Not in Microsoft’s DNA?

Well at least according to Dave Winer when he talks about efficient community marketing and why Microsoft is not doing a good job at it for the moment.

"At the same time, one of these three companies might want to try to make some friends among the bloggers. It’s not in Microsoft’s DNA, Apple sues the bloggers to keep them from talking about them, and Google is the most arrogant self-absorbed company to hit Silicon Valley since Netscape. None of these companies do community marketing efficiently, and they all really need to be great at it."

We can certainly always do better for sure, but I think that Microsoft hasn't done such a bad job on developer community marketing which it has been doing for a while and also more recently on Windows Live we are looking for community interaction and feedback. Or as Kevin puts it:

"Whether our marketing efforts with bloggers have been efficient or effective, at a minimum we try to be open about what we’re up to, and we always look for honest feedback."

On his blog he has written down quite well how we're looking at community marketing on Windows Live. There are 5 basic things he/we tries/try to do, read the full post to get the whole story, I only quickly summarize the 5 points:

1. Listen and learn
2. Support, energize, get involved in and help build the community
3. Connect bloggers and the community back to the product teams
4. Help the community connect with each other
5. Get the hell out of the way

Hearing some of the feedback we got during the Phil Holden Session in Brussels or reading some of the blog entries & comments that resulted from that session I think there are some signs there that proof that this is exactly what we're doing.

Can we do a better job at it? Yes we can, we always can. Did we make some positive strides already? Yes we did. And on the things we can do better, we look at you to keep giving us feedback on what we could improve and how. Looking forward to it.