My talk at the Business Innovation Factory 4 conference in Providence, RI last month. While you’re at it, be sure to watch Tony from Zappos, Dennis Littky walking the walk on school reform, Matt Cottam rethinking the nursing home experience, and Colonel Dean Esserman (from last year’s conference).
Sam
on 12 Nov 08I wish I could watch this video, but I’m working from home and my 3-year old is running around, and your video is rated R for language.
Even if she wasn’t here, I’m not interested enough in what you’re saying to endure the potty mouth.
The whole “language for emphasis” things is dead. Now it just reeks of arrogance. “I’m so important, I don’t care who I offend. If you don’t like it, go away, I don’t need you.”
JF
on 12 Nov 08The whole “I’m offended” thing is dead. Couldn’t I charge you with offending me by calling me arrogant? That is a direct attack, after all. My swearing had nothing to do with you. It wasn’t about you. It wasn’t personal in any way. It wasn’t a response to anything you said, anything you did, or anything you believe. You, on the other hand, directly attacked my character. Which is more offensive?
I’ll leave it with a quote Matt referenced a few days ago on another post that offended someone else because he said “shit”...
“Stop Looking for Occasions to Be Offended: If you have enough faith in your own beliefs, you’ll find that it’s impossible to be offended by the beliefs and conduct of others…You are the way you are, and so are those around you. Most likely they will never be just like you. So stop expecting those who are different to be what you think they should be. It’s never going to happen.” -Dr. Wayne W. Dyer
Matt B
on 12 Nov 08I can’t seem to find anything about this with google/searching for it, but is there a specific blog post about 37 signals not hiring anyone “who doesn’t use a mac”?
Stijn Goris
on 12 Nov 08Jason, you should also check Heston Blumenthal. He is a British chef who made a couple of books and television series for BBC. He has a very original approach to preparing food. His dishes are complex and time consuming but he takes the time to explain principles rather than just following recipes (and not knowing why you use certain ingredients). Highly recommended!
haha
on 12 Nov 08haha! when are u fucking dumbass yanks going to learn to say aluminium… u always sound like, i don’t know, strange… queer… dog fuckers… when you say that word… try listening to a brit, but don’t change too much… it fucking cracks me way the shit up!
JF
on 12 Nov 08Thanks for the recommendation, Stijn. I’ll check him out.
haha
on 12 Nov 08troll??? wtf??? its true, its just funny to us on the other side of the pond, nothing else… and using your language, jason, i thought i’d make a comment in the same line as your post…
Raul
on 12 Nov 08Why do you think leaders world-wide do not publicly swear?
Is it because they cannot? Does it have no correlation to who they are and how they got there?
What exactly do you think swearing publicly achieves that insert-your-favorite-leader-here could not achieve without it?
haha
on 12 Nov 08stop looking to be offended, jason… If you have enough faith in your own pronunciation, you’ll find that it’s impossible to be offended by the pronunciation and sounds of others…You sound the way you do, and so do those around you. Most likely they will never pronounce “aluminium” just like you. So stop expecting those who sound different to be what you think they should sound like. It’s never going to happen.” -Dr. Wayne Kerr
haha
on 12 Nov 08come on jason… i think my last comment deserves royalty!!!
Steve
on 12 Nov 08The whole “I’m offensive, it’s who I am, get over it” is dead. There are some things that are offensive to people whether we like it or not, and sometimes it’s a good thing to respect that. What it sounds like you are saying is that you really don’t care if your R-rated language offends anyone, even if they tell you it does. That’s when it becomes personal.
Sam
on 12 Nov 08@JF-
I just don’t want my 3 year old daughter hearing the F word.
I didn’t think I had to watch out for that when viewing a video from the “Business Innovation Factory4 Conference.”
I guess I do, so I’ll know not to watch it next time, thanks.
Kevin
on 12 Nov 08I really like 37s. I like their products, attitude and their theories. I like pretty much everything they do.
However, the seemingly ever present sprinkles of profanity in so many of their public presentations, is disappointing. I’m not “offended”, it is simply disappointing.
JF
on 12 Nov 08Raul, I’m not a world leader speaking to the public. I run a small private company in Chicago that makes software. I choose to swear sometime when I give talks in private to certain audiences or when I write on my own blog. I wouldn’t sit down with your grandmother over tea and spout off and I wouldn’t choose certain words if I was speaking to a group of 8 year old kids and their parents. You also won’t find those words in our products or on the product sites. But in certain situations where I feel comfortable being myself among adults I’ll let out a word or two. As a whole the audience seems to enjoy it too. It’s all about context.
That’s all I’m saying about this point. Moving on.
Steve
on 12 Nov 08And as a side note to my comment above, your quote from Dr. Dyer is rather contradictory. It’s pretty much saying that we should stop trying to want people to be like ourselves, and start to be like those who don’t get offended. He’s trying to make others into something they are not, and he’s expecting those who are different from him to change, which is what he said we should stop doing.
Sam
on 12 Nov 08JF- It’s not just “grandmas and kids” that don’t like swearing. By the comments here, it’s clear that many adults don’t like it as well.
But I’m sorry, I should not try to change how you feel about swearing any more than you should try to change how I feel about it.
If I don’t like it, I should simply not listen.
J
on 12 Nov 08Re: World Leaders… You know what is deeply offensive? When they lie. They can swear all they want if they are telling the truth. But when they lie to the public and treat the public like uninformed children, well, that is offensive.
Anonymous Coward
on 12 Nov 08What the hell is going on here? I was expecting Andrew Dice Clay talking about software development based on these comments. What I got was a wonderful video talking about diversifying your education and business practices. Why is everyone ignoring the valuable things he was talking about? Argh!
Warren Benedetto
on 12 Nov 08Sorry to distract from the incredibly compelling dialog going on here about the costs/benefits of having a potty mouth (seriously, who gives a shit?), but for what it’s worth …
That was a great talk. What amazes me about 37Signals’ philosophy is that it should totally be common sense. It’s all no-brainer stuff … yet I’ve somehow never thought of it before, and it therefore feels fresh and revolutionary. I appreciate the teaching, and I feel fortunate to be part of the audience. Thank you.
Now, back to our regularly scheduled flame war …
rishi
on 12 Nov 08That was very very valuable! Really enjoyed the talk. Thanks
Gregor
on 12 Nov 08Very inspiring talk, Jason. And I’ve to admit: you are right. A book by a tv cook is #1 at amazon in Germany
Nick
on 12 Nov 08You might be surprised, but that’s cause everyone here already learned and discussed all the valuable things from that video in previous SvN posts.
So if there is anything new it’s Jason swearing. I like that, I think it enlivens language, but other people don’t think so and moreover take it personally which is really amazing.
You could like that kind of swearing or not, but you don’t really EXPECT it. And that’s all what is wrong with this video. “If it were a movie, it would be rated R for language.” label would fix that perfectly.
Talk about the importance of setting expectations. :)
merle
on 12 Nov 08People swear more when they are young. I think it starts to taper off as you get older. I think the demographic of 37Signals is still in that swear zone.
Grant
on 13 Nov 08Jason, the Dyer quote is now one of my new favorites. Thanks!
Trevor Feeney
on 13 Nov 08Is there anywhere one can find out where you will be speaking Jason? I’m in Vancouver and would love to check out one of your talks at some point if you’re ever nearby.
JF
on 13 Nov 08Trevor: At this time I don’t have any big talks scheduled until February of next year. And those are all on the east coast.
Joe S
on 13 Nov 08Jason, probably worth considering that if the swearing caused this much discussion, it was a distraction from your message in the eyes of some people (a few? many? who knows). The ultimate decision then becomes – is it worth it? Food for thought.
Great talk though, enjoyed it at work (b/c i had headphones on).
WT
on 13 Nov 0837signals #1 message is that we get things done on our own terms… I am shocked if anyone who knows anything about the company should be surprised that they don’t self-censor language.
Alan Smithee
on 13 Nov 08Jason Fried is a simpleton.
The entire premise of this argument is bankrupt.
The foodnetwork and their stars are manufactured personalities. Their entire identity (PBS aside) is a marketing effort. They ARE the ones spending money to sell you stuff (and many of them are douches).
The irony here is that Fried’s argument (not his intended argument) is an amazingly accurate reflection of 37signals’s strategy.
They’ve cultivated a cult of personality. They’re a marketing effort. They are unwilling to admit their faults (it’s not a bug it’s a feature! Just buy more servers!), and they have little interest in communicating with their ecosystem at large. They want to be seen as the sole solution, regardless of the problem.
JF
on 13 Nov 08They’ve cultivated a cult of personality. They’re a marketing effort. They are unwilling to admit their faults (it’s not a bug it’s a feature! Just buy more servers!), and they have little interest in communicating with their ecosystem at large. They want to be seen as the sole solution, regardless of the problem.
I’ll take the bait.
1. Which faults are you referring to? We’re happy to admit to them if we think they are faults. We’ve made plenty of mistakes and talked about many of them openly. We’re as open as any other company I know. But be careful to classify a differing opinion as a fault. If we don’t agree with you that doesn’t make us at fault. If we don’t add a feature you want, it’s not a fault of the product, it’s a different take on what that product should be.
2. Have little interest in communicating with our eco system at large? How’s that? We blog every day. Every one of our blog posts allows comments. We often respond to other people’s comments about our posts (see!!?). We often post comments on other people’s blogs as well. We have open customer forums where we participate. We use Twitter to broadcast and respond/discuss. We speak at conferences and make it habit to do more Q&A than anyone else. We do 37signals Live sessions where anyone can ask us a question and we answer it live. I’d say we’re about as open and conversational as any company that exists today.
3. We want to be seen as the sole solution? I don’t even know what you mean by that. If our product isn’t the right fit for a customer or a prospective customer we encourage them to find the one that is. It’s more important to us that they are happy with someone else’s product than unhappy with ours. Of course we try to make them happy, but we can’t make everyone happy. And sometimes the changes to make one person happy will make 100 unhappy. So it’s always a balancing act.
Alan Smithee
on 13 Nov 08Ah, i should address something more specifically. You clearly see yourselves as primarily a company who produces products for customers. This pov is, in my opinion, an abdication of a greater responsibility you have as an organization around whom an ecosystem has developed. You can claim that you are simply a customer facing company who contributes to opensource, but that’s not really true.
You’ve rallied a lot of developer frustration around rails, and as it grew, took increasing control of the identity of the movement. At this point you run a conference, scratch that, THE conference dedicated to rails (which costs an exorbitant amount of money to attend), you’ve taken control of the brand identity of rails (trademark, logo and all), and control all of the commit keys to the framework.
You’ve benefited tremendously, i’d go so far as to say disproportionately, to those who joined the rails community (and the key there is the disproportion. You are certainly due credit and riches for what you’ve helped to build). If rails is your baby, then you’ve got a responsibility to those who’ve picked up the framework, and helped drive your market. If it’s not, then you’re profiteering.
1) The sense i refer to is the lack of recognition of, and dismissal of things that are problems. The servers issue is a good example. There has been a massive amount of work that has been poured into rails deployment and platform work, primarily because of the serious lack of attention paid to the subject, and more importantly the lack of recognition that this was a problem that people were dealing with. If there’s no recognition from the core team who control access into the repo, then all solutions have to either be worked around the framework (which has been done to amazing effect). Rails does scale, but it’s taken a long time for the framework to catch up to the work that the rest of the community has contributed to get it there.
And to be frank, that’s not an issue with differences of opinions. If use of rails requires a whole separate ecosystem to develop around not fucking up deployment, there’s a problem core to the framework that’s not being addressed. Likewise, there’s a reason why every single HTML & JS dev i know hates Microsoft. A disproportionate amount of time is spent on making sure code works for IE. A lot of effort has gone into rails deployment.
2) is difficult if you have a problem with 1) to be honest. There is a difference between being present, and actually responding to the needs of your community (as per the responsibility i believe you have). Telling people to fuck off as often as you guys do, is part of this problem. There is a difference when you are simply part of the community (as in the world of OSS) in being opinionated, and holding the bully pulpit as you do.
3) I’m not talking about your company (and would refer back to the opening of this post).
Anyway, thanks for the opportunity for catharsis. I’ve got to go do real work, unfortunately.
And you’re still wrong in your video ;) Care to patch your argument for the sake of correctness?
Thibaut
on 13 Nov 08Great to have this on video, thank you and BIF for sharing.
The swearing issue, seen from the other side of the atlantic, is risible. Hollywood produces very violent movies, TV series and documentaries can be quite shocking, yet, some guys go crazy when they hear fuck or see a boobie. This has a name : hypocrisy. So it feels like fresh air when I read or hear fuck or shit (as long as it’s not in an offensive way). So thank you for that.
@Alan Smithee : looks like you need to take a break, enjoy a cup of tea and see the sun rise.
John
on 13 Nov 08Word to the wise….stick to the word “shit”...stay away from “FUCK.” The word “shit,” if nothing else, could maybe be considered cute. In a public setting, it wakes people up, gets a laugh, whatever.
But “Holy Fuck?” At the BIF? Pointless.
Not that I’m offended, mind you. I couldn’t care less. The F bomb is probably my favorite word when I’m by myself. But I agree that it clouded your message.
I am also not “offended” by the fact that you don’t hire anyone that doesn’t use a mac, although I find it pretty hilarious and, again, pointless.
This discussion is closed.