From Declan's politech list. See also this recent column which mentions Microsoft's Freedom to Innovate tchotchkes. Mackie deconstructs. Punch line? They're made in a sweatshop.
A couple of weeks ago you mentioned Microsoft's FreedomToInnovate.com and the availability of T-Shirts. Intrigued, I had to check them out. The shirts say "Microsoft" over the front left breast and on the back is a rather uninspired logo of an American flag with the union portion of the flag replaced with a lame sub-PowerPoint-clipart-grade computer terminal graphic. The text reads "Proud to Support Microsoft's Freedom to Innovate / Sign up at www.microsoft.com/freedomtoinnovate". As a fan of both ironic clothing and corporate faux grassroots campaigns, I ordered one right away.
The shirts are sold by an outsourced company called "ID Partners, Inc." which sounds like some sort of PR branding firm. It was supposed to come with two matching bumper stickers, but they were missing. In fact it didn't even have a packing slip or invoice, the shirt was just shoved into a FedEx tyvek pouch
and sent out. Taking a cue from the mail-order sextoy industry the package was as discreet as humanly possible. The return address only said "ID Partners, Inc." and had a New Jersey mailing address. Think of all the explaining I'd have to do if it showed up here with a Redmond return address, oh my!
