Influencing the Street

My friend Jason Wood thinks Scoble should leave securities advice to the Wall Street pros. Scoble had suggested Steve Ballmer of Micsosoft should spend more time in the investor "grassroots".

But it is similar to me saying "If Oracle wants to improve its image with customers it should do a better job briefing Gartner and Forrester". Buyers rely on many sources of influence - industry analysts being one, peer being input being another and slowly but surely input from technology blogs.

I am pretty sure institutional investors similarly do not just depend (and should not) on sell side analysis from Goldman and Merrill. So, Microsoft and other investor relations should be spending more time briefing technology investor oriented bloggers like Jason. If that is what he means by grassroots, I have to agree with Scoble.

But more than influence, as Bill Burnham comments on Jaosn's blog, it comes down to performance and execution. Microsoft's recent malaise has been around its product delivery and quality, not just  image management.