Our products are, at the end of the day, the ultimate deliverable. Developers are a discerning audience with a near zero tolerance for fluff and vaporware. They can be fierclely loyal if a product is great, but will quickly become flighty when quality suffers. Great products cannot exist without great feedback, and a vibrant content ecosystem that rapidly onboards developers, pointing them firmly in the direction of success.
The Microsoft Audience team is dedicated to working directly with Engineering, Marketing and across the Cloud Advocacy organization in the relentless pursuit of helping refine our products, and our perception. We do this by putting a laser focus on our feedback mechanisms, messaging, and content so that our marketing and engineering efforts are targeted. After all, there are only two types of developers - those who are currently our customers and those who will be, because our products are that good.
Microsoft suffers from it's share of overbearing processes that ultimately harm or halt innovation. Moving fast in an organization as big as this requires us to become experts at process and prioritization. We need to aknowledge that different organizations move at different speeds and we need to be able to judiciously focus on the right features, fixes, messaging, events and content to have the greatest impact.
When looking at how we create and message great products and content, the team identifies areas of focus that define what will compose our overall strategy.
- Product Feedback: Gather and present data-driven evidence to inform product decisions.
- Product Emphasis: Prioritize features and fixes. Work with various teams to think in a One Microsoft way — prioritizing the products each developer audience needs.
- Marketing: Partner with marketing to create messaging that has the correct tone for our audiences. Help define priorities and prioritize deliverables around product readiness.
- Unify Voices: Align voices across engineering, marketing and the CDA organization. Create a crystal clear vision to guide developers and convey Microsoft's commitment to the community.
- Events: Transition first-party events to tech-first events. Partner with marketing to deliver what the tech community demands from conferences and how to effectively speak to the unique developer audience.
- Channel9: Utilize a unique medium to amplify our message/voices and create a consistent tone while integrating product teams and marketing.
"persuit" == "pursuit"