Microsoft’s Magic Pixie Dust

A friend just pointed me to Rory’s blog entry from the PDC – it’s a pretty accurate and fun view of what 3 days in the land of Microsoft looks like and I think Rory enjoyed himself. This part made me smile in particular:

But then a Microsoft internal blogger showed me two products - the 3-d photo mosaic service Photosynth and Worldwide Telescope which allows you to explore the stars. Both the products and the blogger were very impressive. Microsoft is a bureaucratic, sometimes overbearing, often unimaginative company. But it is still home to some smart, creative people, full of enthusiasm about the possibilities that software can offer. All it needs to do now is convince us that it really is cool to be PC.

Wow…kind words indeed (I was that blogger). It’s sort of what I’ve been saying for a while under the Blue Monster thread – that Microsoft is full of people who are genuinely passionate and that we have some very cool software that we ought to tell a better story around and be proud of. Hugh is riffing on this a lot at the moment so maybe that has me subconsciously thinking about it too. I was reminded again in an internal meeting this week that we really need to do a much better job of story telling. I think it’s what will change people’s opinion of Microsoft – perhaps more than any advertising campaign. Just honest, solid, great stories about how our software does cool stuff, is fun and changes the world sometimes.

In particular I think we need to do a much better job of showing off stuff that isn’t a product you go buy – stuff like WorldWide Telescope, Photosynth, Surface, andDeepZoom. Stuff that just makes people go “wow”. These products are the magic pixie dust of the kind that puts a shine on everything else we do.

People look at you differently if they think you make magic. We have a boatload of it but we don’t show it often enough. Of course I want you to buy Windows and Office and Exchange blah blah blah but if I can make you go wow, I may even change your opinion of Microsoft – the whole company.

Maybe it’s just me but I think that is even more important than telling you how great Windows or anything else is. I want to help people understand Microsoft better, believe in us and trust us. If I can accomplish that, it’s a great step to earning your permission to talk to you about products. Sometimes I think we get that the wrong way around.

Or maybe I’m just over thinking this?