KnowledgeForward

Ever since I’ve had my radar up on attention management issues, I’ve noticed many interesting techniques that people use to manage their time and attention.  While I’m generally focused on how entire enterprises can address information overload (what I call Enterprise Attention Management), I’m always on the lookout for what individuals do to help manage their time as well (personal attention management).  For anyone looking for an executive level view of personal attention management, I’d recommend listening to the first few minutes of this Channel 9 interview with Ray Ozzie, Chief Software Architect at Microsoft

Ray was asked how he balances the need to span a vast spectrum of activities and the need to go deep as well.  He said (rough quotes here since I am not that skilled at transcription)

Attention management is biggest challenge of the role; the pace is fairly brutal.  At the beginning of the year I’ll plan out how many hours I want to spend in different categories: some for high level strategic things, time with product groups, and I realized you have to create whitespace because day-to-day interruptions cause you to thrash if you just deal with incoming issues.  You have to create time to think about what’s happening in the environment.

I create whitespace by going away - international travel, “think week”, and other ways.  The best way I’ve found to clear my mind is to go to a conference that’s off the beaten path or go somewhere with my wife that’s not technology related.

When I was coding I had a four hour rule that said don’t code unless you know you’ll have four hours of contiguous time because otherwise you’re just introducing more bugs.

It’s the life management equivalent.

Computerworld reported today that Microsoft offered to buy Yahoo for $44.6B

Microsoft Corp. today offered to buy Yahoo Inc. for $44.6 billion in cash and stock to better compete with Google Inc. in the market for online services.

CEO Steve Ballmer made the offer in a letter to Yahoo’s board of directors yesterday, telling the board that he would release the letter this morning.

On a conference call this morning, Microsoft’s president of its Platforms & Services division Kevin Johnson called a combination of Microsoft and Yahoo a more “credible” alternative to Google in the online advertising and services market.

“By combining the assets of Microsoft and Yahoo, we can offer a more competitive choice for consumers, advertisers and publishers,” he said.

There have been rumors of this for quite some time:

• 2005: ZDNet speculated about Yahoo and Microsoft teaming up to better compete with Google: “As it turns out, in true enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend fashion, Yahoo and Microsoft have a mutual problem in Google. … Given that Yahoo and Microsoft were already chummy with each other on the multimedia front, why not merge their walled gardens to increase the utility of both in hopes of heading off any more defectors (end users) from taking in oodles and oodles of Google (at the expense of everyone else). ”
• 2006: SearchEngineWatch blogged that “Yahoo & Microsoft Have Talked Partnering, Merging”
• 2007: BusinessWeek reported “In the battle of online search, Microsoft is again courting Yahoo, according to media reports”

Of course, you could probably pick any two technology titans and find enough written about them to connect a thread.  But this seems more than random chance since there are obvious synergies, but one issue that makes me question the long term value.

Looking at it from a marketing point of view it’s a very good move.  Yahoo offers strength in web advertising, social computing, and web-based email where Microsoft is weak.  They have overlapping (and expensive) assets in search and categorization that can be consolidated and trimmed.  They also offer great talent and intangibles around web 2.0 and a disruptive, creative mindset.

From an infrastructure point of view I’m a bit more dubious.  Yahoo seems to favor the kind of Java, Unix, and open source tools (Apache, FreeBSD, Perl, PHP, Linux) you’d expect out of a young company out to challenge the powers that be.  If Yahoo has a huge number of very bright programmers that are almost religiously dedicated to Unix-based platforms and development they may not want to switch.  For scale reasons I’m sure Microsoft would allow this subset of the company to continue along that Unix path (I’m not saying they’d force mass conversion at the point of a sword), but it would take some restraint not to try injecting Windows servers and .NET into newer offerings and slowly alienate the staff. 

So, in summary, I think from a financial view it probably looks good (win/win for both sides), from a marketing view it looks good (fills in weaknesses of Microsoft and allows for consolidation of operations), but longer term the risk associated with the assimilation of Yahoo into Microsoft (and therefore the odds of capitalizing on the assets they are acquiring) may be even higher than normal for tech companies.

Chris Saad, writing in the Particls blog (quoting Dallas J Clark), pointed out a great offer I hadn’t seen - a full suite of high-end Microsoft end user software for free!  Well, nothing’s for free of course.  You just have to hand over some attention data. 

Here’s how Dallas summarizes the deal

What do you get?

• Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate (32-bit and 64-bit DVD)
• Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007
• Microsoft Money Plus Premium
• Microsoft Student with Encarta Premium 2008
• Microsoft Streets and Trips 2008

Requirements?

• First off, you have to be an American resident and over the age of 18 years.
• You must own the computer you will be using.
• You are required to fill out a survey at the start, and then every 2 weeks.
• The automated program is offered to Windows Vista and Windows XP customers only.
• The survey feedback program applies to all versions of Windows.
• Microsoft, comScore, and MarketTools employees are not eligible to participate.

I did a little poking around on this (the homepage is here) and I’m not sure they are still offering all that software.  Surprisingly, the FAQ doesn’t answer the simple questions “Why would I do this?” and “What do I get out of it?”.  Granted, I do donate my time to charitable causes from time to time, but usually not to corporations that make more than $10 billion in profit each year.  That’s right, I draw the line at $10 billion.

Anyways, the FAQ does answer:

What will Microsoft provide?
We will provide to you the software and necessary licensing to accomplish the data collection. Specifically Microsoft will provide you with:

• All software, including documentation, required to gather data regarding your home computer use.
• In consideration of your participation, a license covering the software provided, under the terms and conditions that accompany that software. Please note, except as expressly licensed to you in those Licenses, Microsoft retains all right, title, and interest in and to the Microsoft software provided under the Windows Feedback Program.

It sounds to me like they are giving you the software that does the data gathering, not Vista and Office itself.

Of course, if they do actually give you thousands of dollars in free software for your participation this is as much a test of how much you trust Microsoft as it is an assessment of what your attention data is worth.  Still, the response rate will be interesting to see how people assess the value they place on their attention, the value they place on Vista and Office, and the trust they have in Microsoft.

I found a great summary of the essence of Microsoft that I wanted to pass along. I think it’s the best summary I’ve seen. While it is obviously spun in Microsoft’s favor (being from Ballmer) it rings true. It presents their spin on being a fast follower and often taking a few versions to get things right, but it addresses the issue and I respect that. I think the line about inventing better than the creator is rather humorous - close to using the word “re-inventing”.

It’s from a presentation Steve Ballmer gave at the Convergence 2007 conference in March, although it’s from a standard 5 item set of talking points he has on the “core of Microsoft”. The transcript is available here, but here’s the relevant excerpt

As I wrap, I want to say two things. I get often asked, what is at the core of Microsoft? What does it take us to continue to be a successful company? And I’d say maybe five things, but I’ll overlay one other. We continue to focus on attracting and retaining the best and the brightest. That’s been a hallmark of our company.

We have to engage broadly in innovation, big and little. Sometimes we’re the first to invent things, sometimes we have to invent something better than the original creator. But we’re very dedicated to innovation, and I think you can see that in our Dynamics product line.

We are what I like to call multi-core. We’re for the enterprise and for the consumer. We have an ad business model, a service business model, and a software business model. We sell hardware and we sell software. But our core skill set is broad horizontal technology innovation.

We are committed to driving, not trailing industry transformation. That’s oftentimes hard for an industry leader to do, and yet we’re pushing this transformation to software as a service as fast and as rapidly as anybody around.

And last but certainly not least, our company takes a long term approach. We don’t get in and do something for a year; we get in. Sometimes we get it right at first, sometimes it takes a second release or a third release. But you can count on us, as you can count on us throughout everything we do, including the Dynamics product line. We’re just going to keep investing and investing and investing and investing. Our persistence, our willingness and desire to hear from you, to learn, to bring new innovations to bear, and to keep on going is very high.