Raw Notes: Lenn Pryor

We've decided to leave Chapter One alone for a while and circle back to it later down the line.  Same with the title.  I've spent some time in the last week interviewing some Microsoft people about blogging, how it started, how it's changing the company from inside and perceptions of it on the outside. <p>

We thought it might be useful or interesting for us to publish "raw notes" of these interviews.  These will be longer than what will be used in the book, in some cases, a good deal longer. Below is a summary of what I thought was an outstanding interview with Lenn Pryor, who first conceive of Channel 9. It will be helpful to us to hear what you think was the most useful or interesting and this will, to some degree, determine what we include in the book. <p>

Extracts and summaries:<p>

"I've worked for Microsoft for eight years. When I came, I didn't know what to expect. I wasn't sure what Microsoft would be like from inside. I just hadn't realized how few people liked the company, even though the company has done so many great things. " <p>

"The 1st thing I learned when I went out to see customers is that people are not always happy to see you. What got in the way with building great relationships was the fact that I worked for Microsoft.  The two people who represented the company --Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer--got in my way. Often I found I got painted with the brushstrokes of Bill and Steve, two of the wealthiest people on the planet. Every time I went out, I had to work around this block in order to build  trust." <p>

Lenn would go out with a customer for dinner, and sooner or later, the customer would say: "You know Lenn, I want to tell you I'm really surprised that you're such a nice guy. I didn't expect you to be.  And I'd ask, 'well, why not?' And they'd say,  'Because you're Microsoft and Microsoft is fundamentally evil.' You just don't seem evil, so you're either really good at concealing this or I've read you guys wrong.'"<p>

Just like his customers, Pryor didn't know what Gates and Balmer were really like, so he could not truthfully defend them or agree with the accusations.  "I was carrying around the sins of two of the richest people on the planet. So for years, I wondered how I could I get customers to just trust me even though I was Microsoft."<p>

This dynamic disappeared for one out of every 104 weeks. Every two years, Microsoft gathered together 6,000 third-party developers and 2,000 employees for its Professional Developer's Conference (PDC).  As Director of Platform Evangelism, Pryor ran the event in 2003, and for one week, everything was different between Microsoft people and their customers. They would see previews of new technology, share ideas, eat pizza and buffet fare, rub each other's elbows at the lobby bar, share jokes and family experiences.<p>

"For one week, we had this magical bond. We were actually everyone's friend.  We became human in our customers eyes and they became human in ours. All the misconceptions went away," recalled Pryor. But, then everyone went home, and all the good feeling would erode.  "We were Microsoft again, the evil guys."<p>

After PDC, Pryor wanted to maintain the "humanizing factor." He agonized on ways Microsoft could perpetuate PDC's spirit of good feeling and trust.   But how? Redmond could build an online community or start a bulletin board but neither seemed all that promising or exciting.<p>

On a personal level, he was worn down by the PDC effort.  He came down with a cold, and "in a Nyquil haze was taking a mid-day shower,to clear his head, when the epiphany hit.  <p>

The key was humanization. Software works when it is sufficently humanized, and the magic of PDC was in its humanization. "We had established a human connection and the customer could no longer be just a statistic. We needed to bring the humanizing factor into every day life so that we would continue to see customers were not just numbers and we they could see that we weren't these evil rich guys."<p>

Pryor looked for options. He'd been watching blogging for years, had his own blog for a while, had known, learned from and was inspired by Dave Winer, blogging's father. Before blogging, Winer had been talking about the human aspect of the Web, about using it as a sharing tool.  <p>

"Dave had had me thinking about this stuff for a long time and it got me to thinking that Microsoft needed was an open [communications] channel.  Can we create reality TV of some kind?  Can't we just put a video camera in the hallways of Microsoft? How can we lose, if we just show people our lives [at Microsoft]? " <p>

This concept became Channel 9.  The name comes from the United Airlines audio channel in which passengers can listen to pilots during take-offs, flights and landings.  Pryor knew it well, because he was personally petrified of flying after a friend had recounted an altitude-loss experience to him.  "I had this terrible  relationship with United and their product.  I was really scared to death of their product even though I had to use it for business, and no one was doing anything about making me feel better about them or their product.  <p>

"Sound familiar?" Pryor asks, smiling at the metaphor for how many people feel about Microsoft. "A lot of people say I really don't like you guys, I don't know you and don't trust you, but I have to use your products to do business. "For me, I got over my fear of flying by learning about the life of a pilot and the more I could understand him, the more I could feel that their best interests were my best interests.  I don't think there's any better way to describe how people feel about Microsoft, then how people feel who are afraid to fly."<p>

"You have several hundred people locked into a metal tube at 40,000 feet, travelling at 600 miles-an-hour and there are two guys in the front of the plane you're just going to have to trust." <p>

Microsoft,Pryor thought, should build its own open channel of communications, just like UA's Channel 9.  "Can't we just share our lives with people and then they'll see we're human and then they'll trust us?"<p>

A Microsoft Channel 9 would start a process in which would redefine evangelism as companies generally practiced it.  Historically, company evenagelists extoll the virtues of their company products by spreading the word on features and benefits. Pryor wanted to shift the focus from product to relationship.<p>

Saying he wanted to bring reality TV into the cubicles and hallways of Microsoft, he brought his concept to his boss, Vic Gundotra, general manager for platform evangelism, who thought the idea of having some guy walking around with a video camera just filming people and having them talk about their jobs and their lives sounded a bit crazy, but he told Pryor to go for it.<p>

But how would it get started and who would be behind the camera? Gundotra and Pryor agreed, the project should start low-key, without marketing hoopla. Also,there would be people at Microsoft who would oppose this idea because it disrupted systems and put messages out of control. Vic would provide the air cover and not-insignificant support. <p>

Pryor had to re-jigger his team  There was this new guy, Robert Scoble, a relatively new hire from NEC who hadn't quite found his place at Microsoft yet.  Pryor had known Scoble before. Dave Winer had been Scoble's mentor and boss at Userland a couple of years back. An avid, prolific blogger, Scoble was posting  20 blogs or more on his own time each night. <p>

Scoble had been NEC's evangelist for their Tablet PC. In that role, Scoble had attended a developer's conference, where he publically advised Microsoft President Steve Balmer to "give Microsoft a more humanizing face." When NEC finally shipped its acclaimed TabletPC, Scoble made certain two people in Redmond got some of the first tablets off the line. One was Bill Gates.  The other was Vic Gundotra, who was impressed by Scoble's passion and style.  Gundorta would eventually hire Scoble.<p>

<Note: Ask Gundorta to comment on why he hired Scoble.> <p>

Scoble, wasn't your usual Microsoft style. Said Pryor, "Robert is a lovable goof.  He has all his flaws hanging out on his sleeve.  He's curious like a child, and its hard not to believe him and trust him."<p>

Earlier, when Scoble first came to Microsoft, and he wasn't yet reporting to Pryor, Lenn invited Scoble and his wife Maryam to his home for a social visit.  Before Scobled arrived, the Pryors got a shrill surprise.  "We hear this WAAAAAAA.  WAAAAAAA. It's our fire alarm.  My wife and I become frantic. We open the front door and there's Robert peeking through the glass with a silly smile on his face. 'I did it,' he tells me. 'I pulled your fire alarm.  I thought it was your doorbell and you had an odd sense of humor.'  Robert is just standing there and he's laughing his ass off.  Fire engines are pulling up, the condo president is running up, and he's just laughing about it all. I figured if he was handling this so well, he could probably survive anything."<p>

Before Scoble joined Microsoft, Pryor was a fan of his Scoble's personal blog "Scobelizer." Microsoft, of course has more than a small number of external critics, many who try to climb up and get in your face. But in Scobleizer, "Robert always came across in a way I want to listen to. He'd say, "You guys did something wrong. Let me tell you why it hurt me and why it hurts you and why I think you can do better. Robert tells you a lot about himself.  He puts himself out the line. His style and his gift for words are important,  He delivers criticisms from his heart.  He shared his passions and his ideas in very unique, personal ways right out in public." <p>

Pryor liked Scoble's combined gifts of being human and articulate.<p>

So Pryor invited Scoble, to a Sonics basketball game where Michael Jordan would make his last uniformed Seattle appearance.  After Jordan's courtside introduction, the two would never again glance at the floor, but spend three hours brainstorming and germanating the Channel 9 idea. They both went away, not recalling who won, but certain that Scoble and Channel 9 were right for each other. <p>

Pryor thought Scoble had attributes that might make him the right voice for Channel 9: (1)he's human.  (2)he's a great writer, and (3) he's passionate for where he works and it comes through. The two envisioned a hybrid, real-time format, rich in communication and very two-way, with the audience voice being as relevent as the video itself. Channel 9 would have to encourage a real conversation, "not just a drive-by stuff, where people hurled inflammatory comments and moved on. In my mind," Pryor recalls, " Microsoft could start the conversation, but this thing wouldn't work, if Microsoft controlled the conversation.<p>

It began inauspiciously as a standard text blog, to Pryor's immediate disatisfaction, because  "It was still us preaching at customers. I wanted everyone to have a face on the site, to eliminate anonymity and encourage adult behavior, while minimizing the drive-bys. The video came soon after with Robert's voice asking people at Microsoft about their jobs and the projects they had worked on.  The viewers never saw Robert, but they would hear him mutter an occasional, "Oh Crap," as he asked developers to talk about themselves and he would inadvertantly walk into a wall. A Forum was added that allowed developers to debate issues of all sorts.  A collaborative system, called a 'wiki' was added to let people inside and outside Microsoft work together on software. "We showed who we are and where we work.  We said come look inside and see and hear our people, hear our thoughts and passions.<p> 

"We also used Channel 9 as way to respond.  If people wanted to know something, we put up a video about it.  If there was a new product coming out, we put up a video.  We started responding to issues in realtime. This was not a documentary."  There was no smoothing, polishing or refining. This was a new way of communication, an interactive video of real people talking about their work with customers and other people who cared about it.<p> 

Although Pryor's background is marketing, he has little interest and some slightlyconcealed contempt of traditional data metrics that marketers use to prove program efficacy. He eschews data mining at Channel 9 and sees no value in surveys. "I can make a survey come out any way I want it to come out.  Everyone marketing pro knows that, so it has no value." He's proud that more than 2 million people chose to visit Channel 9 in its first eight months, prouder still that it happened without so much as a companypress release. <p>

But he believes in the anecdotal evidence that indicates perceptions of Microsoft have moved from a net negative to a net positive in less than three-fourths of a year. He checks blog polling sites like www.technorati.com, that shows nearly 1300 other bloggers have linked to Channel 9, and PubSub who rated Channel 9 in February 2005 at 5877th of over 8.5 million sites ranked. "This shows us that we are in the conversation, that people are talking about us and that matters a great deal. We have developed a global community because of the human connection and that matters a great deal as well."<p>

"How do we translate from what we have accomplished?  Now that we have this space where everyone is there, now that people understand it, how do we improve on it?  Now, how do we convert this new opportuity to build an even stronger relationship through the Channel 9 tool?At the end of the day, Scoble walking through the hallways isn't enough."<p>

Pryor also discussed the disruptive issues of blogging at Microsoft, volunteering that support for it is "far from unanimous." On one hand there is Scoble and 1500 bloggers rapidly building a "trust network." On the other, there are people whose job it is to reduce risk and control corporate messages.<p>

"There are lots of people at Microsoft or any company who do not see the true value in this.  Those people are not calling the shots at Microsoft right now.  Robert has no marketing or PR training, yet suddenly here he is doing those jobs for Microsoft. He's responding to news on a global scale. This threatens PR people, marketing people, lawyers.  Guys like Robert break all the rules. When you put a blogger up in front of your company, you take risks.  They makes lawyers very nervous. But, we're seeing the rewards created by those who take the risks.  Today Microsoft is building relationships, while six months ago we were still losing them," Pryor says.<p>

Much of Pryor's job is to serve as a bridge between Scoble and other company elements, such as PR where he has worked to help each to see the other's value and respect each other's turf. <p>

For example,at Microsoft bloggers never break hard news stories, nor do they launch products. Instead, according to Pryor, bloggers focus on supplementing information for customers.  "Our job is not to be the place for the New York Times to find scoops. But blogging is good for PR. If blogging gets you good press, then this is good for the PR people." <p>

"Robert has an army of people behind him, and he's not alone at this.  There are 1500 people doing this. He admits that he remains clueless on how Gates and Ballmer feel about Microsoft's blogging phenomenon and it could all get shut down.  Some day Scoble could stomp on the wrong foot and get himself fired.<p>

"If Robert goes, it will suck, but it's not about one guy anymore.  You can't put the Genie back in the bottle again.  Once you establish that this is how your going to communicate to customers, you cannot put the genie back in the bottle." <p>

And that genie's implications are significant from where Pryor sits.  Recently the Channel 9 conversation strayed from its usual technocentric bastion into politics.  People from 60 countries participated and with some surprise discovered a vast foundation for agreement.  While some were concerned that Microsoft lost control of the topic, OPryor was elated.  It indicated that Channel 9 is no longer about Microsoft. It's about the community.  "Maybe the future of this site is to turn it over to the users, and turn the Channel 9 keys back to the community."<p>

Comments

[Randy H.]

There wasn't a PDC in 2004. You must be referring to '03 as the one that Lenn was involved with.

[Jozef Imrich]

Shel and Robert,

Raw interview of note:

Leveraging a blog for business

[Steven Streight aka Vaspers the Grate]

I'm not so sure about posting raw interview notes.

I think just post updates on book progress and interesting URLs on related topics is better.

Hard to swim through all this. Is this your "evangelist" persona coming through?

:^)

Leave some things for the book itself. If you reveal too much, or give out too much content, then who will feel a compelling need for the book?

[shel israel]

How do other people feel? We promised to post our notes at the beginning. If people don't find them useful and/or interesting, it will significantly reduce our workload, and get the book done faster.

[Steve Shu]

I like the notes, but then I'm anxious to get the book. Plus, I tend to take copius amounts of notes when interviewing people. My suspicion is that I am in the minority when it comes to preferring notes so without additional data, I would recommend cutting back and trying to focus on other things as writing a book can take an *enormous* amount of time and energy.

Two things I really zeroed in on in the above notes:
- "For example,at Microsoft bloggers never break hard news stories, nor do they launch products. Instead, according to Pryor, bloggers focus on supplementing information for customers. "
- " ...he believes in the anecdotal evidence that indicates perceptions of Microsoft have moved from a net negative to a net positive in less than three-fourths of a year "

For the latter point, I know a number of people that have changed their personal opinions on Microsoft (for the better) because of Scoble.

[Steven Streight aka Vaspers the Grate]

I didn't mean the notes were not useful or not interesting.

Just that this is the content, although it will be edited, of the book. I don't know about giving out actual content in the blog.

Maybe some enticing highlights of content.

[Marc Orchant]

Steven, it's an interesting conundrum - one we're wrestling with over at the More Space project as well. Some of the essayists have posted their complete first drafts. Others have posted digests or snippets. The quality and quantity of feedback seems fairly consistent for either approach.

FWIW, I've suggested to Shel that pulling a few highlights from each interview to mark the progression of interviews he's conducting is probably sufficient. From what I've seen in the comments here to date, if the folks who are actively participating want more, they'll say so.

Bashfulness is not a problem here at TRC ;^)

[John Walker]

Post the notes. This was great.

[Robert Scoble]

How about recording the interviews and putting those up as an audio podcast? That'd take a lot less time and would actually be useful.

[Cori Schlegel (kinrowan)]

I think posting your notes is great. Definitely extends the transparency of the process and The Red Couch (blog).

The only thing I have to note is that this seems too well edited to be *raw* notes. Many sections of this passage seems as though they could be lifted wholesale from this post and dropped into the manuscript directly. How raw are these notes, exactly? It seems to me as though the process of transcribing the notes has resulted in some authorial filtering and editing. That's understandable, and maybe even desireable, but opens the door to concerns like those of Steven Streight above, that there will be little left to read in the book itself (although if you're going to post drafts of the chapters as you go you'll have that concern anyway).

In any case, this is really good reading, but I would be just as interested in reading a bullet-pointed list of the notes. Or a redacted pdf of the actual sheet (screen?) the interviewer wrote on (if you're writing notes).
cori s

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