The future of marketing communications?
In what has got to be one of the more interesting experiments in social media, Microsoft has hired journalist David Spark to edit a “whitepaper” on hosted messaging services. The twist? Microsoft’s whitepaper has taken the form of a wiki, with Spark as the administrator. The text, as it stands now, is opinionated and biased. What form will it take when the IT community has had an opportunity to edit it?
It’s a fascinating idea. Rather than develop a top-down messaging architecture, focus group it to death, and write a final document, why not just ask the eventual readers of the document to write it themselves? Is this the future of marcomms?Â
January 22nd, 2007 at 7:45 am
Perhaps. I also think there’ll be a need to have someone guide that conversation, lest things develop into anarchy. I don’t think this is a substitute from strong messaging and leadership, either, but I also do think this is a great idea, so long as there’s someone there to hold all of the divergent opinions together. Too many cooks can spoil the broth and all that.
January 22nd, 2007 at 11:23 pm
They already have someone to guide the talks - it just remains to be seen whether this person can keep his ideas independent from those of his employer. Also, knowing who is behind it all, would the IT community really jump in and start contributing to their effort?
January 23rd, 2007 at 5:38 pm
I run the agency that put this work up for Microsoft and our intent was to be very authentic and open, which is why David manages the site and executes posts with full disclosure. In the end, we want the market to help shape how Microsoft talks about itself with regard to this particular division. This is actually our entire focus as an agency (not wikis, but using content and conversations). We believe that the age of forcing decisions with messages is dead and that you now have to fuel decisions with real, authentic, credible content. This also requires very different skill sets. It’s not about having a creative director, it’s about having someone like David Spark help manage content that is driven by the market. Of course, I’m very interested in everyone’s reaction to this as we do believe this is the future of marketing communications (at least a piece of it). But its ultimate form will take time to evolve.
February 6th, 2007 at 3:19 am
[...] The future of hosted email There are two kinds of email people… people that think Exchange is good.. and people that want to outsource it…. and on the Home Server blog the discussion came up about email and how home users like email…. email but not on their boxes… I’ll go out on a limb even more that I think Hosted email is going to creep into the small business marketspace more and more…..it was quite ironic and funny that I got pinged by David Spark on a day that we were talking about Outlook and calendars and what not….. David was/is working on the Hosted Email wiki and provided a few more links for the point/counterpoints on Hosted Exchange…. http://blogs.msdn.com/tzink/archive/2007/01/10/the-case-for-outsourced-message-management.aspx http://saunderslog.com/2007/01/22/the-future-of-marketing-communications/ I myself am using a “hosted” solution in front of my Exchange server in order to better protect our network at the office. Why? Because I wanted to better protect the server and I wanted the spam housed elsewhere. I didn’t want it to be my problem anymore. Some use it as a archive solution for regulatory needs to not overtax their server. David argues that hosted messaging is needed for midsized firms, but I think even the SOHO’s need it too….I think that it’s even a win/win for the Windows Home server. I think they should bundle it up with a Hosted Exchange solution so if was used as a SOHO server that the folks would get all the benefits of Exchange… without Exchange. Why shouldn’t Mom be able to look at Johnny’s calendar which is an event typically reserved for an Exchange only setting? I think hosted Exchange is also a warm fuzzy. It brings up the issue that I see with many folks still using the POP2 connector….. the warm fuzzy issue that comes up from the newsgroups and my SBS var/vap gang all the time… they don’t trust the Exchange inside of their servers and I see many of them like the warm fuzzy of ISP based email. The long running joke by the SBS podcast gang is that we’ve been transitioning from POP3 Connector since SBS 4.5. Now one could argue that they don’t trust their SBS box to be able to deliver their email is more of a statement that they are not ensuring they are buying good enough equipment…but there comes a time when email is mission critical that they don’t want to just rely on a single server set up anymore. And that’s when hosted email starts to look better…. Call me wacko.. but I think as we go forward that I don’t think you can offer a messaging solution without a “warm fuzzy” like this….regardless of it’s a hosted solution in front of an Exchange box… or if it’s a totally hosted Email instead of an Exchange box…. What do you think? Look at that feature chart….so where do you feel comfortable with where your email is housed… and where do you think it will be a in few years? Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | live it! [...]
May 30th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
” I’ll go out on a limb even more that I think Hosted email is going to creep into the small business market space more and more….”
Your words were prophetic. We are a SOHO and rely heavily on our Hosted Exchange from 123Together (http://www.123together.com). It is now unthinkable that we would buy a server - outsourcing our critical email is the way to go.