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We are not normal people

justinjackson.ca

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Re: We are not normal people

#91

Post by eclipxe »

amagumori wrote: post #89
acangiano wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my Technical Blogging book I wrote the following on marketing: -- Correct a Self-Sabotaging Mindset -- Marketing is bullshit. Marketing is evil. Marketing is everything that’s wrong with this world. Marketing is the root of all evil. Marketers should be shot. I have heard all these statements—and plenty more like them. If you agree with any of them, you are not alone in your dislike of marketing. I’ve found that t…

no offense...but you couldn't even reply to him without marketing your book? this also occurred in the OP, where you get to the bottom of his post and it's revealed that the whole thing was supposed to get you interested in his book. this is why i fucking hate marketing. nothing is genuine, everything has an ulterior motive. it destroys peoples' authenticity and trustworthiness.

Such is life my friend. Developing a sense of authenticity and trustworthiness is what separates good marketing from bad marketing. Being opportunistic is bad marketing. But contrast the above post with someone like patio11. We all know him, we respect him (at least I do). If anyone ever needed appointment reminder software or bingo cards, well I know where I'm sending them. That is good marketing. Patrick doesn't end his posts on HN with a sales pitch. He offers quality content, is authentic and genuine....but at the same time, the work he does in the community here is a form of "marketing".

Re: We are not normal people

#92

Post by CodeMage »

I agree with the underlying message, which is to listen to your market. I just feel that the example Justin used is somewhat unfortunate, because I feel it describes a missed opportunity.

Of course the barber doesn't think he needs anything beyond a better paper calendar, but what do his customers think? Would they, perhaps, prefer to book online instead of over the phone?

I guess that what I'm trying to say is that you should definitely listen to your customers, but you shouldn't let that blind you. It's like that Henry Ford quote: "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses." The problem, of course, is that very few people are Henry Ford material ;)

Re: We are not normal people

#93

Post by calroc »

janj wrote: post #21

I'm one of those developers who thinks that marketing in general is 'scummy' and this article has done nothing to change that perception. I'm willing to acknowledge that there can exist marketing that is not scummy but it's hard for me to think of real world examples. Can someone describe for me the difference between scummy marketing and, I guess I'll call it 'ethical' marketing? I love building things that people e…

My dad was a salesman, and a really good one. He absolutely maintained that it was both counter-productive and morally wrong to sell people things that they didn't actually need or want.

On the other hand, if you have a product you believe in, that is high-quality, and that improves the lives of the customers who could really use it, he felt it was morally wrong NOT to sell it to them.

YMMV.

Re: We are not normal people

#94

Post by snaky »

pstack wrote: post #76
janj wrote: post #21

I'm one of those developers who thinks that marketing in general is 'scummy' and this article has done nothing to change that perception. I'm willing to acknowledge that there can exist marketing that is not scummy but it's hard for me to think of real world examples. Can someone describe for me the difference between scummy marketing and, I guess I'll call it 'ethical' marketing? I love building things that people e…

This article: 1. Create a short article repeating common sense that everyone should know. 2. JOIN MY MAILING LIST!

The problem with that kind of articles: it works.

Re: We are not normal people

#95

Post by sp332 »

amagumori wrote: post #89
acangiano wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my Technical Blogging book I wrote the following on marketing: -- Correct a Self-Sabotaging Mindset -- Marketing is bullshit. Marketing is evil. Marketing is everything that’s wrong with this world. Marketing is the root of all evil. Marketers should be shot. I have heard all these statements—and plenty more like them. If you agree with any of them, you are not alone in your dislike of marketing. I’ve found that t…

no offense...but you couldn't even reply to him without marketing your book? this also occurred in the OP, where you get to the bottom of his post and it's revealed that the whole thing was supposed to get you interested in his book. this is why i fucking hate marketing. nothing is genuine, everything has an ulterior motive. it destroys peoples' authenticity and trustworthiness.

How do you figure it's not genuine? It's on-topic and exactly answers the question.

Re: We are not normal people

#96

Post by itsokintheory »

Posts with a similar sentiment seem to appear on HN occasionally. I find it entirely reasonable, but it's also quite banal compared to research on product design done by people in Participatory Design[1] and User-centered Design[2]. It has often surprised me how limited many North American PMs and software designers seem to be in their knowledge of these areas.

[1] http://hci.stanford.edu/publications/bds/14-p-partic.html [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User-centered_design

Re: We are not normal people

#97

Post by WalterBright »

I get told constantly that not only am I not a normal person, I'm not a normal programmer. This is in the context of me listing things I'd like to see in a product.

The irony is that when I build a product that I'm told that "normal" people/programmers will want, it usually fails. When I build a product that I would use myself, with weird features I'm told nobody wants, it does well.

Re: We are not normal people

#98

Post by j_baker »

janj wrote: post #21

I'm one of those developers who thinks that marketing in general is 'scummy' and this article has done nothing to change that perception. I'm willing to acknowledge that there can exist marketing that is not scummy but it's hard for me to think of real world examples. Can someone describe for me the difference between scummy marketing and, I guess I'll call it 'ethical' marketing? I love building things that people e…

You cannot not market something. Even a lack of marketing is a form of marketing ("Customers perceive marketing as being scummy! Let's not market!"). The fact is, customers make decisions based on perceptions rather than on reality. The goal of marketing should be to make sure those perceptions match reality. Marketing becomes "scummy" when it creates perceptions that are out of line with reality. Marketing becomes ineffective when it creates perceptions that are worse than reality or it creates no perceptions at all. The sweet spot is when you have a marketing message that is in line with reality and presents your product's strengths well.

Re: We are not normal people

#99

Post by j_baker »

pessimizer wrote: post #85

I don't know who "we" is, but there's nothing abnormal about programmers as programmers. Currently the profession is dominated by a few narrow demographics which have a limited understanding of people outside of those demographics, but that's a social issue, not one that comes along with technical competence. My major problem with dealing with clients/customers that I'm doing custom work for is that instead of tellin…

I don't even think that this is even a case of that. The writer is obviously not a programmer (he even uses the "Some of my best friends are x" line where x is some type of person you are trying to convince people you don't hate). It seems to me that the writer is trying to peg programmers into a hole where all we do is say "We have to do this with the newest CSS Framework using the neatest database and the coolest programming language." And I think that's clearly a load of crap.

What bothers me most about this is the idea that programmers are some kind of underclass that just doesn't get "normal" people. The truth is that we're people too who have a lot of the same needs as "normal" people.

Re: We are not normal people

#100

Post by pessimizer »

j_baker wrote: post #99
pessimizer wrote: post #85

I don't know who "we" is, but there's nothing abnormal about programmers as programmers. Currently the profession is dominated by a few narrow demographics which have a limited understanding of people outside of those demographics, but that's a social issue, not one that comes along with technical competence. My major problem with dealing with clients/customers that I'm doing custom work for is that instead of tellin…

I don't even think that this is even a case of that. The writer is obviously not a programmer (he even uses the "Some of my best friends are x " line where x is some type of person you are trying to convince people you don't hate). It seems to me that the writer is trying to peg programmers into a hole where all we do is say "We have to do this with the newest CSS Framework using the neatest database and the coolest…

You're probably right. I may have been making the mistake of thinking that he was representative of a some large contingent of programmers just because of the "we." Marketing works:)
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