Comments on: On Enthusiasm, Volunteering, and Making Money

By: Episteme

Episteme — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 19:02:25 +0000

“How do you define a whore?”

That was a question asked by Anne in a recent post on Enthusiasm. In context, Anne stated:

“So it all comes down to this: how do you define a whore. I guess you define one as somebody who sells themselves more cheaply than you’d be willing to s…

By: People Over Process » Blog Archive » A Portal into US Corporate Culture via Middle-Class PTAs

Fri, 23 Feb 2007 16:55:49 +0000

[…] The devil cuts fat paychecks, so you dance with him: “Many principals may view it as a mixed blessing,” she said. “But the reality is they are willing to assume the added pressure because the PTA provides a wonderful forum for parent-principal partnerships to flourish — and that partnership brings tremendous resources to support the goals of the school community.” […]

By: Tim Peter

Tim Peter — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 12:22:48 +0000

Anne, while I really think you’re onto something with your “someone willing to sell themselves cheaper” definition of a whore, I think the fundamental flaw here is assuming that it matters what people think you are. I define myself by a number of labels, depending on context, including executive, marketer, technologist, blogger, musician, husband, father, son, etc. I receive compensation of a sort for each of them, whether that compensation is money, reputation or love. When I played music for a living, my friends and I used to joke about wishing for the day when we’d be accused of selling out. Most musicians should be so lucky. The question of selling out to me depends on the definition of integrity vs. reputation. What you know about yourself is your integrity. What others know about you is your reputation. I know that I maintain my integrity and stay true to my values, then I have neither sold out nor become a whore.

By: Antman

Antman — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 06:04:59 +0000

A really hot guy Anne, you go girl! How hot is hot? Let’s turn this contradiction on it’s head. Is the question how do we balance enthusiasm and volunteering with making money or is the question how do we stop judging. Isn’t this really a question of judgment and values? If one doesn’t have a problem with casual sex and only sleeps with people for money they would normally sleep with for free, is there any contradiction? Where is the foul? The foul rests in our judgment of those actions, as you said, people judge based on what they would do. If someone would write a raving review about Anne 2.0 for free then what is wrong with getting paid for what you would do for free? Again, no contradiction. The problem as I see it is that people begin to blur the lines, convince themselves they are not selling out and that they would have done it for free anyway. This self-deception is where the problem lies, once we self-deceive we become skeptical of everyone else, as we assume they are self-deceiving also and are no more authentic than we are. Therefore, we judge everything with skepticism and cynicism. This paranoia just rolls along sucking everything up in it’s path. The key, as you said is authenticity! Be honest with yourself and getting paid shouldn’t be a problem. Hasn’t professional sports sorta figured this out. Everyone’s getting paid fat dollars for enthusiasm and no one seems to bat an eye!

By: People Over Process » Blog Archive » Card Marketing and Community Gardening

Tue, 20 Feb 2007 18:30:35 +0000

[…] Balancing the concerns of healthy community gardening vs. exploiting “free labor” can be tricky, as Anne pointed out yesterday. Key to doing it the right way making the users (or “community members”) feel like they’ve been given something rather than having bought something. (Of course, moving that “feel” to something more than perception is the easiest path.) A page like Spread Spiceworks would seems a little strange for a costly, enterprise application (or would it?). But, since Spiceworks is both free and “delightful” to use, community members are (hopefully) less likely to feel like they’re doing free marketing labor. […]

By: Johnnie Moore

Johnnie Moore — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 09:30:54 +0000

Hi Anne. Great post - you’ve made me think a bit more about what was a bit of a throwaway line on my part. “Volunteer” is usually taken to mean “unpaid” - many of the definitions I’ve just googled talk about little or no earnings. I didn’t really intend to emphasise the unpaid part. I was after the optimistic notion of people doing more of the stuff they like to do. At the moment, the “business model” ain’t so clear (the Guardian editor more or less said that recently). I’ll probably post more on this later.