Thanks, Microsoft, for providing More White Guy

Thanks, Microsoft, for providing More White Guy, originally uploaded by sadalit.

Microsoft just launched the SharePoint 2010 Sneak Peek site - where the target audience seems apparent from the images they chose to represent the different roles.

When I think of all the women I know who use, configure, and develop for this software product, I feel this new homepage is a misrepresentation. It reminds me of reading an an article or textbook from the 1960s where every pronoun is "he" or "him." Why not mix it up a little?

See the full home page here: http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/2010/Sneak_Peek/Pages/default.aspx

Comments

[Douglas Schultz]

Definately different than the profiles they used in their "People Ready" campaign from a year or so ago. The pictures associated with that campaign were always a mixture of different people.

[sadalit]

Douglas, thanks for your comment! I agree with your statement. Where do I want to go today? To a place with just a touch more diversity than this...

[Mike Gil]

Hi Sadie- If you watch the videos, you'll find that the images actually represent presenters (by technical/functional area) from the SharePoint product group at Microsoft, not the "personae" for whom they develop (i.e., users). Elsewhere on the site, you'll find the typical diverse images that mimic real-world users.

I suppose one could make the argument that they could have always included a more diverse group for the videos, or have a more diverse group in their on-camera SharePoint leadership team, but I think you’ll find with some research that MSFT takes diversity seriously, and it seems to be the case: http://www.microsoft.com/about/diversity/default.mspx

Best regards, Another White Guy

[sadalit]

Mike, thanks for looking deeper at the content and providing this comment.

I think MS could have done a better job anticipating the impact of this home page. Perhaps this could have been accomplished by giving their PMs some credit up front, and captioning the videos with text such as, "Microsoft Technical Product Manager Paul Andrew provides a Sneak Peek for Developers."

With regard to their diversity statement, I have worked for several companies with similar public web pages. If it's on the Internet it must be true, right?

tx/rgds,

Sadie