3 ms·

I take exception to the accusation of misogyny, but perhaps I wasn't very clear. I'm sure that Ariel is a competent and intelligent person, and probably capable

by neilk 17y ago

I take exception to the accusation of misogyny, but perhaps I wasn't very clear. I'm sure that Ariel is a competent and intelligent person, and probably capable of a lot more than puff PR blogging for moribund corporations. I'm sure she put in an honest and significant amount of work setting up the site and the interview and so on. In fact, her competence is essential. The whole point of the exercise is to cast a character who can convey authenticity. It's like reality show casting. It's not scripted. The people are real. But they're in a role, to create a particular kind of scene. And the scene they probably wanted to create was "attractive+nerdy girl runs a fansite about our our awesomely cool developers and our cool corporate culture". Yeah, probably most smart people know that it's really an MS site. But branding exists for a reason -- it works unconsciously. If anything my comment isn't misogynist, it's anti-straight-male. I'm tired of how predictable men in our industry are. As for Google PR -- it deserves to be satirized too. Their thing is to have developers directly address the public, in relatively plainspoken videos. This entails yet more subtle distortions (mostly by omission), but it's not as flawed as the Microspotting approach.

webwright 17y ago
"And the scene they probably wanted to create was "attractive+nerdy girl runs a fansite about our our awesomely cool developers and our cool corporate culture"." Are you sure? You're assigning motivation here. What if she wasn't attractive? What if she was a guy? What if she was Robert Scoble (who got paid to interview folks at Microsoft, too)? What scene did they want to create with Robert Scoble? The motivation to me is pretty clear: People think MS is Bill Gates or (much worse) Steve Ballmer. Let's interview all sorts of folks here so people can see that we've got a pretty cool family. It's not subtle, but you can't pretend it is to prop up the complicated motivations you've created. First sentence, upper right: "Hey. My name is Ariel and I'm the person you thought would never work at MSFT." The about page talks about microsoft. The primary nav has an Apply link, for god's sake. Lots of companies create company-culture/jobs/recruiting sites that are branded in a different/fun way (note: my first startup was recruiting software, so I know the industry).
- gruseom 17y ago
  I thought neilk's analysis was sensitive and intriguing, and it struck me as based on knowledge (edit: I mean knowledge of PR, not of the MS piece). Whether he's right or wrong, he obviously wasn't being disrespectful (witness his restraint in response to your rather inflammatory first sentence). I think highly of most of your posts too, but you have some nerve accusing him of misogyny when Ariel's photo depicts her in a t-shirt that says "My job gives me special feelings" and the text talks about her "creeping around campus".

by neilk 17y ago

webwright 17y ago

"And the scene they probably wanted to create was "attractive+nerdy girl runs a fansite about our our awesomely cool developers and our cool corporate culture"." Are you sure? You're assigning motivation here. What if she wasn't attractive? What if she was a guy? What if she was Robert Scoble (who got paid to interview folks at Microsoft, too)? What scene did they want to create with Robert Scoble? The motivation to me is pretty clear: People think MS is Bill Gates or (much worse) Steve Ballmer. Let's interview all sorts of folks here so people can see that we've got a pretty cool family. It's not subtle, but you can't pretend it is to prop up the complicated motivations you've created. First sentence, upper right: "Hey. My name is Ariel and I'm the person you thought would never work at MSFT." The about page talks about microsoft. The primary nav has an Apply link, for god's sake. Lots of companies create company-culture/jobs/recruiting sites that are branded in a different/fun way (note: my first startup was recruiting software, so I know the industry).

gruseom 17y ago
I thought neilk's analysis was sensitive and intriguing, and it struck me as based on knowledge (edit: I mean knowledge of PR, not of the MS piece). Whether he's right or wrong, he obviously wasn't being disrespectful (witness his restraint in response to your rather inflammatory first sentence). I think highly of most of your posts too, but you have some nerve accusing him of misogyny when Ariel's photo depicts her in a t-shirt that says "My job gives me special feelings" and the text talks about her "creeping around campus".