Over the past seven years at Platinum Solutions, I have learned a lot about reporters and the press. However, I am always surprised at the angle a reporter chooses to take with a story, or what they consider to be newsworthy in general.

Take last week as an example. On Monday, the Washington Post ran a story about Platinum Solutions on the front page of the Business Section. The article was also featured on the front page of the washingtonpost.com website, and was one of the most frequently viewed articles. I received a ton of calls from friends, customers, and colleagues mentioning the story. It received a lot of attention.

You might have thought that the article would be about the type of work that we do, or some important event that happened as a result of one of our customers using our software – perhaps coverage of an important case being solved, or an item on prescription drug safety. Or, since it was the Business section, perhaps the article would be about a contract win, or some piece focused on small businesses.

Nope, the article was about video games. More specifically, the article was about how our folks play Halo on the Xbox in our office.

I was surprised when the reporter, a Washington Post Staff Writer named Mike Musgrove, came by our office to write the article. I wasn’t sure where the story was, and I was kind of suspicious as to the true intent of the article. Since video game violence is a topic of conversation, I was worried that was the angle he would take, and could imagine a headline like “Video Game Violence Adds to Workplace Tension”. There are occasional swear words exchanged in the Xbox room - people really get into the games - and I was just hoping that was not his angle.

As it turns out, the story really was just about people playing video games in a corporate environment. I guess there are not that many companies that allow this, so it is newsworthy. For me, the benefits are clear – anything that gets people away from being hunched over a computer screen for a little while is healthy. And while playing a video game might not be your idea of “activity”, you need to see how we play it.

Mike Musgrove played a few games in the “over thirty” bracket, which happens to be the least competitive group in our office. Joining this group was a guest competitor– a professor of Electrical Engineering from UVA who happened to be in the office for a project meeting. Let’s just say that Platinum Solutions and UVA were represented well, the Washington Post played…bravely.

The article has spawned all sorts of other activities. A documentary maker came by on Friday to shoot a movie – don’t ask me what he is going to do with it. Also, a Microsoft employee from the west coast wrote an email throwing down the gauntlet for a matched game between Platinum Solutions and Microsoft. This is ironic, because Platinum Solutions is located in the Microsoft building in Reston, Virginia, and no one in the Microsoft Reston office has been brave enough to play us yet. Unless they bring in some sponsored ringers, we will wipe the floor with those Microsofties – east coast or west coast. The eventual game will probably be a press event in itself…there is just no telling.

Check out the article here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/06/AR2007050600866.html