struggled to do is market to the consumer. Tell real stories to real people. Vista is vastly different if you are running it at home to store photos, recipes, taxes, etc than it is if you are an enterprise company running multiple systems across global networks.

Anyway, take a look. Some of the videos are quite funny. This is just the beginning. More to come. Would love to hear what you think.

I was at a really beautiful wedding this weekend in the rolling hills of Northern California. The service was at sunset on top of a mountain peak overlooking golf greens and vineyards. It was a perfect wedding. The interesting thing about it was, ready for this… no cake. There were cosmo’s, passed shrimp and scallops at cocktail hour, braised lamb and halibut for dinner, champagne and vintage wines.. but no cake. I knew there wasn’t going to be cake because my friend getting married told me a month ago they had decided against it. They considered briefly renting a cake. Apparently you can rent a beautiful wedding cake made of mostly wax that is for decoration, one small piece being real cake that the bride and groom cut in front of the guests. Then they wheel the cake into the back and you guessed it, cut up sheet cake and serve that (much less expensive). But my friends opted for no cake – they cut the cake and replaced it with small cookies and a candy ‘bar’. Here was the problem with that, guests want cake. They want to see you cut the cake, they want to eat cake, it’s also a social cue to guests that says they can leave if they would like. I was always taught you could never leave a wedding before the cake. If there is no cake, there is no cue. In fact, people so wanted cake the announcer had to come over the loud speaker and remark “there will be no cake.” Told you people wanted cake.

Cake may seem like it’s trivial and forgettable, but it’s not. We love tradition and we love cake. Even when I don’t eat it myself I feel better knowing people got cake. My coffee was lonely and the candy ‘bar’ didn’t cut it (this was a no kids wedding so who else was going to stuff their pockets with jolly ranchers?) As I was walking out to my awaiting golf cart that was going to drive me back to my car (did I mention this was California) I noticed a s’mores set up by the outdoor fire pit; marshmallows, chocolate, graham crackers and kabob sticks. Rock on! Since I had no cake I drowned my sugar fix in a tasty, gooey, hot s’more. Okay, I can go home now.

I’m attending BlogHer this weekend, should be really interesting. They are expecting 1,000 attendees and with the amount of big brands trying to get the attention of this audience the swag should be killer! Jeremiah Owyang from Forrester went to a cool party tonight (wonder how I get an invite next year) and had some initial thoughts on this new marketing phenomenon. I’m attending the conference for two purposes. For one, I’m a female blogger so I’m interested in the content and meeting other bloggers. The second reason I’m going is to make connections with bloggers for my brand. I’m interested to see how these conversations go. There are so many brands competing for this audience, it will be interesting to see what cuts through the ‘noise’. One product I love to show is Live Writer. I’’m demoing Windows Live Photo Gallery, we are also showing SEO tips, family safety, and Live Writer. Should be interesting. Everyone sounds really excited.

I attended the SocialMediaCamp yesterday in San Fran. There was probably about 200 people. The workshop was a BarCamp event, my first. Interesting format. The entire event is planned and executed by the attendees. People sign up on the wiki if they have an idea for a talk. All logistics (supplies, food, sponsorships, rides) are managed through the wiki. Sponsors buy the lunch and are around for answering questions, etc. Yesterday Yoono was the major sponsor so they gave a short demo on the product. There were some other small start-ups looking to promote their services so they gave talks too. I actually think it’s a cool way to get your product demoed in front of a targeted audience of people that are using Social Media today. Most of the more formal marketing events I’ve been to lately are still covering the basics, 101 topics, so I like being at events where people are already up and using the tools and have smart insights to share. I’ll definitely go again. Another interesting point, I met 3 different PR people. So it’s quite evident all business groups are trying to get smart about Social Media.

I went to the Why Twitter session. I think I’m getting closer to a plan for this. As someone who hasn’t had any interest in personally ‘twitting’ I’ve struggled to find a way to make it work for my Social Media plan for Windows. However, yesterday I met someone from Pandora and she said it’s been great for her community manager. They’ve had a lot of success. Sooo.. I jumped in today. You can find my tweets at http://twitter.com/seattlegirl. Although already I can see how this can be a time sucker but I’ll regulate the speed limit. I’ve got my text set up to send tweets directly from my mobile. I’ll try it this week at BlogHer. I’ll be there Friday and Saturday.

I have just finished my FY09 Social Media plan. I’m shopping it around for feedback but I have to say I’m pretty happy with it. I had a great opportunity this week to preview my plan with Charlene Li, VP of Forrester Research and author of the book Groundswell. I was a bit nervous about appearing to ‘stalkerish’ when I presented to her because I used the principles and research from her book as the foundation for my plan. I believe she said at one point, “that looks familiar.” Ahh, yah.

One of my 3 strategies is Social Media Management. This means monitor and engage in key conversations in the social media sphere related to your brand. I am using TruCast, a monitoring tool created by Visible Technologies, to do this. When you monitor social media conversations it breaks out into three types according to sentiment expressed in the post; the red, the green and the gray. Red is bad, green is good and gray is no sentiment expressed. The next question you have to ask is how to prioritize the posts so you use your limited resources to engage in the most beneficial posts. My thinking on this is; amplify the green and engage with the gray. This may sound a bit contradictory but I’ll explain. Green is great. These people are saying something good about an experience they had with your product or service. I want to make sure their voice is heard as someone having an authentic positive customer experience.  Then you have the gray. These are people talking about a situation where they have a question. “Should I buy x if I use y?” Or maybe, “I bought digital camera x and I can’t get it to work with my program y.” They are looking for a solution, what a great opportunity to satisfy a customer. What’s really interesting is that a customer who had a problem and gets a quick, accurate solution is likely a more satisfied customer than one who never had a problem in the first place.  As for the red conversation, I’m much more cautious. There are two types of red, the ones that are pissed and right and the ones that are pissed and wrong. But really do I want to wade in that water? I think there are some great opportunities to help people that are expressing frustration or anger at your brand, it just requires more thought and consideration. You certainly don’t want to antagonize the situation. Microsoft seems to easily antagonize people just by the legacy of the brand, something us marketers deal with all the time. If you can’t truly add value and help the person out of their frustrating situation then you are definitely flaming the fire. These are good conversations to watch and monitor for product feedback.

According to Web Guild corporate blogs are an unimaginative failure. They bring no real business or marketing value to BtoB companies in particular. I would agree with this statement, but put it in context. It’s only telling half of the story, context here matters. I would also say that the majority of online banner ads are less than successful for most marketing campaigns anymore. No one sees them. We’ve become immune to the skyscraper banners and even the reliable text links are now obviously advertising. So, yes corporate blogs may be ineffective, but so are other forms of marketing.

Don’t throw the technology under the bus because people driving the bus aren’t using it correctly. What we have here is a case of user error (tech talk for ‘it’s the human’s fault’).  The technology is the channel but marketers have to fill the channel with value for customers. We have lots of corporate blogs at MSFT for both consumer and BtoB and the sentiment should be the same for both types, bring value to the customer. I used to work at an architecture firm in NYC. (this was before Web 2.0 when we were marveling at AOL) It specialized in hospitality architecture and historic preservation for clients like NYU, total  BtoB business. If I was their Marketing Director today I would have a blog that cover the status of all current projects. Image being able to show clients and potential clients an ongoing diary of  projects they are interested in, complete with photos and video. I would also throw in some content about upcoming trends on the horizon, local industry events and maybe some fun facts about architecture in NYC. Mixing it up keeps the content from being too one note. I would post regularly, and include track backs to other interesting architecture blogs I think my readers would find relevant. I would be clear about my objectives for the blog and set set expectations accordingly.

I think blogs serve a very powerful tool for New Business Development for BtoB corporations. This reminds me of the guy, Tim, who buys the shiny, new Boflex machine because the dude, Trent, on the infomercial look great. Tim wants to look great like Trent does so he buys the Boflex thinking he’ll get big muscles like Trent. What Tim doesn’t factor in is it takes commitment, time and know how to make the Boflex work well enough to get a body like Trent! So don’t buy the Boflex and then use it to hang your clothes on. Muscles get big and strong  from regular, focused use.