Here's the news release Microsoft issued Thursday — Valentine's Day — with this headline: Fourteen leaders promoted as company matches leadership talent to expanding business priorities. Sounds wonderful, doesn't it?

The headline gets paid off in the first sentence of the first paragraph: Microsoft Corp. today announced a series of executive promotions — seven new senior vice presidents and seven new corporate vice presidents — reflective of the company's commitment to build and maintain a strong and dynamic management team across its unique portfolio of businesses. Now how can you argue with that, right?

Well, because it's a reorg, that's why. But you'd never know it from this news release. Instead, you'd have to figure that out on your own — which admittedly seems pretty easy — or you could rely on The New York Times. The headline on their piece calls it an Executive Shuffle, but writer Saul Hansell doesn't take very long to get to the point. He uses the dreaded "r" word right in the first paragraph:

If there was apprehension at Yahoo already about the prospect of a takeover by Microsoft, the fear will no doubt increase as those in Sunnyvale study the details of Microsoft’s reorganization announced Thursday.

This post isn't about Microsoft, per se. It's about traditional PR's ability to ignore the elephant in the room while thinking you're stupid enough to go along with that charade.

Share This

Here's a news release about an upcoming seminar that sponsors and participants say "lifts (the) lid on complex world of social media." In one of the funniest lines I've read in recent memory, the release quotes a marketing guru saying, "It promises to throw up some very interesting discussions and debates and we’re sure it’s going to draw a big audience.” 

Throw up, indeed.

The beauty of social media is that it hinges on some very simple, straightforward concepts. Brand managers have to turn the car keys over to consumers; corporate communicators have to cede control; transparency, authenticty, and credibility matter more than all the money in the world an organization can spend on its polished, one-way messages. Maybe they meant the technology is complex? Hardly. Anyone can be blogging within about twenty minutes or less, on anything. Most of the best blogging platforms are free. YouTube, Facebook and MySpace are free. Grade schoolers master these social media platforms in minutes, intuitively.

No, the complex part of social media is why in God's name it takes so many otherwise smart people so long to give up the ghost of marketing past. Complex is the psychology of total control.

Share This

Here is a very fine piece by Bernhard Warner, a freelance journalist and media consultant, appearing in the UK's TimesOnline. Entitled, "Social protesters stand up to Microsoft," it's actually about online social media protests in general, with Mircosoft being used as a recent example in the context of a broader point Mr. Warner is making. That point, I believe, in his own words, is this:

With the likes of Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and MySpace, activists have never had such powerful tools to mobilise the masses to protest. In an instant, online users can join a revolt today in Caracas, yesterday in Myanmar and tomorrow, perhaps, in Redmond… The customers are speaking. Shareholders should listen.

Mr. Warner's piece is rich in details of other recent online protests. It all leads me to believe that in the near future there will be more online protests; they will happen faster; they will involve many more people than you might expect to get at an actual march; and, that social media will likely drive a new age of more universal activism by people who have been otherwise powerless or voiceless or invisible heretofore. Makes for some interesting speculation, doesn't it?

Share This