Comments on: Why Microsoft Still Needs Another Scoble. More on Don Ferguson.

By: Donald Ferguson

Donald Ferguson — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 14:25:16 +0000

This is Don Ferguson. I have had an email exchange and phone call with folks on developerWorks. dW is acting very professionally and treating me with respect. I know these folks and they are great people. The situation will resolve.

By: Richard Schwartz

Richard Schwartz — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 03:49:11 +0000

Ferguson’s blog is back, with a disclaimer “Mr. Ferguson is no longer an employee of IBM”.

By: Patrick Mueller

Patrick Mueller — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 23:35:59 +0000

Given the medium (xml) and available protocols (APP), I have absolute “freedom to leave” for my blog at dWorks. I didn’t see an easy way to export all my entries from my dWorks blog, so I copied a template I had already written for one purpose to do exactly that. Exported as an atom file. Which I could arrange to import into some other APP-capable blogging system.

I should ask Dave Johnson about that some time, if I make it back to a Raleigh Bloggers Meetup.

I just copied the two Roller templates I’ve written to my wiki. Also at dWorks.

By: jgovernor

jgovernor — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 19:47:15 +0000

oh yeah thanks david for the clarification. its weird-earlier i could have sworn the links from my earlier post weren’t working. now they are. cool.

By: jgovernor

jgovernor — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 19:46:30 +0000

cheers mike. i had seen the alex post. mea culpa.
cheers don - dirty looks - i have been in plenty of microsoft meetings where tap tap is expected. you sort of make an argument that indicate MS does need someone to play the Scoble role, with freedom to blog. that said he was doing like 18 hour days for you, blogging from home, and doing a day job. those folks are not easy to find, like you say.

By: Don Dodge

Don Dodge — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 19:21:06 +0000

James, you are right. I saw the announcement before getting on a long plane flight. Then I blogged on a couple other topics, and didn’t get back to the Don Ferguson topic.

Getting Don is a big deal. Getting Jon Udell was another big win. Coincidently, I am going to meet with Jon later today.

Scoble was lucky, and unique, at Microsoft. He didn’t really have a day job other than blogging and video. So, he had the time to respond to everything…instantly. Alex, Dare, and I have day jobs that get in the way.

In fact, I am sitting in a Microsoft meeting right now while I type this, and I am getting dirty looks because I am not listening to the people in the room. That’ s life…

Don Dodge

By: David Berger

David Berger — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 18:50:32 +0000

Chris Barger of IBM posts an explanation of what happened as a comment to Simon Phipps’ blog (linked above.)

By: Robert Scoble

Robert Scoble — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 15:44:50 +0000

Yeah, I saw at least three MSFTies talking about this yesterday and put one on my link blog.

By: Mike Champion

Mike Champion — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 15:21:11 +0000

Alex Barnett is the new Scoble?
http://www.alexbarnett.net/blog/archive/2007/01/15/IBM_2700_s-Chief-Architect-moves-to-Microsoft.aspx

Note the date.