Archive for January, 2005

I’ve been thinking about this for a few days. It really came into stark contrast last night after a half hour chat with Shel and Robert about our books.

Forgive me if this post is rambling. It’s a collection of a few different thought threads.

Let me start by saying I’m not the first person to suggest something along these lines. Others have said Scoble should be the Chief Blogging Officer. I’d disagree, as I don’t think a C-level position would actually be the best use of Robert’s time.

This all started when I realized a few days ago that most of Robert’s influence, writing and (likely) mindshare is around blogging, the relationships it builds, the passion it engenders and the ways that teams and companies can use it. He’s often seen shuffling info from team to team and from teams to customers and from customers to teams as a result of his blog.

That isn’t to say that he doesn’t have a fulltime job. He does. He has a fulltime job as (as I understand it) a Technical Evangelist in the Platform group. His job is basically to do things like Channel 9, as well as to communicate with customers and teams about Longhorn, Microsoft’s next desktop OS.

But, somehow, in spite of a fulltime job he also maintains one of the most popular blogs on the planet, is constantly putting people in contact with each other, is very open and friendly, is about to start writing a book, speaks at a variety of conferences, is a beta tester (under NDA) for numerous software products and has a family.

Needless to say he has a fairly full life.

And, from experience, I have to wonder if Robert wouldn’t be better off in a different position. It’s been said that Robert Scoble is the third most visible and known person at Microsoft, behind Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer. Sure, millions of people don’t know how, but I can’t think of any other individual besides these 3 that more than a handful of people know by name and by reputation.

And that is the crux of the whole shabang.

Busy boy + growing influence + passion for a new technique / medium / technology = something needs to change.

It reminds me of the 90s when a developer took it upon himself to start communicating with customers more and talking through the various benefits of stuff. This little pioneer went on to create a position which is now standard at Microsoft: the Evangelist. There are now thousands of Evangelists at Microsoft, fulfilling a variety of roles.

I see Robert in a similar light: someone who’s creating something out of demand and passion, not out of personal ambition.

The problem is that Evangelists are typically assigned to one team. And that is where Robert is different than most other Evangelists: he talks to a massive variety of teams to create community, knowledge and communication in exciting new ways.

Does Microsoft need to create a Blogger or a Bloggging Evangelist position as a standard one? Probably not. If someone is blogging for a team, that would fall under typicall “Evangelist” type of stuff. But Robert isn’t blogging for one team. He’s the most human, public face that Microsoft has. And he’s also the one voice with more credibility than just about every executive.

Robert would brush that off, and I’d expect nothing less from him. I’m not expecting him to be reading this and glowing with pride. If there’s any glowing it’s embarrassment, from the little I know him.

I guess the issue is that this leaves my train of thought in a bit of a pickle. Yes, Robert should be employed doing blogging, evangelism, communication, Channel 9, etc. These are all things he’s good at and, assuming he enjoys them, are all things he should continue doing.

But there aren’t many cross-team positions at Microsoft. The Recruiting side of things is one. Research is another. Are there many others? Either way, there isn’t really a need for a cross-team department. There is really only a need for a Lead Blogging Evangelist or something.

Robert needs a title, position, influence, authority and paycheck to go with his position, influence and authority in the world.

Maybe that’s my point. When you have an employee who – while he didn’t create the phenom – is pushing blogging forward, helping to change customer perceptions, has an amazing amount of credibility and does most of this off of company time because he truly believes in the company… You really need to step up and believe in him as well.

In my mind, Robert deserves no less than a 250K salary, an expense account and as little “fluff responsibility” (stuff that takes away from his ability to actually Get Things Done) as possible.

I’m completely aware that this post could easily disappear into the ether. But you never know what a difference one post can make until you write it. That, and over the last couple of years I’ve gotten to know some execs, so I’ll be bending their ears very gently to see what kinds of options there’d be.

I have no idea if Robert would be interested in such a position, but I also know that he probably wouldn’t ask for it himself.

Here goes a few hours of chatting, convincing and selling for someone who truly deserves it.