There's quite a bit of conflation out there on articles and posts covering the Adria Richards "donglegate" affair (here's a summary outside of tech sources). While the incident does raise broader related issues of sexism and misogyny in the tech work culture -- and if nothing else, this incident should be a wake up call for the sector to grow up, face the social problems of its culture and deal with it -- that larger discussion can be separated out from the specific actions taken by all parties involved.
There are plenty of poor choices displayed from everyone in this incident to go around.
For the record: I do not in any way condone misogyny and sexism in the workplace by any stretch, and the threats extended to Ms Richards in the wake of the incident are inexcusable.
1. Amanda Blum provides an interesting context of some of Ms. Richards' past behavior. According to Ms. Blum's blog post, Ms. Richards seems to have a track record of being offended and not dealing with such offenses in the most effective way possible, and yet she is not above making sexual innuendo jokes herself. However, sexual innuendos traded on Ms. Richards' Twitter remain in the self-selected of universe of followers and followees, implying some consent to be communicated with.
Did these past patterns of behavior get to the attention of her superiors at SendGrid? If Ms. Richards was hired as a professional communicator or "evangelist" and then reports came back from the field that she was found difficult to work with, that would be feedback from customers or business partners the employer might like to know about.
Gayle Laakmann McDowell responds to Blum's post, delving into details of the previous incidents, but to me, it misses the central point: If you find something offensive about a conference you're going to participate in, a professional level of behavior is to deal with it privately with the organizers, not in podcasts or blog posts to your own constituents and followers.
2. At least one of the men in question , by his own admission, violated the conference's CoC. Whether you think such remarks are OK, ' its just culture", "she overreacted," etc., (I don't buy into any of those justifications, personally) does not change the fact that a breach of rules was found to have been committed. Whether PlayHaven made a sound decision in firing one of the men involved is a separate discussion.
3. The remarks were not private, even if they were meant to be. In a public place where they can be overheard, they cease to be private.
4. As Ms. Blum points out, there were better options for Ms Richards to resolve the situation than the semi-public course she took.
One option not taken would have been to simply send the photo and description of the incident as a text or a DM Tweet to PyCon rather than making it semi-public.
Lawyers are about to have a feeding frenzy:
5. Defamation charges against Ms Richards likely wouldn't hold, since there was a violation of the CoC. The issue of taking and distributing people's pictures without their consent is a separate but important legal question. Others in the picture may have a case on those grounds.
6. Basis for legal charges by Ms Richards against SendGrid re termination are hard to comment on, since we don't know the terms and duties of her employment and HR records re performance, any previous incidents, are confidential, so we won't know. Lawyers are ready to dig in, however.
From a PR perspective, and looking forward:
7. Bad form for SendGrid to block comments on their post. Not great messaging in their post, either. They also made discussions disappear on their Facebook page, leaving people to post on their FB recommendations section, until they decided to scrub discussion there as well.
Play Haven's FB page is at least allowing the conversation to occur.
Social Media 101 for crisis communications: People will have the conversation, so own and monitor the space where that happens.
Should SendGrid have fired Ms Richards? Not my call to make, but they were silent and then made a large decision with fuzzy explanations. That indicates, to me, either bad PR savvy and/or knee jerk decision making while in panic mode.
8. There are some interesting ways forward, communications wise, for most involved. In the meantime, everyone involved I'm sure is lawyering up. Given the PR capabilities demonstrated so far from all sides, I expect each will let their lawyers handle the messaging rather than pulling together a decent communications team and strategy.
I'm predicting dead silences and "no comments" for a while, then announcements that agreements have been reached.
There are plenty of poor choices displayed from everyone in this incident to go around.
For the record: I do not in any way condone misogyny and sexism in the workplace by any stretch, and the threats extended to Ms Richards in the wake of the incident are inexcusable.
1. Amanda Blum provides an interesting context of some of Ms. Richards' past behavior. According to Ms. Blum's blog post, Ms. Richards seems to have a track record of being offended and not dealing with such offenses in the most effective way possible, and yet she is not above making sexual innuendo jokes herself. However, sexual innuendos traded on Ms. Richards' Twitter remain in the self-selected of universe of followers and followees, implying some consent to be communicated with.
Did these past patterns of behavior get to the attention of her superiors at SendGrid? If Ms. Richards was hired as a professional communicator or "evangelist" and then reports came back from the field that she was found difficult to work with, that would be feedback from customers or business partners the employer might like to know about.
Gayle Laakmann McDowell responds to Blum's post, delving into details of the previous incidents, but to me, it misses the central point: If you find something offensive about a conference you're going to participate in, a professional level of behavior is to deal with it privately with the organizers, not in podcasts or blog posts to your own constituents and followers.
2. At least one of the men in question , by his own admission, violated the conference's CoC. Whether you think such remarks are OK, ' its just culture", "she overreacted," etc., (I don't buy into any of those justifications, personally) does not change the fact that a breach of rules was found to have been committed. Whether PlayHaven made a sound decision in firing one of the men involved is a separate discussion.
3. The remarks were not private, even if they were meant to be. In a public place where they can be overheard, they cease to be private.
4. As Ms. Blum points out, there were better options for Ms Richards to resolve the situation than the semi-public course she took.
One option not taken would have been to simply send the photo and description of the incident as a text or a DM Tweet to PyCon rather than making it semi-public.
Lawyers are about to have a feeding frenzy:
5. Defamation charges against Ms Richards likely wouldn't hold, since there was a violation of the CoC. The issue of taking and distributing people's pictures without their consent is a separate but important legal question. Others in the picture may have a case on those grounds.
6. Basis for legal charges by Ms Richards against SendGrid re termination are hard to comment on, since we don't know the terms and duties of her employment and HR records re performance, any previous incidents, are confidential, so we won't know. Lawyers are ready to dig in, however.
From a PR perspective, and looking forward:
7. Bad form for SendGrid to block comments on their post. Not great messaging in their post, either. They also made discussions disappear on their Facebook page, leaving people to post on their FB recommendations section, until they decided to scrub discussion there as well.
Play Haven's FB page is at least allowing the conversation to occur.
Social Media 101 for crisis communications: People will have the conversation, so own and monitor the space where that happens.
Should SendGrid have fired Ms Richards? Not my call to make, but they were silent and then made a large decision with fuzzy explanations. That indicates, to me, either bad PR savvy and/or knee jerk decision making while in panic mode.
8. There are some interesting ways forward, communications wise, for most involved. In the meantime, everyone involved I'm sure is lawyering up. Given the PR capabilities demonstrated so far from all sides, I expect each will let their lawyers handle the messaging rather than pulling together a decent communications team and strategy.
I'm predicting dead silences and "no comments" for a while, then announcements that agreements have been reached.
