Reuben,
Well said. The employees need to understand that they are responsible for
protecting the brand names no matter what part of the domain they belong to.
Brendan did not connect his personal views with Mozilla. That was accomplished
by activist with a clear intent to punish him and the corporation, if it
continued to support him. What is amazing to me is that some of these activists
appear to be within the organization itself. Why that is allowed to happen is
a mystery to me.
The damage has been done. It appears to me the choice is to continue the status
quo where Mozilla exists as an advocacy organization or come out with a strong
statement of inclusion and respect for all employee personal viewpoints. The
former implies that Mozilla will accept alienating a large number of its
customers, which most people would consider bad business practice. The latter
will require courage in pushing back against extremist social manipulation of
the company culture. Regardless of what many insiders would like to think the
rest of the world does not live inside what appears to be their own cultural
bubble.
Dennis
> Subject: Re: Brendan Eich
> From: [email protected]
> Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2014 20:43:36 -0300
> CC: [email protected]; [email protected]
> To: [email protected]
>
> On Apr 7, 2014, at 16:07, Boris Zbarsky <[email protected]> wrote:
> > On 4/7/14 2:40 PM, Dennis Culley wrote:
> >> Most organization do not approve of employees using the company name to
> >> espouse their own personal views.
> >
> > Most organizations suck in all sorts of ways, sure.
> >
> > I think there is a clear difference between saying "I work for Mozilla, and
> > I think that X" and saying "Mozilla thinks that X" or "I speak for Mozilla
> > and I think that X".
> >
> > The latter two are not acceptable in general. The former is acceptable in
> > general, especially because the employment status in question is generally
> > not particularly secret.
>
> I don't think this distinction has much weight in practice. This Hacker News
> comment [0] explains it very well so I'll just post it here verbatim:
>
> --
> Companies need to send out an email to all employees every morning reminding
> them of the most basic law of corporate communications:
> "When you speak to a customer, reporter, friend, or any other person not
> employed by $Company about $Company-related matters, you are acting as a
> public representative of $Company.
>
> Regardless of whom you speak to or in what context, you must assume your
> words will be repeated to the entire world as $Company policy.
>
> Your words will be read/heard and interpreted by people of every conceivable
> level of intelligence and education, in every conceivable cultural context.
> Even people who have never heard of $Company before and know absolutely
> nothing about $Company or the matters you are discussing will form opinions
> based on your words.
>
> People more intelligent, better educated, and more experienced than you in
> the matters you are speaking about will also read and interpret your words.
> Then they will speak publicly about them, and further influence others'
> opinions of $Company.
>
> There are no exceptions."
> --
>
> [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7540565
>
> -- reuben
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