🚀 go-pugleaf

On Sunday, May 20, 2018 at 11:49:29 AM UTC-4, Dan Espen wrote:

> > Perhaps.  But even in these cases, a consultant needs more
> > than the gift of the blarney if disasters are to be avoided.
> 
> I sure don't have the gift of blarney.  That's for the salesmen.
> I relied on honesty and talent.  My employer understood fully that
> when I showed up at the client site, some of the salesman
> promises would have to be taken back. 

Having good communication skills and able to present an 
intelligent, organized, and interesting presentation, 
especially of technical material, is a very valuable skill, 
and a lot of programmers don't have it.

Some programmers take seminars or training in public speaking
and pick up useful skills they didn't even know about, and how
to avoid distracting habits (like jingling keys/change while
speaking, having the talk properly organized, noting timing, 
giving not too much detail, etc.)

Many technical people did not care for their schoolwork in
public-speaking assignments.  

Today, with video common, someone can film their talk and play it back
and see how they come off.

This is all different than the "gift of blarney" of salesman
presenting B/S that they don't even know what it means.

IBMers were well trained in this.  Mentioned before was the
big difference between IBMers and representatives from other
computer firms.  Amazing that the other companies never caught
on, it was not a secret.

(But then I'm amazed that Burger King can't run its outlets as
well as McDonald's does, despite 50 years of experience.)