An intersting way to look at exit interviews. Try as they may the company did not know what motivater this guy.
I have three working days left at NEC. I wonder if I'll have an exit interview. I doubt it, but if I did, here's how I imagine it'd go. The usual disclaimers apply. These are my opinions. This interview never happened except in my mind.
Q: Why you leaving NEC?
Scoble: To take a job at Microsoft.
Q: OK, but why you leaving, weren't you happy here?
Scoble: I'm very happy. But, an executive from Microsoft called me up and offered me a chance to work on a product that has sold hundreds of millions of copies and he liked my weblog.
Q: What's a weblog?
Scoble: search Google. Microsoft has 100 webloggers, both internally and externally. NEC, a company that has twice as many employees only has one that I know of (me), and I'm leaving.
Q: Really, did you hate the team you worked for?
Scoble: I loved the team. It includes former execs from Apple and Tivo and I've never worked with such a great group of folks -- they taught me a lot and made my first "big company" job a great experience. I'm not leaving because the people suck.
Q: Well, why you going to a smaller company then? (Microsoft has 55,000 employees, NEC has 115,000).
Scoble: Because Microsoft called me and found something for me that sounds fun -- and is good for my career. At NEC I haven't had any executive call me up and say "hey, I have a job that might help your career out." A Microsoft executive called me. They outhustled you.
Q: What could we have done differently to keep you here?
Scoble: Had me head up a group of employees to start up weblogs that'd be used to increase NEC's visibility in the market and to gather feedback about our products.
Also, show some concern about my future rather than just use me as another cog in a big machine. Make me a star. Give me something to work toward. Microsoft gave me a chance to change the world so I took it.
Q: Again, what's a weblog?
Scoble: You ever hear of Google?
Q: Seriously, are weblogs that important?
Scoble: Nah. They aren't -- the Register seems to think they are only for folks with oversized egos. Maybe they are right. Seriously, it's more important that you just be online and help customers out whereever they are. For instance, check out the NEC forums on TabletPCTalk.com and TabletPCBuzz.com. My work over there, and in the Microsoft newsgroups, won you customers and made the Tablet one of the most successful product launches you've had in recent memory. But, did anyone from outside our group notice? Well, yes, someone at Microsoft did.
Q: What else would you like to see happen here?
Scoble: Come out with an even better "thin and light" Tablet. And figure out weblogs and online communities before the other OEMs do -- it's a competitive advantage. Give my best to the guy (Evan Roper) who'll answer the telephones from now on (he had the job before I did, hopefully I did an OK job in his absence).
Also, give us more resources to take advantage of hot opportunities. The team here is awesome, and the Tablet is the future of computing, and it's obviously successful for NEC. Give the team here more visibility and more opportunities to succeed in the future. Make sure you remain Bill Gates' favorite product. Make sure the next Tablet has a great GPU (hey, NVidia is only a block away, why don't you visit them and see if you can put a great GPU into the next NEC?)
Anyway, seriously, working at NEC was awesome. I had a chance to help launch the coolest Tablet around and working with the people on the Mobile Solutions team was great.
What a year! It's sad to leave.
Oh, one other thing: free Cokes and an office instead of a cube would help. Not to mention helping me buy a house would have been nice. Oh, and Washington State has no income tax, so that's automatically an 8% or so raise!
[The Scobleizer Weblog]
