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by sershe 224 days ago
I work in MSFT although not in office org. Based on my experience, the reason is far more trivial. Someone has a half year goal (KR) that says I/my team will increase engagement by N% from X to Y. Some people, whom I don't respect, when presented with a goal like that immediately start doing this (tfa) kind of stuff. Many people, when towards the end of the period some of their genuine (i.e. delivering good stuff) bets don't pan out and the numbers don't number, start doing things like this or generally throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks.

I bet there was a meeting where someone axed the off button because numbers.
3 comments
fingerlocks 223 days ago
I did a brief stint in office and back this up. There’s a no malicious grand scheme, just the the loudest mouth in the room this quarter calling the shots. It’ll be someone else in 6 months demanding a different color of shit thrown at the wall.
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moritzwarhier 224 days ago
> Based on my experience, the reason is far more trivial. Someone has a half year goal (KR) that says I/my team will increase engagement by N% from X to Y.

How is does this contradict the comment you are replying to?

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sershe 223 days ago
It implies there's no nefarious intent to collect some training data. In my area at least the only user data I'm aware of is used for measurement of engagement in anonymized aggregated form. Engagement metrics still exist, because supposedly on yet higher level they translate to revenue, not because of training (unless you count thus feature works do more of it as training). I assume the office org is not different.
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benterix 224 days ago
> "increase engagement"

It's hard to follow for me. Increase engagement in... office apps? For why?!

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rcxdude 224 days ago
Because it increases the prestige of your department when you can say 'we developed features which are now used by X% of users'. If you've ever wondered why every new feature in a Microsoft product seems to need to be used, this is why. It's so the team that implemented it can justify themselves.
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xigoi 223 days ago
> Any organization that designs a system (defined broadly) will produce a design whose structure is a copy of the organization's communication structure.

— Melvin Conway

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soupfordummies 224 days ago
Probably more like increase engagement of Copilot. Microsoft is basically all-in on AI/Copilot.
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