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Microsoft PR: Looking Under The Hood
mtr writes "An interesting article uncovering some embarassing and amusing PR practices of our friendly software giant had been recently published by Michael Zalewski. The author recovered change tracking information from all the DOCs published on microsoft.com, and came up with something to cheer you up. It's funny when it happens to others - but even better if it fires back on themselves.
Read the full story here."
And he's writing a book for No Starch Press due in August :@)
It's called "Silence on the Wire" and he is One Smart Dude (TM).
Full disclosure - I work for No Starch Press.
Hyperic Community Manager
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Actually it's a pretty common practice to write place holder quotes (ie quotes they write for you) for the executive and then ask if it's ok to use them. I have done so for Netledger and MyGeek. Most executives don't have time to think of something nice to say about the vendor. In joint marketing efforts this is the norm, usually it also passes through your PR department as well.
Thalasar
Actually, the removal tool is just part of the application on that page... upon actually downloading and installing it, one comes to see that there are several tools/options that one can do with the "Office Resource Kit", and removal of Office is simply one of those things. So actually, yes, yes it does have stuff to do with the above =).
As per subject: http://www.ugrad.cs.ubc.ca/~z2u3/lcamtuf.coredump. cx/strikeout/index.html
The program Michal used is called wvWare [sourceforge.net], obviously a handy little tool.
He also gives links to some documents that supposedly yield interesting results. They are reproduced here:
1,
2,
3,
4,
5
So get cracking and have fun!
P.S. This same post is somewhere lower in the threads - and probably going lower (i.e. it's sinking with its parent) ... I'm posting again hoping this copy won't go down. :P
Mirror available at PlanetMirror now here.
Hmmm... I remembered something about that too, and found a link from 1999 on a site not related to the Dave Matthews Band. Don't know if XP is doing it too. Haven't cared since I've been MS free since 1999.
Everything described on that site is standard operating procedure for technology marketing/pr departments. Case studies, customer/analyst quotes, etc. are often drafted ahead of time and then sent to the company/analyst for approval. And of course straightforward engineer-speak ("our monopoly") is massaged into marketing-speak ("our large installed base of satisfied customers").
"They've canceled the show but we're still here. What does that make us?" "Big Damn Junkies, Sir!" "Ain't we just"
A lot of people are talking about the quote with the xx's.. this is common practice in PR, we write the quotes in the release, they sign off on them.
Did you actually think the pr people were interviewing the ceo for a press release?
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|-_-| . o O ( bEef!)
There's not much they can do. Microsoft publishes these documents, and fair use allows the snippets to be posted for the purpose of criticism. They have no more right to have them removed than a novelist has to have a uncomplimentary book review removed.
Find me a CEO/senior executive of something important (company, government) who doesn't use speech writers, and you will have found a failed executive.
Does anyone seriously think Bill, Bush, Gore, Gates, Thatcher, Scott, Arnold, etc. really have time to research and prepare up to a dozen dozen speeches every week on topics ranging from youth education, the state of the automobile industry, and how the new initiative will enhance health care in a region?
PR firms and flacks write speeches all the time because they are the ones with the time and training to parse highly specilised information into something Joe 6 p.m. nightly news reporter can understand, while making disasters look good for the company or government. Executives, however, are tasked with leading/spearheading/announcing important things when they happen and providing overall organizational leadership and management.
It would sometimes be nice if $leader fully understood the consequences of bituminous petro extraction and writes the entire speech himself before he speaks about it before their association, but I'd rather have $leader worry about leadership and management things which I might be paying him for through holdings or taxes.
There are 1.1... kinds of people.
but colloboration changes aren't metadata, just regular data that's hidden until you expose it. the redline action could conceivably be called metadata, but the point is that i can send you a flat file and you can make changes that are tracked within the file itself and then send the same flat file back to me. storing this data outside of the document would require either that i send you a document specific change db with the doc, or that you and i both maintain independent db's of file changes that we keep in sync.
both of those solutions seem like the suck. word's colloboration feature is useful and popular because it's so simple--no extra steps+a flat file. all it seems to lack is an obtrusive "retain change information? yes/no" dialog when you save, because then people might actually remember to strip the doc before publishing it.
london is drowning and i live by river
Now there is a reason why Word is better. I can't see any of the old versions of the file using OpenOffice.org.
and your wish shall be granted...
The Memory Hole has lots of goodies. The following was of particular personal interest:
DOJ Attorney Diversity
-- "Most people prefer a popular myth to an unpopular truth"
or even a "publish" button, that strips out the meta-data, and optimizes the doc file.
but that would make sense.
Er, POS standing for "Point of Sales", of course. Ie., a fancy cash register.
No! It's a *SIG*. Keep the Special Interest Groups away! (Con joke!)
> Er, POS standing for "Point of Sales", of course. Ie., a fancy cash register.
You may want to look up the definition of humor....
GUID's aren't (obviously/reversibly) MAC dependent any more, that was considered a security hole and removed. 2K/XP don't have that issue.
Once I know I need to write a news release, I work out a plan. This includes goals, target audiences, media tools, means of measurement, key messages and key sources. If I need to involve external sources (the people I quote), I ask those companies for their consent to write a release. Depending on the relationship, they may send me the quotes *or* I might write quotes for them and have them approve them later.
It's often the last minute before the other company's senior execs, marketing staff, PR agency, lawyers, clients, or other stakeholders decide who they'll let me quote. They may have long debates over whether they want their quote attributed to the CEO, VP, client, Martian Sales Director, General Manager for Neptune, etc. It all depends on how they want to position their own quotes. And that's assuming they even wrote them. Whenenver I've had to deal with Microsoft, they've taken a week or more to approve a news release.
Virtually the same scenario takes place at my end. Various stakeholders provide input, and both the quotes and the sources (e.g. CIO) can change.
In my experience, anyone who ends up being quoted has to sign off on the quote. There are review processes. It's not like those people weren't involved.
When a CEO or other exec has a "real" interview with the press, the CEO reads from notes and statements that a marketer wrote. Before the interview starts, a marketer goes over all the notes and helps suggest possible questions and answers. The marketer sits in on the interview and (if cameras aren't present or it's over the phone) may help the exec piece together answers. Everything is heavily scripted. Eventually, the execs know the words by heart, or pretty close.
You can compare this process to the one used for professional speech writing, memos, letters, ghostwritten articles, and briefing notes. In fact, when I was just a co-op student, I was writing briefing notes, "question period responses", and other materials for the Canadian Minister of Immigration. Whether in a corporate or goverment environment, spokespersons rarely speak off the cuff. Except for Dan Quayle.
And, while I'm sure some people are horrified by the process, it has many advantages. Messages are consistent. Speakers/sources are handpicked for credibility, ability to talk, and relevance. All the messages have been pre-screened by legal teams, reducing risk. It's less likely that the exec will over-commit us, say something incorrect about a feature/benefit, or go off-topic. And the investment in marketing is maximized. And that's good for the company.
-- SYS 64738 --
The Danish government too
The change tracking feature in Word is a nightmare. Which particular smart monkey thought it would be a good idea to turn it on by default?
Now is the winter of our disco tent
A separate Add-in tool is available for removing hidden data from Office XP/2002/2003 applications.
It is that simple on Mac OS X.
mbbac
...it's just being amused by seeing MS not delete the metadata before putting the Word docs up on the web.
Making fun of someone isn't hating them - my brother/cousins/best friends and I joke with each other about lots of stuff, if you get my drift?
JR in WV