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Bubbling Bing Soda Story is Flat

Microsoft employee evangelist Heather Hamilton is my darling today (Please don’t tell my wife!). She writes quite convincingly that “Sometimes, when something looks like a fizzy scoop, it totally isn’t.” Heather responds to a weird story circulating the blogs—soda cans marketing Bing to Microsoft employees. Anyone who works for Microsoft or has visited the campus should know there are fridges on every floor (or there sure seem to be) filled with soda and other beverages. Microsoft coolers pack a better selection than my local 7-Eleven, and for better price: Free. I’ve seen product branded cans in the coolers before, but hadn’t thought much of them. Branded gear of every shape and size can be found at most consumer companies.

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Have Fun, But Don’t Break Windows During Microsoft’s House Party

Microsoft’s Windows 7 House Party—like it’s oh-so new, or silly. Microsoft isn’t running the events or broader marketing but outsourcing them through service House Party, which launched in 2005. House Party’s oldest, archived event is Nickelodeon’s AVATAR launch, more than three-and-a-half years ago. What bugs me about the blogs and news stories is lack of context.

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Where the Rubber Room Meets the Road

I have a suggestion for Joel Klein, chancellor of New York City schools: Publish a teaching offenders list.

I must be a slow learner, because until Saturday I hadn’t understood New York City’s losing battle with the powerful teachers union. Once teachers achieve tenure—after 3 years—they are employed for life and damn near undismissible, even for cause. Journalism professor Samuel Freedman wrote about the situation for the New York Times two years ago: “Where Teachers Sit, Awaiting Their Fates.” I missed that one, but not Steven Brill’s shocking “The Rubber Room: The battle over New York City’s worst teachers” in Aug. 31, 2009, The New Yorker.

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Nokia and the iPhone Hype Problem

Nokia World convenes for two days in Stuttgart, Germany (local time there, 9 a.m.). It’s an event that many US analysts, bloggers or journalists will look at with disdain. If hype were the only measure of success, Apple would be the world’s largest handset manufacturer. But for all the iPhone bark—much of it coming from the United States—Nokia has got way more bite. Not that most Americans will hear about it.