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Sandals and Ponytails Behind Slow Linux Adoption
Eric Giguere writes "CNet is reporting that according to former Massachusetts CIO Peter Quinn 'the lax dress code of the open-source community is one of the reasons behind the software's slow uptake in commercial environments.' In particular, Quinn blames the 'sandal and ponytail set' for sluggish adoption of Linux by businesses and governments." From the article: "Quinn, who faced plenty of scrutiny over his support of the OpenDocument standards-based office document format, said proponents of open source in government faced formidable opposition from vested interests if they went public."
Its all about class and swagger.
Eventually I think linux and OSS will take hold. I agree with the articles thesis: uptake of OSS (and, for the record, ANYTHING) is affected (negatively in this case) by sandals and ponytails.
In my long career pathetically ended after 21 years by an unfortunate "right-sizing" (let's get rid of the 20% MOST expensive employees in IT, but make sure to get rid of some of the kids too so we don't get sued...), I conducted an ongoing rant/argument/rage/discussion with my best friend at work about the impact of dress. Bob (not her real name) insisted not only are others impacted by your appearance and demeanor, but your very own work and feelings about yourself change based on your dress.
Being a long-haired sandaled techie I disagreed. It took Bob about fifteen years to win me over. I get it now, maybe a bit too late, but it does matter.
For doubters, read Robert Malloy's book. I love and hate this book. It's hard to dispute empirical research... you dress for your audience or risk losing them.
Still I like to wear my rose-colored glasses and think good conquers evil eventually, and still hold hope someday linux along with OSS gains the purchase it needs to be a viable and dominant market force unto itself (it already passes the viable test...).
As an aside: this does take an interesting turn when you consider that the "dress code" for "good tech" is oxymoronic, i.e., while it is true business leaders and decision makers like/prefer business dress and decorum from people they meet and strike deals with, at the same time it's a time-honored tradition that the most savvy and high-octane techies wear cutoffs, sandals, t-shirts (that probably say "fuck you" in some obfuscated way), and piercings. Go figure. (From my own personal experience, I would add, I found little correlation with the raggedy techie look and competence and would even submit many less competent techies cultivated the look as an offset to their less-than-great skills.)
And, now I'm off to install the new Firefox /. extension (God Bless OSS)
Does -anyone- wear sandals and a ponytail anymore? That's kind of cliche.
Specialization is for insects. -Heinlein
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/resources/roumen/micro soft_old_small.jpg
;)
How did Microsoft become so successful, then?
This message printed on 100% post-consumer recycled electrons.
People who are too shallow to see past how some dork dresses get what they deserve, sheez..
On the other hand, people who don't care whether you wear sandles, have a ponytail, are black, white, asian, a woman, or whatever, will come out ahead, because they'll pick stuff that is best, rather than looking to see if it wears Armani suits.
http://www.welton.it/davidw/
The problem is with idiots who believe that they can judge the quality of a product by the shoes of it's creator. Noone ever complains about my t-shirt, Dickies shorts, and piercings when I'm done fixing their shit... in fact, I'm the one they ask for by name.
Some of us feel that being proficient at your job and being comfortable are much more important than being a shortsighted, uninformed asshole in a fancy monkey suit.
The problem is on THEIR side.
Messiah figures don't work for software.
Linux + Business Suits = Success.
..we raise our children to "not judge books by their cover", and then turn around and do just that.
I understand that by dressing like the stuffed suits would make me more appealing to them, but I don't care about them. They need me more than I need them. I'll always be able to find tech work somewhere. They won't always be able to find a lot of techies to work for them. The sooner they get over themselves and their dress code ideas, the better, for realities sake.
I thought it was the companies thinking they could replace their technical management with bean counters responsible for the slow uptake. Managers that think if IT gets on their nerves enough they can simply outsource them to India. Or the fact that many company IT departments are staffed with MCSE's who see every IT problem as a nail for the MSFT hammer.
And here all this time it was sandals and ponytails. Missed it by that much!
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
the real reason, right there in the article, has little to do with dress and more to do with the incredible political influence (money) wielded by those who want to keep OSS down. the 'image' of OSS developers is not the problem. it is that the political process has been hijacked from seeking public good to seeking personal good.
there are plenty of suits involved in the OSS movement. but as he says at the end of the article, what got him to drop out of the fight was not the image of OSS but the constant barrage of attacks brought against him by those with the wherewhithal to do so - big business.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Since when does a developer's alleged mode of dress influence the decisions of those who never meet him? It's yet another excuse: "Oh, those open source guys are hippy dippy slobs with pony tails and sandals! Let's buy from MicroSoft who makes their (sales) people dress up nice!!"
It's bullshit.
Besides, microsofties wear west coast developer attire too, just they don't let them make sales calls. Also, I know damn well what the Apple geeks wear, and it isn't suit and tie. I see them whenever I drive down the DeAnza Blvd in Cupertino. They are definitely ponytail compliant - although some of them their *only* hair is their ponytail, with nothing on top!
use Sig::Witty;
.. that only people in a shirt and tie or similar "professional" dress are capable of performing their assigned duties to which they agreed when they signed the employment contract. After all, how many of us completely lose the mental faculties (alcohol not withstanding) to do our jobs as soon as we get home and get the jeans and t-shirt on? Come on, raise your hands! { watching tumbleweed blow by }
So, basicaly what the author of the original article is saying is the following:
open source + casual dress = no credibility regardless of the quality of work
open source + "professional" dress = complete credibility regardless of the quality of work
Someone needs to do a study on this. I'm fascinated by the attitiude that some people have that the design of the cotton on the outside of our skin somehow has a direct correlation on the ability for us to maintain our servers through open source. It must be some kind of intellectually stimulating chemical that is weaved into the fibers of "professional" clothing that we absorb through our skin whereas casual dress does the opposite.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
There was this religion started by some guy with sandals and a ponytail about peace and goodwill. Suits really didn't like him, nailed him to a tree. Don't remember if it caught on or not....
There was also some strange government of people with ponytails and almost-sandals with the idea of "liberty or death" and "all men created equal".....
I can't remember if either of these things exist anymore, but if they do, I bet the people in them are OK with ponytails and sandals.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
At 37, I haven't suffered any harm from this attitude yet
Or you're too conceited to have noticed.I would not work with you based on that comment.
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
Exactly the ignorant elitist attitude that will place you near the top of the list when it's time to lay a few people off. Fact of the matter is that management needs tech and tech needs management, but neither needs arrogant know-it-alls like you.
At 37, I haven't suffered any harm from this attitude yet.
Time is not on your side. A more polite and still smart and pleasant to be around kid will soon replace you. Sure they will need some training and education that comes with experience, but the benefits to the management, that you are so quick to insult, of this new fresh blood out weigh your value.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Sometimes dressing in less "professional" apparel can lose you a sale. Sometimes, it can gain you a sale. I know a lot of the sales guys are somewhat leery of dragging along scruffy looking geeks to business meetings, but from what I've seen it often works to convince businessmen of the credibility of tech. "Wow look at all those piercings, if the company lets him get away with that he must be brilliant!" This works well in smaller, more technical markets I imagine.
I also notice that the work environment at a company is one of the most important aspects in attracting really talented people. Smart people, who love what they do would rather dress like slobs, have free beer, and a ping-pong table than make an extra $20K a year. The environment is worth a lot to a person's quality of life. Now that does not mean just because a company is relaxed it has talented people, but if you are looking for extraordinary people, that is one very visible sign.
I also notice that given a relaxed or absent dress code, the clothing of choice widely varies. Some people prefer to wear a suit every day, even if they are just going to sit at a desk and code for 12 hours. Others will be wearing shirts with fake boobs attached. I have not noticed that either type tends to be more or less proficient.
I know I'm not the only one to have noticed this trend and I know it is something in some businessmen's minds when they are meeting with new partners, suppliers, or customers. The rule that a dress code will get you more sales is not universal and does not apply to all market segments. A dress code might get you more sales, right up till all your talent moves on and your more relaxed competitor starts to clobber you in head-to-head comparisons.
Given a choice between a guy in a suit with a mediocre piece of software, and the guy in jeans that hasn't shaved for two days and smells of pizza with an amazing array of programs - they're going to take the suit. The marketdroids want to see success oozing from the vendor, not an air of dishevelment.
All in all, it's sad to see decisions based on quality of presentation as opposed to quality of product, but with few exceptions, that's the way it's always been - and probably always will be.
Shower. Shave. Buy some button up shirts and a pair of slacks. From my experience, this makes all the difference in the world. Like it or not - it's the way the game is played.
hi mom!
Just based on this post, there's no way you could do the suit's job in a million years.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Having read the damned article, I'd like to point out something that a lot of posters seem to be missing.
Nowhere that I've seen in that article does he say that ponytails and sandals signify anything about the skills, attitude, or professionalism of the people in question.
He is talking about peoples' perceptions, and the need to be politically savvy when selling OSS to those same people.
--- These are not words: wierd, genious, rediculous
If nothing else, that picture proves that there is such a thing as the opposite of pornography.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
it's a good thing to remember that ties and folded down shirt collars used to be the sign of drug users, rebels, and layabouts, in earlier times.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
If only people were that objective.
The truth is that, as a salesman, you have to play to your audience and different audiences have different requirements - in essence you sell yourself along with a product. This doesn't always mean a suit, but you are conforming yourself to your audience.
If a business suit might level the playing field where your potential clients take you that much more seriously, while someone who shows up in stained T-shirk and slack will have to have a product that is that much more better to be taken seriously, why even risk it?
You see it everyday, in how consumers pick products. Usually, lets say in electronics, the more polished products get more serious consideration. Something that looks slapped together or superficialy cheap/chintzy is either not taken seriously or has to be sold cheaper - even if the functionality is better.
If you really like to believe that people are so objective to look past the superficial, I suggest you put some research into "packaging..."
IBM used to make their techies wear suits. Then, during the dark period in the late 80s and early 90s when they were struggling to reinvent themselves, they had a revelation: Business-type customers like to see people in "professional" business atire, but this only matters if the customer actually sees you. The rest of the time, it is fine to dress comfortably. Thus sales, marketing, and any techie who happened to be interacting with the business-type customers would wear a suit and tie, everyone else wore what they wanted. Bam! Problem solved! And since then, the "sandal and ponytail set" hasn't stopped IBM from making sales, now have they?
So the fundamental problem, if there really is a real problem behind the article, is that the wrong people are speaking to each other. If you're trying to make an OSS business case to the business-types, then yeah you need a business-type person dressed in business-type clothing to do the talking. If you aren't a for-profit organization who can hire such a person to do the talking for you, then why do you give a fuck if the business types listen or not? The techies will listen to you, and you'll get in like most OSS has gotten in -- via the back door in the server room. If you are a for-profit, then why do you need a cnet article to tell you to "dress for success" and hire a marketing person instead of sending your be-sandled techies out into the field?
I don't know, this whole thing smacks of misdirection. He says it's the poor dress code that's causing the slow adoption, but then makes it sound more like it's politics and "IT leadership" (interpreted to mean some kind of management, shouldn't be wearing sandals) that are to blame. It sounds to me like the real reasons for the slow adoption of OSS have nothing to do with "sandals and ponytails", and "OMG RMS dresses looks like a dirty hippy!" is just an excuse.
The enemies of Democracy are
Here's a completely different point of view.
Yes, the corporate suits are not comfortable with OSS companies, because the folks in the OSS companies don't wear suits. But it's not actually because of the clothing, it's what the clothing implies. The lack of suits tells them that these are technical people in charge, not business people. The suits don't like dealing with technical people, because they don't really understand us. They feel more comfortable with people wearing suits, because people who wear suits are their kind of people.
I just love hearing from our C_Os about how we in development should do whatever the sales/marketing folks tell us, because "if it weren't for them, we wouldn't have jobs". Meanwhile, I'm sitting here thinking, well, what the heck would they sell if we weren't creating products?
Never mind the fact that the sales department has a very regular turnover, and the sales people themselves aren't anything special, just your average ex-fratboy business major who made it through four years of college with an average 0.8 BAC. Nobody blinks twice when they leave, they just replace them. Yet, the company is horrified that I ride a motorcycle, because of the possibility that I may get injured/killed and thus leave them with a serious hole to fill that requires very specialized knowledge.
Truth? They fear us. They know that they are a dime a dozen. Our entire sales department could get hit by a bus tomorrow, and it would set the company back a month at worst. If the engineering department walked out, the company would fold up like a wet kleenex, and would *never* recover.
While I follow the dress code of my California based company (beard, polo shirt, chinos, dress shoes), I am well known as someone who "cleans up well" and can readily give a good impression at a goverment or business presentation. I have no problem with this and rather much enjoy having an excuse to dress to the nines. On the other hand, when I'm back to the lab I'm casual again. This works for me.
The key point is respect, by dressing up I'm showing in a rather painless way that I can meet managers or business types halfway and can effectively interface with them. If I'm dressed sharper than they are I've beaten them at their own game and have a point in may favor immediately. It makes them considerably more receptive to my non-negotable issues.
On the other hand folks who made a point of not being able to "clean up well" tend to be rubbing their arrogance in peoples faces. They do it because they assume that they can get away with it because of their awesome skills. Problem is, skills change, and everybody loves to undermine an arrogant bastard, especially when they hand you shovels. Worse yet, they don't see it coming because they aren't able to collect intelligence dressed like that.
Haberdashery is a form of legal social engineering which is fun and easy to practice.
The point Mr Quinn is making isn't that the Linux crowd in general should wear suits. The average programmer isn't going to be doing sales. I personally think the issue is a lack of open source advocates who are business friendly at all. When a organisation wants to move to open source they want to know the company doing it is professional. Having someone turn up in a T Shirt and jandels doesn't do much for their confidence.
Appearance is important, we cannot possibly invest the effort to get to know 'the real person' for everyone we meet. In order to function we need our sterotypes. Its a bit like justice - justice not only must be done, it must be seen to be done. Similarly, quality in service must be seen. Thats not to say everyone needs to be in a suit; but certainly if you are making a open source presentation to a large organisation you should have appropriate attire; or not bother at all.
Not bothering is fine of course - nobody is forcing you to advocate and sell OSS solutions, but if you are in that game, and you do care about getting that contract, then perhaps how you dress will impact your chances.
'the lax dress code of the open-source community is one of the reasons behind the software's slow uptake in commercial environments.'
Assuming for the sake of argument that this is true, my response would be that if the clean cut, three piece suit set did more of the actual important work on the big projects, then they would be more visible and this would not be such a big problem.
Therefore, it is the clean cut, three piece suit set who are really holding back the uptake of Free Software in commercial environments.
Assuming what we did, what is wrong with the reasoning that followed?
all the best,
drew
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"Let him in, I'm expecting him", your partner yells to you from the bathroom as you're heading out the door....
OS Software is like love: The best way to make it grow is to give it away.
Latching onto subcultures is pretty typical human nature. The corporate softball team is a subculture; the PTA is a subculture; the local church is a subculture. It gives people a sense of belonging and generally, looking at social structure you see that views on appearance, subsets of morality and so on are quite flexible and usually are readily adaptable to belonging to a given subculture. Actually, the ones that you really need to worry about are the ones that can't find a social group to latch on to. Believe it or not, relating to goths or ravers or punks isn't nearly as fundamentally different to relating to suits as the guy that wears polo shirts, but can't talk to other humans.
I personally think the European underground techno scene is a lot of fun. I really enjoy dancing all night on weekends. To an extent I look the part. But this doesn't keep me from being one of the lead developers in the LinuxLab at one of Europe's largest software companies.
Why don't I take on the appearance that's typical for the European IT industry? Well, honestly, I'm not that far from the default, though I do have hair down past my shoulders and tend to have kind of a grunge-nouveau look. But the more important thing is that I'm established within my field. I feel like my accomplishments speak for themselves and if you're not the sort of employer that's willing to look past my long hair to the long list of cool things on my resume, then you're not the sort of company that I want to work for. It is in a sense a statement -- it's a statement saying, "I'm good at what I do. I'm not going to be a cookie cutter cog in the corporate environment. You do need to have some flexibility, but if you're cool with that, then I can probably do good things for you."
Thanks for the non-kneejerk reply. :)
Honestly, I'm a pretty decent guy. I get along well with the people I work with, and for the most part always have, in a number of different settings (the military, corporate IT, and now academia.) And although of course I've had to do things I disagreed with, for the most part, when I felt strongly about an issue, I was able to bring management around to my point of view through reasoned discussion.
My original post, as only one other poster seems to have noticed, was directed at a specific type of manager -- the type who automatically dismisses people who don't dress the way he does, who refuses to recognize that for the most part (not always, certainly, but that's the way to bet) casual dress is just as much a mark of the competent techie as a sharp suit is of the competent businessman, who honestly believes that Microsoft is better than F/OSS because Bill Gates wears a suit and Richard Stallman doesn't. And who, not incidentally, inevitably ends up driving competent tech people away from his organizations because smart people refuse to put up with his crap.
People like that are really just as lacking in social skills as the stereotypical smelly geek; but (as with smelly geeks, come to think of it) there are a lot of them, and they congregate in groups where their antisocial behavior is not only accepted but encouraged, and they reinforce each other. Unfortunately, because they are primarily interested in telling people what to do rather than actually doing anything useful themselves, they tend to acquire enough power to make other people's lives miserable.
Believe it or not, I don't prejudge people in suits; I deal with them exactly as I do everyone else, and that's pretty well. However, I refuse to deal nicely with anyone who does not extend me the same courtesy.
(Oh yeah -- I'm obviously not a full-time writer, and never have been except for a brief period a number of years ago. The truth is, making a living from writing is damned rare. Which is too bad, but so it goes.)
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Damn, how freaking old are you?
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