6 ms·

I'm glad someone wrote this. Dustin Curtis is an ass. An insightful ass, but an ass all the same. Maybe there's no such thing as bad publicity; but while I'll k

• jmtame 17y ago
  i have heard bad things about dustin curtis from friends of mine.. i find it ironic that he's criticizing the moral scruples of others when he has several of his own.
  • jmtulloss 17y ago
    And now you're doing so publicly without actually bringing up any facts? Poor form.
    • jmtame 17y ago
      it's personal, i'm not going into detail. he ripped someone off, and if he wanted to fix it he could. but he chooses not to, and criticizes others for their behaviors. i just find that to be pretty hypocritical.
      • dcurtis 17y ago
        Hey, please email me: hi@dustincurtis.com .
        • diN0bot 17y ago
          jmtame's email is in his profile. http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=jmtame http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=jmtame (no need to keep making public statements...)
          • daleharvey 17y ago
            I think its perfectly acceptable to make a public statement when you have been publicly accused of ripping people off
            • zackattack 17y ago
              I think people should upvote jmtame. He probably wouldn't have gotten any response from Dustin Curtis unless he leveraged the threat of public embarrassment. Similarly, whenever I see a bemmu thread, I point out that he owes me $20, because the only way to bring him out of the woodwork is through social shaming.
        • jmtame 17y ago
          to follow up with all of this: this whole thing got sorted out shortly after bringing it up. seems like it was a misunderstanding on both sides. cheers!
      • jmtulloss 17y ago
        I'm not saying you don't have a reason to be angry at the guy, I'm just saying that an opaque comment questioning somebody's character in a public forum is not appropriate.
        • jmtame 17y ago
          the reason i brought it up here was because he has ignored e-mails in the past. why would he respond to one of my e-mails if he ignored someone else's? he is responding to mine now, and if he makes things right (which he says he is trying to do now), it will have turned out to be a big misunderstanding and i will gladly take back my negative opinion towards him.
        • unalone 17y ago
          I think it adds an appropriate flavoring to the original comment. He's not just starting a thread on the original, which would have been dickish. He added onto the criticism here of Dustin by saying that he'd heard a bad story, and thought Dustin's calling somebody incompetent was ironic considering the story he'd heard. Perhaps I have a biased viewpoint, though, because I was told a similar story that's been flavoring my outlook on this. It's not a story I'd say in public, because it's not mine to tell, but I've been having similar thoughts about Dustin through this mess, and I appreciate that they were stated. I also understand the need to be opaque when it's not your public drama. It's worth throwing in the sentiment if it's relevant, and in this case it is. Perhaps it wasn't inserted very subtly, but it deserves to be here.
      • RWilson 17y ago
        Criticizing Dustin for an incident regarding which you have not sought his side is very poor form. Similarly, criticizing his argument ad hominem highlights only your own bias without refuting or examining any of his points. To quote John Stewart Mill here, "He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side; if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion."
• jeremymims 17y ago
  Wade, After reading this original blog post you wrote, I think it's a bit of a case of the pot calling the kettle black. The only difference is Ford intervened to stop a PR disaster and AA fanned the flames. I know you're well intentioned, but there's no need to resort to name calling. http://voltagecreative.com/blog/2008/12/pr-disaster-ford-suing-people-who-about-ford-cars/ http://voltagecreative.com/blog/2008/12/pr-disaster-ford-sui...
  • davidw 17y ago
    Yes, let's please keep in mind the idea that you'd be comfortable saying what you're writing in your comments directly to someone's face.
    • wmeredith 17y ago
      I am. I was actually assuming that Dustin would read that when I wrote it. (He's posted here before in response to linked articles.) It's OK if he knows I think his writing style makes him look like an ass. I suspect he won't care or more likely already knows it, he's not dumb. Most people that have been publishing anything online that's even remotely well read gets a thick skin or gives up fast.
  • wmeredith 17y ago
    I claimed no superiority over Dustin Curtis in action or demeanor. And I'll stand behind that article I wrote about Ford. It's ludicrous for a company to sue their own fan base. And the second it was found out that was not the case, I started working with both Ford and Scott Monty to get their side of the story out within minutes. (Read the linked article for context.)
• mustpax 17y ago
  In that case, I don't understand why we are celebrating the soul-crushing mediocrity of these Fortune 500 companies. If anything Mr. X's letter made AA look pretty good, and I fail to see what super-secret strategic plans he was airing either. Companies are run by people, it is perfectly reasonable to expect them to make rational decisions that treat their employees with dignity. Dustin might be brash, but he is pointing out obvious problems. It makes no sense to bash him for being 21 and not having yet been turned into a so serious, cynical corporate designer.
  • itistoday 17y ago
    > In that case, I don't understand why we are celebrating the soul-crushing mediocrity of these Fortune 500 companies. I think that bears repeating.
    • DanielStraight 17y ago
      It bears repeating several times. This is more about a clash of cultures than anything else.
  • antonovka 17y ago
    Dustin might be brash, but he is pointing out obvious problems. It makes no sense to bash him for being 21 and not having yet been turned into a so serious, cynical corporate designer. If you're trying to get something useful done, the point isn't to be right, but rather, to convince others of your position. If you're trying to draw attention to yourself at the cost of others, ranting publicly is a fine strategy. To quote the original article: Fire your entire design team, if you have one. Hire an outside design firm ... as quickly as possible. Your in-house team is obviously incapable of building a good experience. It's this brazen self-promotion and a lack of maturity and decorum that causes individuals to "bash him for being 21 and not having yet been turned into a so serious, cynical corporate designer".
    • sineltor 17y ago
      the point isn't to be right, but rather, to convince others of your position. Correct. However, he’s not really trying to convince AA to change their strategy. He’s trying to convince us that AA’s strategy is dumb. Because user interface design is important, and its not ok to foul it up. If the best way to do that is by brashly pointing out AA’s mistakes, so be it. I tip my hat to Dustin for fighting the good fight.
• rantfoil 17y ago
  Hubris? Hubris is a loaded term that is purely subjective. He's one of the most talented designers I know, and he deserves to speak strongly. Humility doesn't need to enter here. A humble designer is one who affects no change indeed. Designers should be less humble. When engineers or business guys or management or anyone makes a product lousier, they should get up and shout, and raise hell. Apple wins because the guy who cares the most about user experience happens to run the show. And last I checked, humble wasn’t really a word you could use to describe him.
  • deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
  • tbrooks 17y ago
    You are equating humility to being an ass-kisser. You can be humble and raise some hell; people will respect you for it. If you're a dick about things, people will soon learn to ignore you. You can dissent and be humble - the two are not mutually exclusive.
    • rantfoil 17y ago
      In the glory days of Microsoft (circa Windows 95), the company culture was very different than in the Ballmer Administration. There used to be a class called 'Precision Questioning' that was specifically about being very efficient at asking very pointed, very direct questions. To the uninitiated, it came across as incredibly rude and disrespectful. But it was effective. Things got done fast, and BS was caught immediately, because the questions that got asked were rude, disrespectful, but vitally needed to make the right decisions. It cut through to the truth as quickly as possible. I think there's something happening here -- being direct and truthful hurts, but to create great things, you have to set aside feelings. Since Ballmer took over the reigns, Microsoft no longer teaches this course to its managers. Kinder and gentler, he said -- but there's a very real cost to kinder and gentler.
      • tbrooks 17y ago
        Microsoft's success (and failure in many areas) extends beyond communication styles. In part, Microsoft developed a "we know best" culture that fails to see both opportunities and hazards. Being so inwardly focused creates a low sense of urgency. Obviously AA and other large corps face the same problem. Still, it is possible have direct/pointed discussions and maintain humility. Take Zappos for example. Two of Zappos core values are 9.Be Passionate and Determined and 10.Be Humble. The two are not in conflict with each other. They've done well, as has Chick-fil-A - another large company that esteems humility.
• kyro 17y ago
  Right, and yet, even with tens of comments here, triggered by Dustin's posts, about how utterly crappy AA's experience is, we shouldn't criticize AA because that's just how big companies are. JetBlue is concerned with all the same factors you listed, and they're great. His posts resulted in a lot people vocalizing their poor experiences with AA. That's what's important, regardless of how he expressed it. I'd say that the harsh way he delivered his message really helped people in expressing their opinions. HN seems a lot softer than I expected.
  • unalone 17y ago
    Softer? Ha, you're mischaracterizing this reaction. We got to be assholes towards American Airlines three times in a row, and now we get to insult the other side. Expect more insulting of AA in the future, too. Though that's tongue-in-cheek, there's a serious cause behind it, which is that we have a community big enough and smart enough to argue both sides. Depending on the source of the article we're commenting on, one side is always louder than others. So on Steve Jobs Is Best CEO, we get more pro-Apple, and on Apple Censored Me, we get more anti-Apple. Smart people on both sides, but each one focusing on a different story. So there're people here who hate AA's site and there're people who think Dustin is pretending a wisdom he doesn't have, and both those people get a place to place their beliefs. I think that's healthy for the community. It lets lurkers see both sides of the discussion. I fear when we become like r/politics on Reddit, where only one side dominates.
    • kyro 17y ago
      Yeah, I get that. People here are just taking cheap shots based on their belief that because Dustin hasn't worked at a big company, his opinion and demand for a better product are invalid. I wonder if people would have said the same had it been a 50yr. old expressing his frustrations just as aggressively. The argument that you need to know about big company to understand why their products are the way they are is a stupid one. I'm sure the majority of AA customers are a lot less knowledgeable than Dustin about these types of things. I guess that makes them more ignorant, which, by people's argument here, should mean they are in a lesser place to express their disappointment. But in reality, they're a customer. Their opinion matters just as much. Also, for the highest voted comment here to open up with "Dustin is an ass" shows that this is far from civilized and intelligent conversation. He's not being judged on the merits of his work, but rather on a personal level. That's low. You idiot. :P