Career suicide.
It’s a term used to describe that moment when you do something so outrageously out of corporate character that it forever destroys your career.
Yet somehow, during my years at Microsoft, I managed to experience – and survive – MULTIPLE such events.
The first took place about two years after getting hired.
I was working in the Multimedia Systems Group, handling documentation for the Multimedia PC project – which kicked off the early years of CD-ROMs, graphics cards, and video on Windows PCs. I had just gotten promoted from Writer to Writing Manager, leading the Multimedia Windows Documentation Team.
One day, our Group Manager announced that he had just cut a deal with Tandy Corporation to produce a stripped down version of the Multimedia PC – called the Tandy VIS (Video Information System). It was essentially a Multimedia PC, but meant to be used as consumer device to be hooked up to your TV.
I was put in charge of making sure the system was properly documented and supported so Tandy could create the device and sell buttloads of them.
I read over the specs. Saw that it played Multimedia titles like an encyclopedia. But as I recall, it didn’t play full-screen video and it couldn’t play games.
And its list price was $700.
In my humble opinion, the business model for this venture didn’t pass the smell test.
So, in what my supervisor later let me know was a trainwreck of a decision, I composed an email to the Group Manager with the subject line:
“The $700 Doorstop”
And inside I told the tale of my experience as a potential consumer of the product.
- Unable to play full screen video.
- Unable to do any kind of real computing.
- Unable to play games.
- Unable to do much of anything with this chunk of pricey electronics other than just keep the front door open.
I shared my opinion that this project may NOT be in Microsoft’s (or Tandy’s) best interests.
My intentions were noble.
My boss’s boss, who had cut the deal, wasn’t impressed.
Thus the project continued as planned. It played out pretty much as I feared. According to Wikipedia, Radio Shack employees nicknamed the VIS as “Virtually Impossible to Sell.”
This didn’t end my career, but it did give me an early insight into an important Marketing and Copywriting principle, summed up long ago in the phrase:
“You can’t put lipstick on a pig.”
No matter how slick the ads or the sales letters or what-have-you, if the offer ain’t all that good, it ain’t gonna sell.
On the other hand, having a KILLER offer makes writing effective copy sooooo much easier.
Write Faster. Write Better. Right Now.
– Jack Turk
“World’s Fastest Copywriter”
PS: I also learned the power of a great subject line – my emails didn’t always get read by upper management.
That one definitely got noticed.
Had I written a less effective one, I might still be there. Who knows…?
It’s a term used to describe that moment when you do something so outrageously out of corporate character that it forever destroys your career.
Yet somehow, during my years at Microsoft, I managed to experience – and survive – MULTIPLE such events.
The first took place about two years after getting hired.
I was working in the Multimedia Systems Group, handling documentation for the Multimedia PC project – which kicked off the early years of CD-ROMs, graphics cards, and video on Windows PCs. I had just gotten promoted from Writer to Writing Manager, leading the Multimedia Windows Documentation Team.
One day, our Group Manager announced that he had just cut a deal with Tandy Corporation to produce a stripped down version of the Multimedia PC – called the Tandy VIS (Video Information System). It was essentially a Multimedia PC, but meant to be used as consumer device to be hooked up to your TV.
I was put in charge of making sure the system was properly documented and supported so Tandy could create the device and sell buttloads of them.
I read over the specs. Saw that it played Multimedia titles like an encyclopedia. But as I recall, it didn’t play full-screen video and it couldn’t play games.
And its list price was $700.
In my humble opinion, the business model for this venture didn’t pass the smell test.
So, in what my supervisor later let me know was a trainwreck of a decision, I composed an email to the Group Manager with the subject line:
“The $700 Doorstop”
And inside I told the tale of my experience as a potential consumer of the product.
- Unable to play full screen video.
- Unable to do any kind of real computing.
- Unable to play games.
- Unable to do much of anything with this chunk of pricey electronics other than just keep the front door open.
I shared my opinion that this project may NOT be in Microsoft’s (or Tandy’s) best interests.
My intentions were noble.
My boss’s boss, who had cut the deal, wasn’t impressed.
Thus the project continued as planned. It played out pretty much as I feared. According to Wikipedia, Radio Shack employees nicknamed the VIS as “Virtually Impossible to Sell.”
This didn’t end my career, but it did give me an early insight into an important Marketing and Copywriting principle, summed up long ago in the phrase:
“You can’t put lipstick on a pig.”
No matter how slick the ads or the sales letters or what-have-you, if the offer ain’t all that good, it ain’t gonna sell.
On the other hand, having a KILLER offer makes writing effective copy sooooo much easier.
Write Faster. Write Better. Right Now.
– Jack Turk
“World’s Fastest Copywriter”
PS: I also learned the power of a great subject line – my emails didn’t always get read by upper management.
That one definitely got noticed.
Had I written a less effective one, I might still be there. Who knows…?