Sophie Kleeman of Gizmodo wrote about what was inside a dossier of Fast Company senior writer Mark Sullivan compiled by Microsoft.
Kleeman writes, “The writeup on Sullivan is both illuminating and entertaining—insofar as a corporate dossier can be ‘entertaining.’ It includes Sullivan’s areas of coverage, details on his ‘writing style,’ and his thoughts on Microsoft’s bot competitors, including Alexa and Siri. (According to the dossier, he has ‘mixed feelings’ on the Amazon’s bot, while he has an ‘overall positive opinion’ on Apple’s.) In a bit of PR person-as-Sherpa maneuvering, the rundown notes that Sullivan doesn’t cover Skype news regularly, ‘so will be important to make sure you’re setting enough context to bring him along on the journey.’
“Oh, and then there’s this tidbit: ‘Off the record, he finds Facebook bots to be boring and not very smart.’ Better luck next time, Zuck.
“The thread, which carries the subject line, ‘RE: UPDATE: Skype Bots Announce,’ includes big-name Microsoft employees, including Kim Stocks, director of corporate public relations, Frank X. Shaw, corporate vice president of corporate communications, and Gurdeep Singh Pall. It also includes employees from WE Communications, including the person who apparently sent the emails to Gizmodo by mistake. (WE Communications helps handle press for Microsoft.)”
Read more here. Kleeman reports that Sullivan was “remarkably chill” about the disclosures.
