Microsoft’s New England Research & Development Center at One Memorial Drive here in Cambridge, MA—NERD, as it is so affectionately called inside and outside the company—has quickly become one of the central gathering spots for the Boston tech community.
In late March, the company opened a big conference area on its second floor, and almost from day one has been making it available for free to a variety of outside groups—from Tech Tuesdays to the Environmental Defense Fund, which just last week held an unconference about green business practices at NERD.
Well, as part of that welcoming spirit, I guess you would call it, the company has quietly posted its logo for the facility. The logo shows the Boston skyline (roughly as seen from NERD) in shaded blue, and the stylized Longfellow Bridge connecting it with Cambridge in orange. “We kind of flipped the switch this morning,” says Sara Spalding, senior director of NERD. “We really felt that we wanted to have a design that reflected our presence her in the greater Boston area, and Cambridge in particular.”
Out to get to the bottom of the story in true hard-hitting journalistic fashion, I asked her if there was a deep symbolism behind the logo, such as a metaphorical bridge linking Microsoft with the larger Boston innovation scene.
Nope. “There’s no clever reverse image or play it backwards on your stereo,” she says. “There’s no deeper meaning.”
Author: Robert Buderi
Bob is Xconomy's founder and chairman. He is one of the country's foremost journalists covering business and technology. As a noted author and magazine editor, he is a sought-after commentator on innovation and global competitiveness. Before taking his most recent position as a research fellow in MIT's Center for International Studies, Bob served as Editor in Chief of MIT's Technology Review, then a 10-times-a-year publication with a circulation of 315,000. Bob led the magazine to numerous editorial and design awards and oversaw its expansion into three foreign editions, electronic newsletters, and highly successful conferences. As BusinessWeek's technology editor, he shared in the 1992 National Magazine Award for The Quality Imperative.
Bob is the author of four books about technology and innovation. Naval Innovation for the 21st Century (2013) is a post-Cold War account of the Office of Naval Research. Guanxi (2006) focuses on Microsoft's Beijing research lab as a metaphor for global competitiveness. Engines of Tomorrow (2000) describes the evolution of corporate research. The Invention That Changed the World (1996) covered a secret lab at MIT during WWII. Bob served on the Council on Competitiveness-sponsored National Innovation Initiative and is an advisor to the Draper Prize Nominating Committee. He has been a regular guest of CNBC's Strategy Session and has spoken about innovation at many venues, including the Business Council, Amazon, eBay, Google, IBM, and Microsoft.
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