#279 Talk to the President of My Company
Awhile back, I wrote this entry about sending an email to the President of my company, voicing my opinion on our anti-piracy movement. I never heard anything back, nor did I expect to.
Well, tonight was my company office party. I asked Andrzej and Nate what scary thing I could do at the party. They suggested I talk to the President of our company which would be a scary thing in itself. We work for a major entertainment company, one of the biggest in the country. Talking to the President of that company is pretty intimidating. Add to that the fact that I have a big chip on my shoulder for rich, white men in positions of power and I had myself a scary thing for today.
But it wasn’t enough that I talked to him. I wanted to talk to him about the points I brought up in my email.
Flash forward to the party, I’m standing there talking to Nate and he points behind me. It’s Stan, the President of our company. He’s talking to two girls from my department. I take a deep breath and sidle over next to them. Right when the girls turn to greet me, Stan ducks away! Goddamn it!
Flash forward twenty minutes later. We’re standing in line now for the photo booth when I spot Stan nearby talking to a group of people. I hop out of line and stand next to him. I wait for a break in the conversation then jump in and I introduce myself.
The fear leaves pretty quickly. Stan, after all, is only a guy. He asks me a bit about what I do at the company and how long I’ve been there. I answer his questions then I say, “I really wanted to ask you about your anti-piracy initiative…”
Then I’m talking to him about it. Asking him where it came from, how much he believes in it. I’m not really nervous or scared anymore because I’m talking about something I believe in. He says the anti-piracy movement is a war. I ask him if it’s a war we can win. He says no but we have to keep fighting it.
Then I ask if he ever thought about instead of fighting it, to embrace it. To control our content and how it’s distributed. Apparently he has. He tells me about how the company has done tests where they give away certain content and don’t give away others. The content they don’t give away has higher piracy rates. Personally, I’d like to see the data on this and how they determine it.
But this to me, isn’t not really what I’m talking about. Before I can ask some follow-up questions, another person comes over and starts talking to Stan. Such is the life of a President.
It’s not too often that I get a chance to talk to someone like him. Even though it was brief, I was glad to have had the chance to voice my opinion directly to Stan, instead of just sending an email. Even if he didn’t seem very interested in it.
