Like anyone who works in marketing, I have a lot of crappy swag tshirts. These shirts are almost all poorly fitting (too big!), poorly designed (massive logo!), and of poor quality.

So when it came time to make some Microspotting tshirts, I was insistent: I would only make swag if it was something I would actually wear. Swag that fit, swag that felt good, swag that looked good, and bonus points for making me laugh.

Enter the Microspotting tshirts.
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Microspotting and its creator, Ariel Meadow Stallings, rely on social media marketing to attract job candidates who would probably never consider working for Microsoft.

By Fred Albert

If an outgoing woman with a wide smile and braids the color of peppermint sticks sidles up to you in a Redmond cafeteria and starts asking about your life, there’s no need to call security. You’ve just attracted the attention of Ariel Meadow Stallings.Stallings is the pigtailed perpetrator behind Microspotting, a corporate blog that profiles some of the most interesting, passionate personalities at Microsoft. Launched last October under the auspices of the Staffing Marketing team, Microspotting feels anything but corporate, reflecting the offbeat, irreverent character of the writer/photographer and the all-around life force behind it.
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Microspotting isn’t about me, but there have been a few stories about your humble editor that have popped up in the news over the last month or so. I figured I’d share them as I’m recovering from my week at SXSW Interactive.

New Microspotting profiles will be coming next week!
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A Microspotting photo showed up in the Wall Street Journal online today!

If you look closely here, you can see a screenshot of the Workin it @ MSFT page on Facebook. I’m an admin for that group, and we used a photo from Justin Wilcox’s Microspotting profile the main image. Hence, even though Microspotting itself isn’t in the WSJ, you get to see a Microspotting picture.

If you missed the profile of Justin and his mohawk back in October, it’s worth a read. Oh, and speaking of Justin … He’s actually preparing to leave Teh ‘Soft™ to go start his own company! While I’m sad to see him go, I consider it a Microsoft success story when someone gets the training and support they need here to go start up their own thing. Plus, as Gretchen is proof of, smart alumi not infrequently find their way back.

The web’s all a-twitter about the MSFT/Facebook deal that was just announced. I’m mostly curious to see if this means more ‘Softies will start using Facebook. The Microsoft Network has 18,000 members, which isn’t that many, when you consider I have almost 80,000 coworkers…

There were not one but TWO exciting speakers on Microsoft’s campus today. Hilary Clinton was here in the morning, and then the infamous Fake Steve Jobs (nee Forbes editor Daniel Lyons) this afternoon.I had a meeting this morning, so I missed Hilary … but Fake Steve/Daniel was hilarious and spoke candidly about print journalism (”You know it’s bad when you’re in your 40s and you’re celebrating that sales are only down 2% this year.”), starting his blog, and being outed.

He also addressed the (hilarious!) rumors that he was a borg (aka MSFT) shill — I guess there are conspiracies that his book deal was part of a money laundering scheme so that Microsoft could pay him. “If that’s the case,” he said, “You guys really didn’t pay me very well.”

The whole talk was very funny, but one of the biggest laughs was when Daniel did his best imitation of the unbridled consumer excitement over the iPhone: “Look at me! I bought a product! I gave them my credit card and they sold it to me! WOW!”

Fake Steve/Daniel also mentioned that Microsoft was the first company to call and invite him to speak. “I’m still waiting for a call from Apple,” he quipped, explaining that he thinks Microsoft has a great sense of humor about itself. We all proved him right when the room erupted in giggles over a jab at the Zune. Ouch! …But HA!