Ask HN: Impossible client? Impossible playing field?

Mentioning anything like github or modern tools, on average, puts me in a position where I am either shocking or apparently showboating in a conversation. Everything is testosterone, and my mild speech impediments make it next to impossible to converse with people without large expenditures of energy on my part.

I'm honestly at wits end, as is obvious by the organization of this post.

It's not schizophrenia, but over the past year, it has become markedly clear that I am the only person I actually can talk to... Maybe I'm just in the wrong crowd. Or maybe the crowd is too small?

Maybe you're talking with nincompoops.

But maybe -- and perhaps more likely -- you're just a terrible communicator.

Perhaps you have genuinely poor written communication skills, and are incapable of holding a conversation without the proper social cues that non-programmers or other coworkers need to feel like you're not exerting your ego.

Communication skills, social skills, soft skills, they are all skills. They're not things that necessarily come naturally to people, and they're things you can practice, and things you can get better at.

I can't think of one good reason to have a casual conversation with anyone and mention GitHub. The only situation is if I'm a GitHub salesperson, or we're having a very non-casual conversation comparing tools.

Those aren't normal conversations. GitHub is not a tool that normal people use. Suggesting it to someone who is not a professional developer demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of your audience, of their skill set, of their engagement level, etc.

By definition, being a developer takes you out of "normal," so you're not really well-suited to judge how other people are receiving you. This is why you feel like it takes "large expenditures of energy on my part" to talk with them. When, strictly speaking, no-one has to talk with you. Talking is entirely about the other person.

Growing up, I did speech contests, which teach you how to present and how to deliver an argument and how to articulate your ideas well in a short span. Something like Toastmasters would help you practice that today.

That doesn't help you social situations, or in professional relationship building like business requires.

A friend of mine has a coworker who is socially rude. The coworker constantly interrupts, and their voice gets higher and higher pitched and they talk faster and faster when they think you're not "getting it." The problem is, all the senior developers "get it," he's just so enamored with his idea that he's not seeing the practical issues. The coworker is really looking for agreement and praise, not discussion and critique; his statements are leading, and his questions are rhetorical.

My friend finally sat this coworker down and explained how he needed to learn how to act like a normal human being having a normal human conversation. My friend now physically intervenes in conversations and points out every instance of verbal malfeasance, and the coworker is learning to control himself and convey his ideas reasonably, to think before he responds, and to actually consider someone else's perspective for once.

This friend, years ago, would stand over my shoulder and edit my emails with me.

My friend doesn't scale, but maybe there's someone you trust -- not a programmer, a normal person -- who can do things like edit your emails for you -- that's what editors are for -- and who can shadow you in conversations and talk with you about them afterwards.

As mentioned by vitovito your problem is most likely effective communication.

Take this post for example, there is very little structure, the main points are clouded by seques that don't lead anywhere, here is how I might have written it instead:

"Hi everyone,

I have been encountering a problem with several of my clients, both past and current. It seems they become intimidated whenever I start discussing anything vaguely technical e.g. Version control ala GitHub.

Have any of you come across a similar problem in your line of work?"

It might be worth taking a class or at least picking up a book on communication, presentation and debating which should cover many of the problems.

On a separate issue you posted an excerpt from an email. It seems t be that the client would not be requesting information on version control for a website (although that may be the case) - in my experience this is probably a query regarding content management in which a CMS would seemingly be a better fitting solution - this should be taken with caution as I do not know anything about this client and so could be completely off course.

As others are pointing out, I think your issue is being able to communicate effectively. But then, you might ask what is effective communication especially in your context? Clearly, your client is not as tech. savvy as you might want him to be. So instead of mentioning Github directly for example, you need to think about the end goal that you want to achieve. In your example, I believe you wnat your client to agree to use Github for tracking the code changes, communication etc. But instead of saying that directly, you could say "Hey as you mentioned that the site needs periodic updates, I propose using a tool that will reduce the time and error to put a fix and update your site regularly. This tool is available online and can be accessed both by you and me anywhere through internet. We can do it without this tool but it will increase the time to make changes to the site and ultimately cost you more"

Now you have given the "what" to the client and not the "how". The "what" is thte importance of using the tool (github) but you don't want to say that directly. The client will see that you are giving them an option to reduce their risk/time to update the site which is the end goal, not github. Github is just a medium that u decide for the client.

The next question from the client could then be "Ok so what would it take to get this tool up and running. how much? how long? " But now, you are already half way through.

How do I track issues then? I sent the link to the issues page.

What is all this sexy and intuitive UI for if I cannot even mention it? Github repos look just like file folders in most GUI OSes.

First mail:

I can still work with any site content or typographical issues until we meet next (which may be after I heal over the weekend). So I should be healed up before next week.

We can collaborate on the minor issues of the site using [link to issues page for repo] or we can collaborate through e-mail. This way we can have a digital paper trail.

The link to github is also available on the bottom footer of your site. I use github to manage my development of your site, so it may be beneficial to become familiar with its issue tracking system: https://github.com/blog/831-issues-2-0-the-next-generation

Github's issue tracking system has become much celebrated, and issue tracking itself is a very important part of developing sites.

I really, really do not wish to come off this aggressively, but are we following the reasoning: mentioning github > probably a bad writer/should re-assess abilities to communicate?

Really?

    $CLIENT, you mentioned that you wanted a few changes 
    to the content of the site. If the changes are easy
    to describe, you can just email them to me and I will
    take care of it. Otherwise let's sit down/have a 
    phone call about the changes.

    I've also done some research into the digital 
    signage that we discussed. I found an option that 
    will cost $30-$40 per sign, is that within your 
    budget? I can present all the options I've found 
    at our next meeting.

You and your client are two people separated by a common language.

I followed your link to Github. This is the first item:

   "Improved scheduling with jQuery-based time/date-picker.
   Removed secon"

Well not exactly, I skipped over:

  "Merge pull request #31 from ASoft-se/bugfix_get_assets"

Plus:

  "Clone in Windows"

And:

  "Branch: master" etc.

If I'm your client, do you really think I want to deal with that? If I'm your client do I even care about that level of detail?

There are some sausage factories which are interesting, architecture is generally one for which people love seeing the process of creation. Most aren't, as your experience using VIM in public attests.

Your client cares about a few simple things: when it will be done, how much it will cost, and what it will do. If your email explains those details it will be successful.

The fact that your client saved trying to understand your solution for the weekend indicates meaningful effort on their part, but it's not surprising that they are baffled by Github. It's not for lay people.

Good luck.

Anytime you have communications problems just do the following. Tell them "Hey $name, I'm really focused on getting this project done the way you want it. But I seem to have misunderstood some past points. Could you refresh my understanding of the goals we have to work towards? Thanks!"

They will either:

- Ask you what your doubts/issues are.

- Make up their minds as to what the next step is.

* Or fire you. :) Either way, you dont want to work with people who you cannot communicate with.

My first instinct is, when a client doesn't know what Github or something like that is, just use it and teach them later if you must. For issues like this that have relatively limited downside, better to ask forgiveness than permission and just get on with it.

Regarding his response, that usually means call him and explain it in a conversation. Hackers tend to be email-oriented b/c it's asynchronous, but many business people tend to be phone-oriented.

Short terse emails like that where they don't elaborate on why they don't understand or ask any followup questions tend to be a strong signal that they're not email people. So just schedule a call and explain instead.