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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 ju

by tsally 17y ago

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.

Perceval 17y ago
>...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.

by tsally 17y ago

Perceval 17y ago

>...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.