Tuesday, October 25, 1:30pm EST Update - at the request of two individual EllisLab employees. I've removed the screenshots of their tweets from this post.
Tuesday, October 25, 10:20am EST Update - comments are now enabled. We are not moderating them - all comments will be published immediately. However, we reserve the right to delete comments that we believe are inappropriate, hurtful, profane or represent a personal attack. We hope you understand. ^DF
Monday, October 24, 8:15pm EST Update - we will be enabling comments on this post tomorrow morning. In the past, we only had Facebook comments available within our blog section. Since many of us prefer to keep our personal and professional lives separate, I made the decision to delete the FB comment block prior to publishing this post.
After sharing tweets with @ErikReagan, it was decided that a public conversation about this would be a benefit for all of us.
I appreciate your patience with this. I'll tweet an update when the standard EE comment templates are in place. ^DF
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Friday PM: it's not quite 6:30 and it's already dark out.
The darkness is adding to my mood. I'm tired, worn out, a little sad, a little overwhelmed and a little confused.
We're on a bumpy Acela from Penn Station, bound for Providence. Two weeks ago, when I imagined how I'd feel at this time, I was convinced I'd be pumped by all the people we met at EECI2011. I envisioned sitting with Rodrigo, Sue and Dave at a table dreaming up ways we could use the latest tips from EECI to increase our productivity and build better products for our clients.
Instead I'm sitting in the dark watching the Bronx glide by in a blur, trying to make sense of two days that were:
Personally, it was a challenging week:
Given this, it's possible that my emotional compass is a little off-center. It's probably why I'm staring out the window trying to determine if EECI2011 was a benefit or a bust. One thing is certain - I don't think I'll be able to finish this blog post tonight. This post will need some time to breath.
Professional Ethics
Let me state this unequivocally -- Paul Burton (@16toads) gave an excellent presentation.
Based on the title, "Don't Call Me a Freelancer" I didn't know what to expect, but throughout his talk I found myself nodding along - agreeing with many points, and wishing I had heard portions of the talk 4 years ago when I quit my last full-time job to begin my career as a self-employed developer. Paul is an excellent speaker and his talk was filled with not only interesting tidbits, but fundamental advice for how to be successfully self-employed.
The message that resonated with me the most was "Build an ethical foundation." It contained the following bullets:
I loved and agreed with every part of this, so why did I tweet this when it was over?
Because Paul had three slides (out of 90) that included NSFW content (drawings) and he occasionally fell back on an f-bomb to emphasize a point.
During Paul's talk, I laughed at the first slide (dildos with party hats), but the visual was a shock to me - not because it was dildos (I'd like to believe that I'm difficult to offend), but because I was stunned that an image like that would be included in a presentation about professionalism and ethics.
As the talk progressed, Paul used profanity occasionally to reinforce a point. Again, I'll admit to being surprised, but not offended.
By the time Paul hit the 20th slide (a drawing of a man looking at porn on his computer), I wasn't laughing. Instead, I glanced to my left where @20MileSue was staring at the screen - seemingly stunned at the imagery that was being displayed in this presentation on "how to be professional".
At slides 59-60 (statements about marriage and a NSFWish drawing of a woman holding a contract between her legs) I wasn't only not laughing, I was wondering what was going to happen next.
Here's What Happened Next
Sue Malomo published the following tweet "Talking about a code of ethics and commanding respect and then showing a slide w/cartoon of porn? Just lost respect for @16toads #eeci2011".
It got a few retweets, but also got some "relax, he's being funny" replies. Here's a sampling of some of those tweets. Please know that I don't mean to take these out of context, nor do I pretend to speak for any of these individuals. However, the message in these tweets speaks to the larger issue of how we will be viewed as a community. Each one of these tweets is from a person I'd consider a leader in the EE community (Ellis Lab employee, speaker at EECI and/or Pro Network Members):
There were more than this, but I think you get the point - people in positions of authority within the EE community were publicly OK with the presentation while it was going on.
Where Do We Go From Here
I've spent almost 15 years as a vendor in the trade show/conference industry. I've personally fielded complaints from sponsors and attendees about presentations. I've been in meetings where speakers were asked to formally apologize for the content in their presentations, and I've watched as refunds and free tickets were offered to attendees who were unhappy with their experience. My point - I've seen bad presentations. Paul's was not.
In my opinion, Paul Burton is guilty of only one thing - questionable decision making. The current uproar simmering over his talk is definitely not in line with what I watched. Paul is being unfairly treated by hundreds of people who didn't see his presentation, have not had the opportunity to speak with him, and who have placed an excessive weighting on a few slides.
Having said that, I also believe that this would have gone away within minutes if Paul spoke up on twitter and offered an apology and/or an explanation for the content of the slides.
Fair or not, Ellis Lab, the ExpressionEngine Community and Whooz! Media now face an image crisis. The perception is that we condone gender bias. It doesn't matter that the women with whom I spoke couldn't care less about the gender issues. It doesn't matter that the complaints I heard focused NOT on the content of the images, but rather on the lack of professionalism within the presentation. It doesn't matter that on a scale of 1-10, the level of "pornography" in Paul's slide was a 1.5 (personal opinion). What does matter is the perception that we're promoting a frat boy mentality in a profession that has an historical problem finding and keeping women.
Perhaps even worse (@ least in my opinion) --> the tweets that I showed above, the lack of official announcement on this from Ellis Lab and the comments of "I'm not offended, you shouldn't be either" - all point to a lack of empathy. If we can't understand why there's frustration and anger over this issue, we'll fail to evolve as a community and the perception that we're a bunch of frat boys is all that we'll be left with.
If I was in charge
Mainly because I hate when people point out a problem without offering a solution ... If I was Leslie Camacho or Robert Eerhart I would do the following:
I've been a happy, proud member of the ExpressionEngine Community for over three years. I don't know anyone at Ellis Lab or Whooz Media personally (I don't consider twitter conversations a personal relationship), but I have watched the way that both organizations carry themselves and interact with the community. They both appear to be reasonable, honorable, ethical companies staffed by people who work hard for our community and consistently go above and beyond to ensure that we will be proud of them.
I know that they'll do the right thing.
A note about comments
We have comments turned off for our blog. I'd love to engage anyone in a discussion on this, but I'd prefer to do so through email, twitter or a phone call.
Dave Fravel
dfravel@20miletech.com
508-419-7439 (office)
508-776-4019 (mobile)
@dfravel
Monday, October 24, 8:15pm EST Update - we will be enabling comments on this post tomorrow morning. In the past, we only had Facebook comments available within our blog section. Since many of us prefer to keep our personal and professional lives separate, I made the decision to delete the FB comment block prior to publishing this post.
After sharing tweets with @ErikReagan, it was decided that a public conversation about this would be a benefit for all of us.
I appreciate your patience with this. I'll tweet an update when the standard EE comment templates are in place. ^DF
