ThoughtWorks Mourns Colleague Aaron Swartz, Responds to MIT’s Statement

Re:ThoughtWorks Mourns Colleague Aaron Swartz, Responds to M... by sokoloff on Monday January 14, 2013 @06:35PM (#5057414)

For me, that last paragraph ("About Thoughtworks") is what left a poor taste in my mouth. Up until that point, I personally thought it was in good taste. If someone doesn't know who ThoughtWorks is and needs to know, I assure you that they'll find it via a search engine. I'd also drop the contacts phone numbers as well.

The addition of that About TW paragraph, no matter how "standard" in a PR setting, is incredibly inappropriate in my view and makes it appear that you are taking the occasion of an employee's suicide to market ThoughtWorks. Don't do that.

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Re:ThoughtWorks Mourns Colleague Aaron Swartz, Responds to M... by candeira on Monday January 14, 2013 @07:34PM (#5057683)

Try to see it from the other side. The "About Thoughtworks" is just how companies talk.

The fact that it looks exactly like an official ThoughtWorks PR broadside makes it even clearer which side the company is on. No "this is the private opinion of colleagues/friends", but "this is how strongly the company feels about this".

I say well done.

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Re:ThoughtWorks Mourns Colleague Aaron Swartz, Responds to M... by bbyars on Monday January 14, 2013 @08:06PM (#5057815)

Understood, but it looks like the About ThoughtWorks section is just part of the press release template (look through the previous press releases and you see the same thing). I don't think our website team was prepared with a template for this kind of statement.

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