Microsoft Office 2010 Professional blog mini-micro

Perhaps you're familiar with Mini-Microsoft, the anonymous Deep Throat Microsoft blogger who's been lovingly griping over the internet regarding the firm over the internet considering that 2004. Mini is relatively infamous (possessing been interviewed by Small business Week along with the Seattle Occasions) and has managed to retain his anonymity in spite of all of the focus.
I lately had the possibility to pester Mini with a number of my own concerns, and took the opportunity to request him about his unfortunate encounter with facebook, how he felt about ######## Steve Work opportunities,Microsoft Office 2010 Professional, 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,Office 2007 Product Key, 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 from 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 Company 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 opportunity 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 somewhat hostile place to invest your time and energy into. Take for example them booting Robert Scoble recently. Or Guy Kawasaki being kicked off for a bit. It's certainly not a Nordstrom expertise and I'm a bit baffled how they view their user base: with general contempt?

And I never heard back from Facebook in relation 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, 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 of the people booted lately, am I up to #21 yet?
If you left Microsoft,Windows 7 Product Key, where would you go?
On a very long vacation overseas, to fairly non-Pacific Northwest kinds of environments. And then align myself, in addition to my Buttercup, about what we wanted to do next in life and where to be. Maybe that'd still be in the Seattle area, probably with a smaller start-up. Maybe not. Kind of a vague answer, but mostly because 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?
Effectively, since I'm a code-geek, Mark Russinovich is my favorite given that 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 because you launched Mini Microsoft? Do you feel responsible?
The InsideMS blog is most likely a response to the Mini-Microsoft blog. I was exceptionally happy to see it and extremely 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 well, 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, makes me want to mutter, "What's the point?" and walk away from the keyboard and just go for a extended walk.


How did you feel when ######## Steve Work was unmasked? Did you worry you were next?
I see it as a highly different situation. Hey, he was a high profile intriguing anonymous celebrity with a lot of writing talent. As well as,Office 2010 Key, 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 residence, listening to NPR. Many years ago, in, oh, early 2004 I think, they were talking in regards to the Andy Kaufman returns blog in addition to some other anonymous Hollywood insider blog that was causing quite a stir. First, since the blog was already an idea I was kicking around, I was highly interested in hearing how these people got consideration and traction. Next, given that 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, by way of 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 Jobs! Don't tell anyone!" then you are 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 to your left as well as the right - hoping that no-one notices..."
What really sucks? Making a revealing mistake, covering your mouth in horror - looking on the left along with 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 considering that I did something unfortunate. Ah, well. I'll just put my hands on my hips, say, "D'oh!" and then look around and inquire who wants to go have a beer and shoot the breeze.