Fire Everyone and Other Blog Titles That Draw Comments

February 20th, 2007 | blogs, development

In a bit of serendipity yesterday I read Josh’s post on what sorts of posts will generate comments and which ones won’t. Right about the time I wrapped up that I read an article by Ryan Carson of Carson Systems (they make some web apps and run workshops and recently tried to see an application they developed in a very public way, ultimately withdrawing the sale) and thought to myself, now there’s someone looking to generate comments, or at least stir folks up a bit. The article, “Why you need to get rid of your freelance developer ASAP” is anything but shy in its title and delivery. Read if you have time, if not you’re not missing much. The gist of the article is that given bug and maintenance pressures on small projects it makes more sense to drop freelancers and setup full-time, off shore help to do the work, in CS’s case in Russia. I was a bit perplexed by a few things in the article and tried to post comments/questions to Ryan but apparently didn’t pass his grade and the comment never popped up. So I’ll post the questions here (not verbatim since I lost the originals when the comments passed to moderation):

1) Do you feel posts like this (posts discussing how much the product costs, what you’re paying workers, etc.) truly benefit your business? Is it in you best interest to tell the world what you’re making and how?

2) Do you feel it’s a bit premature to be lauding offshoring when you’ve had such little time invested? Do you feel you are doing some great service to small, niche markets likes your own tauting an overhaul to development (project, people and code management) when many larger development business are, at a minimum, reevaluating their offshoring decisions and in many cases scaling them back?

3) Ultimately what is it you seek to gain by this transparency? You have to be aware that the name of the post and the discussion in general is going to draw ire from many folks? Is this just to draw attention?

I’m less interested in the fact that he’s using offshore folks than they transparency and the benefit of telling the world about it and now more than a little curious about why someone who purports to be so transparent wouldn’t post the comments or answer the questions…up to you folks now I guess.

*Updated* The comments did appear in the comment thread on Ryan’s site, but there has been a lot of commenting going on so they got a little lost in the shuffle. But reading through the thread the reactions continue to be mixed and Mr. Carson seems to struggle a bit rationalizing some of the answers. I think ultimately he was burned by someone who didn’t just drop everything to fix an issue and as a reactionary response decided to go off-shore. He’s certainly entitled to use any means he sees fit to make his business work, but the issue wtill remains, wht the hell would you post all of this? particularly when you look at posts like Stephen’s. To me, as someone who may have a need for these products it makes me reevaluate if I want them handling my money in the case of Amigo or my important business files in the case of DropSend, which as a result hurts their business, simply because they wanted to bite-back at freelancers who were likely simply doing what they needed to be successful in their own businesses (not enter into a retainer that sucks you dry).

Comments

p auL

“I think ultimately he was burned by someone who didnâ€™t just drop everything to fix an issue and as a reactionary response decided to go off-shore.”

This was my thought upon reading his post. I think it’s very interesting that Ryan is being so transparent about all his business decisions, and it certainly creates an audience for his blog. It’s also his business, and he can do whatever he feels is right to keep it running. But to title a post â€œWhy you need to get rid of your freelance developer ASAPâ€ posted only a few weeks after starting working with an offshore team certainly comes off as a burned bridge somewhere along the line.

It does seem like a dangerous post as well; I’m sure a good deal of his income comes from freelance designers and developers using DropSend, (as well as attending their conferences.) Will they think twice about doing so, now they know they’re nothing more than an expendable cost, easily replaced by cheaper models?

Then again, perhaps his only goal was to stir up controversy. There’s no such thing as bad press, right? Maybe he wanted to up DropSend’s sales in Russia?

Ryan Carson

ultimately withdrawing the sale

Hey Jeremy - not sure where you got this info from? We’re still in the process of selling it and it’s going very well.

why the hell would you post all of this?

All web apps have problems. Whether they tell you about it or not. I think you should take comfort in the fact that we’re honest!
All the best,
Ry

jharr

Ryan,

Appolgies on the misstatement regarding the sale, I assumed since you were investing in further enhancements (vs just bug fixing) that you had taken this off the block, in retrospect that was a less than logical assumption.

I certainly appreciate that your are honest, I guess I just fail to raw the connection between honesty = business benefit, or not so much honesty but very, very public honesty. Again this is all outside the motivation for the offshoring. I wish you folks the best, watching the Amigo process was enlightening, I’ll certainly never say you guys aren’t honest or open. You have to understand that people would be skeptical of the approach.

crawlspace media

Fire Everyone and Other Blog Titles That Draw Comments