Need help to understand a phrase

[C. Michael Pilato]

I believe "well-placed prods" could be replaced by "highly effective 
encouragement to proceed toward a particular goal" (think of a milder 
version of the cattle prod) and still maintain its original, though 
still less-than-perfectly-clear, meaning.

Jim Blandy wrote:
> On 2/10/06, Max Bowsher <maxb1 at ukf.net> wrote:
> 
>>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>>I don't interpret that phrase that way at all - I certainly don't think
>>it implies disagreement.
>>
>>To me, "some well-placed prods" means roughly the same as "some
>>carefully targeted publicity", though with a much more informal tone -
>>and that informal tone implies to me that the 'publicity' probably took
>>the form of personal communications with friends and colleagues, rather
>>than, say, published advertisements.
>>
>>In this interpretation "well-placed" doesn't carry any connotations of
>>"to a sensitive part of the body" - rather, it suggests that Brian
>>Behlendorf and Jason Robbins used knowledge of the community/industry to
>>direct their efforts to people who they knew would be interested.
> 
> 
> Well, I'll let the authors clarify what they meant, but if that phrase
> is referring to what I think it is, I was there, and I think my
> description is reasonable.
> 
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-- 
C. Michael Pilato <cmpilato at red-bean.com>

"The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting.  It has
  been found difficult; and left untried."  -- G. K. Chesterton