You’re right. Some of the evangelism practices that I taught and executed at Microsoft in the 1990′s were unethical. I didn’t think so at the time — I thought that they were just hyper-competitive — but I agree now.

I am trying to change the error of my ways. I trust that you will agree that even the most hardened sinner can be redeemed.

Read more here: http://platformevangelism.spaces.live.com/blog

I liked one of Guy’s talks when I read it almost 3 years ago.

I just wrote a message to discussion@fsfeurope.org on this topic, quoting this Guy Kawasaki blog post.

Being hopelessly addicted to volunteer activism in far too many spheres, I apply this stuff lots. I need to find my copy of Selling The Dream again … it’s in a box somewhere. (The running joke in my house: “Where’s x?” “It’s IN A BOX!” One day everything will be unpacked … then we’ll probably move.)

This, by the way, suggests to me that free software “gateway drugs” really work, e.g. Firefox, OpenOffice, GIMP. Users care about applications; once they’re using all-free applications, swapping the OS out from under is easy and they sudenly discover their battery life has doubled from not running an antivirus. Etc. This suggests that Microsoft’s drive to make Windows a first-class platform for open source software will in fact shoot them in the foot, and I’m sure they have a game plan that says it won’t but I still can’t see what it might be myself.

If you do a Web search for “evangelism”, then you’ll find that a lot of he stuff is Microsoft.

Guy Kawasaki wrote a book on the subject, Selling the Dream (Amazon link), about how he did it at Apple, which I highly recommend. Certainly applicable to free software. Guy also blogs chronically about this sort of thing.

http://scripting.wordpress.com/2007/01/09/scripting-news-for-192007/#comment-34530

________

Dave,

I appreciate your referring to me as “one of the good guys” at Microsoft, back in the 1990’s — although I must say that all of us in Microsoft’s Developer Relations Group (DRG) thought of ourselves that way. It was a great team.

You can find my response to ComputerWorld’s article here (towards the bottom):
http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=271057

I refer to this version of my response, rather than the one on ComputerWorld’s SharkBait, because this version contains URLs to relevant definitions and other resources.

Inevitably, Microsoft’s PR people are distancing Microsoft from my 1996 presentation, saying that the approach to evangelism that it describes was not then, and is not now, Microsoft’s policy. This overlooks the fact that my presentation was such a hit with DRG’s management that I gave it in three subsequent internal training sessions at (roughly) six-month intervals. DRG’s management REQUIRED the attendance of all newly-hired evangelists at these presentations, and the attendance & participation of all other evangelists was recommended. The pace of hiring new evangelists then slowed, so it was not necessary to give such internal training sessions thereafter. Microsoft had not previously had any formal training seminars for newly-hired evangelists, so far as I know (between 1992 and 1996). If you read the transcript of the “offending” presentation, you’ll see that Marshall Goldberg — a senior evangelist who had frequent meetings with Microsoft’s senior executives, including Bill Gates — refers to me as being Microsoft’s “evangelism theoretician.”

The point being that Microsoft recognized that my presentations on evangelism theory, strategy, and tactics — of which only one has been entered into the public record, the others still being massively confidential — were, in fact, the best embodiment of Microsoft’s evangelism “policy” that existed at the time. Else, they would have used some other materials and presenter for new-evangelist training, would they not?

Another portion of the old “pawns” methaphor said “We can only win the allegiance of the pawns by understanding what they need, and supplying it; what they fear, and alleviating it; what they believe, and reinforcing it; where they want to go tomorrow, and taking them there. Set things up so that they get what they want by helping you get what you want – then just get out of their way.”

Hardly a prescription for abuse, is it?

That said, the “pawns” metaphor was stretched well beyond the breaking point, and should not have been used.

The “first-date” analogy was puerile, stupid, and wrong. In one of the other training presentations, I emphasize that the first rule of evangelism is, simply, “Never lie; always tell the truth” — a point contradicted by my stupid “first-date” ramblings. I was usually slated as the “after lunch” speaker because I was recognized for my ability to wake up a sleepy audience — and in my search for spicy, vivid, exciting analogies, I went too far, for which I am truly sorry.

Fair enough?

Thanks!

James Plamondon
CEO, Thumtronics
The New Shape of Music(tm)
http://www.thummer.com

P.S.: Once I’m done revolutionizing the music-technology world, I really should finish my book on the theory and practice of technology evangelism.

____

So it was indeed Microsoft’s policy.

Also see: http://www.thumtronics.com/Ron.pdf (going ‘lyrical’ elsewhere)

“Evangelism” usually is used as a depiction of “proclaiming good news”, further, a “technological evangelist is associated by people who look to establish a technology as de facto standards or to participate in setting non-proprietary open standards.

The case with Microsoft, since it includes services or material benefits, would be better served to use “proselytism”.

The behavior of any person who doesn’t value another individual as he values himself would be short-changing anyone in contact with said individual.

Have a nice day.

Is your link to his family page an example of the stalking you claim afflicts you and your collaborators?

Just curious.

Note: writer of this comment adds absolutely nothing but stalking and personal attacks against readers, as documented here.

Ass for Plamondon, another puzzling question would be; ‘How can another individual in the workplace, if not of like mind, work with excreta infection such as him?”.