Brad Smith (Microsoft photo)

Lawyers are usually the ones arguing against corporate blogs, but Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith was pushing for "Microsoft on the Issues," the law and policy blog launched by the company a few weeks ago. Smith, who introduced the blog in this post, is expected to be one of the people posting there regularly.

In an interview, Smith explained his motivation, described the first difficult situation encountered by the blog, and discussed the prospects for Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer ever trying his hand at this blogging stuff. Read on for excerpts from the conversation.

Q: So how does it feel to be a blogger?

Smith: I think it was high time that we got involved and did this. It’s an important step for us to take. It reflects all the things that the blogosphere is dealing with, and it was time for us to join that community.

Q: Blogging is an issue that many companies grapple with, particularly from a legal standpoint, so I’m sure you had lots of things you considered before jumping in. What are the things you weighed, and how did you make the decision?

Smith: Well, there was a healthy discussion and even debate among people inside Microsoft about whether to do this, and certainly about how. Ultimately, we came to the strong conclusion that it was important to participate in public discussion in a more informal and transparent way.

It actually cuts against the grain of what many lawyers might more traditionally be comfortable with. You have to be able to move faster, you have to be able to, I think, be more engaging than in many other forms of communication. It’s important to have a point of view. It does require that we evolve the way we communicate, certainly in terms of some of our style. So as you can imagine, different people had varying degrees of comfort with this kind of change. I certainly felt very strongly that this was a change that we needed to embrace.

Q: Why did you feel that way?

Smith: The world of government is changing. Certainly the 2008 election brought that home. The world of politics is changing. The media is changing. If we want to be an active participant in all of these processes, we have to change with the times. If anything I felt that maybe this kind of step was a bit overdue. Anytime you do something like this there’s something that’s unknown, but you have to learn new skills if you’re going to stay with the times and certainly if you’re going to stay a leader in the technology space.

Q: On your European Commission post, there were comments both for and against Microsoft. How did you think about those issues going into it, and how did you react to seeing those comments?

Smith: First of all, I was really encouraged to see comments. Obviously the goal with this type of blog is to spark a discussion and to have an ongoing conversation. It’s important for us to find topics that will be interesting to people. It’s also important for us to start a conversation that can gain some momentum over time.

An issue like this is actually not necessarily an easy one because of all the legal complexities and even diplomatic intricacies involved. But we talked here, and we decided to use the blog to post our comments, and we were really pleased to see the discussion that ensued. You know, all of these things are worthy of debate.

That, by definition, means that there’s more than one point of view that should be aired. I do hope that we can identify other topics, start a conversation in a similar way. I hope there will be a lot of comments from people, and I hope there will be topics where we feel comfortable jumping in on an ongoing basis with additional comments ourselves. That was actually a little bit difficult on this first European topic. I’m very optimistic that there will be other topics that will make it easier for us to jump in and say more as part of the conversation.

Q: I was just going to ask – with the European Commission’s statement of objections, you’re restricted somewhat in what you can say publicly, or at least what you feel comfortable saying publicly. How did that affect the blog?

Smith: Well, there are certain legal proceedings in which it is difficult or even impossible to say everything that might be on your mind. There are also certain proceedings where there are diplomatic aspects, and not simply legal pieces to the puzzle. Anytime one has a case in another country, there’s a potential diplomatic aspect.

So all of that is something that we need to factor in, and we did. We were definitely comfortable nonetheless using the blog to convey information initially. We welcomed the discussion and debate that ensued. But it did not mean that it was necessarily as easy, or even possible for us to continue to jump in the way I hope it will be on many other issues.

Q: The big news lately with Microsoft is the cutbacks and the attempts to reduce operating expenses through layoffs. Did you contemplate or do you plan to post about that on the policy blog?

Smith: Well, the focus on the policy blog is really legal and policy issues. I think what you’ll see us do is focus on those topics. There’s a wide array of legal and policy topics that we can address. It includes privacy issues, broadband policy issues, the use of technology in government. Things like intellectual property cases in laws, competition law. There’s no shortage of legal and policy topics. It’s not our current plan to use this blog to address issues that are less related to law or policy.

Q: I’ve got a blog suggestion for you on that topic. One of the things people always ask me about is how Microsoft deals with the policy issues related to H-1B Visas and layoffs, and whether you have to let go first those who were hired under H-1B Visas.

Smith: I do think that we’ll address immigration issues on the blog. I definitely think that’s part of what we’ll address. I don’t know whether we should address the specifics that you just mentioned.

[Note: Microsoft has responded in a public statement to Sen. Charles Grassley's comments about its handling of the H-1B issue and layoffs. The company has not yet addressed the issue on the new law and policy blog.]

Q: Google has been doing this for a while, and [chief legal officer] David Drummond would jump onto their blog and say something when a key issue came up in an antitrust case or the Yahoo situation. Did you want to make sure that you had a voice, as well?

Smith: First of all, I think highly of Google’s policy blog. I think they do a very nice job with it. I think that it is important for us to be at the forefront of the trends in our industry in terms of new forms of communication, using Web 2.0 and other new Internet and computing technologies.

I hope that, a year from now, people will look back and they’ll look at Microsoft’s policy blog as something that is helpful and important, and interesting. And I hope that they’ll compare us favorably or at least in a similar to what might be very other good blogs in our industry.

Q: Kara Swisher’s take on your blog was that you need some sassier issues. Do you feel a need to become sassier?

Smith: I wouldn’t use the word sassier, but I actually agreed with a large majority of what Kara had to say. One of her basic points was that we need to be interesting and engaging, even captivating if we can. And we need to evolve our own communication skills in order to meet that kind of bar, and I think that’s exactly what we need to do.

It doesn’t mean that we’ll necessarily be, as you said, sassy in the topics we choose, the way she did. There was obviously an element of humor in her list. But I think her basic point is absolutely on the mark in terms of the style and the general approach we need to bring to our blog. You have many people blogging on the site.

Q: How often do you personally plan to blog?

Smith: I definitely hope and plan to blog on a regular basis. It’s a little too early for me to know exactly what that will translate into in terms of number of times per month or per year. I think it’s important for me to blog when I have something interesting to say. And it’s equally important for me to refrain from blogging if I have nothing that’s very interesting to write about.

Q: Do you think Steve Ballmer will jump in there on your blog, or maybe start his own?

Smith: He’s a pretty busy guy, so I’m not necessarily expecting him to do something on our blog, but we’ll see what the future brings.