Slashdot Mirror
Leaked Microsoft Dossier on Journalist
Ludvig A. Norin writes "Wired journalist Fred Vogelstein blogs about how he accidentally got hold of a dossier on himself produced by Microsoft's PR firm, Waggener Edstrom. While it's not unusual for PR people to create background files on journalists, it's notable that this one leaked, and got commented by Waggener Edstrom's Frank Shaw and Wired Magazine editor in chief Chris Anderson. Makes for an interesting read — there's lots to learn from the inner workings of the Microsoft PR machinery." Someone please send me mine? I bet it's really friendly!
But, CmdrTaco, the summary (no I didn't RTFA) is about journalists?
I wonder how microsoft feels about the leak. If anything it will be a bargain chip for cheaper rates when it comes time to pay their outsourced PR firm.
.... if Microsoft's PR firms do the same thing with sites like Slashdot? Do they keep track on what certain users say? Do they keep track of what topic are posted?
That would be interesting to know IMHO.
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
You'd really appreciate this, then:
http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1747610
This guy needs to realize that he is also corrupted by the power that his writing has. For instance, saying "It also was strange to see just how many resources are aligned against me" is a complete giveaway of how highly this guy thinks of himself and how purposefully biased he is that he thinks MS's concern and attempt to show him things that might sway his opinion in the other direction is somehow being "against him".
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
When other people use bad grammar, they can be ridiculed. When Taco does it, he's keeping it real.
In your Microsoft "Dossier"...
10. Does not know what "checkdisk" is for.
9. Thinks WINNT is still useful.
8. Very Cheap: (s)he likes White Castle. Buy hamburger and get a nice article.
7. Cheap: (s)he likes Wendy's. See above. A tad more expensive.
6. Reminds me of RMS, only cleaner.
5. Reminds me of ESR. Gun nut.
4. Has a fanboy penguin T-Shirt, talks about Gentoo. Still uses WinME.
3. Steve Jobs byotch.
2. Dines with BillG and SteveB regularly. Treat with caution.
And the number one thing you don't want to see in your Microsoft PR Dossier:
1. Open Source Communist Agent. Terminate with extreme prejudice.
[Yes, this is a shameless attempt at being funny. Mod down accordingly.]
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
Like the list of articles can be gathered off by a few searches off the web.
I thought they might be tapped his phone and what not when I saw the title but apprently no.
I'm not seeing anything sinister here.
I can only *wish* my PR and markettings guys did this good a job on their briefing materials before sending me into a room. I don't do much press, but I do the occasional analyst and a fair number of customers, and knowing the lay of the land before you walk into that room is critical.
Who in there is friendly?
Who in there is looking for an excuse to hate you?
What are folk's pet issues?
The more information you have, the better a job you can do with your pitch (and fundamentally most corporate to press communications are a pitch at some level or another). Once you reach a certain level in an organization though, you're sufficiently removed from the ground game that most pitches you walk into largely cold. The local rep knows what's going on, but you don't, so they have to brief you. All you know without a packet like this is that you've been flown out to Akron to talk to John Doe from ACME inc.
My underlying point being, I don't see anything remotely sinister here. Rather I see an efficient PR organization doing its job.
It was a briefing memo for the PR encounter. Of course it'll talk about the journalist but that doesn't mean they watch his every move - it just means they read up on him for when they're going to cross paths.
It's a bit chatty in places - and this sort of work will always be subjective - but it reads to me as a good professional briefing by an efficient PR outfit.
Wow, whoever put that file together, and it was a prep for a single phone interview on top of a general dossier, is top notch. If only I had a staff to put together stuff like that for my phone meetings!
As I note in my blog posting, it is way more interesting to claim to have received a "secret file" than it is to note that a briefing document exists. Nobody should be surprised that people are briefed before speeches, customer visits, interviews, etc. It is standard practice.
And who is Steve Ballmer married to? Pam Edstrom.
Therein lies part of the problem: WE is captive to Microsoft.
It is, what it is.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
I don't see the big deal here. Microsoft needs top notch PR people, they have an image issue as can be seen by the blatant anti-MS posts which consists of half the comments on any article dealing with Microsoft. Knowing this, no company wouldn't do their utmost to prepare their executives for an interview. As far as I could tell the summary was fair and provided in depth coverage. I'm somewhat amazed at the level of preperation that goes into these interviews and would like to know if they did it any time someone talks to the press but talking to someone from Wired and getting a positive article out of it surely is worth the effort that you hit on the right points. Not every company can afford it but I don't think Microsoft can afford not to.
/offtopic (sorry)
What exactly is this whole: 'Slashdot's dead' stuff all about? I'm really interested to hear what's so wrong with this place that you still grace it with your presence. As can be guessed by my userid I am new here, and really like this site.
/ontopic (sort of)
Although that doesn't detract from the fact that CmdrTaco probably isn't the subject of a Microsoft dossier. That's particularly evident if you read the pdf linked in the article. It's all about how to best manipulate the journalist into writing stories that are pro-Microsoft, how to avoid talking about sticky issues (is Ballmer really the missing link between humans and apes?), and notes on the journalists interviewing techniques. I'd wager CmdrTaco has never had an opportunity or need to interview a Microsoft representative.
The dossier itself is tame and probably a standard practice for large company PR firms:
Interesting, but hardly inflammatory. A dossier on CmdrTaco would be pointless and would probably consist of just one sentence: 'Hates Microsoft, avoid at all costs'.
I'm going to transform myself into a mighty hawk. Either that or I'll just go and work at Dixons, haven't decided yet.
Briefing for your call with Wired is below. We want to keep it short and not offer any new avenues to him - Fred has done plenty of reporting here and it is time for him to stop and just write the article.
Microsoft PR Person:
This guy DOES look for sensationalism and tension where there is none!
The PR guys did their damn jobs. Good for them. There was nothing sinister in there at all.
Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
I don't see many people saying this is sinister, I think most people are just interested in what type of information MS follows.
And you're right, everyone does this. Do you think a politician just blindly goes into a press conference? Do you think a coach randomly chooses people to ask questions? So yeah, this is pretty much business as usual, but still pretty interesting.
If there's no tension for Wired to find while performing the interviews, why would Microsoft execs need so much coaching to make sure they "get their message across" and portray a consistent message. Doesn't make much sense to me. Clearly Microsoft's PR firm is pretty contradictory, much like Microsoft themselves. It's a match made in hell, I tell ya! PR hell!
Don't you know it is now both immoral and criminal to think beyond the next quarterly report?
Yeah, all I saw was boring stuff. Stuff that would be useful if I was the intended recipient and was going to be giving that interview, but as just a regular guy with no involvement in "Channel 9" or any of MS' dealings, I really couldn't care less. I'm just amazed that they went to all that trouble to track things in the level of detail that they did. I'd be really glad to have it if I were being interviewed, although the coaching parts would have bugged me. There's nothing like being told what to say and how to present information. Who wants to be a puppet?
The only story here is that this information ended up in the wrong Inbox.
As has already been remarked by others above me there is nothing sinister about anything said in the briefing document. It's candid in places, perhaps a little chatty in others, but overall this what you should expect if not hope for in this kind of document. If a reporter has a history of "digging for dirt" then that's what the document should state.
It seems a bit disingenuous to me to take Microsoft to task over something like this when it is the standard practice in any PR-conscious company, you can bet that Wired probably has similar documents flying about that offered guidance about individuals in companies who are easier to coerce, more likely to reveal sensitive information, etc.
How highly this guy thinks of himself? He's biased? He has the damn proof in his own email account! He's not IMAGINING this, its friggin real. What are you? The Lord King Emperor of Denial and Enabling?
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
Well, it is commensurate with the sort of profile Microsoft have. The mere fact that topics on here often stray off into rabid anti-Microsoft territory for no apparent reason justifies the PR effort really.
Most corporations aren't going into press meetings expecting the same sort of scrutiny that Microsoft does, so they don't need to have this level of documentation for simple phone conferences. With Microsoft however you can almost guarantee that at any given time anyone an executive speaks to is looking for that one slipup which will net them an exclusive story and a raise from their employer. Under those sort of circumstances you can forgive them for going to great lengths to cover off every conceivable angle.
Ok can someone let me know if Hell has frozen over, Slashdot appears to think an action that Microsofts done isn't evil and I know which I thought I would be seeing first
...news for Fred Vogelstein
I totally agree. My first thought, before even finishing reading the memo, was, dang, how do I get these people to work for me?
Makes me wonder whether the "leak" was accidental, or they were getting free publicity
Speaking of, if you like this stuff, you should watch the BBC sitcom Absolute Power.
they were busy putting together a dossier on me and a few others around X-mas of 1999?
Do you have ESP?
What surprises me about this PR analysis is that none of it -- not one word -- is dedicated to selling the journalist on the quality of Microsoft's products. Not their web products, not their development environments, nothing. At a minimum, they could have said something like "Channel 9 will help us show developers how we make the best development products."
If you're going to make a video blog for developers, I'd think you would focus on the quality of your development products.
Instead, it's all a bunch of internal politicking about transparency and alleviating fear. Is that how Microsoft makes money these days? Selling transparency? Alleviating fear?
I think I've got some synergy and some new paradigms for sale too, guaranteed to be content-free.
Ronald Reagan's briefs were one page. If I were being interviewed, I would rather be handed one page of background and bullets than to drown in thirteen pages of mush.
OT: Favorite part of the document is where they try to squelch any thought that there might be bureaucracy afoot. The section kind of reads like, "We consulted all the bureaus, and the message from the top bureau is that there is no bureaucracy at our company. If there were any traces that somehow remained, the Bureau of Bureaucracy Eradication would soon ferret them out and communicate that fact through the appropriate channels (and with proper adherence to internal protocols)."
Their they're doing there hair.
CmdrTaco: Mostly Harmless
the "story" here is that Microsoft pinged Wired Magazine a few times on a story about their "new" communications mechanism( Channel 9 ) and when Wired finally put someone on it, Microsoft orchestrated every aspect of the information the reporter received. There's a big difference in knowing what your going to go up against and having a group of dozens analyzing this person and then telling you what to say to him/her to get "the right message" across.
This isn't new to me but I'm quite sure that many many average Joe/Joans don't know that Microsoft puts this kind of money into making sure the press sees things the One Microsoft Way.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Some folks may not be impressed by this but after reading the whole thing I have to applaud M$ PR firm. They do their research extremely well and prepare the employee so thoroughly for what is going to transpire that I'm in awe. I've never worked for a huge company with a "good PR machine" and I've given interviews before -- what I wouldn't have done for this kind of prep!
Wasn't it named "Where in time is Carmen Sandiego"? Or are we talking about two different games?
"Live free or don't."
Q. Is this driven by DOJ?
A. No. It's about furthering the dialogue with customers, expanding and encouraging that
discussion and making it more two-way. We've been doing this long before the DoJ and will be
doing it long after.
I think they both exist. The one I played was Where in the World for sure.
"When other people use bad grammar, they can be ridiculed. When Taco does it, he's keeping it real [slashdot.org]."
Slashdot makes no boasts about having high standards. You get exactly what they tell you to expect, including dupes. The Slashdot FAQ makes for some good reading.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
What exactly is this whole: 'Slashdot's dead' stuff all about? I'm really interested to hear what's so wrong with this place that you still grace it with your presence. As can be guessed by my userid I am new here, and really like this site.
/. seem to fall into a few categories. You've got the pro troll, whose sole job is to talk shit everywhere, so he can be easily ignored. You've got the old-timers who got pissed off when this site grew from a chummy little linux hangout into what is is now. These people can safely be ignored as well. While you can easily argue that /. has changed, it's a lot harder to say whether or not the 2007 edition is any better or worse than the '97 version.
/. got sold off to VA (or whoever it was), nothing on this site can be trusted, the editors are all paid shills, etc. Some of these criticisms have some actual validity, but bitching about them constantly on main page articles is just wasting everybody's time.
Beats the hell out of me. I like it here too. The people that bitch about
Last, but not least, you've got the idiots who seem to think that ever since
I'll take this opportunity to welcome you here, as well as mention that we're not all crazy, there are a few pools of sanity in the great ocean that is Slashdot.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
'Waggener Edstrom, reported it would meet with "a lot of editors" regarding MS-DOS 5.0 in 1990, and: .. 'informally' plant the bug of FUD in their ears'
davecb5620@gmail.com
Again I would have to stress that a PR document written for someone like Microsoft is going to be at the absolute end of the spectrum in terms of thoroughness. For a company where any ill-thought comment can be skewed into a story you have to cover off absolutely all of the bases.
Most documents of this nature for companies without such a publicly-contentious image would simply cover off the most obvious points, they wouldn't need to go into such explicit detail about exactly what should be said and how to deal with specific questions, etc.
They're talking about the original game (which I was an avid fan of back in 1985). You're talking about one of the many inevitable sequels (and one of the later ones IIRC).
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Maybe you should fix your ENTER key before Windows...
Rethinking email
If they only knew how true that statement was going to be...
I'm going to transform myself into a mighty hawk. Either that or I'll just go and work at Dixons, haven't decided yet.
At some companies, the guy who screws up has to buy donuts or cake for everyone. At Microsoft, it means that at the next few monthly meetings, Waggener Edstrom will have to supply the chairs for Steve to throw.
Agreed. Nothing special here. A large number of Slashdot readers (myself included) don't mind being reminded from time to time that almost everything Microsoft does has a significant amount of skulduggery behind it. All companies seek to promote their products, all seek advantage over competitors, all cooperate with others only when it benefits them in some way. Microsoft it seems has made an art-form of doing maximum damage to others even when the resulting benefit to themselves is only minimal (if detectable at all). The company (seemingly) sees the world as a zero-sum game, they want all the marbles and want everyone else to have none, end of story. The Google motto "Don't be evil" is a direct reference to Microsoft. Even the company's (MS) most generous charity work (which hardly existed until the company had amassed more money than they knew how to spend) seems more like a trick to recover some level of respectability than a real attempt to do good. In a recent Dilbert cartoon (http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/dil bert-20070316.html) Dilbert asks his boss "When we are done hosing our own company can we start hosing the competition?" His boss replies "Our customers are next". (It would have been funnier and more on-target if he has said something like "Our customers come FIRST!") But the message is the same, that there are companies, just as there are individuals who seem to delight more in doing harm to others than they do in doing good for themselves. Ballmer is rarely quoted as "Our product will be better", but instead likes to go on record saying "We will destroy them!". Any other company would have recognized him as a PR disaster long ago, but for Microsoft, his excesses go unnoticed as they would nowhere else. I found this quote from the PDF more interesting:
Now for the /offtopic...
My guess is that Slashdot readership is down, although I haven't seen any number on how much. It used to be the only thing of its kind, and quite frequently a link from a Slashdot story would take down, or slow to uselessness even fairly robust servers. Many forums have come and gone and had little impact on the size of Slashdot readership, but two things have recently (I'm guessing) for the first time had a noticeable impact: Digg, and the popularity of RSS feeds. About all I can say about Digg is that I tried it and didn't like it very much. I like having a top-level selection process for stories (even though I don't always agree with what Slashdot selects, or when) rather than the "pure democracy" approach that Digg takes (or pretends to take). I don't get my view of science from radio shows that run at 1AM, or my view of history from Oliver Stone movies, but my guess is that many Digg posters can't distinguish between "West Wing" and a documentary on the White House. People have been trying to "game" Slashdot for years, with mixed success, but in Digg they have found a system much easier to game, and by and large I think the typical Digg user is more interested in the game tha
Mark Martin, the Wagg-Ed guy who wrote most of that briefing document, is a detail-oriented pro. I've had plenty of contact with him, both during the work day when we're on opposite sides of the fence, and after-hours, when we stop thinking about work and have friendly conversations (often over a drink or three) about sports, family, politics, and other non-controversial topics.
:)
The only thing surprising to me about this "story" is that anyone is surprised to learn that Mark is just as good and thorough a researcher as the reporters he deals with all day long.
I would not be surprised to read one day that Mark has left Wagg-Ed and started his own PR agency -- and I would be even *less* surprised to learn that most of his clients were open source-based companies. He is often Microsoft's point man in their "Why proprietary software is better than FOSS" PR efforts, so he has an exceptional grasp of FOSS benefits. This knowledge will serve him well if and when he decides to leave the Dark Kingdom and join the Forces of Goodness.
- Robin
Wow, I didn't think I'd be saying this but ... I tend to agree.
By way of explanation: Until recently I have been a senior editor at InfoWorld. My primary responsibility was features. I've written hundreds of articles and attended hundreds of vendor briefings, private meetings, etc. In pretty much every single one of those meetings there is some woman sitting there with a pad of paper, jotting down notes. She seldom says a word. You just can't let it bother you.
You want "When PR Attacks"? This Microsoft dossier ain't it. I've had PR people, thinking they were being cute, drop little comments about me into their emails. "Hey are you going to the such-and-such concert this weekend?" What they've done is Google searched me, pulled up my personal Web page, and added all that info into my file, also. So if they see that I like heavy metal music, for example, they'll make some comment about that.
Or, if you meet them in person, they might make a casual comment about Indian food. If you say that you like Indian food, they will mention the name of a particular nearby restaurant that they like. You'll think, "Oh, that's interesting, I'll make a note of that." But guess what? They will too. That information will also go into your dossier, and from then on every time you meet that PR rep she will try to get you to grab lunch at that particular Indian restaurant (and her client might come along too, just for kicks).
If you get laid off from a media job, somebody will Google search you and e-mail or call you at home, trying to find out where you will be working next, to preserve the relationship. (Never mind that you didn't even realize that you had a relationship with this person.) It doesn't occur to them that you might have left work to care for your wife, who is dying of cancer. To them, if they can reach you, you're fair game.
This Microsoft dossier, on the other hand ... this is pretty much what I'd expect. If anything, I'd say it looks like WaggEd is doing a competent and professional job.
Breakfast served all day!
I'm sure they have documents on who can be "persuaded" to write a nice article for them and who will bash their competitors given the right incentive. I'll bet that these documents are helpful in Microsoft's current viral campaign against the PS3.
They're finally releasing MS-DOSsier!
Who said this was business? At this level, you are talking strictly corporate politics and media manipulation.
Wow! Microsoft's PR group really goes the extra mile to analyze and try to control a situation. Under the "Expected Q & A" section where they give the questions that they think will be asked and supply the PR approved answers they seem to have forgotten one:
Q: Have your answers been scripted?
A: No, we here at Microsoft believe in spontaneity. It is the true source of our innovation.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
Now that is a useful reply, thanks. Your quote is more interesting as it points to how Microsoft seek to control everyone who comments on their product. This is not too suprising and I believe it's becoming less important: since the Web is becoming more and more popular I can't help but think the horrible sales figures for Vista have been caused by their inability to control all the reporters. There are so many of them! Including the ad-hoc reporters all over forums and blogs talking about what a dog Vista is (from the first beta onwards), not even paid shills can keep up with decentralised nature of the Web.
This might have been a suprise to Microsoft as it seems all their releases are awful until the first service pack. However, people would have only had Microsoft-friendly reporters covering their previous releases to rely upon. This is not the case today.
Agreed, incidentally it was as a direct consequence of Digg that I found /. Digg users can be somewhat rabidly single-minded in their approach to news items, that--amongst other things--made me leave. Still needed a reliably anti-Microsoft news source, so I found /. (and there was much rejoicing).
I'm going to transform myself into a mighty hawk. Either that or I'll just go and work at Dixons, haven't decided yet.
Man, I RTFA and I can't believe MS would spend so much time, money, and effort to try and
manipulate an article about a freakin blog site or wtf ever channel 9 / 10 is.
Funny and pathetic at the same time.
It won't be long before a couple of smart kids in a garage somewhere
put together something that finally disrupts MS.... who knows maybe
those guys are named Larry and Sergey, but they alreay moved out of the garage..
There are people that do what you are describing at MS, its just not PR, its developer content and user assistance teams. PR doesn't really work with the products in the sense that they would have that capability. Don't assume that what PR does is the sum of how a developer product is sold to developers. Marketing isn't even the biggest resource for that. The method for promoting development products varies for every single product team. Every division has their own user assistance groups and developer content groups that consist of programmer writers, editors and technical writers. Those people sell products to developers in the manner that you are requesting. They conducts labs, make videos, do training, booths, make developer centers and are often the people who handle API documentation since they have both development and communication skills. Sometimes evangelists augment that process. And FYI evengelists are not part of PR. PR has its own job to do. Most MS oriented developers wouldn't go to PR for such a resource. MS does have significant resources selling development platforms in the manner you requested they just don't think PR is the most qualified resource for that aspect of a development products promotion.
Ok, thanks! I guess I should've just looked it up on Wikipedia before asking. But thanks for taking the time to answer.
"Live free or don't."
N8F8 slams the victim and misses the point:
saying "It also was strange to see just how many resources are aligned against me" is a complete giveaway of how highly this guy thinks of himself and how purposefully biased he is that he thinks MS's concern and attempt to show him things that might sway his opinion in the other direction is somehow being "against him".
His job as a journalist is to report reality. The forces arrayed against him finding reality included the 5,000 page paper and a series of interviews across the country. They wanted to guide him down the M$ path. It must be sobering to him to think what those agents could do to him if he has deviated from that path.
Consider the case of Peter Quinn. They smeared him, forced him to resign and are now trying to dismantle his former organization. This is no small effort, it's a billion dollar a month job.
All of this just to maintain a monopoly on an OS and a text editor. Strange? Yes but very real and threatening.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
twitter, you forgot to complain to this heathen about Bill Gate's personal crusade against you!
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
FTA: We're also trying to get him to talk to Charlene Li at Forrester who just published a positive report for us on the ROI of blogging.
As if anyone at this point had any doubt that these 'research companies' are paid shills.
Office is second rate? And OpenOffice, by emulating it, is a first-rate product emulating a second rate product?
The number of hysterical anti-Microsoft geeks is slowly decreasing, but it's nice to see that they haven't quite gone extinct yet.
And as full disclosure, I used to work for Microsoft a few years ago. You probably think I'm part of some evil borg hive-mind now, but your characterization of Microsoft as one voice, despite it having tens of thousands of employees, is as hysterical as your characterization of their products.
Jesus christ...
Free software users are serene.
Most of them are, yes. You on the other hand are a hysterical, pompous, arrogant insulting FUDster. 6,000+ posts and counting don't lie. I have the links, if anyone wants them.
You obviously can't be bothered to read my history.
I know there is MS but that always makes me think of the Multiple Sclerosis society, they have after all been using it far longer, I know some 'Linux Freaks' (to use your description) might consider it an apt description of the programming skills of M$ employees and the management skills of the M$ board but I think that it would be a little bit harsh and just a bit excessively personal ;).
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
There never was such a thing. Free software users are serene.
This is the funniest thing I've ever read.
Didn't you once say Microsoft killed the fax machine? Jesus christ.
By summer it was all gone...now shesmovedon. --
I agree with that. I see a lot more sinister motive in posting as an Anonymous Coward than in a PR firm building a comprehensive profile :-)
What I thought about most as I read the leaked document is the effort that goes into building and tracking this information. Microsoft must spend a hugh amount of money on these types of documents - and is in the fortunately position of being able to pay for this kind of service. It's a J Edger Hoover type operation going on there, and perhaps this was leaked to let all those tech reporters know they are watching the watchers:
"Fred, per his MO, is relatively tight-lipped about other interviewees
though we know he's talking to Winer, Scoble and he'll be talking to Tim O'Reilly."
They have a lot of people chasing things down and maintaining a communication network of informers.
An upstream comment on this firm being Ballmer's wife is insightful as well. There's a lot of inbred thinking going on in Redmond and a lot of the smarmy attitude of their employees might be explained by this.
Sleep is for the Weak
Oh, yeah.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo