Introducing the Make Office Better Initiative

MakeOfficeBetter is designed as an initiative that would employ what its initiators referred to as the magic of crowd sourcing for the bettering of the Office System. Although it should in fact be a Microsoft project, MakeOfficeBetter is an independent initiative put together by two Microsoft employees: Steve Zaske, a product planner on the Office development team, and Luke Foust, SDET on the Windows team. The label chosen for the website is pretty self explanatory. MakeOfficeBetter is set up as an online hotspot that can centralize feedback from Office users on the evolution of the productivity suite.

“I'm a huge fan of crowd-sourcing, (...) so I thought I'd build one for Office. It is also a bit of a test to see if people are really interested in sharing their ideas in a positive manor...or if the trolls will ruin it for everyone. Luke and I removed all of the captcha code in an attempt to make the site as easy as possible and I definitely hope we don't need to add them back again,” Zaske noted.

Visitors can add their own ideas on how to improve Office. The website is not specifically dedicated to Office 2010, the next version of the productivity suite now in Technical Preview stage and due in the first half of 2010; however, some of the input might just reverberate to the successor of Office 2007.

“The site is still very much a "beta", with lots of basic functionality missing. We'll work to add those features ASAP. My hope is that the site can become a trusted repository of good Office ideas and a place where there can be an honest discussion about the pros and cons of various ideas,” Zaske added.

A key aspect worth noting is the fact that Microsoft itself has no involvement in building and maintaining MakeOfficeBetter. As such, there is no promise that the feedback will be integrated into the development of Office.

“Although we are employed by Microsoft, this is not an official Microsoft website. You should not expect an official response from Microsoft by posting an idea here, but we'll do our best to get the ideas posted here in front of the right people within the Office development team,” reads a message posted on the website.