Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus blog mini-

Perhaps you are familiar with Mini-Microsoft, the anonymous Deep Throat Microsoft blogger who's been lovingly griping via the internet about the organization on-line since 2004. Mini is considerably infamous (getting been interviewed by Business Week and also the Seattle Times) and has managed to keep his anonymity in spite of all the attention.
I not too long ago had the possibility to pester Mini with a few of my very own questions, and took the opportunity to inquire him about his unfortunate encounter with facebook, how he felt about ######## Steve Work, and his groupies.
Since you’re both famous and anonymous, you have groupies and fans you can’t fully take advantage of -- is that frustrating? Pretty much.
Early on I decided, "Hey, don’t let any of this go to your head," and figured the best way to ensure that my ego was in check was to never track usage with the blog and figure that I'm writing to just a few dozen like-minded individuals. How many people read Mini-Microsoft? I have no idea. When LisaB did her InsideMS He-Who-Shall-Go-Unnamed bit onstage during the Business Meeting 2006, I was really surprised. Did people really understand what the dead-silence referred to?

Thanks to a moment in time on Facebook, I had a chance to realize that there a lot of fantastically interesting people who read the blog, each of which I would love to spend time with hanging out and just chatting to hear their thoughts and ideas. And there's no easy way to do that. I regret that.

Tell me about your doomed love affair with Facebook. Are you still grieving your bukkit? Yep.
It's good, though, that I'm no longer on Facebook. It wasn't until being summarily kicked off of Facebook that I realized Facebook has some crazy policies in place and Facebookers are overzealous in enforcing them, to a degree that it's a fairly hostile place to invest your time and energy into. Take for example them booting Robert Scoble lately. Or Guy Kawasaki being kicked off for a bit. It's certainly not a Nordstrom encounter and I'm a bit baffled how they view their user base: with general contempt?

And I never heard back from Facebook related to my dismissal. Maybe they just thought, "Read the rules, duh." So I had no chance to go back and say "Bye" or try to make a list of my friends.

Former Microsoftie Jon Pincus has a great snippet about Facebook: "… people see Facebook as Orwellian,Microsoft Office 2007 Key, panoptic, and generally creepy." He also has a write-up of tactics to defend yourself against being kicked off of Facebook. The fact that such a How-To is needed makes me appreciate, no matter how wonderful it was to connect to Mini-Microsoft readers, Facebook is the wrong place for me to be. I desperately wish there was a Facebook alternative that was a professional environment to reconnect with all my former Facebook friends.
How do you feel about being the 25th most influential ‘Softie, according to eWeek?

(1) I screech?
(2) That mask might give me nightmares. I prefer the paper bag.
(3) With all the people booted lately, am I up to #21 yet?
If you left Microsoft, where would you go?
On a lengthy vacation overseas,Office 2010 Professional, to incredibly non-Pacific Northwest kinds of environments. And then align myself, along with my Buttercup, about what we wanted to do next in life and where to be. Maybe that'd still be in the Seattle area,Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus, probably with a little start-up. Maybe not. Kind of a vague answer, but mostly considering that I'm in love with working at Microsoft so it's hard to be imagine being elsewhere. "I'm in love with working at Microsoft so it's hard to be imagine being elsewhere."

What are your favorite Microsoft blogs?
Properly, considering that I'm a code-geek, Mark Russinovich is my favorite due to the fact his occasional posting is like reading a murder mystery, where the dastardly butler is some poorly written code that Mark tracks down. Raymond Chen makes me appreciate that I never want to be on the Windows Shell team. Dare Obasanjo has an honest voice that I love.
What changes have you seen considering that you launched Mini Microsoft? Do you feel responsible?
The InsideMS blog is most likely a response for the Mini-Microsoft blog. I was exceptionally happy to see it and pretty hopeful it could be leveraged into a positive feedback-loop to improve the day-to-day life of Microsofties. What potential! But it sort of became a wishing effectively, with every comment being a penny flipped into a pool of silence. I see a lot of passion put into comments there, but to no effective end result. It's a waste, and I wonder how representative of our darker bad-habits: lots of initial investment, then a general blurring of intent and diversion of consideration to the next thing.

One change, however, that goes against everything I started the blog for is employee hiring. Microsoft's expansive hiring is without need and without results to justify it. The whole thesis behind the blog, the Mini part of Mini-Microsoft, has been an utter failure to get results. That, beyond anything,Windows 7 Download, makes me want to mutter, "What's the point?" and walk away from the keyboard and just go for a long walk.


How did you feel when ######## Steve Jobs was unmasked? Did you worry you were next?
I see it as a quite different situation. Hey, he was a high profile intriguing anonymous celebrity with a lot of writing talent. As well as, he poked a lot of people who were motivated to unmask him. Me? I'm just a dude with a little blog that's nothing more than a typical Microsoftie lunch-time conversation typed up. Who cares about little ole me?

Let me share something with you that I haven't told anyone: so I drive home, listening to NPR. Many years in the past, in, oh, early 2004 I think, they were talking about the Andy Kaufman returns blog in addition to some other anonymous Hollywood insider blog that was causing quite a stir. First, because the blog was already an idea I was kicking around, I was rather interested in hearing how these people got attention and traction. Next, since I was thinking about going anonymous, I was really interested in hearing how the Hollywood insider got busted. Okay, don't post, even comments to other people's blogs, through your ISP. Check.

Anyone who posts anonymous is going to be revealed according on the surface area they provide to be cracked. If you go and share with your close friends that "Hey, you'll get a gas out of this… I'm ######## Steve Work! Don't tell anyone!" then you're increasing your surface area. Do you have some strange prose style and an abundance of non-anonymous text to compare against? More surface area. I'd like to think that I've reduced the surface area as much as possible, but I certainly make mistakes.
"What really sucks? Making a revealing mistake, covering your mouth in horror - looking on the left plus the right - hoping that no-one notices..."
What really sucks? Making a revealing mistake, covering your mouth in horror - looking to the left and the right - hoping that no-one notices, and then unknowingly choosing that malfunctioning badge-scanner the next day while trying to get into your building. "Oh, crap, busted..." has come to mind more than once.

But I'm not worried. Even if I should be. If I'm revealed, not on my terms, it's going to be since I did something unlucky. Ah, effectively. I'll just put my hands on my hips, say,Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010, "D'oh!" and then look around and inquire who wants to go have a beer and shoot the breeze.