Public Relations, or “How I Learned To Love Josh”

March 28, 2007 on 4:00 pm | In Business, Insider View, Musings, Rants by Jeff | 27 Comments

The other day I sat with my wife in Denver International Airport, bored out of my skull. We had a couple of hours to kill before our flight back to LAX and I needed something to read both then and in-flight. So, being the tech geek that I am, I grabbed a copy each of Wired and Fast Company.

After shaking out the two dozen or so subscription card things (because, you know, lots of newsstand readers want to subscribe to the same magazine two dozen times – what’s up with that, anyhow?), I dug into Wired first.

Wired Cover
(Wired: I love the cover, BTW)

The thing that caught my attention was this issue’s focus on “Radical Transparency”. Apparently, there are companies out there that are turning their inside operations out into the open, allowing customers and clients to both to read up on things that would otherwise never have been put out there in the old days. The reasoning behind policy and product changes, internal company debates and decision making, that sort of thing.

It seems that there are even companies out there that allow their employees to post all sorts of stupid crap on their official company weblog – and allow customers to respond in turn with (sometimes) well-founded complaints and witty scathing remarks. Madness!

Straight-Jacket

Okay, so this is a bit tongue in cheek on my part. DreamHost has always been a bit more, err, out in the open than its competitors. While other guys have traditionally filtered everything through a bunch of Public Relations mavens (or limited their unfiltered discussion to a small list of “safe” topics), we’ve long been ones to put it all out there and deal with the consequences.

I’ll leave it up to you, our loving customers and weblog devotees, as to whether this is a conscious decision on our part or simply a side-effect of not being able to keep our big fat mouths shut when we probably should.

DreamHost? Public Relations?

Of course, that doesn’t mean that there haven’t been forces within the company that felt uncomfortable with this sort of thing – and by that, I mostly refer to myself. Way back when, before my full-time Abuse days, I was actually the designated Public Relations guy here at DreamHost (I’ve done a little of everything, it seems). Not sure how that happened – I lack the fake perma-smile, fashionable wardrobe and earnest pretty-boy good looks that seem to go hand in hand with PR – but happen it did.

I took to the role with some degree of gusto, and among my tasks I somehow convinced Josh (one of our four Head Honchos and DreamHost Newsletter writer) to forward his Newsletters to our main internal list before sending them out. We had some, well, perhaps ill-chosen Newsletter incidents in the recent past and received more than a few complaints about them. So, I figured, as I was going to be the main guy who would be responding to them, I should probably do my best to keep Josh under some control and limit the damage before it happened.

Common Responses

Of course, Fearless Leader™ 1 of 4 is a bit too wise for that, and I think by the end of things he was sending blatantly offensive Newsletters my way with the expectation that I would complain (after which he would ‘meet me halfway’ and chop off only the most egregious stuff, leaving the still-funny but still slightly ‘off’ stuff). Say what you will, Josh is pretty wily like that.

What Next? Suits and Ties? Mandatory Anal Bleaching?

One other thing we did at some point was actually hire one of those slick, real (well, in a manner of speaking), honest-to-god Public Relations firms. We figured, it was a lot cheaper than advertising and possibly more effective. I was to be the main liaison between DreamHost and our PR people.

I was a bit apprehensive as to whether they would ‘get’ DreamHost – especially after seeing the blown-up 72 DPI logos of their other clients’ logos in their lobby, undoubtedly pulled from a hopelessly dithered JPEG somewhere – but figured that we had enough tech knowledge in-house to keep them from making any major mistakes. We had high hopes, as we were paying them many thousands of dollars every month and hoped for results.

One thing I recall is how surreal and orchestrated the whole PR thing could be at times.

Our company had set us up with a conference call interview with one of the most respected telecom industry journalists around, and we were pretty psyched about it. We were really excited about certain aspects of how we designed our web panel and hosting back-end and how they gave (and still give, really) us a leg-up on our competition. Our PR people scheduled a conference call shortly before-hand to give us the scoop on the journalist we would be talking to. It was crazy! It was as-if they had kept a detailed dossier on the guy, providing us with a fully detailed run-down of his personality and personal interests. I wouldn’t be surprised if they kept an in-house psychoanalyst around, keeping watch on all of the major tech journalists.

After the call, they gave us a full de-briefing, letting us know how we did (which I guess was pretty well, as a decent article on us came out shortly thereafter).

They say that PR is one of those things that only really works if you use it for a long time, and that it can be hard to quantify results. In hindsight, I really don’t think that the company we used made any mistakes – such companies probably work fine if you’re selling, say, toothpaste or munitions or something – but over time it became apparent that they weren’t a good match for us and we eventually decided to let them go.

Progression To… This

Even so, it did leave a funny taste in my mouth, and I was pretty sure I didn’t like it. What should have been an enjoyable blab session with a journalist became an unnecessarily orchestrated thing. While we certainly didn’t lie or do anything unethical, it did shine a light on how incredibly false and superficial most Public Relations work (and by extension, the media business built around it) is. If you read an article, it’s quite likely that it’s a regurgitated press release. If you see a glowing review of some product or another, you can almost bet that there was some wining and dining going on behind the scenes. For every Om Malik, there would be ten lazy reporters who would publish anything to fill their quota. While our PR people hadn’t yet gotten us that far, by the end I knew it was coming.

Flash forward a bit. I stopped doing PR work, eventually meandering full-time into the often painfully reality-grounded world of Abuse. I would have a chance to stretch my tech geek and coder muscles again while taking on something new – law.

Out of habit I still read Josh’s Newsletters, but had become a lot less concerned about it all. At some point, Josh proposed (and implemented immediately thereafter, as I recall) this weblog. Anyone within the company would have a chance to put their thoughts out in the open without any sort of formalized review process. Everyone working at DreamHost would have a voice, if they wanted it, even if it would piss the occasional customer (or potential customer) off.

Back In The Airport

This brings me back to the airport, circa two days ago. Radical transparency. Over the span of a few years, I went from being DreamHost’s biggest PR worry-wart to one of the biggest proponents of transparency. Yeah, sometimes Josh’s frankness still gives me the heebie-jeebies (”ninja with a boner“, Josh?), but I know what the alternative is and given a choice I can’t help but feel that we’re on the right track.

Opaque Transparency?

As an aside, the article that interested me most in that issue of Wired was one by Fred Vogelstein, a case study in transparency at Microsoft. He detailed how one lone employee at the Redmond giant braved the PR and marketing people there to set up Channel 9, Microsoft’s “unfiltered” site for blogging and evangelism.

Imagine his amusement (and mine) when someone at Microsoft accidentally forwarded to him his own dossier! I guess PR people really do keep track of this stuff.

A couple of choice excerpts for your edification and amusement (you can read the whole thing in PDF format, here):

PR Memo #1

PR Memo #2

Awesome.

Approved By Josh


27 Responses to “Public Relations, or “How I Learned To Love Josh””

  1. Simon Jessey Says:
    March 29th, 2007 at 5:13 am

    It is DreamHost’s reputation for honesty and transparency that made me think about hosting here in the first place. As a customer, there is a sense that there is no buffer between me and the people who make the decisions at DreamHost, and that goes a long way toward retaining my custom and loyalty.

    You can talk about fancy panels and network setups all you like, but it is the reputation that makes (and keeps) success for DreamHost. Josh is actually a public relations genius, so have no fear.

  2. Francis Says:
    March 29th, 2007 at 8:11 am

    I love hosting here and I wonder why. The reliability hasn’t been good at all but you’ve managed to hold me. I guess the reasons are two fold.
    1) You give me a lot of good extra features that I want. Multiple user accounts, lots of databases, I never ever ever have to worry about disk space, and the panel is good. I mean recently I was able to do a lot of things I couldn’t dream of on other web hosts. I setup trac, I run my own compiles of php, and do things in my own way. Your system gives me the freedom to do that.
    2) I can talk to you and you don’t seem to lie to me. I cant say that for all the hosts I’ve been with.

    My clients on the other hand, I’ve been recomending them to you, and most of them.. don’t even care, the site works (most of the time). But clients with active websites have a lot of gripes about you. You’re slow and unreliable. (one even wants to move to a dedicated server because they think you can’t handle them anymore, and they’re not that big) And I’m torn, I trust you guys to be honest and have a good product but I can’t trust you to be working all the time and to have responsive servers. So I have to look for other webhosts. Not for me, I’m happy, thrilled even. But my needs aren’t my clients.

  3. phoenix Says:
    March 29th, 2007 at 8:24 am

    This doesn’t speak at all to your point, which I think is incredible and valid, (and the last points about the reporter getting his own dossier and such is perhaps the most incredible irony I can hardly imagine it was even real!) but I gotta say:

    I love that cover too. Peel back the plastic front sheet? Oh yeah. ;)

  4. Nicki Says:
    March 29th, 2007 at 10:16 am

    Madness?!

    THIS IS SPARTA!

  5. Bruce Smeaton Says:
    March 30th, 2007 at 2:58 am

    My God! Jeff, you sure as hell know how to milk a book out of a sentence! “How I Learned to Love Jeff” was – and is – a very well written article.

    Ok, I admit I fell asleep ’sitting upright’ at the computer reading it. But don’t read too many negatives into that – hey, at least the first thing I did when I was jolted awake by my cat leaping up onto my lap, was to continue reading your article!

    Actually, your take on the sheer plasticity of the PR world is utterly brilliant – and frighteningly true!

    Honestly, I think those PR would-be’s-if-they-could-be’s learned everything they know about ‘how to be a great PR person’ from some 1980’s tv show about “PR persons”!

    As for “mandatory anal bleaching”… dude, that is an awesome line… and a title of choice for my next rock band:)

  6. markus Says:
    March 30th, 2007 at 4:12 am

    Apart from the great price and the nice features for hosting (where else do I get an interactive shell for so little money?), I really, REALLY like the way you handle your customers. I feel respected and heard, and even if there is occasional downtime or hiccups of some sort, this last bit is what keeps me here. Keep loyal to your customers this way and you will have success forever. ;)

    PS: Offer VPS! :D

  7. Respiro, the logo design guy Says:
    March 31st, 2007 at 2:14 am

    This “transparency-stuff” it’s strange… I mean… come on! Who’ll make a company’s internal operations public? What if this is just a “trend” for those who are easy to manipulate, in hope that they will make public some valuable information?…

    Respiro

  8. Jasmin Says:
    March 31st, 2007 at 5:19 am

    Except that you guys (Josh in particular, I think) tend to speak like twee 8-year-olds. Not exactly the paragons of professionalism you want to project yourselves as. There’s “cool and casual” and then there’s “insipid and annoying,” especially when you’re explaining things that went wrong.

  9. evden eve nakliyat Says:
    March 31st, 2007 at 11:55 am

    very very nice blog.thank you for your informations…

  10. T00rd Says:
    April 1st, 2007 at 6:19 pm

    Ditto @ Jasmin.

  11. Jeff C. Says:
    April 2nd, 2007 at 12:13 pm

    Jasmin -

    > Not exactly the paragons of professionalism you want
    > to project yourselves as.

    If there’s anything we’ve endeavored to do at every opportunity, it’s project ourselves as paragons of professionalism.

    That, or we just host peoples’ web sites the best we know how while still somehow managing to maintain a little of our humanity.

    I’m sorry that you think we’re insipid and annoying, though! You may enjoy this month’s recently released DreamHost Newsletter – we’ve filled it chock full with tons of bland, stuffy writing. It’s almost as if Josh has turned over a new leaf! :)

    - Jeff C. @ DreamHost

  12. Irate Customer Says:
    April 2nd, 2007 at 4:56 pm

    Hey Jeff, I had my account disabled today by Karl and I’m posting anywhere and everywhere to get answers because I want this resolved before many people notice.

    Karl told me that I violated DreamHost’s Terms of Service and US Copyright law for distributing a cracked copy of the
    “Civilizations 4″ game, when in fact all I was distributing was an expansion pack that does not violate copyright laws.

    http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=4467

    As I was using a dreamhosters subdomain, everyone could know that they could sign up with DreamHost and get this same wonderful service to host their files.

    But now, I am sitting without any of my hosting working because I was disabled without warning. Explain the professionalism to me.

  13. Jeff @ DreamHost Says:
    April 3rd, 2007 at 4:15 am

    > But now, I am sitting without any of my hosting
    > working because I was disabled without warning. Explain
    > the professionalism to me.

    If your account was disabled based on a mistake on our part, please contact us directly via the tech support system and we’ll look into it.

    We (mostly Karl and I) regularly disable accounts that engage in illegal activities (including copyright infringement) and occasionally we do mess up.

    If we find out that we’ve done so – and you contact us directly to let us know – we will endeavor make it right.

    - Jeff C. @ DreamHost

  14. Irate Customer Says:
    April 3rd, 2007 at 7:33 am

    It took 13 hours, but Karl enabled my account after that much time had passed since I wasn’t doing anything illegal but can I tell you how comforting it is that my account was disabled without warning.

    Is it normal, when you find something suspicious Jeff, to not only shut it down but all the sites belonging to that account when there is no history of illegal activity and no real threat to anyone?

    It is a game mod called ViSa, which apparently just by name is so suspicious that I get my DreamHost account disabled. No notice, no discussion, no leeway. I was simply misunderstood for doing something harmful in some way.

    Please turn your inside operations out into the open and show me the reasoning behind policy that appears to me to be unjust.

  15. Jeff C. Says:
    April 3rd, 2007 at 10:20 am

    > Is it normal, when you find something suspicious Jeff, to not
    > only shut it down but all the sites belonging to that account
    > when there is no history of illegal activity and no real
    > threat to anyone?

    Yes. If we have reason to believe that a customer is indeed in violation of the law or engaging in illegal activity, we can (and often will) disable at least access to that content – if not the entire account.

    I honestly can’t comment on your specific case though I can say that Karl is usually very careful not to disable entire accounts unless there is very good reason to do so. It’s possible that there were other factors associated with your account than just that one file. If you’d like to discuss it further, contact us directly and we’ll be happy to talk about it.

    - Jeff C. @ DreamHost

  16. giovanni Says:
    April 3rd, 2007 at 12:44 pm

    I’m crazy for dreamhost, even with a lot of problem.
    I strong believe that you will make things get better always.
    i’m with a little problem, 2 sites are off line…
    and support ticket are slowww.

    but ok I hope things get better with time.

  17. Irate Customer Says:
    April 3rd, 2007 at 2:53 pm

    There was no very good reason to disable my account.

    I did nothing wrong other than I had the word ‘visa’ in my domain name and Karl explained that he suspected it was a phishing site because of that. Then he had someone else look at the only thing I was hosting on the site, which was an executable file. He was told that it was a cracked game and boom: all my sites go down. There was no other reason.

    It was a mod, called ViSa. Not illegal, not phishing, not harming anyone. Is this a very good reason to disable my account? Suspicion without valid proof or contacting me about it?

    Every DreamHost customer must then be very very careful not to do anything remotely suspicious like host a site with visa in its domain name, lest all of their sites be taken offline without notice.

    I am sending support tickets, but it is slow to get a response as noted. So I’m hoping to glean some knowledge as to how you would handle this issue from a PR standpoint. Is it simply to offer to contact ‘us’ when the only person I hear from is Karl, once every twelve hours? If there is some other method to contact a person, I’d be glad to know what it is.

    As a person grounded in PR and Abuse work for DreamHost, I really want to get your thoughts.

  18. T00rd Says:
    April 3rd, 2007 at 5:21 pm

    Irate,

    The irony! They were congratulating themselves so much and thanks to your post I now know that they know not how to handle suspicious activity…yeah PR Geniuses all the way :/ They’re irrationally Draconian at best.

  19. Ed Says:
    April 4th, 2007 at 2:15 pm

    Comment #1 regarding Irate Customer and the disabled account.

    I’d be pissed also. However, in the same regard, I appreciate DreamHost’s aggressive stance on piracy and doing what’s right. They have a moral and social responsibility to act quickly when something suspicious comes up. Someone obviously made a mistake. They owe you an apology for what happened and for the delay in resolving the matter. A credit for 1 month of service wouldn’t hurt either.

  20. Ed Says:
    April 4th, 2007 at 3:23 pm

    Comment #2 regarding overall PR

    I heard DreamHost was open, honest, had great support, was tech-savvy, safe, secure, and provided great value. That’s why I chose you for hosting some of my websites.

    Now I’m upset, frustrated, and growing more concerned daily. It seems like I’ll have to go with a different hosting provider REGARDLESS OF HOW MUCH I’M TRYING TO AVOID IT. Seriously, I’ve been trying to give DreamHost the benefit. I’ve been very upfront. I’ve tried to be practical and realistic. I’ve even offered to pay 19.8 times more than I already am.

    What the hell am I complaining about?

    DreamHost hasn’t felt safe and secure since I discovered that users can see each others files. That’s right. If you’re on the same server as I am and you’re using OScommerce or any of the DreamHost One-Click Installs, I can probably find and view the php file used to store your database connection settings. Yes – it sucks. What’s worse is that I reported the problem to tech support. They said users are responsible for securing their own account. I wonder how many people realize their butt is exposed. Honestly, at the very least, you should warn people and provide them with instructions on how to protect themselves.

    The obvious solution was for me to upgrade to one of your dedicated servers. Frankly, with all of the problems you guys have had lately, it seems wise to double check things before actually giving you even more of my money. I asked a few questions last Thursday, never got a response so I sent another email, never heard back, so I sent more email this morning and finally got a response. Of course, I asked more questions and I wouldn’t be surprised if I don’t hear back from someone until next week.

    Gah! Like I said, I’m very frustrated with you guys. I’ve remained loyal, but you’re really straining my loyalty. I’d much rather give you guys my business if I could count on you. It doesn’t seem like that’s possible anymore, so I’m posting this message as a last ditch effort to see if something will actually happen.

    sigh

    And yes, I know… you’re probably thinking I should be posting this in a tech support. I already did this morning. No response yet.

  21. Paul Says:
    April 4th, 2007 at 6:40 pm

    Quick question, where did you get the picture of the guy in a straight jacket? If it is yours can I use it? I love it! ~Paul

  22. Dallas Says:
    April 5th, 2007 at 11:49 am

    @Ed, comment #20 : Do you have evidence of what you’re describing? Have you actually been able to do it? We automatically lock down secure config files for all one-click installs and our default home directory permissions also prevent other users from snooping around.

    If you have direct evidence of this, send it in to our support team and ask for it to be sent to my attention.

  23. Ed Says:
    April 5th, 2007 at 6:45 pm

    Yea, Dallas, I was successful at being able to do it and I sent a transcript to support. I will send something again. So you know, your default home directory permissions do not prevent other users from snooping around. I’ll explain why in the separate email.

  24. Mark Says:
    April 19th, 2007 at 2:12 am

    Josh could say ANYTHING at all in his newsletters, and it would not offend me. The thing that bothers me about the newsletters is that half the time I am busy and in a rush and I don’t have time to read his jokes. The other half of the time I enjoy reading his jokes. So a quick joke-free summary at the start of the newsletter would be great. Then I can just quickly scan the summary, and if I have time, I can read the rest of the newsletter.

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