I've been there, and have had great experiences with hackers. I'm a non-hacker myself. What I found to be succesful was:
1) Be intellectually curious. If you are interested in what a hacker does he'll like you. If you understand and learn what he does he will respect you.
2) Treat hackers on an equal footing with the guys that wear ties. Hackers should decide technical stuff - not people with ties.
3) Talk straight - hackers seem to hate politics and hidden agendas, and often aren't very good at them.
4) Keep hackers informed of all aspects of the business. This partly relates to 4) but a sidepoint is that they like to learn. I know at least one hacker that now knows a decent amount of marketing ;-)
5) be fair and play nice. Keep the dirty side of the business out of the way of the hackers. This relates to 2), 3), and 4)
Comments
I've been there, and have had great experiences with hackers. I'm a non-hacker myself. What I found to be succesful was:
1) Be intellectually curious. If you are interested in what a hacker does he'll like you. If you understand and learn what he does he will respect you.
2) Treat hackers on an equal footing with the guys that wear ties. Hackers should decide technical stuff - not people with ties.
3) Talk straight - hackers seem to hate politics and hidden agendas, and often aren't very good at them.
4) Keep hackers informed of all aspects of the business. This partly relates to 4) but a sidepoint is that they like to learn. I know at least one hacker that now knows a decent amount of marketing ;-)
5) be fair and play nice. Keep the dirty side of the business out of the way of the hackers. This relates to 2), 3), and 4)
6) give credit where credit is due.