“Benjamin Gauthey |Microsoft | Startup Business Accelerator | Marketing Technopologist “ is my signature. Many people inside and outside Microsoft ask me to explain it… Here is the explanation from the Wall Street Journal:

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB122884677205091919-lMyQjAxMDI5MjA4MzgwNDM2Wj.html

Find a 'marketing technopologist.'

So who should direct a company's forays into Web 2.0 marketing? A number of managers identified an ideal set of skills for an executive that go beyond those of a typical M.B.A. holder or tech expert. We coined the term marketing technopologist for a person who brings together strengths in marketing, technology and social interaction. A manager said, "I'd want to see someone with the usual M.B.A. consultant's background, strong interest in psychology and sociology, and good social-networking skills throughout the organization."

Foot soldiers need to be carefully selected as well. One large technology company weighs employees' proven skills to choose writers for blogs that are read by consumers. The company has long used blogs internally to help employees discuss technical issues, products, and company and industry topics. When it decided to use blogs to raise its profile online, it recruited those who had shown the most skill at blogging within the company. The company currently has about 15 employees who blog publicly, mostly on technology trends, and is recruiting more the same way. Meanwhile, the bloggers plan to meet occasionally to share the lessons learned from their experiences.

Officially, I’m a digital marketing manager at Microsoft but as my background is not marketing but about technology, I really think Marketing Technopologist is more accurate to me, a good mix of Marketing and technology…. it seems perfect in a software company, no :)

I’ve just finished to read the excellent book: “Purple Cow” from Seth Godin! This book explains how transform your business by being remarkable, being the purple cow!

Through this book, many different case studies on different markets, audiences… After reading this book, I tried to remember what was the last Purple Cow that I saw… Actually, It was in France, some months ago. If you’re looking for a phone number you can call many different services but one did something different from the others, a purple cow. Based on their Ads(a dumb song), you were able to call the service “118218” and in addition to find a telephone number, you were able to ask them to sing the song from their ads, here the result: :)

Stupid? maybe but actually I would be curious to know how many people just called to test if it was true… At the end of the day, everybody remember 118218 telephone service…

And you, what was the last Purple cow that you’ve seen? :)

First of all Happy new year, I wish you all the best!

After 3 years past in Microsoft France, I’ve decided to move to Seattle to take a new job, a new opportunity, a new challenge, a new life. Moving from a Technical Evangelist role to Digital Marketing Manager, I would say (Marketing Technopologist according to the Wall Street Journal) in a group called SBA for Startup Business Accelerator.

What is SBA? The Startup Business Accelerator is comprised of several startup businesses within Microsoft. The businesses operate like classic startups, but receive support from central engineering, marketing, finance, legal and other resources to help accelerate their growth. Upon successful market debut and customer adoption, SBA products and services will transition into one of Microsoft’s existing business divisions. Microsoft generates an amazing number of ideas for new products and services. We believe that with the application of the right people and resources, we can quickly bring new and exciting products and services to market. SBA has employed a non-traditional staffing model by creating a small central team of seasoned “experts” in key functional areas to help SBA’s development teams accelerate the product launch process in a scalable and repeatable way. Microsoft invests in innovations across a broad variety of technologies and industries. Generally speaking, SBA focuses in areas that can eventually produce large businesses. SBA teams span a variety of business opportunities – in areas adjunct to our existing businesses, and in new areas of opportunity, such as Robotics. The SBA group is currently comprised of between 100 and 200 people. The size of the group will fluctuate as SBA businesses graduate into Microsoft’s business divisions and as new projects are started.

Moving to Seattle, taking a new job, new life  is part of my decision to switch this blog in English but it is also a matter to exchange with other great bloggers over the world. As my mate James said: “Now, I can read your (French) blog!” ;). It will also be a big opportunity to exchange with bloggers that I read for a while now as Mary-jo Foley, Steve Clayton…. and start a discussion :)

So what will you find here? Good question! Everything relative to my daily job, new startups, new services, Microsoft and non Microsoft, punctuated with photography, my big hobby! You can also follow my quick updates on Twitter here.

Let’s start 2009!

Traduire ce post en francais ici…

L’equipe de Live Mesh sera presente a l’occasion du LeWeb08 a Paris. Pour l’occasion, ceux qui passeront sur le stand auront le droit a une version avec 30Go de stockage gratuit online!

Retrouvez l’equipe Mesh sur la Zone Microsoft avec James(la face anglaisede Mesh), Angus(Le codeur fou) et Jeff (un des peres de Mesh, il surveille les deux loustiques)

Une belle experience au travers Microsoft Surface!

... L integration d'images! Une jolie escapade quotidienne aux quatres coins du monde. Les resultats sont quant a eux de plus en plus pertinent!

Testez quelques jours et donnez moi vos feedbacks! http://www.live.com/