Re: Forrester: Ingres and MySQL Lead Open Source Databases

On Thu, Aug 20, 2009 at 02:03:01PM +0100, Greg Stark wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 20, 2009 at 1:40 PM, Rob Napier<rob(at)doitonce(dot)net(dot)au> wrote:
> > No. Firstly, I have been a customer of theirs, so it is not spam.
> >
> > Secondly, they are a PR distribution house. They maintain a
> > database of contacts for journalists. This is the bread and butter
> > of PR consultants. The ad is simply claiming to offer more
> > targeted mail outs to avoid being seen as a spammer.
>
> Well I don't think we should be spamming no matter how targeted and
> no regardless of how a PR person thinks it should be seen.

I agree. Spamming is right out.

> > And at the risk of suggesting that your response confirms my
> > point, PR is not a simple process. It needs to be done by people
> > who really understand the complexities of getting quality stories
> > placed.
>
> I still don't see how getting stories "placed" leads to good
> software. I would rather believe that good software will lead to
> stories than the other way around.

What you'd like to believe is not at issue here. How people actually
behave is, and the scientific evidence to date simply does not support
your "supply the facts and rational people will simply draw the right
conclusion" model. That idea was proposed back in the 17th century,
and it turned out to be wrong, just as decisively as Phlogiston
thermodynamics <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phlogiston_theory> turned
out to be.

See George Lakoff's work on framing, etc.

Cheers,
David.
--
David Fetter <david(at)fetter(dot)org> http://fetter.org/
Phone: +1 415 235 3778 AIM: dfetter666 Yahoo!: dfetter
Skype: davidfetter XMPP: david(dot)fetter(at)gmail(dot)com

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