anti-advocacy advocacy

[Martin DeMello]

http://www.perl.com/pub/a/2000/12/advocacy.html

Interesting read, and most of the points he makes are very relevant to
the ruby community.

martin

 

[William Crawford]

http://www.perl.com/pub/a/2000/12/advocacy.html

Interesting read, and most of the points he makes are very relevant to
the ruby community.

martin

2 words: "Vocal Minority."

Yes, in every situation, there were very vocal people who will speak
their minds and give their highly ego-centric opinions. The fact that
it's hard or impossible to hear anyone else over them doesn't mean they
are right or in the majority.

I'll even go as far as to say he's fallen into his own trap. He
-expects- people to advocate, and sees that in everything that happens.
His Perl linked-lists example is the perfect example. He expects people
to think he's advocating and would write his FAQ accordingly. The FAQ
writer (Avi) was shocked that he thought this way. The ML/Perl Typing
example is another great one. The question "But what's wrong with the
way Perl does it?" can be re-worded as "How is it better than Perl's
way?" This is not advocacy, or expectation of advocacy, but a simple
comparison to what the user already knows: Perl's way.

And the last reason for this being the Vocal Minority... Why would you
try to spread the word about something if you were -not- advocating it?
(Or trying to persuade people not to use it, I suppose.) You wouldn't.
So expectation of advocacy in a blog or presentation is not unrealistic.
You have a -reason- to be letting others know about the item, and it's
probably that you like it and want others to use it/know about it also.

I agree about the sports fans, though. But I think it's a different
reason. Fans don't pick their teams on logic. It's cultural and
emotional. And in order to enjoy it fully, they heavily invest
themselves in these emotional ties. They gain nothing from complacency
and everything from zealotry. Expect them to truly care when they
answer surveys about their sport. Even if there's no logic in the
caring.

 

[Florian Frank]

Fans don't pick their teams on logic. It's cultural and emotional.

Yeah, that's so totally different from why programmers chose their
favorite programming language.

 

[Robert Klemme]

http://www.perl.com/pub/a/2000/12/advocacy.html

Interesting read, and most of the points he makes are very relevant to
the ruby community.

Just to throw in my 0.02 EUR... Although there is some advocacy of the
kind that Mark describes going on in here I also find that - compared to
other forums - the percentage of reasonable comments is higher. (IOW:
since Ruby is The Light, its community is as well. )

Kind regards

robert

 

[Hal Fulton]

I agree about the sports fans, though. But I think it's a different
reason. Fans don't pick their teams on logic. It's cultural and
emotional. And in order to enjoy it fully, they heavily invest
themselves in these emotional ties. They gain nothing from complacency
and everything from zealotry. Expect them to truly care when they
answer surveys about their sport. Even if there's no logic in the
caring.

Sometimes I wonder if people exercise logic in their choice
of software tools, or in any other area of life.

Hal

 

[William Crawford]

I think you missed a point he was trying to make about the FAQ. If you
answer with only, "Linked Lists are not required" then you risk a
conclusing that Perl is bad because it is incapable of doing a simple
task like linked lists. It's a legitimate defensive position to take.

No, I got the point... I was merely commenting on his reason vs the
FAQ-writer's reason. They ended up in the same place, but the
FAQ-writer was surprised at his reasoning.

What is Ruby's position to the question, "Is it fast?". Is the answer
a simple, "No" or is it more to the effect of "Ruby is fast enough in
production but even faster in development"? I've typically heard the
second answer.

Simple benchmarking shows Ruby to be considerably slower than Perl --
for
me. Is it fast enough? When my development logs in rails says I can
hit 300 pages / second it's fast enough -- for me.


Because it has some interesting features, fast development, and may
prove
to be something really worthwhile. Developers should be aware of what
else is on the horizon that people are excited about.

But I'm not going to risk advocating it in a production environment with
over a million dollars a day passing through it. Not until I have a
*LOT* more personal experience with the details.

Eh, I don't get where you were going here. You are saying you DO
advocate people learn/learn about Ruby outside of a work environment.
Blogs are often outside of a work environment also. But that actually
has nothing to do with the fact that if you write in a blog, you are
telling other people about something with little or no expectation of a
response. This is advocating. (Or the opposite, of course.) Nobody
makes wikipedia-entry type blog posts that have no bias. People do,
however, ask and answer questions with no bias when asked in a
conversation. (On the internet or off, doesn't matter.)

(I hope the torches are locked up...) I don't yet advocate Ruby for
anything. I don't know it well enough. But if asked, I would explain
that most Ruby programmers enjoy programming Ruby more than any other
language, and feel they are a -lot- more productive at it. I have no
proof, and I don't feel this way personally (yet, anyhow) but I can say
this totally non-biased. If I made a blog post, I am not answering
someone's question but actively seeking to give my opinion on it. There
would be no point in a blog post telling what others think that I don't
have enough experience in myself.

But then, IANAB. I don't blog. Maybe I totally misunderstand the alure
of blogging and it's actually just a place to beat your chest and
pretend you're wonderful. (I sure hope not, because that says bad
things about all of society.) Maybe they do just write to be read, and
don't care what they're saying. Totally possible.

 

[Chad Perrin]

Just to throw in my 0.02 EUR... Although there is some advocacy of the
kind that Mark describes going on in here I also find that - compared to
other forums - the percentage of reasonable comments is higher. (IOW:
since Ruby is The Light, its community is as well. )

. . as opposed to The Heat, which conjures all the wrong notions.

 

[Tom Allison]

But then, IANAB. I don't blog.

Blind leading the blind... I don't blog either!!!!

 

[John Johnson]

It actually was somewhat interesting. It goes without saying that you
get a
lot of advantages if you can induce other people to see things your way.

Very interesting read, indeed.

One point that adovacy of anything computer related has going against it
is most of the people in "IT" are weinies, with a deficit of social skills
(myself included). Not everyone, but a disproportinate number.

Advocacy is most influential to me when it is presented as "This is why I
like ..." (after I ask), rather than "You should ..." Those "shoulds" are
the mark of a zealot.

Regards,
JJ

 

[Jeremy Henty]

Advocacy is most influential to me when it is presented as "This is
why I like ..." (after I ask), rather than "You should ..."

I think the *most* influential advocacy goes "If *your* needs include
.... then *this* will meet your needs because ...". The person you're
targeting probably doesn't care in the least what you like or why you
like it, they just want to know if it will yield value for them.

Regards,

Jeremy Henty

 

[Tom Allison]

I think the *most* influential advocacy goes "If *your* needs include
... then *this* will meet your needs because ...". The person you're
targeting probably doesn't care in the least what you like or why you
like it, they just want to know if it will yield value for them.

Regards,

Jeremy Henty

Doesn't advocacy == marketing ?

 

[William Crawford]

Doesn't advocacy == marketing ?

Marketing typically implies being paid. Advocacy just means that you
are encouraging others to use something.

It is quite common now for celebrities to be a paid advocate now, of
course, but that doesn't mean they can't/don't do it just because they
like the product.

I think it's pretty obvious that the less famous someone is, the less
likely it is they are being paid to advocate and the more likely that
they actually just like the product so much that they think others
should use it.

Unfortunately, companies have recently figured out how to get the
unwashed masses to advertise/advocate for them and we call that 'viral
marketing.' It's quite effective with the sheeple.

 

[Chad Perrin]

Doesn't advocacy == marketing ?

Strictly speaking, not necessarily. Advocacy is basically about
convincing people that something is good. Marketing is about fueling
the revenue stream. Advocacy, even when wildly successful, can
sometimes actually reduce profitability, and can sometimes run at
cross-purposes to marketing.

For instance, a lot of Linux advocacy actually diverts people who might
otherwise give money to Red Hat toward community-based distributions.

For many purposes, however, advocacy and marketing are roughly
equivalent.

 

[Chad Perrin]

Unfortunately, companies have recently figured out how to get the
unwashed masses to advertise/advocate for them and we call that 'viral
marketing.' It's quite effective with the sheeple.

In some really egregious cases, we call it "astroturfing".

 

[James Britt]

In some really egregious cases, we call it "astroturfing".

"astroturfing" is a great word, for an interesting concept, but a
different thing from viral marketing.

Of course, groups engaged in astroturfing may use viral marketing among
their tools to bamboozle people.

--
James Britt

http://web2.0validator.com - We're the Dot in Web 2.0
http://www.rubyaz.org - Hacking in the Desert
http://www.jamesbritt.com - Playing with Better Toys

 

[David Morton]

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Which answers the original question, because advocacy is what
fanatics do,
and marketing is what salespeople do. Fanatics will try to "sell"
you what
they are offering up to and including blowing you up. Salespeople
don't do
that, because next week they will need to sell you something else.

Advocacy could also simply mean someone who is passionate about
something, because it is good. Whereas marketing takes place all the
time for bad products; the salesman may not actually approve of the
product.



David Morton
Maia Mailguard http://www.maiamailguard.com
(e-mail address removed)



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[Rick DeNatale]

Which answers the original question, because advocacy is what fanatics do,

Actually not necessarily.

Advocacy is simply supporting an idea, person, or cause, usually
involving representing, speaking or pleading for that idea, person or
cause.

An advocate is someone who practices advocacy.

This is why lawyers are called advocates. Actually this is a bit
backwards since the word advocate comes from a term in Roman law for
one who called witnesses, and morphed into meaning lawyer and then the
more general term. And while some lawyers might be fanatics, many
aren't and even those who are, some aren't fanatics for the ideas,
persons or causes they advocate.

 

[William Crawford]

Do you have a job? If you do, and it wasn't given to you by your mother,
than you *have* sold something in your life ;-)

I have to disagree there. A night stock clerk at a grocery store never
sells anything. An intern programmer at a corporation never sells
anything. (Until he wants to be promoted, and then he's got to sell an
idea, but I think that's pushing the meaning a bit here.)

Anyhow, selling things and being a salesman are 2 different things. I
was a 'consultative sales associate' at a tech store once. My position
was basically salesman, but they didn't call it that because they don't
pay commission. I workd that job for a year and a half, and I now know
for sure that I am -not- a salesman. I can explain things all day long,
but when it comes to trying to complete the sale, I stink. I don't do
add-ons, I don't 'close', and I don't actually care if the customer buys
-today-. (I care about the company, but I just happen to care about the
customers more.)

 

[William Crawford]

William, you walked right past the point. Unless you get a job through
nepotism, you have to sell *yourself* in order to get the job in the
first
place. (And even with nepotism, sales is involved because your
mother/father/uncle/political-patron has to convince his/her associate
to
give you the job.)

I see your point, but I disagree. You are much more likely to get the
job if you 'sell yourself' in the interview, resume, etc... But if you
simply describe yourself with no attempt at spin, you can and will still
get a job. (I did, several times.)

As before, there's quite a difference between selling a product and
simply explaining what it is. I suck at selling.

And oddly enough, my mother -did- get me my first job. She went ot the
local grocery store, got me and application, made me fill it out, and
took it back. Bam, I had a job. Yeah, I'll agree there was some
selling there, but not on my part.

I'll admit the point of sales and advocacy being related, though... You
are definitely trying to convince others to use the product in both
cases.

 

[Francis Cianfrocca]

I see your point, but I disagree. You are much more likely to get the
job if you 'sell yourself' in the interview, resume, etc... But if you
simply describe yourself with no attempt at spin, you can and will still
get a job. (I did, several times.)

As before, there's quite a difference between selling a product and
simply explaining what it is. I suck at selling.

William, I cretainly don't mean to beat this to death, especially
since you may be one of the many technologists who, with some
justification, take a dim view of "sales" because in a lot of
companies the sales department can be the opponent of great
technology.

Every person is different, and there are many ways of persuading (or
selling, or advocating). Think about how you yourself react to sales
pitches. With a lot of people, especially technically oriented ones,
the *best* way to persuade is to present facts in a clear and unbiased
way, and to be honest about shortcomings and about the potential
advantages of competitors. I'd suggest that, based on your
description, that is the sales technique you have used to get your
jobs ;-). If you have a job, then you obviously suck less at selling
than you think.

There are some people who have the weird ability to sell things they
don't necessarily believe in (trial lawyers and Bill Clinton come to
mind). But *most* people can be very effective advocates for something
they *do* believe in.