OK, I’m not actually asking if you eat dog food. Rather, when a company says that it “eats its own dog food,” what it means is that the company and its employees actually use the products and services produced by the company. This is also referred to as “dogfooding” (not a term that you necessarily need to know, but it made me chuckle).

The whole idea started many years ago when Alpo brand dog food ran a commercial in which an actor said the dog food was so good he feeds his own dog with it. Microsoft manager Paul Maritz must have seen this commercial because in 1988 he sent a fellow employee an email with the subject line “Eating our own dog food.” The email challenged the employee to increase internal usage of their product. Since then the idea has spread beyond the walls of Microsoft and challenged many companies to convey enough confidence in their products and services to use them in house.

It’s true that this concept may not be applicable to certain companies.  Most businesses out there, however, are perfectly primed to make use of their own products and services within the confines of their own company. If you’re one of these companies, then there’s absolutely no excuse for not dogfooding (I really wanted to use it in a sentence!). The fact of the matter is, if you don’t believe in your products or services enough to use them yourself, then how are you ever going to get anyone else to believe in them?

Have a great weekend!

      del.icio.us   SphereIt   Reddit   Furl