@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

danilo

@danilo@hachyderm.io

Product design and engineering, freelance DX, and a thirst for a future worth living in.

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danilo, to random
@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

One of the toxic patterns of the software business is “DevRel”

They get a bunch of people together who have valuable cross-functional skills—communication, engineering, education, design, research, diplomacy, in varying combinations—and put them into a silo.

Instead of making the organization more cross-functional, orgs enter into this failure mode, often quite early.

The business is fundamentally socio-technical, but all the sociotechnologists get cut off from planning and decisions.

danilo,
@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

At the root of this, I am convinced

is trauma.

The people who have power in tech often paid a steep price for their special interest in computing. The price was isolation, stunted social skills. Not exclusively, and not as much in later generations.

Nevertheless, there are norms and culture set by the historical inertia.

So we have an obsession with computing in isolation as the Uber Skill. To the exclusion of the social realities that have been central to human tool use for 50,000+ years

danilo,
@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

The siloing of sociotechnologists—as though that practice can be reduced to a single mere department—is a symptom of a larger problem that now grips an ossified, incumbent-laden industry landscape.

A mechanistic view of growth and profitability, that never stops to ask “how does it feel to USE this tool.” A view that says human relationships are inconsequential

It’s Twitter and Reddit knifing their third party developers. It’s rug-pulling your licenses after extracting dev labor like Hashicorp

danilo,
@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

My point is this:

We are facing a dead end.

There is no future for technology without understanding that our job is to facilitate the third entity that emerges between human and computing tool

Tony Stark is NOT Iron Man. Iron Man exists when Tony Stark gives purpose to the suit, and when the suit animates and amplifies Tony’s purpose

Extractive technologies can be short-term profitable. But long term, the computing is too flexible, the emergent third entity too powerful, for parasites to win

danilo,
@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

@trochee thanks for chiming in with that, this is great color

danilo,
@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

@trochee I confess to being a poor student of the MCU, but the power of the metaphor is strong enough I’m not surprised they found it story fodder

Worth watching?

danilo,
@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

@dave I think so too

The problem, as always, comes to power, and its culture, as you note

Once you’re powerful enough you can make your lack of social skill someone else’s problem instead

danilo,
@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

Platform theory asks:

What do people want and how do I give it to them, scalably, and set up mutually beneficial infrastructure to keep the pie growing?

(“upon which I’ll erect a toll booth,”mostly comes next)

Still, platforms are social exercises

danilo,
@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

So for a platform to be successful, you have to convince a LOT of people to do things your way

Why does Microsoft endure, trillions in market cap

While Yahoo is a punchline, at half its age?

Microsoft showed up at a time when things were malleable and convinced an enormous number of people, from developers to manufacturers to employers, to do things the Microsoft Way.

Their roots are deep in the ground, giving them endless extra innings.

They own a culture.

danilo,
@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

Yahoo owned a thin layer of real estate and muscle memory in a universe where roads could be redrawn multiple times a minute

So now the remaining asset is a logo maintained by a full-time hospice staff, bouncing from one incumbent portfolio to another, plus email server liabilities

Platforms are what you can keep because a constituency of people all depend on you.

danilo,
@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

Ann Leckie is a genius analyst of power. Just a schematic understanding of social systems and their disparate impacts.

In the Imperial Radch series, Leckie imagines a bloodthirsty empire in decline, checked by a superior alien power.

The social operating system of the Radch (ought) run on three constraints:

  1. Justice
  2. Propriety
  3. Benefit

Are things fair, are they being done according to our consensus of proper action, and do they benefit participants?

Each congruent with the other.

sue, to random
@sue@glasgow.social avatar

FYI we have a much better word for "ick" here in Scotland already: THE BOKE

danilo,
@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

@sue 📝📝📝

danilo, to random
@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

Here's free advice for startups:

Accept your role as mentor, or die in the shadows of competitors who do.

The whole point of a startup is GROWTH. Value through scale. Especially when it comes to developer tools, that growth requires a dedicated ministry of education: expanding the number of people who understand how and why to use your tool.

Everything about your org must serve this purpose.

danilo,
@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

Kathy Sierra describes the "larger context” of your tool.

In Sierra’s view, the job isn't just about making the developer a more effective user just of your tool. Instead, success requires making users more effective in your tool’s LARGER CONTEXT.

That means camera vendors should work to make better PHOTOGRAPHERS, for example. Success is giving people not just the tools to accomplish discrete tasks, but the expertise and mindset needed to excel as practitioners within the tool's domain.

danilo,
@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

Wrote more on this for DX Checkup.

@anthrocypher has long argued that the core threads of a developer community's social fabric are people teaching, learning, and therefore SUCCEEDING together, and I don't think this is understood nearly enough.

That, and more, right here: Always be teaching

https://dxcheckup.com/resources/always-be-teaching

danilo, to random
@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

woof, the private equity rot is really setting in for Stack Overflow.

Cookie pester box appears on every load, no matter which button I press, and even though I'm logged in. Pour one out for one of the greats

fasterthanlime, to random
@fasterthanlime@hachyderm.io avatar

Today in “product managers that need to chill”

danilo,
@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

@fasterthanlime incumbents stay shipping their OKRs

timnitGebru, to random
@timnitGebru@dair-community.social avatar

So the "AI Safety" people at the chatbot company will not be the ones who think about, I don't know, the ELIZA chatbot from 60 years ago and the issues that arose let alone with this one?

danilo,
@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

@timnitGebru Can you say more about this? I remember Eliza but didn't get to hear any of the cautionary tales

danilo, to random
@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

Something I've been working on with @anthrocypher:

Investment in making developer products more technically and practically accessible enables more people to leverage their power

But what exactly ARE the levers of DX? Why bother? (Spoiler: it’s how a devtools business grows)

DX Checkup assesses your foundations and helps jog your thinking. Nothing to sign up for, just answer some questions, get some suggestions.

https://dxcheckup.com

danilo,
@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

I've been picking this stuff apart with @anthrocypher literally for years, and it's exciting to get our conclusions codified in a way that, hopefully, can be helpful to other people

Let me know how it treats you!

danilo,
@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

We wanted to include some writing about our underlying assumptions with DX Checkup

One of them: DevRel is an antipattern

Some of the smartest, most cross-functionally talented people end up stuck in DevRel, structurally prevented from doing their best work

We don't think young devtools companies should follow this approach. For one, everyone's job is developer relations

But more than that: ‘DevRel' obscures the actual functions you're trying to address

https://dxcheckup.com/resources/devrel-antipattern

danilo, to random
@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

I have a Grand Unified Theory of Posting but I can't share it without appearing to be subtooting the Bad Posters, of which there are so many

leigh, to random
@leigh@ottawa.place avatar

Year two of having a $600 Costco inflatable hot tub in my back yard and it remains awesome.

danilo,
@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

@leigh is it resilient to environmental damage or do you find you have to baby it?

danilo,
@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

@leigh this is transformational life advice thank you so much

I had no idea this was a thing 🥹

sue, to random
@sue@glasgow.social avatar

I have a friend whose partner should be teaching classes on how to engage with work. She does relatively crap low paid jobs and leaves them at the drop of a fucking hat. Anyone says anything she doesn't like and she's off. I have never met anyone who leaves jobs so frequently. ♥️

danilo,
@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

@sue king shit, truly

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