BLOG AND TACKLE

Despite — or, more precisely, because of — its dominant standing in the software market, Microsoft has long had its fair share of detractors, especially on the Internet (where everyone's a critic anyway). Robert Scoble, the popular Weblogger better known to his regular readers as the Scobleizer, has often used his site at http://scoble.weblogs.com/ to comment on Microsoft's products and plans, offering honest opinions both pro and con. The crucial distinction between Scoble and other bloggers is that Scoble is now a Microsoft employee. And he has his blog to thank.

Scoble, who joined Microsoft in May from NEC Solutions America, credits blogging with building his relationship with Microsoft's Vic Gundotra, general manager of .NET evangelism. The two met on an NEC Tablet PC newsgroup and began corresponding. Soon, Gundotra was a regular reader of the Scobleizer blog. “He liked what I was writing, even when I said Microsoft should split up and give away Linux for free with Windows,” Scoble said.

Gundotra ultimately offered Scoble a spot on his staff of technical evangelists. “I'm on the team doing the next version of Windows,” he said. “I'm an evangelist, although God knows what that means. Microsoft decided they need more people who are able to communicate with the outside world — people who can communicate quickly and answer questions are valuable.”

Now comes the tricky part: While Scoble has a responsibility to Microsoft to keep the company's upcoming projects and goals under wraps — he signed a non-disclosure agreement and said he's also mindful of corporate politics — he still feels a responsibility to his readers to maintain the candor and critical eye for which he is known.

“There are things I'd like to talk about that I can't — if I start answering questions, people start poking for more information,” Scoble said. “Nobody has asked me to do anything different, and I plan to keep being tough on Microsoft. But I do have a sense of where I'm not supposed to go. I don't bite the hand that feeds.”

Still, in a companywide memo mailed out in June, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer urged colleagues to “communicate more broadly and in a more human and compelling voice” — a statement some have taken as a tacit approval of employee blogging. The company even hosts some worker blogs on Microsoft sites.

Scoble said it's just the beginning of blogging's impact on how we do business. To start, he predicts the phenomenon is going to have a profound effect on the corporate hiring process. “My boss said this was the first time he hired somebody and knew exactly what he was getting,” he said. “People know everything about me from my blog. It's like a business card. Even if you're a plumber and you do a Weblog, I imagine you're going to get a lot of different job offers.”