Please give your visceral reaction to this quote:

"We need to establish a system for evaluating public attacks on Microsoft's work and determining whether and how to respond," said Bill Gates.  "We strongly believe it is no longer sufficient to argue reflexively that our work speaks for itself. In today's media environment, such a minimal response damages our credibility.  We need to be more assertive about explaining ourselves - our decisions, our methods, our values, how we operate," Gates said, acknowledging that "there are those who love to hate Microsoft"' and suggesting a focus instead on people who do not have "fixed" opinions about the software giant. A parallel goal of this strategy, Gates said, was to assure coders "that they will be defended when they are subjected to unfair attack." The defense should be led by coders from the software product teams, he said, "with support and advice from our corporate communications, marketing and legal departments."

Mad? Furious? Shocked? Outraged?

Can't believe Gates could be so stupid?

Does this only confirm what you already know -- that only Microsoft could be so arrogant that it could talk about its customers this way?

Except, of course, I'm lying.

Gates would never be that stupid.

I guess I'm not lying per se -- all I did was substitute "Bill Gates" and "Microsoft" for the names of the company that actually put out the following statement on a committee report designed to restore the company's credibility:

"10. Establish a system for evaluating public attacks on The Time's work and determining whether and how to respond.

"We strongly believe it is no longer sufficient to argue reflexively that our work speaks for itself,"  the report stated. "In today's media environment, such a minimal response damages our credibility," it added. As a result, the committee said, the newsroom should develop a strategy for evaluating public attacks on The Times and determining whether and how to respond to them. "We need to be more assertive about explaining ourselves - our decisions, our methods, our values, how we operate," the committee said, acknowledging that "there are those who love to hate The Times"' and suggesting a focus instead on people who do not have "fixed" opinions about the paper. A parallel goal of this strategy, the committee said, was to assure reporters "that they will be defended when they are subjected to unfair attack." The defense should be led by journalists in the newsroom, the report said, "with support and advice from our corporate communications, marketing and legal departments."

 

"The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist." That's a quote from that most excellent movie, The Usual Suspects.

 

The worst trick journalists ever pulled was convincing themselves that they weren't in business.  And they pulled it on themselves.

 

There's plenty of time to talk about the strangeness that seems to pass almost unremarked: We could discuss the Houston Chronicle's decision to become an ad agent for Google, according to The New York Times. Can you imagine, say, Oracle becoming a sales agent for Microsoft's SQL server?

 

There's too much of that stuff to go into, frankly: just thinking about it exhausts me.

 

And anyway, it misses the point:

 

What can you say about an industry that has so lost its way that its leading lights talk about their customer this way?  What can you say about an industry that doesn't know its customers are customers -- because its practitioners don't think they are in business?

Next time -- it will be a few days while I'm on the road -- we'll talk about bloggers forming co-ops, and other new types of publications. 

 

cjf