

Is Tim Ferriss acting like an asshole? - karjaluoto
http://www.ideasonideas.com/2009/08/is-tim-ferriss-acting-like-an-asshole/

======
run4yourlives
The no spec movement is what is nonsense, to be perfectly frank.

Listen, I hate having my work undervalued too. I get it. But guess what? The
value of my work isn't what _I think_ it is, it is what _other people_ think
it is.

That's the heart of the matter: Designers tend to have inflated ideas of their
value; more importantly, non designers tend to have low opinions of design
work.

You can't sell BMW's to people who think a Chevy is more than enough. Crying
that a person that comes into your dealership and says: "My budget is $20K" is
some sort of religious persecution isn't winning you any friends. Even worse,
suggesting that Chevy should start selling their cars at $50K so that they can
see how much better your bimmers are smacks of self-righteous ego.

The whole point of spec or contests or paying for a cheaper solution is that
_the customer has already decided that the value of your work is not worth the
cost_. Get over yourself already and go sell to people who _do_ appreciate
whatever it is you offer.

Set your price at what you consider fair, then find the right customer. If you
can survive, great, but don't tell others in different situations what to do
please.

~~~
tptacek
A funny part of the AIGA position on spec work is that it "devalues the
industry". Which, of course, it does, if by "devalue" you mean "reduces the
cost to access". By the same token, you can always "improve" the value of
something by colluding with all the suppliers to jack up the price.

------
SwellJoe
So, now that I've actually read the article I feel like ranting a bit.

The thing about these kinds of contests is that they serve a niche that very
much wanted filling: Low budget design projects that "real" design firms
wouldn't touch.

Large clients _already_ get ideas on spec from those design firms...this
"contest" process just makes it possible for small companies to get the same
treatment. Yes, it comes from less experienced designers, and it comes with
some additional problems (like the unpredictability of follow-on work, which
may or may not be of reasonable quality and may or may not be available from
the same designer at all). But, for one-off design work, like a logo, it's
simply the best way for a small business to get design work done quickly and
cost-effectively.

When times get tough, as in a recession, folks often start looking for people
to blame for their own reduced income. Some folks blame immigrants, and this
is just an indirect version of that...blaming foreigners for working too cheap
and cheapening their trade by accepting these contest terms. Because the
reality is that most of the designers taking part in $250 contests are
overseas.

The funny thing is that software shops have historically gotten some flack for
using design contests and such...but the fact is software development was
among the first to experience this pressure from cheap overseas white collar
human resources. We hackers have been dealing with it far longer than
designers, and though a few among us belly-ache and bitch and moan, most of us
have embraced the differences and compete on quality and taste rather than
price.

In other words: Tim Ferriss, while possibly an asshole on other occasions and
for other reasons, is _not_ acting like an asshole by holding a design
contest.

~~~
potatolicious
> Large clients already get ideas on spec from those design firms

No, this is not the same. Large clients get little bits of spec work done for
them which, on the whole, are not very useful in an of itself. To actually
_get the work done_ they will still need to pick a winning bidder and pay them
fairly for the work.

In other words, the invested effort vs. the potential reward is pretty
favorable for the design firm. For one thing, you're not competing against
50,000 other people on the interwebs, and secondly there's no danger of the
client "stealing" your work - since they themselves would have little use for
what amounts to an insignificant portion of the grand project.

That's a pretty key difference - in this case Ferriss has not promised a
contract to the winning bidder, and what he is asking for is _complete_ work
directly. This strikes me as unfair. Where the traditional spec-work model is
supposed to be a "try before you buy" thing, Ferriss is simply asking for _a
bunch of free, final copies_ to be produced for him gratis.

~~~
run4yourlives
>for him gratis.

No, not for free - for trade. He's offering all the publicity that he can
generate as a return gesture. If you think that is a worthy trade, great. If
not, great too.

Stop forcing people to negotiate their deals on your terms. It's called a free
market for a reason.

~~~
potatolicious
> He's offering all the publicity that he can generate as a return gesture.

No he's not. The author of the article addresses this specifically - he's
saying that too many people looking for spec work promise this ephemeral,
vague notion of "exposure", which really isn't worth as much as the client
thinks it is.

And he brings up the Harry Potter example. EVERYONE has seen the cover to the
Harry Potter books, but does anyone here actually know the designer's name?

> Stop forcing people to negotiate their deals on your terms. It's called a
> free market for a reason.

I wish the real world can be as black-and-white as yours. There are certain
types of behaviour that is, in the long run anyway, a net negative for nearly
everyone in an industry. There is nothing wrong with being in opposition to
these things. It's not like we're hiring thugs to beat up people who are
willing to do spec work.

~~~
run4yourlives
_No he's not._

Yes, he is.

 _which really isn't worth as much as the client thinks it is._

That's a completely different argument, and I addressed this in my first post.

 _a net negative for nearly everyone in an industry._

Um, except for the kid who turns around in a week's time and can say: You know
that new Tim Ferris book? I designed that.

Clearly, not everyone.

I'm always concerned when people start talking about benefiting industry. In
almost every case, the "benefit to the industry" is at a loss to the consumer.

 _It's not like we're hiring thugs to beat up people who are willing to do
spec work._

No, but you have no problem publicly vilifying them, do you?

~~~
potatolicious
> No, but you have no problem publicly vilifying them, do you?

Please to not be putting words in my mouth? Kthx.

Seriously though, I don't have a problem with people _willing_ to do spec work
at all - I see it as a symptom of a systematic problem that is encouraged by
people _abusing_ the spec work model.

As I've said before, the concept of spec work originally is so that the client
can "try before they buy" - given that designers have such a high variance,
and the product is hardly a commodity. You do a bit of leg work, show off your
chops, and the rest of a sizable job is yours.

The problem here is when people start soliciting _complete work_ for
_commercial_ purposes. This is not a try-before-you-buy, this is just give-me-
stuff-for-free.

Material benefits (and lack thereof) aside, I think this model reeks of
disrespect for the design community (disclosure: I am a coder, not a
designer). I've issued these design contests myself in the past, and I no
longer do so - and every single time I did, I felt like a jackass, since
clearly I was trying to get something for nothing. I was trying to gain
ownership for a volume of work that is worth far more than what I paid for it
(in cash, "exposure", etc). This is not an equitable trade, and I knew it the
entire time - and I think a reasonably smart guy like Ferriss knows this too.

By the way, since I saw a post somewhere in this thread... I issued the
contests because I was too poor to pay for real design work - but that's a
justification to myself and myself only, and does nothing to change the fact
that I the trade was still not equitable.

------
SwellJoe
I thought this was going to be one of those sites like isitchristmas.com,
where it just says, "YES" in big letters.

~~~
100k
istimferrisactinglikeanasshole.com is available!

------
michaelfairley
What's next? GitHub is acting like an asshole?: <http://contest.github.com/>

This is roughly the same situation, but with code rather than art (ignoring
the differences with open sourcing and whatnot). I doubt that GitHub expects
the guys writing recommendation engines at Facebook/Google/wherever are going
to participate in this contest for some bourbon and a GitHub account, and I
doubt Tim expects big name graphic designers to make the cover of his book for
$250. I certainly haven't seen any Facebook employees blogging about how the
GitHub contest is demeaning to their industry though.

~~~
paulgb
Likewise, I haven't seen a single programmer _insulted_ by the Netflix
Challenge. Most think it's a great thing.

------
ryanwaggoner
Summary: this is a _long_ and well-written discussion of how Tim created a
contest for the design of his upcoming book, which violates many designers'
belief that spec work hurts their craft.

Serious question: I absolutely do not mean to in any way demean or trivialize
the work of designers, but how is doing design work for spec any different
than other creative pursuits, like writing a novel, painting, or authoring a
screenplay? First-time creatives usually do those things with little to no
hope of getting paid, and no one seems to be up in arms. Can someone enlighten
me as to the difference?

~~~
karjaluoto
When you write a novel, create a painting, or author a screenplay, it remains
yours at the end. You take all the risks and all the gains.

Spec is initiated by another party. Meanwhile, it takes advantage of people
who have little other choice, and often leaves them with little to show for
having done so.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
Sorry, but I'm still confused. Aren't paintings and screenplays typically sold
to someone else for a fixed price after they're created, assuming someone buys
them? With a book, I guess you might theoretically share in the profits.

And while spec is initiated by another party, doesn't that imply that there's
at least some demand?

Let's take another approach: what's a better solution? If you have an aspiring
designer with no portfolio or references, how should they get started? I hire
designers, and I'd be reluctant to hire someone with no track record...what if
I hate what they produce?

~~~
potatolicious
> Aren't paintings and screenplays typically sold to someone else for a fixed
> price after they're created, assuming someone buys them?

Yes, the difference here is that if you write a novel, create a painting, make
a sculpture etc, and your target client doesn't buy, you can shop around for
another buyer.

I'm not really sure there's a market out there for "book cover for a Tim
Ferriss book" other than Tim Ferriss himself. This is the problem with spec
work of this variety - you have one winner, and a bajillion losers who will
now see _absolutely nothing_ for all the work done.

> how should they get started?

At a shop, working under someone more reputed than they are, until they have a
large enough portfolio of their own to show potential clients. That's the
ideal scenario anyways...

You can apply the same thing to programmers, though. Say you have an aspiring
hacker with no references or previous code to show you - how should they get
started?

~~~
drusenko
By practicing writing good code, getting better, and then having a portfolio
to show.

This type of contest really is just the same for designers: If you don't need
practice, don't participate. If you do, it's a great way to hone your talent,
and possibly win something (although that's really just a bonus).

When you're getting started in any profession, there's a certain amount of pro
bono work performed to gain experience and build your resume/portfolio -- how
is this any different?

------
tptacek
_So now, look at your job, and ask yourself: How would you feel if your work
was reduced to a contest? I’d guess you’d find it rather insulting._

Uh, no?

------
aichcon
I agree that spec work is nonsense, but these things have a way of working
themselves out. If you want quality, you have to pay for it, and quality
designers will charge you for it. Many times the parties who ask for spec work
don't really care much for quality and thus will attract the kind of talent
that is willing to do spec work. They'll get what they pay for.

I suspect the time and energy Tim spends trying to organize the book contest,
look through the submissions and filter out the garbage would have been better
spent just contacting a reputable designer and paying them to do a good job.

~~~
DannoHung
I think that's the cynical way of looking at it. On the other hand, maybe he's
not particularly concerned with going through with the effort of finding an
excellent designer and spending the time discussing what he wants on his cover
and would instead like to give amateur and student designers a chance to
possibly get their work on the cover of a book and maybe win $250 bucks for
something that they might be able to pass off as course credit (in the case of
students) or that they would have done on their own time (in the case of
amateurs or hobbyists).

Maybe he's not expecting professional designers to submit their best work.

~~~
aichcon
Perhaps you're right, but if I was going to release a book and put my name on
it, I would want it to be designed by a professional. Books are _definitely_
judged by their covers.

~~~
michaelfairley
For his last book, Tim actually printed out fake bookcovers, placed them on
books in bookstores, and sat around and observed how much attention each cover
brought (source: <http://vimeo.com/3934635>) . A lot of people around here
don't like Tim, but that is certainly hacker like behavior. I'm sure he'll do
something similar for the new book as well.

------
richcollins
The author doesn't understand spec work at all. The reason we hire people on
spec, is because an artist's portfolio usually gives you very little
indication of whether they will do a good job of executing the project at
hand.

If an artist has good samples of the exact type of work I will be hiring them
for, spec isn't needed. It really has nothing to do with a perception of
artists as cheap talent.

------
stevenj
Cover artist for "The 4-Hour Workweek": Barbara Sturman

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_4-Hour_Workweek>

------
lacker
_How would you feel if your work was reduced to a contest? I’d guess you’d
find it rather insulting._

But, there are programming contests. They are fun, not insulting.

------
lionhearted
Maybe this will get dead'ed, but I understand where the author is coming from.
Believe it or not, what designers are feeling and how they're acting is
nothing all that special or unique - it's happened to many different fields
over the course of history. When a new, cheaper way of doing things comes
around, buyers celebrate, and sellers get really, really upset.

Do you know the term "Luddite", meaning someone that's technologically
backwards? It came from loomweavers who protested and actually broke
mechanized looms that made weaving (and thus clothing) much cheaper. Not too
long ago, people bought or made a new shirt every year or two. One shirt. You
wore it all year, and patched it up if it tore. It was expensive! It all hand-
weaved.

When mechanized looms came in, it sped weaving up - clothes got a lot cheaper,
but less weavers were needed. Many weavers didn't like that. Some actually
took to breaking looms.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite> -

"The Luddites were a social movement of British textile artisans in the early
nineteenth century who protested—often by destroying mechanized looms—against
the changes produced by the Industrial Revolution, which they felt were
leaving them without work and changing their entire way of life."

Horse drivers protested cars once they started catching on too. This is how it
goes. It's not a glamorous passing of the torch with dignity or anything like
that. Design used to cost a hell of a lot, and now it doesn't necessarily.

But I sympathize. It happened to web designers too. The first website I had
commissioned cost something like $13,000 and it wasn't all that long ago. (It
was late and over budget - but the features were really good for the era. We
had _a scrolling news bar_ \- I can't even begin to explain how cutting edge
that was for the time)

Paul Graham sold Viaweb for $45 million. I had something with more power and
fuctionality put together only a few years later for $13,000. Now you could
get similar quality for $500-$1000 professionally, or hack around with a CMS
and do it for a couple hundred bucks yourself.

But I imagine a lot of website designers and coders lost their jobs, or
changed the way they did business. It was a gravy train for a while - now, not
so much. I can imagine that there's a designer somewhere throwing darts at a
picture of Matt Mullenweg, saying, "Curse you and your Wordpress! Curse you!
Curse you to hell!"

For tangible products, I still pay for design I know is good with someone that
can capture emotion very well. But if it's just a project I'm slapping up and
come what may, I'll Elance that sucker and get 10 potential, slapped together
designs for $50. I'll spend another $20 to $50 to iterate on that and it'll
work to start. Actually, forget Elance these days - 99designs.com looks like
the future. Fellow Hacker Newser bobz turned me onto the site - it looks
pretty amazing for getting a passable design done on a budget.

But I do sympathize. Progress is all the consumers of society, but it can be
painful for the people who produced the old way. You can look at the legacy
airlines or United Auto Workers or farriering (horseshoeing) or swordssmiths
or "workstation" style superpowered computers, or any number of things. People
had to radically change how they did their work, or change their work, or not
work.

I sympathize. A good designer is worth a hell of a lot, and the proven, world
class designers will continue to be paid well for highly leveraged projects.

The price pressure for the bottom is here to stay though - people in rural
parts of developing countries, high school kids and maybe even middle school
kids, people just casually screwing around who don't care about the craft...
and, maybe even, some people who work fast and can put out a first iteration
in 20-30 minutes, and revise it in another 20-30 minutes, and win a $200
contest 1/4th of the time they enter. That'd be $50/hour in money and they'd
have a huge portfolio that they can use to revise on as templates for jobs or
sell as stock design afterwards.

The old way is gone. The new way will work once we all adjust. But we ought to
sympathize with the plight of people who are forced to change through no fault
of their own - change is typically hard and unpleasant, and you and I will
curse the next time our fields change as well.

