Blown Away by our Customers

I haven't yet figured out exactly why certain posts become more popular than others.  I never really expected much of a response from this.  I cross posted it over at Channel9 because the customer creativity there that inspired me to open up our teams internal logo competition in the first place.  Now its almost three days later and I've been blown away.  I've got a lot of swag to start mailing.  To date there have been...

• Over four thousand thread views
• 120+ replies
• And over 70 potential logos!!!

I'll probably going to have to limit each person to submitting only their 2 favorite entries.  I honestly never thought I'd have to figure out a way to narrow down the submissions.  I thought I'd be lucky to get around 10 entries. A small example, but it really starts to prove the supposition made by Nick White today.

"It's my belief that strategically creating, maintaining and deepening relationships with our customers, listening to their concerns regarding our current products while also finding ways to manifest their future needs in upcoming product revisions, and engaging our entire staff in communications with these customers, will vastly improve the quality and market reception of our products. It will also serve to change much of the prevailing attitudes toward Microsoft, especially those that hold that we're a company that does not innovate nor listen to its customers. The strategy is solid and we're well positioned to make it successful. As I mentioned before, the proof comes down to our ability to execute."

I don't know about threatening the open source phenomenon. I believe thats here to stay.  But I'll agree that customer led innovation is a powerful tool thats currently underexploited by almost everyone.