Why would an organization risk using pre-release technology?
One of the primary things our technical evangelists do on our team is help organizations adopt pre-release technology. Yes, pre-release. Now the question you may be asking is why would anyone do such a thing? Software development can be challenging enough without risking using technology that has not been completely developed. Then how is it that Fortune 500 and top web sites are willing to take the risk? I have worked with a lot of different types of well- known organizations and here are a handful of the types that tend to adopt pre-release technology.
Early adopter organizations who are technology aggressors. Remember when the bottom fell out on the tech industry a few years ago? You may remember the dot-com bubble burst, many layoffs, outsourcing and kids weren’t signing up for Comp Sci degrees anymore. Many IT shops began scaling way back and were putting projects in neutral and not starting any new ones. The interesting thing is that there were organizations who looked at this time as an opportunity. Instead of pulling back, they invested more in their infrastructure and development. Folks were desperate, they were willing to unload machines for pennies on the dollar and were losing some of their best devs. These technical aggressors took the “buy low – sell high” approach vs. the panic. I attended some fancy-pants conference (you know, suit and tie and most folks attending had the word “chief” in their title) and learned about this “technology aggressor” term and it stuck with me as it described the types of organizations that were willing to build applications on top of pre-release software. They knew that by adopting new technology such as ours would help them gain a competitive edge over their competition.
Organizations who want to participate in the feedback loop with Microsoft product teams. One of the top evangelism techniques is to create a tight loop between early adopters and product teams. This is critical to the success of our products. Product teams at Microsoft are always looking for timely product feedback. When we survey organizations, one of the top reasons they give for being a part of an early adoption effort is being able to provide feedback to the product team. This gives them an opportunity to explain where they are going with their product or applications and the product team can understand how best to meet their needs. Many changes you see in the product cycle are due to feedback received. What I like is that more and more teams are providing ways of giving feedback without having to be a part of a program or group.
Organizations who want to take advantage of co-marketing with Microsoft. In our group, since we are responsible for evangelizing pre- release technology, we spend a great deal of time talking about the amazing things folks do with our upcoming technology. We work closely with them and try to provide many opportunities for them to show off the great work they have done. For example, my team owns the MIX conference focused on the web development community including creatives, technical and business folks. We are currently working with organizations that we will showcase using our technologies on stage during keynotes as well as the breakouts. They will also have the opportunity to talk to press and analysts who attend the show and other organizations like themselves. Then, more than likely they will be showcased at our around-the-world ReMIX events, case studies and interviewed at MIX Online (you are subscribed aren’t you?). On top of all of that, all the Microsoft offices around the world have evangelists who will talk to other organizations about what you have done. Can you imagine if you wanted more folks to find out about your services or web site in a more leveraged way?
Organizations who want to exploit new features. This one is pretty simple, we have built features that someone wants to take advantage of. Usually because it will make their software development faster, cheaper or better. For example, ASP.NET 2.0 came with a set of building blocks such as membership, profile and personalization. It was incredible because you could use these out-of-the-box building blocks which came with ready-made controls (such as a login control that could be dragged onto a page), business logic and database logic. You could even change the behavior of these building blocks to fit your scenario. Developers were very productive using the building blocks.
Organizations who want to invest in their team morale. Zzzzzrrrriiip! (Sound of the record skipping). What? Yeah, you heard me. This was not something I first thought of when I became a paid evangelist, but more and more as I spoke with project managers, CTO’s and the like, many of them used projects based on pre-release technology to retain their best employees. Having to fill an open position on my team, I know how hard it can be to keep great talent. These forward-thinking managers understood that the risk they took would be minimal vs. losing their best developers and designers to other interesting projects other companies may be working on, especially if the vertical they work in isn’t exactly sexy (like insurance and manufacturing).
These are just a handful of the types of organizations who are open to using pre-release technology. I mention risk a lot because there is some, but much of what evangelists and product teams do is risk mitigation via tight feedback loops, quick issue resolution, training seminars, online meetings, customer visits, and issue resolution labs. I might talk about this in a later post.
Hopefully you have a better understanding of some of the types of organizations willing to use pre-release technologies and what their motivations might be.
