Drinking is a Public Relations Vehicle(pjhyett.com)
pjhyett.com
Drinking is a Public Relations Vehicle
http://www.pjhyett.com/posts/237-drinking-is-a-public-relations-vehicle
6 comments
Alcohol is a major part of the social fabric in America. Business deals, hacker meetups, weddings, reunions, all have alcohol at them. Hell, the writers of the constitution consumed a ton of alcohol to celebrate when they finished. Alcohol serves a useful social function and it's been that way in this country since inception. Yes people are moronic and abuse alcohol, but that's hardly the case with the Github crew. The only reason why anyone would think that 'alcohol = failure' is some stupid notion about booze formed in college where abuse is actually rampant.
>Yes people are moronic and abuse alcohol, but that's hardly the case with the Github crew.
How do you know?
>The only reason why anyone would think that 'alcohol = lazy' is some stupid notion about booze formed in college where abuse is actually rampant.
Eh, I don't drink, and whereas all my friends did in college, I wouldn't have said that lazy was a typical outcome of their drinking. That's not to say their drinking didn't have pretty major downsides on a number of occasions, but they all studied their asses off and were diligent when shit needed to get done.
I do think that people tend to associate people that talk up their drinking habits with thoughtless, reckless, or stupid behavior. Whether that's a fair or unfair stereotype is for each person to decide on the basis of their own experience. Apparently some of GitHub's clients have that stereotype.
Public image management is part of developing any business. GitHub uses alcohol to loosen customers and potential customers up, which may bring in new clients and maintain current clients. But that strategy will also lose them certain clients, and it's doubtful that writing a blog post about how "it's totally unfair to judge us for posting on our business's blog about how much fun we have drinking with customers" is going to convince otherwise skeptical clients.
If the complaining customer is correct that GitHub still suffers from "frequent outages, slow queues, occasional inability to push/pull, frequent breakage after code pushes, etc", then the onus remains on GitHub to demonstrate that they work their asses off. Proof is in the pudding.
At the end of the day, GitHub folks can do whatever they like, and people are free to disagree with that and switch services if they like. But there may be better public image strategies out there, perhaps ones that are more discreet at the very least.
How do you know?
>The only reason why anyone would think that 'alcohol = lazy' is some stupid notion about booze formed in college where abuse is actually rampant.
Eh, I don't drink, and whereas all my friends did in college, I wouldn't have said that lazy was a typical outcome of their drinking. That's not to say their drinking didn't have pretty major downsides on a number of occasions, but they all studied their asses off and were diligent when shit needed to get done.
I do think that people tend to associate people that talk up their drinking habits with thoughtless, reckless, or stupid behavior. Whether that's a fair or unfair stereotype is for each person to decide on the basis of their own experience. Apparently some of GitHub's clients have that stereotype.
Public image management is part of developing any business. GitHub uses alcohol to loosen customers and potential customers up, which may bring in new clients and maintain current clients. But that strategy will also lose them certain clients, and it's doubtful that writing a blog post about how "it's totally unfair to judge us for posting on our business's blog about how much fun we have drinking with customers" is going to convince otherwise skeptical clients.
If the complaining customer is correct that GitHub still suffers from "frequent outages, slow queues, occasional inability to push/pull, frequent breakage after code pushes, etc", then the onus remains on GitHub to demonstrate that they work their asses off. Proof is in the pudding.
At the end of the day, GitHub folks can do whatever they like, and people are free to disagree with that and switch services if they like. But there may be better public image strategies out there, perhaps ones that are more discreet at the very least.
There will always be people that don't like what we do, no matter what we do. Drink? Someone will hate us for it. Act like professional business executives, someone will think we take ourselves too seriously. I think the trick is to find the right balance for our target market, and I think the guys are doing quite well at that. I don't think any of us expect to pick up big businesses for Firewall Install at meetups, we're going to get those customers by way of developers that are already using git, and from the talks we give about git and GitHub at places like Yahoo. If all people see is us drinking every other Thursday, they're missing a lot.
Customers complaining about performance certainly have a valid point. But if they believe that these issues are caused by a lack of dedication or just general "goofing off", I think they're mistaken. Frankly, Tom's been working his ass off since April with the Rackspace move. At the same time, Chris has focused nearly all of his time into keeping the site up as is and doing everything he can to maintain or improve performance with the hardware we have. There's simply hardware bottlenecks blocking our way at the moment. I'm sure everyone knows my feelings about GFS by now.
Proof certainly is in the pudding, and I think everyone is going to love the pudding we'll be serving up from Rackspace. I know it's hard to be patient and wait for the move to happen... trust me I really do. I'm the one on the front line every day with unhappy customers who have to deal with the latency and job queue backups. I don't think there's anyone that wants the move to happen more than me.
Customers complaining about performance certainly have a valid point. But if they believe that these issues are caused by a lack of dedication or just general "goofing off", I think they're mistaken. Frankly, Tom's been working his ass off since April with the Rackspace move. At the same time, Chris has focused nearly all of his time into keeping the site up as is and doing everything he can to maintain or improve performance with the hardware we have. There's simply hardware bottlenecks blocking our way at the moment. I'm sure everyone knows my feelings about GFS by now.
Proof certainly is in the pudding, and I think everyone is going to love the pudding we'll be serving up from Rackspace. I know it's hard to be patient and wait for the move to happen... trust me I really do. I'm the one on the front line every day with unhappy customers who have to deal with the latency and job queue backups. I don't think there's anyone that wants the move to happen more than me.
>There will always be people that don't like what we do, no matter what we do.
You're absolutely right about this.
>I think the trick is to find the right balance for our target market
Again I agree. And maybe losing a customer or two who dislike the blog posts about drinking is acceptable, if the get togethers gain you more than enough clients to make up for that occasional loss. You are going to be the judge of the value of blogging about parties versus retaining some customers.
As far as I can tell, the customer in question was upset principally about the blogging about the parties, not necessarily the fact that you are having a bunch of drinks with customers and potential customers. You might consider whether continuing with the customer parties, but refraining from blogging in indiscreet detail about them, is a better strategy for retaining frustrated existing customers. Is there a cost to not blogging about drinking?
> If all people see is us drinking every other Thursday, they're missing a lot.
I'm not a reader of your blog, but how many posts do you make saying "Tom upgraded X today, and is working on Y now," "Chris managed a major XYZ this week, and is working on optimizing ABC"? What is the ratio between posts highlighting you guys working your asses off and you guys having drinks with customers? Perhaps you should consider adjusting that ratio, if frustrated customers perceive it to be out of balance. What is the cost to you of making that change?
You're absolutely right about this.
>I think the trick is to find the right balance for our target market
Again I agree. And maybe losing a customer or two who dislike the blog posts about drinking is acceptable, if the get togethers gain you more than enough clients to make up for that occasional loss. You are going to be the judge of the value of blogging about parties versus retaining some customers.
As far as I can tell, the customer in question was upset principally about the blogging about the parties, not necessarily the fact that you are having a bunch of drinks with customers and potential customers. You might consider whether continuing with the customer parties, but refraining from blogging in indiscreet detail about them, is a better strategy for retaining frustrated existing customers. Is there a cost to not blogging about drinking?
> If all people see is us drinking every other Thursday, they're missing a lot.
I'm not a reader of your blog, but how many posts do you make saying "Tom upgraded X today, and is working on Y now," "Chris managed a major XYZ this week, and is working on optimizing ABC"? What is the ratio between posts highlighting you guys working your asses off and you guys having drinks with customers? Perhaps you should consider adjusting that ratio, if frustrated customers perceive it to be out of balance. What is the cost to you of making that change?
How do you know?
Obviously I don't know for sure. Even the closest friends of people suffering from a serious drug problem don't even know usually. It was just an educated guess.
I wouldn't have said that lazy was a typical outcome of their drinking. That's not to say their drinking didn't have pretty major downsides on a number of occasions, but they all studied their asses off and were diligent when shit needed to get done. I do think that people tend to associate people that talk up their drinking habits with thoughtless, reckless, or stupid behavior.
You're right. Lazy wasn't what I was trying to get at. What I meant was something closer to 'drinking = failure', but that's still not quite right. Point is, some techies have an incorrect bias against alcohol.
Whether that's a fair or unfair stereotype is for each person to decide on the basis of their own experience. Apparently some of GitHub's clients have that stereotype. Public image management is part of developing any business. GitHub uses alcohol to loosen customers and potential customers up, which may bring in new clients and maintain current clients. But that strategy will also lose them certain clients...
People who think like this are not thinking logically, and I personally wouldn't want to have them as my customer. If you're a coder and you let an incorrect stereotype you have override the fact that Github recused open source from the hell that is Source Forge, shame on you. The Github team has demonstrated time and time again a technical savvy and design sense matched by no one else in the market.
Obviously I don't know for sure. Even the closest friends of people suffering from a serious drug problem don't even know usually. It was just an educated guess.
I wouldn't have said that lazy was a typical outcome of their drinking. That's not to say their drinking didn't have pretty major downsides on a number of occasions, but they all studied their asses off and were diligent when shit needed to get done. I do think that people tend to associate people that talk up their drinking habits with thoughtless, reckless, or stupid behavior.
You're right. Lazy wasn't what I was trying to get at. What I meant was something closer to 'drinking = failure', but that's still not quite right. Point is, some techies have an incorrect bias against alcohol.
Whether that's a fair or unfair stereotype is for each person to decide on the basis of their own experience. Apparently some of GitHub's clients have that stereotype. Public image management is part of developing any business. GitHub uses alcohol to loosen customers and potential customers up, which may bring in new clients and maintain current clients. But that strategy will also lose them certain clients...
People who think like this are not thinking logically, and I personally wouldn't want to have them as my customer. If you're a coder and you let an incorrect stereotype you have override the fact that Github recused open source from the hell that is Source Forge, shame on you. The Github team has demonstrated time and time again a technical savvy and design sense matched by no one else in the market.
>...some techies have an incorrect bias against alcohol.
And some have a bias against alcohol that comes out of personal experience. Either because of their own struggles, the struggles of family members, or the behavior of friends or acquaintances. Maybe some do have an irrational or unfounded prejudice against alcohol (or alcohol in the workplace in the very least). But it might not be the best move from a PR point of view to simply dismiss your customer's perceptions as irrational or biased or erroneous.
>People who think like this are not thinking logically, and I personally wouldn't want to have them as my customer.
We don't all get to pick and choose our customers, and there are very few 'always logical' Vulcan customers to go around. Managing your company's public image is an important part of running a business, especially a small business. If you are doing well enough that you can afford to simply turn away some customers, good on you. If customers cost you more in hassle and demands than they bring in in revenue, it's probably a good idea to turn them away. But blogging less enthusiastically or less frequently about drinking events is a zero cost change that may prevent the loss of business. You don't need to have to stop having the events, you just need to be sensitive about how your portray yourself to a diverse audience.
And some have a bias against alcohol that comes out of personal experience. Either because of their own struggles, the struggles of family members, or the behavior of friends or acquaintances. Maybe some do have an irrational or unfounded prejudice against alcohol (or alcohol in the workplace in the very least). But it might not be the best move from a PR point of view to simply dismiss your customer's perceptions as irrational or biased or erroneous.
>People who think like this are not thinking logically, and I personally wouldn't want to have them as my customer.
We don't all get to pick and choose our customers, and there are very few 'always logical' Vulcan customers to go around. Managing your company's public image is an important part of running a business, especially a small business. If you are doing well enough that you can afford to simply turn away some customers, good on you. If customers cost you more in hassle and demands than they bring in in revenue, it's probably a good idea to turn them away. But blogging less enthusiastically or less frequently about drinking events is a zero cost change that may prevent the loss of business. You don't need to have to stop having the events, you just need to be sensitive about how your portray yourself to a diverse audience.
What the article described sounds like pretty standard sales/business relations. I don't know of any big companies (in or out of the IT industry) that don't throw booze filled events for major customers. On a smaller scale, taking customers out for a couple beers (or sushi and sake) is pretty standard for any sales team.
Bullshit. I'm east European, I know what alcohol as a major part of the social fabric looks like. But I quite drinking a long time ago. And it hasn't hurt my social fabric at all. Not in eastern Europe not in America, not anywhere.
There is absolutely no reason what so ever for YOU to drink. However, dry events in my experience tend to be worse attended, then the same events with alcohol. So I would describe Alcohol as a minor part of social conventions. It would be major if not drinking was a major social faux pas.
There is absolutely no reason what so ever for YOU to drink. However, dry events in my experience tend to be worse attended, then the same events with alcohol. So I would describe Alcohol as a minor part of social conventions. It would be major if not drinking was a major social faux pas.
When I was at digg, where a significant aspect of our audience was under 21, I was concerned about the exclusionary aspect of drinking. I think that probably applies here too.
I can still be found going to all-ages shows and appreciate the democratic aspect.
I can still be found going to all-ages shows and appreciate the democratic aspect.
I experienced this a bit before I was 21, but interning at a company that went out after work a lot. The solution is the venue. Not all bars are 21 y/o and over only, usually only the ones that are strictly bars or nightclubs have that restriction. Your average hamburger & burger place with a bar will let anyone in most hours except maybe thursday/friday/saturday nights.
Which is a good idea anyway, since those places have less social pressure to drink.
It's not just the people under 21 (well, 16 here) you can be excluding on an alcohol party. There are also people that don't drink or drink very little.
(To be fair, I only got weird looks and remarks once for not drinking alcohol and that was at a student bar where drinking seemed to be the norm. Normally it isn't too big a deal, but I can imagine some people - especially younger ones - feeling uncomfortable being the only one not drinking alcohol. Even more so when a group just gets a pitcher of beer.)
It's not just the people under 21 (well, 16 here) you can be excluding on an alcohol party. There are also people that don't drink or drink very little.
(To be fair, I only got weird looks and remarks once for not drinking alcohol and that was at a student bar where drinking seemed to be the norm. Normally it isn't too big a deal, but I can imagine some people - especially younger ones - feeling uncomfortable being the only one not drinking alcohol. Even more so when a group just gets a pitcher of beer.)
I doubt most people ever really notice if someone isn't drinking, even at an event where the majority of people are. Or maybe I'm just not very observant.
I usually do drink at these kinds of events, but when I don't I've never felt pressured to (at least not since college). Maybe it's different for people who sometimes drink vs. never drink.
I usually do drink at these kinds of events, but when I don't I've never felt pressured to (at least not since college). Maybe it's different for people who sometimes drink vs. never drink.
People notice, but only to a small degree. When I was out in SF back in July I didn't intend to drink much at the meetup. I think I had 4 drinks total, all were bought by someone else for me. If I had declined the drinks, or gotten something non-alcoholic instead, I doubt anyone would have made a fuss about it.
Well.. and PJ did shove like $15 in the jukebox and demand I pick songs, and gave us money for the taxi ride home which also paid for a nice pizza back at the hotel.
Well.. and PJ did shove like $15 in the jukebox and demand I pick songs, and gave us money for the taxi ride home which also paid for a nice pizza back at the hotel.
I don't think the problem is other people noticing as much as thinking they're noticing. You can feel a bit weird if someone goes "beers for everyone?", everyone's agreeing and you're the one that has to go "no thanks, a coke would be nice". Or worse, just order it and put it in front of you. People do tend to assume everyone drinks beer.
(For me, that's not true. I don't mind alcohol, but I can't stand the taste of beer. I can't finish a zip of it, let alone a glass. I do sometimes have to explain that. Since I'm old enough to have a driver's license I sometimes have the nice excuse that I still need to drive. Works a bit better in that it requires less explanation.)
(For me, that's not true. I don't mind alcohol, but I can't stand the taste of beer. I can't finish a zip of it, let alone a glass. I do sometimes have to explain that. Since I'm old enough to have a driver's license I sometimes have the nice excuse that I still need to drive. Works a bit better in that it requires less explanation.)
It's possibly because I just got out of college, but it really bothers people when you don't drink. A lot. I didn't drink the entire way through, and I got a lot of comments later on. People weren't very forward about it, but after some prodding, they stopped inviting me out because they felt that I was judging them by not drinking, and therefore I was a buzzkill. I didn't draw any attention to it at all, I had a Coke in my hand the entire night, but it still made people upset.
People are silly.
People are silly.
I totally agree, but at the time the rationale was those places typically weren't "cool." Which is obviously also exclusionary.
It's also good for loosening people up a little bit. I've been to a number of networking events with alcohol and it's pretty effective.
Nice post. I'm glad he didn't bother to say that they're responsible drinkers. At best, it wouldn't be necessary to say it because clearly they're in control. At worst, it might offend some who think that the only way to drink responsibly is to drink moderately (according to gov't guidelines) or not at all.
Quite a few seem to care a great deal about the private lives of others...it seems really strange to me. Why would anyone worry about what these guys do on their free time, if at all?
It seems that it's not so much what they do with their free time, but that they "take" it at all.
I've seen people going completely crazy because they didn't get a response from developers within an hour or so. On Sunday. At 0400h (am).
I've seen people going completely crazy because they didn't get a response from developers within an hour or so. On Sunday. At 0400h (am).
The complaints weren't about the private lives of others per se. The alcohol related activities are at GitHub sponsored events where the team mingles with customers. Customer development is part of business. Frequent posts to their business blog about said alcohol related activities makes it part of their public-facing image. GitHub made what might have been 'extracurricular' or 'private' activities into business activities.
The public image of a company is significant, and acts that some wouldn't notice can rub others the wrong way. Seems like the GitHub people don't care if a few of their customers move to other services that don't talk up their parties where they drink a lot. To each their own.
The public image of a company is significant, and acts that some wouldn't notice can rub others the wrong way. Seems like the GitHub people don't care if a few of their customers move to other services that don't talk up their parties where they drink a lot. To each their own.
And, what, you think the Fidelity guys don't happily go out and throw your retirement money down for strippers and coke on Fridays? What about Accenture 'analysts', or 'ThoughtWorkers'? You think that because their websites have high-performance color tones they don't get sloppy on your dime?
Damn, give GitHub a break, and judge the team by their product. They're tame compared to the yuppies in most industries.
Damn, give GitHub a break, and judge the team by their product. They're tame compared to the yuppies in most industries.
>...judge the team by their product.
That's exactly what their customer was doing. The customer complained about, "frequent outages, slow queues, occasional inability to push/pull, frequent breakage after code pushes, etc." It seems that the customer perceived the blog posts about drinking events as adding insult to injury (i.e. not only is the service problematic, but they're partying instead of fixing things before they become problems for end users).
Managing public perception of your company is important. The team probably needs to spend more time highlighting all their hard work, and less time comparatively highlighting the parties.
I'm aware that investment bankers (or, the people who were formerly investment bankers, before the financial crisis made all the investment banks convert into normal banks) are fast and loose with money, and drinks, and cocaine, and women and so on. I know, because I went to college with a number of them, and have been to some pretty awesome bachelor's parties up in NYC.
But Fidelity doesn't blog about their parties. Their public face is a man or woman in a suit with a briefcase and a Bloomberg terminal. Same with my 3-4 friends working at Accenture. I know they party hard because we went to college together. But they're not blogging about it, or sending out notes about it on their weekly email updates. They know how to manage their public image in a way that doesn't upset their customers. I know techies are allergic to suits, but there's something to be said for getting your customers to automatically give you the benefit of the doubt.
That's exactly what their customer was doing. The customer complained about, "frequent outages, slow queues, occasional inability to push/pull, frequent breakage after code pushes, etc." It seems that the customer perceived the blog posts about drinking events as adding insult to injury (i.e. not only is the service problematic, but they're partying instead of fixing things before they become problems for end users).
Managing public perception of your company is important. The team probably needs to spend more time highlighting all their hard work, and less time comparatively highlighting the parties.
I'm aware that investment bankers (or, the people who were formerly investment bankers, before the financial crisis made all the investment banks convert into normal banks) are fast and loose with money, and drinks, and cocaine, and women and so on. I know, because I went to college with a number of them, and have been to some pretty awesome bachelor's parties up in NYC.
But Fidelity doesn't blog about their parties. Their public face is a man or woman in a suit with a briefcase and a Bloomberg terminal. Same with my 3-4 friends working at Accenture. I know they party hard because we went to college together. But they're not blogging about it, or sending out notes about it on their weekly email updates. They know how to manage their public image in a way that doesn't upset their customers. I know techies are allergic to suits, but there's something to be said for getting your customers to automatically give you the benefit of the doubt.
I'm not sure where you got the impression that we don't care, I wouldn't have written the post otherwise.
My impression that you don't particularly care about losing that client comes from your blog post discussing the matter. If you wanted to keep that customer, I wouldn't have written a defensive blog post about it. I would have had a private email exchange with that particular customer, and maybe offered them some freebies or a discount for their troubles.
Taking the time to single their comment out and write several paragraphs on why 'it's totally justified to blog about partying' and why 'partying and service problems are totally unconnected phenomena because we work our asses off' seems dismissive not understanding.
The bottom line is that the blog post doesn't do anything to resolve the commenter's complaints. It's really just a long excuse, and not likely to persuade someone who begins from the premise of being dissatisfied with the level of service already being provided.
So, my impression is that since you're providing an excuse rather than a solution, you ultimately are willing to say, "we're okay with losing a customer or two in order to continue blogging about our events where we drink with customers, we'll make up the loss by attracting more customers with the parties." That's a valid business decision to make. But there may be a low cost way of managing your public image such that you can continue to have customer development parties with drinking and also keep frustrated customers.
Taking the time to single their comment out and write several paragraphs on why 'it's totally justified to blog about partying' and why 'partying and service problems are totally unconnected phenomena because we work our asses off' seems dismissive not understanding.
The bottom line is that the blog post doesn't do anything to resolve the commenter's complaints. It's really just a long excuse, and not likely to persuade someone who begins from the premise of being dissatisfied with the level of service already being provided.
So, my impression is that since you're providing an excuse rather than a solution, you ultimately are willing to say, "we're okay with losing a customer or two in order to continue blogging about our events where we drink with customers, we'll make up the loss by attracting more customers with the parties." That's a valid business decision to make. But there may be a low cost way of managing your public image such that you can continue to have customer development parties with drinking and also keep frustrated customers.
I can sure imagine customers that would be offended if they were invited to a dinner without drinks. Haven't businesses endorsed the relationship-lubricating capability of alcohol from the day one?
Work hard. Play hard. Recognise when what you're doing is a blend of the two, and always know which of them is the primary aim of any activity.
Massive respect for this quote as a way to back your team: "Truly, it may look like we’re constantly out drinking and goofing off, but I dare you to find anyone on our team that doesn’t work their ass off and care deeply about our service...you’re only fooling yourself if you think otherwise."
Massive respect for this quote as a way to back your team: "Truly, it may look like we’re constantly out drinking and goofing off, but I dare you to find anyone on our team that doesn’t work their ass off and care deeply about our service...you’re only fooling yourself if you think otherwise."