Andrew Leonard on LinuxWorld, Slashdot, and More

Alan J. Wylie sent us Andrew Leonard's article running on Linux.com on "The Three Stages of Free Software Cluefulness". The most clueless part of conferences is (as always) the PR firms. Mine has apparently made up some story about me herding media tycoons about LinuxWorld (I'm not sure if they mean physically or through Slashdot). Anyway, for me personally its a case study in why PR firms don't work in the era of the Internet.I mean, PR companies always screw up (you should see the comically erred press releases I get every day). The difference is that the Internet already has people (relatively) in touch with each other without the help of a PR firm. Their primary function is obsolete. As always, my email address is malda@slashdot.org, and while I don't reply to everything, I do read it. What a sucky way to start of the day.

Comments

Re:I prefer my Malda medium-rare.

[cpt kangarooski]

Please send the cheese cart around when we're done.

I never meant to dis Rob

[Andrew Leonard]

Well, I really apologize for starting off Rob's day badly. I have nothing but the greatest respect for Slashdot and what Rob has accomplished here. I mainly thought it was funny that I was being approached by a public relations firm that was pushing Rob Malda as some kind of Linux celebrity. I most certainly didn't mean to criticize another open source site or Rob himself.

I should have e-mailed Rob and asked for his take on how the PR company was representing him. Mea culpa. I didn't because I was just doing a take on my LinuxWorld related mail, and didn't stop to think about how readers might react. I never imagined that they might think that Rob was personally responsible for the way he was being packaged.

Damn.

Re:I never meant to dis Rob

[Andrew Leonard]

Well -- Rob's note introducing this topic makes it sound like he didn't enjoy reading his mail this morning.

Re:I never meant to dis Rob

[llywrch]

Well, Rob is prolly pissed, but I doubt at you. I bet that the following exchange at Andover.com occured:

PHB (nattily attired in that trendy kewl hacker look): We know how much work Slashdot requires from you, Rob, & we want to take some of that burden off of your shoulders. Let you set your priorities.

Rob (thinks about a bug that has been hounding him for the last few weeks, but he hasn't had the time to make it a priority): That would be good.

PHB: So we're going to devote some resources to you & Mr Taco.

Rob (``Mr Taco"? Oh boy!): Sure, there's some guys I don't like to deal with. Marketroids. I've got better things to do than hand out clues to the clue-resistant.

PHB: Good. We've got a PR firm on retainer, & I'll talk to them.

Rob (thinking about that bug, & seeing what he needs to do to fix it): Whatever. I need to do some stuff.

Fast forward to this morning. Not only does Rob realize what the PR firm is actually doing for him, but he now realizes that to keep them from doing it again, he'll have to spend more time away from the stuff he'd rather be doing.

Not a pretty picture to have first thing in the morning.



Geoff

Hmmm...

[irix]

Rob and dozens of bikini-clad women give me a VIP tour of LinuxWorld. Sounds like a dream I once had.

Where can I sign up :)

Slashdot goes commercial...

[Sun Tzu]

...Uh, I'll believe that when they ban me from posting here! ;)

Don't let them ruin your good name, Rob.

Density

[JJ]

A friend of mine in the military sent me a fax about judging world militaries by "how many trigger-pullers" they have per 10K enrolled members. Perhaps software companies should be judged in the same way, number of tech staff per 100 employees. This way hiring a PR company would count against you or more specifically, hiring too many PR companies would work against you. I'd start investing my 401K in this way if it could be published.

Rob's Mystery Tour

[_Sprocket_]

I've got two images in mind once I read this.

The first is a bunch of slack-jawed, and suitably awed, Suits mulling around a sparkling sign reading "Rob's Open Source Mystery Tour". Suddenly, Rob appears in a Willy Wonka style; decked in a tophat and particularly bright, strangely cut suite. With a wave of his cane, and perhapse a few sparkles for effect, the tour into the wild and magical world of Open Source begins. No chemical augmentation is required, as most Suits are "on drugs" already.

Second image...

Rob pulling a rickshaw cart with the words "Open Source Tour" on the sides. The cart is filled with Suits ooooh-ing and aaawwww-ing at the exotic, wonderous sites of the LinuxWolrd Expo floor as they pass by. Occasionally, Rob calls back to point out some point of interest.

"On the right, you see the Linux Care booth. You'll notice in the advertisement, the girl is covering her butt with a Debian box.."

"Ohhhh!"

"Ahhhh!"

It might not be as fun as a tophat and cane, but there's a possiblity of better tips.

In short, I wouldn't take the article seriously. Its a wry view of the PR game, if anything. Heck... the author even mentioned that he couldn't see Rob actually doing tours (though, he was apparently all too willing to take advantage of the possibility).

After the aggrivation of his article, I hope Andrew Leonard tips well.

PR suffers advertising's fate

[Chris Worth]

"Claimer": I'm a marketroid, not a geek.

In marketing and other endeavours, there are several stages corresponding (usually) to industry shakeouts.

First there's a stage of doing something because it works. The first ads were written because they sold product.

Next, there's a stage of formalising these rules, trying to become respectable. This is where ads were in the 1970s, when big agencies ruled the ad world.

Then there's a stage of following the rules while forgetting the reasons those rules were written - the "because that's how we've always done them" model.

Finally, the rules collapse under their own weight and real human creativity comes to the fore again. This is what my ad agency's going through now... but PR companies are slower still.

A press release today is not written to disseminate useful information; it is written to get the client's name into the papers. And, following the rulebook, they use selling techniques to write them... dehumanising the speaker and twisting his words into something he never said.

The nearest thing I've got to a boss, Mike Windsor of Ogilvy Interactive, is a smart guy with a real grip on how the web works. But Ogilvy's press releases paint him as the most autocued, teleprompted, on-the-record, overadvised and underopinionated man alive. I don't recognise Mike in our releases, and I doubt he ever recognises himself.

So if anyone feels like Slashdot-effecting the Ogilvy NY PR division... email me and I'll give out some names. Might shake up the industry a little to have form rather than content critiqued.

Chris Worth
Read the Microsoft Matrix at http://chrisworth.com/oddments/the_microsoft_matri x.html

WTF! I want the tour Rob!

[Kurt Gray]

Disclaimer: I work at Andover.Net.

How come I wasn't invited on the tour?! Damnit, I
only work here! I want Linus himself to teach me
all the hand signals and secret handshakes I need
to know to use Linux properly. Ooohhhh, it'so
"cryptic and exclusive" -- I imagine it would be
something like what Tom Cruise found at the
mansion in "Eyes Wide Shut", no? I mean, that's
what goes on at these "secert" Linux gatherings,
right?

Oooh Linux is so "cryptic and sectretive", that's why
you can only download the full friggin' source code for
it on at least 500 FTP sites and countless CDROMs
with full documentation mirrored world wide with
an army of IRC channels open and Usenet newgroups
that have been there since day one openly exchanging
information about it all day and night for the
apst 8 years.
Yeah, big friggin' secret don't know how anyone could've found about it.

Oh, I gotto go, my clue phone is ringing.