Communication channels

Channels

For this rant to be understood in its entire value, I should notice I do not work in a FOSS company and not even in a company where IT is the main focus.

Last week I was at work doing something at my desk when the phone ring: "Someone named XXXX from the city YYYY is asking for you". Unknown name, but I take the line, maybe is something business related and not spam. "Hi, I am XXXX from city YYYY and I have a question about OpenOffice". My first reaction was "from where do you have this number?". The answer: he got my name from the OpenOffice.org website, found my work email address, then my employer website and phone number.

Then he asked something about using regular expressions in Calc filters, but I was to shocked by his gesture to call me at work (is clear from the website we work in an unrelated area) so I could not answer at the moment (and I needed a look in the help anyway). My reply was along the "I can't tell you right now, but let's talk on the mailing list, even if I don't know the answer, maybe somebody else can and if not, you may ask on the English list". And he: "but I don't know enough English" (but he knew enough to find my employer website (which is entirely English), and my work phone number there.

Of course, he never came to the list to properly ask the question, which was not hard to answer.

The moral of this story is: use the proper communication channels, otherwise you may not get the desired answer (hehe, this may apply also to me sometimes...)

Articles page

On a related note, about the communication clarity, I did a cleanup of my articles page, it was a straight translation from my blog, with bad and bloated html and css. I now communicate clearer and my money are at the same place with my mouth.