Standard Operating Procedure

Yesterday my husband got an email about a sweepstakes being held by VersionOne, a large technology vendor. This sweepstakes is being called "Real Men of Agile Genius" and is supposed to be a parody of those beer commercials. Here is part of the FAQ from the emailed advert:


Notice their blurb about gender bias? Yeah.

Anyway, my husband, sent them an email about this that quoted that bit and said if you have to explain it, you probably should have thought before using it in the first place. Also,

If we were in a field where participation by women wasn't already an issue, maybe this wouldn't be as big of a deal; as it is,I consider this sweepstakes pretty harmful and insulting to both the women in our industry and anyone else who is working hard to build inclusive environments. I'm disappointed to see this kind of crap coming from a well-known vendor in the agile space.

Do I need to give you all more than one guess at what the response was?

Anyone who guessed the "we're sorry you were offended" gets 100 shiny gold stars. This is the response:

We apologize if this sweepstakes has offended you. VersionOne has customers all over the world and some of them are not familiar with the popular ad campaign we are spoofing. This is why the explanation was given.

Again, please accept our apologies.

Apologies: 2; Getting It: 0.

Anyone who is still wondering Why So Few?, needs to look no further than this sweepstakes right here. S.O.P. for a company's response; S.O.P. regarding women in technology. Yes, it's "just a sweepstakes"--it's always the little things, too.