Mojave Experiment is go
The Mojave Experiment is now live at https://www.mojaveexperiment.com/ and I love it. As someone who launched Vista in the UK and evangelised, enthused and talked about it from day 1 I’ve had to deal with the whole perception vs. reality thing. It’s been tough because the negativity and misinformation tends to spread like wildfire and dealing with that without support from a larger campaign that tells a better story means fighting an uphill battle.
Something that the videos highlight is the that the majority of people have not actually tried Vista and their negativity is based on second hand news. This is something I’ve been talking about for a while now. Here’s what I said back then:
“It also supports what I find talking to customers out there in the field - those who have a negative perception either tried Vista in the early days and had problems or haven't actually tried it and have based their upgrade policy based on what they hear or read in the press. To those people, I challenge them to have another look.”
If I sit down with anyone I can - without fail - show them things that will impress them in Windows Vista. But I’m only one person. Microsoft don’t do a good enough job telling the story at scale – hopefully that's something we can address this year.
Viral and I were talking about the whole perception problem last night over dinner: we spend lots of time talking about the “how” and the “what” when it comes to products and the company - but we don’t often get the “why” right. This is a problem because the “why” is often the most crucial part – it’s what defines the company; goals, ethos and vision. We need a “why” so we can agree or disagree with where a product or service is taking us – it’s something we can relate to and buy-in to.
Microsoft needs to remind people where it has come from, what it has achieved and where it is going every single day. Back in the day, when the mission was to put “a PC on every desk and in every home”, it was a big answer to “why” Microsoft and what the company was striving for. People could get what Microsoft was all about and since then, the company has achieved that goal and changed the course of history.
Since then, our mission has to allow people to realise their full potential – it’s a good mission but Microsoft need to remind itself and it’s customers about it, and what it means. This will help to answer that “why” question. Things like the Mojave help to demonstrate “why” – but it needs scale, bring it on I say!
Comments
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
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January 01, 2003
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January 01, 2003
Sorry I should have written "seen". Does that help? JamesAnonymous
January 01, 2003
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January 01, 2003
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January 01, 2003
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January 01, 2003
Hey Eddie, There's no science, we did that all back in the end user testing during the development of the product. Obviously we can't have a "Vista tutor" with every customer, but I'm interested to hear how you would educate people about the features in Vista. What's your take? JamesAnonymous
January 01, 2003
@Trevor Sorry to hear you had a bad experience. When did you get your PC? Reason I ask is that driver/app compat has come a long way over the past year and so people who had a bad experience in the past can have a much better one today. @Shaun I think the subjects were chosen at random, although I'm not sure. The idea was to pick people who had never seen Vista and only heard about it through other people - that was the point. I agree you can make anything look a walk in the park if you have an expert on hand to show them features. Apple have used this tactic in their retail stores effectively with the "Genius Bar". Having said that, being able to launch Media Center, for example, and show what it can do doesn't require an expert. JamesAnonymous
July 29, 2008
"Something that the videos highlight is the that the majority of people have not actually tried Vista and their negativity is based on second hand news." James, The subjects involved in this "experiment" still haven't actually tried Vista. The whole thing is pointless. MS should have given them all a copy of "Mojave" for a week and then filmed their feedback. JamieAnonymous
August 08, 2008
Looks like, according to the wise guy who wrote this blog, that the solution should be to have a Microsoft VISTA tutor at home all the time so he/she can guide us stupid users through ALL the annoying problems we need to face on daily basis with this "wonderful" product. By the way, MOJAVE? VEEEEERY scientific!!!!!!!! congratulations guys, you managed to embarrass yourself one more time.Anonymous
August 12, 2008
There are products on the market that, for the average user, does not require anyone to educate them on the features for them to like it. Also, I might really like a Porsche. The look, feel, the speed, the excitement. However, my concern in the cost. Distracting me from my concerns is not the same as addressing them.Anonymous
August 14, 2008
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August 15, 2008
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August 15, 2008
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August 27, 2008
The tactic used for this add campaign is quite decietful on many levels. Good ol' microsoft antics. First, Microsoft decieves a few random shmoes who have never even seen vista before. They show them the OS in a controlled environment, which obviously will avoid any problems current users face in the real world. Second, Microsoft decieves the audience, pretending that the the environment which this so called "test" took place in was unbias, not to mention they clearly lied about the number of positive responses on their mojave site. Can you find all the responses? What about the negative clips? In fact, theres only some 30 clips on the mojave website which claims over 80 positive so called reviews. I'm sorry, but this entire add campaign makes me ill.