Stephen Rose, senior community manager at Microsoft, has a big job. He’s responsible for managing a worldwide community of more than 22 million IT professionals who use Microsoft products. An even bigger job: He’s also responsible for creating community around Windows 7.
Rose primarily works with the Springboard group, an offshoot of Microsoft Technet, a central location that holds Microsoft info for IT pros on client operating systems. The Springboard site, according to Rose, is one of the most used sites on Technet. To help create community and awareness for Windows 7, Rose and his team in part created the Springboard Series Technical Expert Panel (STEP), a “by the community, for the community” program to spur advocacy within IT professionals and community influencers withinthe Microsoft, MVP, and MCT communities. Microsoft wanted to inspire influencers to host or speak at user groups, conferences, etc., or to write about their user experiences with Windows 7.
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Microsoft has really engaged with its community of customers for a good while now. From the first steps that began with Robert Scoble in 2004, community resources such as Channel 9, 8 and 10, Windows and MSDN blogs has really given users such as myself a first point of contact to interact with the people who work on Windows. New social tools such as Facebook and Twitter have also greatly impacted the engagement experience, so I would say major kudos to Microsoft for listening!
Related resources:
Windows 7 Team Blog
Springboard Series Blog
Windows 7 Blog for Developers
Windows 7 Engineering
Teching It Easy 