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Microsoft Canada Wants to Pick Your Brain!

Microsoft Canada’s Audience Marketing Team wants to pick your brain!

Zombie picture: "I can has brains?"

If you’re a reader of this blog, Global Nerdy, chances are that you write software, manage computer systems or do some kind of work in the realms of software, IT or the internet. If that’s the case, the folks on my team at Microsoft – the Technical Audience Team – would like to hear your opinions.

Cat with cheese slice on its face: "Cheez: You're doin' it wrong"

The reason we want to pick your brain is simple: we want to be able to avoid a “Cheez Cat” kind of situation like the one pictured above. We’d like to be able to correctly identify the kind of opportunities – things like conferences, events, workshops and other things for developers and IT pros – that you’d be interested in. We’d also like to know whether you’d be willing to share your insights, or participate in activities that we’re putting together and with the developer community.

"Toothpaste for Dinner" comic on surveys

And now, it’s time to cut to the chase: yes, I’m asking you to fill out a survey. Yes, I know that there are things you’d rather do – maybe someone’s made a new Keyboard Cat video – but this survey is a chance for you to steer “The Empire”. We try to make sure that we’ve got hard data to back up the decisions we make, and surveys like this one are where we get the hard data from. We’d rather you tell us how to connect with you in a way that best fits your working style, skills, interests and passion than make what we call a S.W.A.G. (Silly Wild-Ass Guess).

Modified "Uncle Sam" poster: "I want YOU...to fill out the survey"

If you’re based in Canada and you either write software (for the desktop, web or mobile) or manage computer systems, I’m asking you to fill out the survey. The official notes for the survey say that it takes about 15 minutes to fill, but you’ve probably guessed that you can fill it out in less time.

Big red arrow: "Click here to TAKE THE SURVEY"

To take the survey, you can either click the giant red arrow above, or you can click this link. If you’ve already taken the survey, I’d like to thank you for doing so!

If you know a developer or it pro whom you think should take this survey, please forward a link to this article to them!

8 replies on “Microsoft Canada Wants to Pick Your Brain!”

I’ve never been the type of guy to ask “What’s in it for me?”

But, but…but..

What’s in it for me?
:)

Be aware that if you don’t provide your contact info and check the box that you are ok with followup contact, the only question you’ll be asked is “where do you live?”. So if you want to help, fill out the contact stuff, I guess.

The survey engine is pretty Web 0.5 — somewhat ugly, and says things like “Don’t submit your answers by pressing enter”. Although it does seem to be bilingual, which might be an important criterion.

@Ian Tuck – Good question. The shared value is that we’re BOTH helping the Technical Community in Canada, something the team (and hopefully you) is very passionate about. You’ve getting visibility and exposure to a wider audience and demonstrating your mad skilz as an expert / thought leader in your local community. Visibility & credibility has helped people we have worked with in the past land new contracts, acquire new clients, gain valuable references to add to their CV / linkedIn profiles. We value your opinion and don’t try to “put words in your mouth”, so you are free to speak your mind [provided you can override the implant – oh wait, we don’t do that anymore ;-) ]
@Kate Gregory – good catch – if you don’t include the ability for Our Team (not all of microsoft, just to be clear) to contact you, there is no point in filling out the survey. Just so that we’re not a faceless group of people – our team consists of John Oxley, Damir Bersinic, Rodney Buike, Myself, John Bristowe, Joey Devilla, Christian Beauclair, Qixing Zhgen, Dottie Yeats and Barnaby Jeans.
@Geoffrey Wiseman – alas, we are at the mercy of the tools that the survey company uses to host the survey. I agree – very Web 0.5… please don’t hold that against us – we’re probably one of the most “risk adverse” groups within Microsoft Canada, doing the bleeding edge thing and diving into social media. We tend to make more traditional groups within Microsoft very nervous.
@Farhan Thawar – Crashed – what? I worked fine for me in Firefox. ;-) and IE and Win7 RC 7100. probably user error. (hee hee)

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