Interview with Vincent Lauriat, Microsoft France
Interview with Vincent Lauriat, Microsoft France
Scoble wonders what was being said. What the heck, I was taking a break, and bored. Here ya go, mister. There will be a few imprecisions, as I have zero knowledge about the corporate structure of MS. But you’ll gest the gist of it 
Vincent Lauriat is the technical manager of Microsoft France’s online platform, part of the Communication Direction [?]. As such, he was instrumental in starting Microsoft France’s external employee blogs in 2002. There are still some here and there. I wanted to know now Microsoft France had integrated blogs into its communication strategy. Vincent agrred to an interview, and the following is just a few minutes of the two hours we spent together.
Roland: What was the motivation in starting blogs for Microsoft France employees?
Vincent: It was a natural development. Few people know that Microsoft has always encouraged its employees to communicate outside the company, all the way back to Compuserve forums and Usenet. In 2002, having a blog seemed so natural, so I started one, albeit not a very active one. I then encouraged a few colleagues to foolow suit, but it wasn’t until October 2004, when I did a presentation on blogs for the Marketing Direction [?] that it really clicked.
Roland: What happened then?
Vincent: Several product managers decided on the spot to start their own blog, like Patrick Duboys for Exchange or Franck Halmaert, who created a blog with XaMaLa, a mascot used in some products of Microsoft.
Roland: How many active bloggers are there at Microsoft France?
Vincent: Around 30 — out of a thousand employees — have a blog run with Microsoft technology. Around ten others publish whatever they feel like in their blog, outside Microsoft.
Roland: Which means that there’s no censorship at Microsoft France.
Vincent: Absolutely none. We each have our own way to communicate with the outside world, and we never ran into problems like an employee sending an email that shouldn’t have been. Why should it be different with blogs?
Roland: Could you recommend a few blogs from Microsoft France?
Vincent: You should read Christophe Lauer and Laurence Ayache.
Roland: Do you use blog for internal communication, to manage projects for instance?
Vincent: Actually, we use similar technologies, but not just inside Microsoft, to manage mini web sites specific to a project.
Roland: Let’s come back to your open stance on the outside world. What about the outcome? The comments you get?
Vincent: Except for a few exceptions, our bloggers don’t get that many comments: around one comment to ten posts. But it has to be said that our bloggers played by the rules, and keep their comments open. And generally, the comments they get are nice and well-mannered.
Roland: What comes next?
Vincent: Internally, Technet and MSDN groups, which both had blogs, should merge. On the technical side, RSS feed will get more and more important, whatever the standard chosen, from Microsoft or from outside.