Nobody reading this site needs any help protecting themselves from the blaster virus or any other kind, but those of you with families and friends having trouble, point them at Microsoft’s Protect your PC site.
I’ve long lamented that I have no clue what the basics of marketing are and
therefore I’ve been at the mercy of actual marketing people whose skill I can’t
judge. In fact, I so miss this important knowledge in my life that
I interviewed for a marketing job at Microsoft (although I was in no danger
of getting it). A *long* time friend of mine, Dave Stroble, said that I was too
“customer-focused” to be in marketing, anyway, and I should be glad I’m not in
that field. When I asked how that could be (isn’t customer focus the core of
marketing?), he went on to say the following:
“Marketing is not
about giving the customer what he wants, or even finding out what the
customer wants and trying to get engineering to create it. It’s about trying
to sell the customer what you already have — whether that’s product,
talent, or pre-conceived notions. If the needs of a customer occasionally
overlap with an actual product, that’s merely random coincidence.
“Marketing people are customer-focused in the sense of always thinking about
why customers aren’t buying enough stuff, and how to get them to buy more.
You’re customer-focused in the sense of caring about what customers need,
and helping them accomplish it, even if that doesn’t result in selling
anything.
“But don’t take it so hard. It’s not as if I said you were
too honest to be a banker, or too smart to be a teacher. (God, what if girls
thought you were too handsome to be sexy?)”
While I find this
cleverly stated (even though I’m nowhere near too sexy for girls : ), I sure
hope this isn’t the real goal of marketing. My hope is that it’s about taking a
solution and letting folks that have the matching problem know so that you can
trade your solution for their money and both consider yourselves lucky. Is this
a naive view? Anyone with real marketing training want to chime in on the real
goals of marketing?
"At 11:34 A.M. Pacific Time on August 11, Microsoft began investigating a worm reported by Microsoft Product Support Services (PSS). A new worm commonly known as W32.Blaster.Worm has been identified that exploits the vulnerability that was addressed by Microsoft Security Bulletin MS03-026."
