After my last post, one of my good friends Shawn Rodgers an amazing photographer working through the website Ovation Images remarked on my use of the word Douchebag.

“douchebag!? You put the word “douchebag” in your business blog? I laughed good. But I don’t think I’d have the balls to do that.”

I respect that position, in fact it’s the one I’m used to from people, but it’s just not me. I tell it like it is and I’m not afraid to use slightly naughty words. Oh I’m probably not going to start talking about Mung (If you don’t know what Mung is don’t look it up. Seriously, just don’t do it. I’m not even linking it.) in any kind of seriousness, but I refuse to keep a stick up my butt regarding my use of language, even with clients.

Of course I’m not going to swear like a pirate for no good reason. I like to think I swear or use words with purpose. If you don’t like my use of the word ‘douchebag’ then you’re probably not going to want to do business with me for any length of time. I’m good at what I do, and I’ve pulled lots of companies out of the fire, but if you ask them, they’ll let you know I don’t hesitate with my opinion or the truth.

If  a ‘fuck’ is warranted I’ll even pull that puppy out of my toolbox. Oh yeah. F-Bomb. Went there. Suck on that one, douchebags.

But seriously, I’m not normally a swearer (unlike my wife), and I don’t encourage it in normal conversation. I was very proud however when my daughter swore for the first time. She had just recently turned 4, I believe, and was playing with her My Little Pony’s in the playroom. She had never sworn before, and never even repeated any swears that came out of my wife or my lips in the house. She was never a mimic. So she was back there and she was using the magnet in the pony’s foot on the Magna Doodle to make “Pony Tracks” as the pony’s foot magnet would mark the magna doodle. *Smack smack smack smack* OOOWWWWW!

I turn my head and see my daughter whipping the My Little Pony across the room full force into the wall, and sucking on her finger. I say “Honey what happened!?!?” and she turns to me and says “That fucking pony bit me!”

I kept myself from laughing, and explained to her that she wasn’t allowed to use that word, and that it was an adult word. Still, I thought to myself “Yeah that was a pretty appropriate use of the swear word.” and was secretly proud.

Sometimes you just need to say a ‘bad word’ like douchebag. Sometimes that fucking pony bites you.

And seriously, sometimes that guy who has your other ear is a douchebag. I’m sorry, but it’s true. Just because some is capable of giving advice, doesn’t mean they’re capable of giving good advice. I’ve had to counter so much horrific advice from other people in the past. Sometimes it’s staggeringly BAD advice. Sometimes it’s advice that’s just ignorant of how the technology works. Sometimes it’s good advice, but coming from someone with a not good ulterior motive.

There are too many instances to possibly name, but I’ll give one of my favorites, because it repeats, and it’s one that my good ole buddy Shawn is guilty of with Ovation Images.

Shawn, way back, asked me what people thought of music on websites. I said that multiple surveys have pretty much conclusively shown that people hate forced music on websites.  Depending on how the question is asked 80-90% of users actively dislike when music or sound is forced on them from a website. Yes, they like to be able to turn it off, the worst is when they can’t easily see how to turn it off. If you have music or sound, and don’t have a stop button clearly visible above the fold, you are absolutely going to lose users to your site.

Remember when Flash ads started going everywhere like on news sites, and they had sound? That didn’t last long. You couldn’t turn them off, and the sites did not like what they did to their userbase. So what happens now? You have to actually click ON the add, in order to get the sound to start. They’ll give you video, but the sound you need to say “yes give me sound”.

“But all the other photographer sites have music.” says Shawn, confirming that the majority of the photographer community has either not done a lick of discovery on their users, or are simply going along with the crowd.

The simple fact is that people are already listening to music on their computers when they surf, or they are somewhere that they can’t play music, like at work, and really don’t want some folksy tunes suddenly to come out of their computers as they quickly jam the close window button.

So on one side Shawn is hearing from some other Photographers on a Photography forum or somewhere that they have to have music on their website, the website template company makes it standard, and then he looks at me and I say “Don’t do it man, don’t do it.” and once again, even a good friend… listens to the Douchebags.

I’d love to see a tracker on that site and get a percentage of visitors who leave within 5 seconds, and a percentage who turn the music off inside 10 seconds. I bet it’s pretty high. All the statistical evidence would indicate it would be.

I have more stories. Lots more. It’s been a lesson in my life that just because you know what to do better than someone else, doesn’t mean people will automatically listen to you, and if they don’t know what to do, then they basically have your word against someone elses, and if they think you’re both experts it can be a tough decision. If they think the Douchebag is more of an expert…

Well then they’re fucked.