You have to hand it to whoever was running Microsoft Australia’s official Twitter account today during the launch of Redmond’s latest and greatest Office 2010 suite.

Whoever “Mick” is, he’s doing a good job, keeping up the maintenance of the company’s official #office2010au hashtag, and replying to all the press, customers and analysts tweeting about the launch.

Just a fine fellow, spreading the good will around.

The only problem is, we have a feeling “Mick” doesn’t quite know who’s who in the Microsoft universe. Take this reply he wrote to @gwhiteoz:

Does “Mick” know that @gwhiteoz is actually Graham White, the head of Microsoft Australia’s PR agency, Howorth, and probably helped organise the launch today?

But, as any good journalist knows, it’s not enough just to go through a company’s PR agency. If you want to take the message to the people you have to go internal. So “Mick” went right to the top, to Microsoft Australia’s head of Corporate Communications Joanna Stevens Kramer.

Oh dear.

We think the correct response from Jo should be:

“@msau hello Mick, what do you think of the launch? Hope you enjoyed it. Thanks, I know where the content is. I #$%^&ing put it there.”

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1. glengyron
   Posted 13/05/2010 at 5:48 pm | Permalink | Reply

   Err, I think the point is to trend the Hashtag by replying to everything – and repeat the URL as often as they can too.

   The people that would have set the strategy, such as Graham and Joanna were probably not surprised.

   Since ‘mick’ was picking up people’s first names ‘he’ would have also seen their bios which explain exactly who they are…

   • Renai LeMay
     Posted 13/05/2010 at 7:20 pm | Permalink | Reply

     That was something I wondered myself, Glen — if he looked at their twitter page and saw their first name, he would have worked out who they were … maybe he was under instructions just to treat everyone the same. Unless you knew Jo and Graham (as I do), you wouldn’t have noticed it.

2. JoshH
   Posted 13/05/2010 at 8:37 pm | Permalink | Reply

   Tho mabye he?? wasnt looking directly at their twitter page and just hovering over their twitter name to get their details… Ahh well the kid was probably just following orders and it got out of hand. As they say there is no such thing as bad press haha

   • Renai LeMay
     Posted 14/05/2010 at 12:30 am | Permalink | Reply

     I think this is probably true :) And I mean I’m not saying Mick is doing a bad job or that this is anything to worry about … all I’m saying is that it was amusing to see happen ;) From all accounts he is a great guy and is doing a great job!

     Attention Microsoft: Do not take this article too seriously and sack or discipline Mick over this. This article was a bit of a laugh and not meant to be taken seriously. In general I think Mick was doing a pretty good job, certainly better than most corporate social media flacks.

     You can consider him under my protection now ;)

   • Renai LeMay
     Posted 14/05/2010 at 12:31 am | Permalink | Reply

     You know the really amusing thing is that there will definitely be Microsoft people poring over all these comments and analysing them :)

3. Robotic Buttocks
   Posted 14/05/2010 at 4:57 pm | Permalink | Reply

   Maybe it was an intern from the Seattle Mothership using an Aussie named account

   • Renai LeMay
     Posted 15/05/2010 at 11:32 am | Permalink | Reply

     No, it seems to me that it was a Microsoft Australia guy

4. Nick Hodge
   Posted 14/05/2010 at 6:02 pm | Permalink | Reply

   Just to close the loop

   There were 5 meetings about this .. and lots of soul searching, market research, KPIs and formal procedures were reviewed.

   Mick will not be fired over this incident.

   :-)

   • Renai LeMay
     Posted 15/05/2010 at 11:34 am | Permalink | Reply

     hey Nick, not sure if you are serious or not here — were there actual meetings? Or are you taking the piss?

5. Jenna Pitcher
   Posted 15/05/2010 at 8:16 am | Permalink | Reply

   Big task to go through and thank everyone tweeting about the launch. I wonder if he thanked everyone?

   • Renai LeMay
     Posted 15/05/2010 at 11:35 am | Permalink | Reply

     It seemed pretty comprehensive ;)

6. artywah
   Posted 15/05/2010 at 2:32 pm | Permalink | Reply

   SInce “Mick” seems to be using the same replies randomly is “he” even a person or just a bot programmed to repsond to the has tag?