Dear Bill and Jim,

Here's how you can turn around public opinion of Microsoft.

1) Fire your PR firm. They ain't doing you no favors and we doubt you're listening to them anyway, so get another one. That'll trigger to the market that something is different about Microsoft.

2) Try something different. We all are stuck on Microsoft software. We ain't going anywhere (I keep wishing I could switch to Linux or the Mac, but I am not willing to give up ClearType, sorry). So, stop treating your customers like jerks. Get rid of product activation.

Give us choices of new features. I know that on the next OS you'll put in an anti-virus program. Instead of giving us only one choice (which will weaken your defense against viruses) give us a choice of three or four different ones. Pay three or four different companies a fair fee to include them into Windows. Same with camera integration, and anything else you feel like putting into Windows. Don't do the AOL thing, give us choices. Make Windows like a supermarket where we have to decide between 30 brands of soap. If you do that Windows will not be attackable by Linux and customer opinion will turn.

3) Stop taking yourselves so seriously. Whenever I meet a Microsoft employee lately they sound embattled. It's like they don't know how to have a conversation again. Hint: do you start a date by saying “I'm better than all the other guys” and then you force the woman to pick up the dinner tab? I don't think so.

So, let's turn it around. Admit your software sucks. Hey, it's proprietary. It's full of patents. It's full of security holes. It's full of bugs (well, OK, Windows XP is getting better on the bugs area, but enough folks are still having troubles so you can still admit it's shitty software).

Oh, and your developers have to talk to closed black boxes since you really aren't sharing source to Windows yet. (Linux developers get to see inside their OS, so they can better build apps that integrate with the OS well). Go to a bunch of shows. Admit your software sucks. Hand out T-Shirts that say “We Write Sucky Software.” OK, I know this is a little over the top, and not likely to pass muster with your shareholders (screw them!), but I'm trying to get you guys to show a little humility. There's no better way to do that than to self depricate yourselves. When someone at a conference stands up and says “Microsoft Sucks” say “yes it does, now how can we work together to make it less sucky?”

As background, I posted a link recently to an article by Peter Drucker that talked about how we are moving to a highly competitive knowledge society.  Education, in order to better serve the needs of this society, must adapt.  How?  It must help people create and maintain a continuous learning cycle.  Knowledge goes stale over time and knowledge workers, in order to continue to be productive at their jobs, need to constantly improve their domain expertise.

This is something K-Logs can help with.  Most people, when they leave school, take nothing with them besides what is between their ears and a few text books that are quickly put out of date.  Our current system forces people to go back to a classroom setting to rejuvenate their knowledge set.  Most people can't afford this.  Particularly given Drucker's predictions of the level of market competition there will be.

If students were required to build and maintain a K-Log during their years of residence at school, they would leave with: 1) a strong habit of continuous analysis and writing, 2) subscriptions to data streams (articles, documents, and other relevant data — both free and for fee $$),  3) living connections to teachers and students they met,  and 4) a chronicle of their learning process at school.

From the school's perspective, K-Logs could improve the economics of the relationship.  It could charge its students for RSS subscriptions to the Weblogs of teachers at the school (a continuous stream of insight provided by teachers that are constantly reading and analyzing the newest information available in the field of study) and other data streams.  It would also create a new channel for relationships with alumni that would provide a backchannel for insight on how knowledge they are learning in school is being applied in the real world.  Finally, it puts a whole new spin on what it means by going to a school — in this new world you just don't attend, rather you “join” the schools knowledge sharing community.

From the student's perspective, he/she could claim not only having attended a good school but also that they are continuously connected to that school's knowledge stream/system.    Would that be a benefit in a job interview?  You bet.  I always want to hire people that are always at the top of their game.  Also, a well maintained K-Log would provide potential job seekers with a living, breathing resume about what they have learned.  In a job interview, people often ask about the details of specific things people have learned or done.  It would be much more valuable to read about the experience  in a K-Log (you can use categories to limit access to K-Log data).