COMPANIES, UNLIKE DEAD PHILOSOPHERS, DON’T HAVE HUNDREDS OF YEARS TO WAIT FOR SOCIAL ACCEPTANCE.

Sometimes I get the feeling that people are, like, really stupid and can’t see what’s sitting right in front of them.

Since the announcement that Bill Gates is going to be stepping down from whatever nebulous role it is that he holds (I work for the company, and still don’t really understand what his job actually is outside of a title), there has been tons of speculation about what’s going to happen to Microsoft.

For the most part, I’ve read criticisms of Steve Ballmer. Many condemn the guy and suggest that he step down from his position. What’s interesting about the Ballmer trashing is how utterly irrelevant it is to the future of Microsoft. Right now, I imagine that a few of you are smiling to yourselves in these knowing little smirks, thinking I’m an idiot for even implying that I might know better than CNN and all those other acronymed news sites. And you’re probably right with those smirks – I’m a jack-ass loudmouth, and I know it. But, frankly, I’m also smart, and if even only three percent of what I say in this post helps elucidate a big problem at Microsoft, then at least that’s three percent more than what we had before. I also have the advantage of an internal perspective coupled with the lack of an outgoing filter on my brain, which means I’m more likely than most to say what I’m really thinking. That’s valuable, too. And so I write.

To begin with the Ballmer bashing, think about the man and his background. He’s a sales guy. That’s what he did for the company before running it, and, from what I understand, he did a magnificent job. During my nearly two years at Microsoft, I’ve met some “old-timers” who have endless stories about Ballmer’s methods (entirely fair and legal – no joke there) that would blow you away. The guy could sell condoms to the Pope.

Now, the first question anyone should ask is:

– Does being a good salesperson make someone qualified for the position of CEO?

The obvious answer is:

– Hell, no.

Ballmer, like many of the early Microsoft employees, gained a lot of experience by moving through the ranks, working different jobs, and taking on many varied roles as the company grew. His familiarity with Microsoft culture, as well as the intricacies of the business, combined with the fact that, however you may feel about him, he’s actually a hell of a smart guy, begin to make more sense of the decision to make him CEO.

But, something’s wrong. Long before the announcement that Gates was leaving, the stock was dropping. In the short time I’ve been at Microsoft, I’ve watched my stock awards dwindle in value at a rate that leaves me more than just a little concerned I won’t be able to get a new deck. Actually, it’s not such a big deal since I live in an apartment and can’t have a deck, but I used to be able to afford a deck, whereas now I might only be able to afford some patio furniture, which I don’t want since most of it’s tacky. Also, I don’t have a patio, so my furniture would fall if I tried to set it down on the no-patio I have.

As you can see, there’s all kinds of problems with the stock value dropping.

Anyway.

The reason something’ wrong, or perhaps “strange” is a better word, is this: revenue, as Ballmer will be the first to tell you, has been increasing. We’ve been doing well. We’ve been maintaining more ground than the media (::cough:: SLASHDOT ::cough::) would have you believe, we’ve been fighting to win territory that’s been lost, and we’ve been branching out into new areas. But even as we’ve lost territory, the market’s grown, so while our overall slice of the pie is smaller than it used to be, the pie itself is much larger overall. In other words, we don’t need to retain our classic market share of Infinity Percent to continue to grow in terms of revenue. We can grow without keeping up with the market and still increase revenue. It’s something which sounds either good or bad depending on who’s spinning the facts.

Yes, we’ve missed forecasts, and that never makes investors happy. But that alone isn’t the problem.

Much of the problem, at least in my low-level individual contributor I-never-graduated-from-high-school-or-college opinion, is that Ballmer has a very strict, sometimes myopic numbers-based, data-only approach. The same goes for Gates. And this is fine when you’re the biggest fish in the pond and there are no real competitors. But we are not a monopoly.We have real competitors, which means that a numbers-driven, data-driven approach, however necessary and factual and clean and helpful and pretty in a PowerPoint presentation it may be, isn’t enough. Did I stress that clearly? It’s necessary, but it isn’t enough.

It’s vital.

But it isn’t everything.

There’s a piece missing, and it makes sense for a sales guy to miss it. What Ballmer needs isn’t to step down – I’ve argued with him on a couple occasions, and, even though it looks like I’m just being a prick with the way I push him, I’m actually trying to get him to pay attention to his blind spots. He’s a good guy. He’s made some questionable decisions, but he’s improved, he can still improve, and as long as he makes a few changes to the way he sees his company, I see no reason for him to step down. I actually see this as the beginning of a very positive time for Microsoft, just as long as we don’t completely screw things up by making wild, rash decisions like booting the CEO when, for the most part, he’s actually doing his job quite well.

Consider a very short anecdote, if you will…

I’ve had a lot of sex with this woman:

Hot? Yeah. Maybe not the most beautiful woman ever to have lived (sorry, toots), but certainly an exotic, gorgeous creature of unusual beauty. Men fall at her feet by the side of the road and propose on sight. This happens on a daily basis. She’s hounded by the local well-to-do’s. The few “rock stars” who live in Portland have tried their damnedest to get into those pants of hers (without success – sorry, Courtney Taylor Taylor – but I’ve had what you couldn’t, you ego-inflated piece of dried up rock ‘n roll detritus). In short, she’s a thing that many find desirable. Men and women alike. They want her, and they want her badly.

I wanted her, too. And it lasted for months. For months and months, I found that face to be the most beautiful thing that had ever walked into my life. The body to which it was attached was a pleasure as well. And for months and months, we enjoyed each other’s company in many ways.

Then the fighting came. We got engaged. We got disengaged. We got engaged again. And so on. We fought about marriage, its meaning, and whether or not to have kids. We fought about careers and Big Life Decisions. We insulted each other. We hurt each other. Over and over and over again…

Eventually, because of how destroyed our relationship had become, I lost interest in her physical appearance. There was a time when I could walk into a bar, have somebody say, “You know, Rory, I don’t know what she’s doing with you – she’s the hottest woman I’ve ever met in my life,” and I’d shrug my shoulders. Did somebody suggest that Aydika’s hot? Ho-hum…

It really didn’t matter. During the last bit of our relationship during which we weren’t getting along, she became totally unappealing to me sexually. I found that that well-constructed face, with its rare shape, strong cheekbones, arching eyebrows, and sleek jawline had lost its ability to sway me. My decisions about her at this point were entirely about my perception of the person behind all the “beauty”, and my perception was that she was a crazy, evil bitch.

Then we broke up, and the lack of pleasure induced by her physical appearance continued for months. I was so fed-up with the fighting that nothing could have brought me back together with her. All that beauty – her prowess in bed – meant nothing to me. I rejected it. It didn’t appeal to me. It confused the hell out of my friends, but then, they hadn’t been through everything I had been through.

OK. You’ve read all about how I used to totally do it with a model on a regular basis until her personality turned me off. You’re probably wondering what in the hell this has to do with Steve Ballmer, Bill Gates, numbers, data, and the future of Microsoft.

Fortunately, it’s all quite simple:

– Microsoft is analogous to Aydika (the woman pictured above).

– Microsoft’s products and services are analogous to Aydika’s looks and sexual abilities.

– The loss of interest in Microsoft - the loss of trust in the company over the years – is analogous to my loss of interest and trust in Aydika. Put another way, the public perception of Microsoft is analogous to my perception of Aydika.

I don’t want to seem as though I’m talking down to anyone here, but the moral of the short story is that you could build a cold-fusion reactor that spat out bars of gold and performed oral sex on you at the same time, but it isn’t going to matter a damn bit if your company is negatively perceived by its target audience.

Aydika (the company) couldn’t hold my interest with her products and services (good looks and fantastic sex) as long as my perception of her was negative. By rejecting Aydika (the company), I rejected the products and services (good looks and fantastic sex).

While I could be completely wrong, I think I “get” a thing or two about people. The whole of my success is due to the way I interact with them, and I’m damn well positive that this perception issue is the greatest problem facing Microsoft right now.

Not numbers. Not charts.

The numbers and charts are the result of the sales of products, and the sales are dependent on whether people will buy from us our not. And, unfortunately, over the years, perception of Microsoft has been damaged to the point that there are many people who don’t want to buy from us.

Don’t think this is the case? Don’t think this is a problem for Microsoft?

Let’s consider a few “companies” from the past whose products and services failed due to public perception:

– Jesus Christ

Today in the world, there are roughly two-billion Christians. When Christ, at least the historical figure, was walking the Earth, he wasn’t quite so popular as he is now. Really, the guy was a heretic. The public questioned him and his messages, and so in the end he failed (at least during his lifetime – as far as Christ knew, when he was slowing dying while nailed to the crucifix, he had made some boo-boos (although, to his credit, he was generally pretty positive about things and maintained a positive attitude through to the end)).

It took several hundred years for the teachings of Christ to become accepted, and hundreds more before they were wrongly interpreted and adopted by the unwashed masses.

It’s strange to think of Jesus as a failure in his time, but that’s that. A few disciples amounts to minor success in the face of overpowering opposition.

That said, as Christ’s ideas were copied and recopied, taken down (often incorrectly) by monks and other illiterate drunkards, the products and services of the Jesus Christ Company became more popular.

And now, with public perception generally leaning toward acceptance on a global scale, I think it’s safe to say that Jesus Christ and Co. have finally succeeded.

Why? Perception.

Christ’s ideas didn’t hit mass appeal until hundreds of years after his death. Clearly, his ideas hold some kind of incredible value, or we wouldn’t be seeing one third of the world living according to those ideas now.

Granted, many of his ideas were manipulated over time by scribes and councils and so on, but there’s a kernel of historical basis in the red words of the Bible.

So were Christ’s products good? Or were they bad?

Two-thousand years ago, the general consensus was that they were bad.

Today, they’re generally considered by a couple billion people to be good.

Interesting, eh?

Another way of putting it: a product doesn’t have any merits other than those bestowed upon it by its market. Something isn’t good or bad until perception makes it so.

– Salvador Dali

When you think of the Surrealist Movement, what is the first name that springs to mind?

For most of you, it’s going to be Salvador Dali. For the rest of you, probably left-brained engineering types who were raised on data-structures and algorithms without any peeks at the rest of what the world has to offer, mention of the Surrealist Movement probably just draws a blank, but you can follow along by accepting, based on my say-so, that Dali is the guy you would probably most strongly associate with Surrealism if you had the average, common person’s familiarity with the subject.

Do you think of André Breton? Ever even heard of the guy?

What about Paul Éluard? Who the hell is he?

Never mind that Breton basically founded the Surrealist Movement. For most people, he’s a non-entity.

What we’re left with in the beginning of the 21st century, when we think of Surrealism, for the most part, is Dali. What’s most interesting about this is that Dali, who is now the posterchild of Surrealism, was kicked out of the group for his extreme views and exceptionally poor taste (it turns out that the other guys didn’t think it was cool to draw Hitler with an extended buttockal region, or a skull sodomizing a piano – but here in modern times, we think this stuff is just great (right?)).

Think about it – the guy whose name we most strongly associate with the movement now wasn’t even an official part of the movement after his dishonorable discharge.

What’s the difference? Maybe some time. It’s tougher to shock a modern audience. Most of us would giggle at a painting of Hitler with an enormous ass. We live in a more forgiving world.

Again, Dali (the company) had products and services (his paintings, writings, films, and other works) which were rejected at the time by his peers because of perception. And yet the sales of Dali related merchandise in modern times must be bringing in a hefty lump of cash for those involved because Dali, in 2006, is accepted and appreciated.

– Galileo Galilei

While the idea that the Earth was not stationary at the center of the universe is credited to Copernicus and was championed by Kepler, the guy who really took a lot of crap for it all was Galileo. The Roman Catholic Church found the concept of a non geocentric view of the universe a bit unsettling, what with the implication that we just might not be the most important things in the universe based on a piece of prime, central, immobile real-estate. It made them feel like all, “Hey – thanks, God – Thanks for making us feel insignificant and whatever.” They didn’t particularly want people talking about it.

But Galileo wrote a book about the tides, and because the tides are influenced by the motions of planetary bodies, thought that bringing up the Copernican model of the universe would be relevant. However, this really pissed off the church, and it got Galileo a lifetime sentence of house-imprisonment.

That was around the mid 17th century.

But it’s OK, because, in 1992, the Roman Catholic Church acknowledged that it made an oopsie regarding Galileo and his undue punishment.

And then, all of a sudden, for die-hard Catholics all over the world, it was OK to believe that the Earth moved. Case closed. Problem solved.

So, Galileo (the company) had products and services (his writings on the tides, supported by hypotheses of a non-geocentric universe) which were rejected, again, because of perception. Then, hundreds of years later, perception changed, the company was let off the hook, and its products and services were taken off the book-burning list.

Have I made my bloody point yet? I don’t want to keep on citing the works of dead artists, heroes, and scientists – I’d like to think that you’re pickin’ up what I’m puttin’ down.

Microsoft is currently in the position of a Jesus Christ. Or a Dali. Or a Galileo (although the distinction should be made that, while we may have waited centuries for acceptance of some ideas, your typical modern corporation doesn’t have quite that much time).

I don’t care what any of you buttheads say – Microsoft has some of the best software in the world. Hands-down. It isn’t perfect (no software is). It does cost money (everything costs something – whether it’s a licensing fee or billable consultation hours, there’s money being made off of anything composed of ones and zeroes). Our developer tools are incredible. Our operating systems are improving all the time (with my favorite – Windows CE – increasing in quality at a rate that’s unbelievable), our office suite is the subject of imitation by many open-source and commercial groups, and we have many great peripheral software and services.

Yet… we’re not looking so good.

Why? I think you should know by now.

Back in 2004, when I was at the center of a scandal for being a non-MVP at the Microsoft MVP Summit (thanks to a bunch of petty whiners), I took the opportunity to let Steve Ballmer know what I thought about Microsoft’s stance against open source. I took the mic in front of a couple thousand people and challenged him on his ideas about how Microsoft was going to succeed in a difficult space.

Ballmer, who as I’ve said is very numbers and data-driven, saw a simple battle: Microsoft has the best software, the best support, the best documentation, the best this, the best that, and so Microsoft will win.

When I was handed the mic to ask my question, it went something like this (paraphrased – the actual wording was quite different):

I hear what you’re saying about Microsoft’s products, and I agree. Having worked with Microsoft’s offerings, as well as open-source and other proprietary commercial packages, I’m gung-ho Microsoft. But I’m making a left-brained decision, simply based on how well Microsoft’s tools have worked for me. So here’s the deal: Microsoft’s products aren’t the problem. You could write an application that cured cancer, and you’d still get hell for it. Microsoft’s problem is perception. The world thinks you’re the devil. Generations of kids growing up think that Microsoft products are unreliable and insecure, in spite of the fact that they’re simply the most targeted, and anybody who has done any real research into software vulnerabilities knows that all software is vulnerable to attack. That’s just the way it is when you have people, who are imperfect, putting this crap together. So, in light of the idea that Microsoft’s real problem is perception rather than a lack of good products, how do you plan to solve the problem? How are you going to deal with the grassroots, feel-good marketing that open-source has going for it? How are you going to compete against Apple’s understanding of pop culture? How? How, how, how?

I didn’t get a real response. I didn’t expect one. We went back and forth a bit while I phrased and rephrased my questions, but Ballmer never clearly answered any of them. While it would be easy to attribute this to his being a veteran of the press circuit, something tells me that it’s more than that - that he simply doesn’t understand enough the importance of public perception of a company, and that it really all still comes down to what he knows, which is…

…numbers and data. Revenue. Increases in this and that. Something-or-other percentages. Data, data, data. Pie-chart. Next slide. Click.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not dismissing numbers and data – I’m not an idiot. But I feel that the people at the top of the Microsoft hierarchy, while fully embracing numbers and data, have utterly failed to embrace the understanding that, no matter how brilliant a product is – no matter how many geniuses you have working for you – no matter what kind of a feature-enhancements list Vista has – our company, and by extension its products, are going to continue to be questioned so long as perception of the company remains negative.

This is part of the reason the “If Microsoft Designed the iPod Box” video isn’t only funny, but really quite brilliant:

What happened in that video?

Every bit of soul, every bit of grassroots “We’re your friends” kind of feeling from the original box – everything that Apple understands the hell out of – was replaced by…

…you guessed it: numbers and data! Numbers and data! Yay! And the box was ruined! Yay! And nobody would ever buy that product if they had the simple, original one next to it since being confused sucks! Yay!

Perception.

Some of you might remember back when I was talking about all the things I was going to do with the CodeRoom television show. I had written a thirteen episode outline and detailed treatments for a good few of them. I was working on getting some crazy situations going. We were discussing a Wintillect versus Pluralsight face-off (can you imagine how cool that would have been?). I was going to put together a show in which three teams, traveling around in RVs, were going to be challenged to create the Tron Lightcycle game using DirectX and GPS technology, bringing together desktop components with mobile components. There was a hell of a lot more – those were just a couple ideas out of a dozen. And one of the main reasons it didn’t fly, from what I was told, was that it was considered to be “Pure Evangelism”.

Pure Evangelism. In other words, it didn’t have a direct impact on revenue – at least not as far as anybody would ever be able to trace. It wasn’t directly linkable to numbers and data.

And of course that’s the case. The CodeRoom was about doing something for the community – creating something fun that improved the public’s perception of Microsoft.

The show was cheap enough to make that the overall dent in Microsoft’s coffers would have been negligible, whereas the potential boost in the company’s image – entertaining while educating – could have been substantial. And I’m not talking about doing some stupid corporate infommercial – I’m talking about putting something together that hit the right spots, had the right music, had the right graphics, had the right flow, had the right balance of education and entertainment – it was going to be something unlike anything ever produced by Microsoft (keep in mind that I had nothing to do with the “Vegas” edition of the CodeRoom – I never got a chance to create any of the shows I had outlined).

But it was killed.

Because it was pure evangelism.

I’m not an advocate of just throwing money into any old project that comes along, but let’s just be totally honest with ourselves here in the way I was with Ballmer back in ‘04: Microsoft has a serious image problem, and it needs as much help as it can get. That image problem is only going to get worse as we continue to ignore opportunities to improve public perception of the company, and that’s going to continue to happen as long as things like pure evangelism are considered to be evil because their return can’t be boiled down and directly connected to revenue.

But as if a magic lantern threw the results in patterns on a screen…

It’s frustrating.

But also so simple.

If Microsoft is to succeed in the future, then we need to get our heads on straight and understand that nobody’s going to give a damn about our products – which, in my biased opinion are generally the greatest in the world, at the greatest price points – until we fix this perception problem.

I recently became friends with Aydika again, by the way (the model in the photo at the top of the screen). What convinced me? She started emailing me. Emails that read like Russian novels in their length and complexity, but in them she discussed all the things she had learned during her relationship with me. She opened up and acknowledged the mistakes she had made. She talked about how she had changed her ways, and then enumerated the changes she’s made in her life in the intervening months. And she convinced me – I now believe that she’s an open, honest, caring person who is going to move on to great things. I turn to her now as a personal confidante. I trust her. She’s won back my confidence.

Pure evangelism.

The other effect? I find her beautiful again.

And if you’re someone who doesn’t see how that matters, and if you’re someone who’s part of the process of getting Microsoft back on track, then I might as well sell my stock now, because we’re going to get our asses kicked in a world where we think numbers are everything.