Microsoft's secret culture weapon - art
- Summary:
- Gapingvoid has produced some insanely great art as conversation starters for Microsoft. It is a great example of art and storytelling in the context of the social object as change agent.
I have said this many times before but I am a huge fan of Hugh MacLeod's work. I view it as amusing, thought provoking and with the potential to bring lasting change. This is important inside very large organizations that are adapting to the 21st century, the influx of millennials and the drive towards a digital economy. I saw this back in 2006 when MacLeod designed the Blue Monster for Microsoft.
At the time, the cartoon and its message represented an enormous risk. You can see why. The subtext was that a cartoon operating as a social object could help bring change through conversation. The accompanying story said:
Microsoft telling its potential customers to change the world or go home.
Microsoft telling its employees to change the world or go home.
Microsoft employees telling their colleagues to change the world or go home.
Everybody else telling Microsoft to change the world or go home.
Everyone else telling their colleagues to change the world or go home. And so forth.
When you think of the cartoon in those terms then it becomes a powerful object and a sure fire conversation starter.
Fast forward to 2010 and I, along with others, was able to take this broad idea to SAP via the SAP Mentor program.
SAP bought enough copies of 'Job No.1' (see image left) to give all Mentors two copies, one for themselves and one for anyone they view as interesting or amazing. We also had a few copies framed for all the SAP executive board members. Here's the back story I wrote at the time.
In short, we poked a bit of fun at SAP's German engineering culture and turned it around into something more meaningful, something that provides purpose to engagements. Looking back, those were happy days in the true sense of the word. Some of us made a difference that mattered and in part, that remains true to this day. When I meet Bill McDermott, CEO SAP, he is always at pains to say that SAP has to engage in conversations with its entire ecosystem of partners, customers and employees. Job No.1 was one of those conversation starters.
Fast forward to 2015. MacLeod is back at Microsoft with a whole new thing going on. The person who originally commissioned Gapingvoid is still there and is part of Microsoft's editorial story telling unit. It doesn't take much to put 2+2 together - right? How is this working out?
When I first saw this I was blown away. Microsoft has taken Gapingvoid's art and turned it into a set of animated social objects. In the image above you can see that when you click on the image, it spins to tell a small story on the back. Very cool and fantastic way to engage any readership. As always with Gapingvoid's work, it arrests the mind and makes you think.
The interesting bit is at the bottom of the page.
There, Microsoft shows images and links to stories about Microsoft people and some of its customers who are doing interesting things. These stories are all long form. If you're interested then you have to be prepared to work through a LOT of content. Here is one example of a person with hearing disabilities who has carved out a successful career at Microsoft. It is a masterful piece of storytelling, something we think is incredibly important at a time when there is often too much noise and not enough signal.
This is not new for Microsoft. If you run a search for 'Microsoft storytelling' then you quickly discover this is an unfolding theme that has been going on quietly for well over a year. My sense is that the MacLeod/Gapingvoid engagement comes out of Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella's stated desire to shift gears inside the company.
It is one thing to impose change. It is quite another thing to have that change become something meaningful and powerful. For that, companies need agents of change that have inherent power. That's what the carefully crafted social object enables.
MacLeod and I have talked about this topic on numerous occasions over the years and each time we do so, the story becomes more and more refined. Today, it's not enough to have a one time simple message. It needs to have punch. It needs continuity. It needs to be part of a continuum.
As I look at what Microsoft is doing, how it is providing the storytelling team room to breathe and not constrain it to editorial deadlines, how it is using some of the best practices in editorial management to refine and polish its stories I can't help but think this is a world class example of change in action.
There is nothing forced about what Microsoft is doing. They are simply going out there with stories that have broad yet refined appeal and demonstrating that whatever analysts might think, there is life in the old dog. That life is bringing meaningful and important change to others lives as well as their own, demonstrated through the stories .
Change never happens all at once. It takes time. Using art in this way can be something of an accelerator but it cannot be a one time event. It cannot be an arresting experience that smacks you in the eye and then leaves you wondering what happens next. It has to be embraced as a body of work against which you assess the impact and effects.
Viewed from that perspective, Microsoft and Gapingvoid are succeeding in a profound and unique way.
I have one caveat. Art and storytelling is not an easy choice. It takes a lot of guts for management to go this road. It is so far outside the conventional wisdom of how change happens that many dismiss it as frivolous. I say to them - check out what's happening. Keep an eye on how Microsoft is progressing as a company since they are the current leader in this space. Better still, do what I did and buy some Gapingvoid themed business cards. These always get attention and sometimes people ask for more than one. Go figure.