Will Comics Sell Office 2007?
Microsoft has decided that they would take a slightly different approach to promoting their new Microsoft Office 2007 product. The Enchanted Office is a comic strip that explains the new ribbon user interface that is in Office 2007. It tells the story of Madeline, a hard working CEO who dreams of a better way to use Office. She meets the Wizards who give her The Ribbon which solves all her problems. This begins her quest to spread the good news of The Ribbon.
During her journey, she encounters resistant users, a doubting IT manager who has been turned into a frog, and a dinosaur that hates change (who, by the way, kills Clippy the Paperclip a la Southpark, “Oh my god, they killed Clippy!”).
There is also a text version of the comic (Can you do that?). One interesting thing to note about the text version is that the link at the very bottom of the page is broken! They wrote the HTML code incorrectly. The original link goes to http://www.enchantedoffice.com/trymicrosoftoffice.com but they were actually wanting to link to trymicrosoftoffice.com. Three links in the entire page and the only one that is supposed to lead the reader to the “next level” is broken! Bad coder! Bad!
My favorite line is:
Use the power of the ribbon - the new central place to get work done in Office 2007. Trust in it, and your ideas will illuminate the kingdom!
You just know anti-Microsoft people will run with that one!
Also, for the Battlestar Galactica fans in the audience (check out the A New Crew in Town video), there is even this line:
Great lords of COBOL! Lee, what happened to you?
But is this really the best way to introduce a new feature to people. After reading the comic, I felt like everyone in the office has been attacked. Users, managers, IT are all portrayed in a negative light while the CEO of the company, who generally is not in a position to make an educated decision about a technical change, looks like the hero. I just think that the aim and the audience is a bit misguided.
But then again, I’m nothing more than an IT toad! What do I know?
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