Robert Scoble

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Robert Scoble
Born January 18, 1965
New Jersey
Occupation Vice President of Media Development, PodTech.Network Inc.
Spouse Maryam Ghaemmaghami Scoble

Robert Scoble (born January 18, 1965) is an American blogger, technical evangelist, and author. Scoble is best known for his popular blog, Scobleizer, which came to prominence during his tenure as a technical evangelist at Microsoft. He is married to Maryam Ghaemmaghami Scoble, and has a son, Patrick, from a previous marriage. He and his wife currently work at PodTech.net[1], a video-podcast startup. He is also the co-author of Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers with Shel Israel.

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[edit] Early life and education

Robert was born in New Jersey in 1965, and grew up about a mile from Apple Computer's headquarters in Silicon Valley.[2] Some of his favorite childhood memories are working in his own garage with electronic stuff that his dad (William Scoble, PhD from Rutgers University in Materials Engineering) brought home from his jobs at Ampex and Lockheed Martin.[3]

His mother worked for Apple Computer, employed as a member of a group of women led by Hildy Licht who built Apple IIs at home, and Robert learned how to solder a motherboard together when he was 11, helping her to build several hundred Apple IIs. He also had a summer job with Hewlett Packard, working on one of their production lines. Robert attended Hyde Junior High School in Cupertino, California.[4]

In 1989 while studying in West Valley Community College he met Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Computer, and persuaded him to donate $40,000 worth of Macintoshes to the college journalism department.[5] His teacher made him set them up and learn all about how they worked.[6] After Loma Prieta earthquake hit he realized that he liked journalism a lot more than computer science.[7]

In 1993 he dropped out without finishing his degree in Journalism from San Jose State University's School of Journalism and Mass Communications (he still has one class to complete[6][8]). Steve Sloan (Information Technology Consultant at SJSU help desk) say that during his study in university "he was a Mac Evangelist and he was not afraid to install all kinds of buggy beta software and weird hacks on the old Apple computers other people used to get real work done".[9]

[edit] Career

Robert's first career in the 1980s was helping run a discount camera store in San Jose (LZ Premiums). He used to sell cheap cameras with small or no profits making money from accessories.

After college he was working for Fawcette Technical Publications (as anything man - design, editing, helping plan the conferences like VBITS and VSLive!). His current wife Maryam was also working for Fawcette.

During the mid-90's Robert helped co-chair the Visual Basic SIG for SDForum, and was a frequent attendee and organizer for numerous local tech user groups.

Dave Winer had told him "that blogging was hot," so he left Fawcette and joined Dave's UserLand Software a content management and blogging software startup as Director of Marketing. After the startup ran out of money and was unable to pay his salary, Robert worked for free for a month and eventually had to switch to a job.

He found a job at NEC Mobile Solutions from a Craig's List posting as Sales Support Manager for TabletPC. His job responsibilily was to answer all the phones and all the emails with support/sales requests. He has started using blogs (a skill learned in UserLand) to provide tech support and listen to feedback from NEC customers.

His blog was noticed by Vic Gundotra (then General Manager of Platform Evangelism at Microsoft), and Robert accepted his offer to work at Microsoft.

Scoble has long been a prominent advocate of both RSS technology and the Tablet PC. [10][7]

[edit] Microsoft

Scoble, Longhorn Evangelist
Enlarge
Scoble, Longhorn Evangelist

Robert Scoble joined Microsoft in May 2003. Scoble was part of the Channel 9 MSDN Video team, where he produced videos that showcased Microsoft employees and products.

Although Scoble often promoted Microsoft products like Tablet PCs and Windows Vista, he also frequently criticized his own employer and praised its competitors (such as Apple Computer and Google). He was unusual in the level of access he offered to his users, which included publishing his cell phone number on his blog and urging people to contact him directly with issues, as well as accepting comments on his blog.

The Economist described Robert Scoble's influence in its February 15, 2005 edition[11]:

   
“
 He has become a minor celebrity among geeks worldwide, who read his blog religiously. Impressively, he has also succeeded where small armies of more conventional public-relations types have been failing abjectly for years: he has made Microsoft, with its history of monopolistic bullying, appear marginally but noticeably less evil to the outside world, and especially to the independent software developers that are his core audience
   
”

On June 10, 2006 Scoble announced[12] he was leaving Microsoft to join Podtech.net as vice president of media development with salary raise from less than $100,000 (in Microsoft) to over $100,000 and accompanied by "a quite aggressive stock option" offer that could make him wealthy if his new company succeeds.[13][14][15] According to Alexa Internet this day has the biggest traffic to his blog and PodTech over their lifetime.[16] June 28, 2006 was his last day at Microsoft.

[edit] Podtech

In 2006, Robert joined Podtech.net, his title is Vice President Media Development. On Monday, Sept 25th Robert released his first episode of the "Scoble Show" at http://www.podtech.net/scobleshow/

[edit] Bibliography

  • Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers, (2006) Robert Scoble and Shel Israel. ISBN 0-471-74719-X

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ ConvergeSouth 2006 Conference Discussion Leaders Bios. Retrieved on 2006-08-26.
  2. ^ Rubel, Steve (2004-04-29). Q&A with Robert Scoble on Blogging, Media and PR. Retrieved on 2006-08-26.
  3. ^ Scoble, Robert (2003-12-31). How Silicon Valley Won the Cold War. The Scobleizer Weblog. Retrieved on 2006-08-28.
  4. ^ Scoble, Robert (2003-06-01). Postings for June 01, 2003. The Scobleizer Weblog. Retrieved on 2006-08-26.
  5. ^ Scoble, Robert (2005-10-23). Woz’s math puzzle. The Scobleizer Weblog. Retrieved on 2006-08-28.
  6. ^ a b Microsoft MainFunction (2005-11-18). Meet Robert Scoble!. MSDN Academic Alliance Community Center. Retrieved on 2006-08-28.
  7. ^ a b Scoble, Robert (2004-08-14). A Good About Page. D. Keith Robinson blog. Retrieved on 2006-08-28. Comment from Robert with his early life biography
  8. ^ Scoble, Robert (2006-11-16). Robert Scoble still need 3 credits to graduate. Retrieved on 2006-11-18.
  9. ^ Sloan, Steve (2005-02-15). Robert Scoble's Visit. Retrieved on 2006-08-28.
  10. ^ Scoble, Robert (2004-04-16). I'm the video guy. MSDN Channel9. Retrieved on 2006-08-28. Robert posting about his education and work experience
  11. ^ "Chief humanising officer", The Economist, 2005-02-10. Retrieved on 2006-08-26. An article that describes Scoble's role at Microsoft
  12. ^ Scoble, Robert (2006-06-10). Correcting the Record about Microsoft. The Scobleizer Weblog. Retrieved on 2006-08-28. Robert posting about why he left Microsoft
  13. ^ Auchard, Eric, Frank Tantillo. "Famed Microsoft blogger leaves for start-up", Reuters, 2006-06-11, pp. 3. Retrieved on 2006-08-28.
  14. ^ "Top Microsoft Blogger to Resign", BBC News, 2006-06-12.
  15. ^ Olson, Parmy. "Ballmer's Microsoft Loses Admired Tech Evangelist", Forbes, 2006-06-12.
  16. ^ Traffic report for Scobleizer blog and PodTech.net. Alexa.com. Retrieved on 2006-09-11.

[edit] External links

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