The lax dress code of the open-source community is one of the reasons behind the software’s slow uptake in commercial environments, says former Massachusetts chief information officer (CIO) Peter Quinn.
Quinn, who played a key role in rolling out 50,000 open-source desktops in his home state of Massachusetts in the eastern United States, said “appearance matters” when trying to convince business decision makers of the merits of open-source software.
He pointed to the “sandal and ponytail set” as detracting from the business-ready appearance of open-source technology and blamed the developers for the inertia for business Linux adoption.
The culture of fear was exacerbated by the fact this was an election year in the US.
Quinn, who faced plenty of scrutiny over his support of the OpenDocument standards-based office document format, said proponents of open source in government faced formidable opposition from vested interests if they went public.
“When you think about the lobbying power and the cash that’s available for opponents of open source and opponents of OpenDocument, there is a significant amount of money and resource that people can and will bring to bear,” he said.
You can include good old-fashioned fear of change into the latter half of this discussion.
That, and that the decision makers are spending “company” money and not their own. Easy to ignore the free nature of an open source product when you aren’t using your own money to buy the costly one.
Oh give me a break. Ponytails and beards and sloppy dress have been hallmarks of computer geeks for over 30 years now. This is nothing new.
Let’s see, you can hire people that know what they are doing or you can hire posers that look like they know what they are doing. You know … those people in suits. I am lucky to work in a technical position in a small company where it is casual dress everyday and yes, I have a pony tail. 8-P
Let’s see. I haven’t had a ponytail since — uhm — 1975.
Another reason couldn’t possibly be that sales and marketing people are seen in very low esteem to many developers because they judge people and technologies on appearance instead of performance.
Couldn’t be the software itself, could it?
I think there’s a lot of truth to this – particularly in certain industries (in the Financial industry in particular). I believe one of the reason that OS/2 did so poorly was IBM’s marketing – all the “Warp” commercials showing guys with tattoo’s, body peircing etc turned off a lot of corporate types…
“all the “Warp” commercials…”
My problem with the Warp commercials was that they never told us what the product was. They had nuns talking emailing and surfers talking about surfing the net. But at no point did they ever say, “Warp is a fully 32-bit operating system you can install over Windows 3.1.” What was the point of those ads in prime time if they didn’t want to sell copies to average people?!
I’ve been growing my ponytail for a few years now. I’m not sure when I’ll start cutting it.
This makes perfect sense. The whole open source movement projects this undercurrent of hippe, collectivist, save Mother Earth BS. In the corporate world is (and should be) focused on making money. In the corporate world you want to work with vendors that project something like “I want to make money by helping you make money.”
Haven’t been into wearing my hair long since 1979 or so, and never had a ponytail.
The issue here is that managers are once again forgetting their roots and purchasing software based on a guy with a spiffy suit and showing a spiffy Powerpoint presentation with lots of bullets. Bullets don’t guarantee that the software you’re buying works.
Note that most software licenses have a clause that they don’t warrant for “fitness of purpose.” A test of the real software (not even a demo) is a better guarantee that the software can do what it needs to do in the desired environment (this is of course where open source and freeware have an advantage).
Um… does early balding, scruffy beard and sarcastic humour counts?
As a former longhair (and for clarity, touching the collar isn’t long) I can see both sides of the argument for the wizards to improve their appearance.
You can never escape from the fact that sales people often live and die based on looks but the wizards doing the heavy lifting can only live on skills. A new suit might make a sale but it’ll never, ever recover your lost data.
Open Source/Document advocates certainly need to ‘look the part’ if they’re trying to convince an organization (particularly in a conservative industry or cultural region) to take them seriously and look at the tools with an open mind.
This image perception problem is not Open Sources’ fault per se, but it is their problem in as much as the banks and corporations, the ‘suits’ are not going to change or adapt so the Open Sourcers must…
I got my first job at 19 working on a brand new SparcStation 1 and kept the long hair for 15 years with no regrets but I cannot deny being taken more seriously by some people after I chopped it off….
Yes, some people will buy based upon the looks of the salesperson. I don’t know if you have ever noticed, but the majority of drug detailers (visiting Physicians to push drugs) are attractive women. Most auto salesman dress in slacks and dress shirts, even on the hottest days. And the list goes on.
No one dressed or looking good will ever improve the product. The product need to be good in the first place. But they can sure influence the sale. My hair was half way down my back right up until November, 1999. It was always clean and tied back in public. Even then, I often would be among the minority wearing a tie at a funeral around here.
People who buy on price alone are the same as those who buy on the looks of the salesman.
Yep, suits are for managers and salesmen and for geeks when they talk to the VC guys. From my experience the better you dress the less you think.
I took that excerpt as pertaining to the developers, not the salesman.
Slacker geeks project that they are writing code to develop something “cool” and are simply coding for coding’s sake and only care about the technology they are developing and/or using.
Well groomed and well dressed geeks project that they are writing code to solve a business problem to help them, their employer and customers make money.
In the business world, the business problem being solved is the core, not the technology used to solve it.
> Slacker geeks project that they are writing code to develop
> something “cool” and are simply coding for coding’s sake
> and only care about the technology they are developing
> and/or using.
This is a perfect example of why developers have so little respect for salespeople. I have a degree in economics and have talked circles around salespeople specifically and solely regarding their business purely in business terms and still their eyes glaze over. How you look is so irrelevant as to be comical. The only reason I will dress reasonably in meetings with salespeople is specifically because I know that many are too stupid to base judgment on performance and knowledge and instead will look at what I’m wearing. I vividly remember a meeting with a colleague of mine many years ago when the VP of sales said something to the effect of “you don’t know business” to which my colleague responded “Excuse me. I have over ten years running my own business and I have a Masters in Mechanical Engineering and an MBA. What do you have?”
The fact of the matter is that most businesses are fairly easy to understand and most business people are stunned when a “geek” is able to absorb what they are doing, what their problems are and what the solutions are with a few hours or days. I have found that a far more common problem is businesses that don’t want a solution for political reasons and I’ll grant you that most geeks find politics to be tedious and tiresome.
You and your friend are in the minority. That’s why the trade rags have been pounding for years that “IT needs to learn to speak business”. I’ve known far too many gearheads that only care about technology.
The issue of not wanting solutions for various reasons is a different issue, however I agree with you as I’ve seen that myself a number of times.
Also, once again, the original post said nothing about salespeople. If a salesperson can’t dress professionally to meet with me they’re done before they start because they’re telling me they don’t respect me. We’re talking however about the developers behind the scene. An inablitly to dress professionally denotes a lack of disclipline ans connotes a possible lack of disclipline in other areas of life as well, such as code development.
Personal life and work shuold be separate. Dress professionally at work, do what you want away from work.