@anthrocypher@hachyderm.io avatar

anthrocypher

@anthrocypher@hachyderm.io

Principal, Uploop. Guerrilla researcher. Community systems designer. I turn developer tools into movements.
Ex Stack Overflow, Shapeways, Nodejitsu.
Invested in the deliberate practice of a brighter future. she/they

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anthrocypher, to random
@anthrocypher@hachyderm.io avatar

The *great thing about the Western tradition of pretending thoughts, emotions, and bodily sensations are distinct components

is how the supposed separation means you get to chastise yourself for “letting emotions get involved”, because if you were “better”, you could flip over to a mode of pure thought.

  • awful
anthrocypher, to random
@anthrocypher@hachyderm.io avatar

Qualitative research is a huge part of my work—I won’t build communities for people without it.

This morning I’m just thinking about the delicate balance between understanding others and their stories in order to relate to them, to be with them more truthfully, and understanding them in order to consume them, rendering them digestible to your ambitions.

The tool is the same. The difference is in how you wield it.

anthrocypher,
@anthrocypher@hachyderm.io avatar

@trochee Not derailing. :) Do you recommend the series?

anthrocypher,
@anthrocypher@hachyderm.io avatar

@trochee Thank you, I’ll give it a look. Sounds like a refreshing bit of absurdism. Can confirm Kindred is in no way fucking around.

Btw, I think you mentioned The Steerwoman the other day. I’m about 3/4 through and loving it!!

danilo, to random
@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

I was so angry, once upon a time.

I figured out ten years ago what everyone is feeling so deeply right now. The assholes ran away with the most powerful creation in all of human history.

I mean, I was so pissed off. And it was miraculous, because you could just tell them.

With Twitter, you could call up the name of a money guy and tell him he was full of shit. So I would do that.

Culturally, you have to understand, I grew up surrounded by people past caring about illegitimate authority.

anthrocypher,
@anthrocypher@hachyderm.io avatar

@danilo This is beautiful, thank you for sharing it.

“Culturally, you have to understand, I grew up surrounded by people past caring about illegitimate authority.”

Would love to hear more.

anthrocypher,
@anthrocypher@hachyderm.io avatar

@danilo That’ll do it.

anthrocypher, to random
@anthrocypher@hachyderm.io avatar

Mark my words:

Every stitch of financial gain that can come from the old way of doing things has been got. Traditional startup models and incumbent bigtech players have all their eggs in overused baskets.

There are going to be new, innovative ways to shape the landscape. And a small number of savvy players will meet the moment.

KFosterMarks, to random
@KFosterMarks@mastodon.social avatar

Lit reviewing "developer experience" as a construct and earliest thing I found in initial search is from Fagerholm and Münch(2012):

F. Fagerholm and J. Münch, "Developer experience: Concept and definition," 2012 International Conference on Software and System Process (ICSSP), Zurich, Switzerland, 2012, pp. 73-77, doi: 10.1109/ICSSP.2012.6225984.

It doesn't reference any existing literature on developer experience. Google ngram also shows a HUGE spike in "developer experience" mentions in 2013.

anthrocypher,
@anthrocypher@hachyderm.io avatar

@grimalkina @trochee @gvwilson @KFosterMarks Having been deep in devtools in 2012-2013, talk of ”developer experience” emerging around then makes sense, I can see it meeting a need. Node.js revolution meant you could turn front-end devs into backend devs. GitHub was propagating, lowering the barrier to production of OSS software.

If as a VC you REALLY want software eating the world, you also need devs eager to cook that world

anthrocypher,
@anthrocypher@hachyderm.io avatar

@grimalkina @trochee @gvwilson @KFosterMarks So, I think a lot about things being “short-term selfish” or "long-term selfish”.

“Developer experience” was not a term I’d see used in industry till much later (~2020), but most “We <3 devs!” initiatives ~2017 were things like: beer, swag, buying licenses to the tools folks were clamoring for. Very “short-term selfish”.

Willing to bet whatever you were building was vastly more sophisticated and “long-term selfish”. Hope to hear more sometime.

anthrocypher,
@anthrocypher@hachyderm.io avatar

@grimalkina @trochee @gvwilson @KFosterMarks Just to finish out the storytelling: There was a brief moment 2020-2022 where I saw "developer experience" enter industry vocabulary, I was really excited we might finally be onto something, and then 2023 hit and we started laying everybody off.

So if you're thinking we never quite got there, Cat, I would agree.

anthrocypher,
@anthrocypher@hachyderm.io avatar

@danilo @grimalkina @trochee @gvwilson @KFosterMarks When the constraints of reality impose limits on your “short-term selfish”, folks can get pretty cranky, I guess…

anthrocypher, to random
@anthrocypher@hachyderm.io avatar

There are folks instigating smart, thoughtful conversations about the tech industry right now, and my buddy Ray is one of the them. I recently recorded an episode of Craft vs Cruft with him about Stack Overflow.

We started off talking about the game dynamics of a legendary community platform, and by the end we were talking about how healing your soul is going to make healthier technical orgs.

In other words, my happy place.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0GJqYTPYKU

anthrocypher,
@anthrocypher@hachyderm.io avatar

We get into topics like:

  • how building in public effectively makes movements
  • the power of defining desired behavior
  • barriers to empathy with newbs
  • why people without agency in competitive spaces turn on each other
  • incentivizing mentorship as a way to ward off the worst groups tensions
anthrocypher,
@anthrocypher@hachyderm.io avatar

One of the truths that lives rent-free in my brain is that when stewarding a large, highly engaged community, you either take your responsibility to people’s time and contributions seriously and ensure diffrerent types of members needs are being understood, negotiated, and met

Or you're creating the ground for these different constituencies to turn on each other.

anthrocypher,
@anthrocypher@hachyderm.io avatar

Back in the day, at Stack Overflow, we were very very effective at getting people to care and invest their time, and not nearly so good at ensuring different groups needs were being balanced, so their relationships with each other were harmonious.

I don't get too many opportunities to dig this truth out and look at it, so I'm grateful to Ray for giving me the space in this episode.

anthrocypher, to random
@anthrocypher@hachyderm.io avatar

I love this from @danilo so much. It's not a promise, nor a solution, because those would both be disingenuous and ineffective.

Instead, it’s an exercise in refusing to accept the wrong constraints. I believe that’s the work under every work that matters.

https://redeem-tomorrow.com/sorry-i-still-want-to-build-technology

anthrocypher, to random
@anthrocypher@hachyderm.io avatar

If sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice…

It stands to reason that sufficiently advanced competence is indistinguishable from care*

(* depending on if the competence in question is being used in your favor)

sue, to random
@sue@glasgow.social avatar

Something I think really fucks up our ability to act ethically is the denial that we are capable of causing harm..

📢 We become complicit in harms just by existing within the capitalist system 📢

It's a dreadful reality, but IMO accepting it puts you in a more effective spot to genuinely think about your choices, face their harmful consequences, and find ways to influence things for the better.

anthrocypher,
@anthrocypher@hachyderm.io avatar

@sue this is really good stuff Sue, thank you.

As someone who I know is not at all precious about it, I’d love to hear more about your mindfulness meditation practice.

kellogh, to random
@kellogh@hachyderm.io avatar

my guilty pleasure at work is mapping out organizations, figuring out who’s important (not the same thing as an org chart), and where the friction is. i’ve been through a lot of acquisitions lately, so it’s a skill

my favorite evil tactic is finding person A and B who clearly f hate each other and telling person B that “A said nice thing X about you”, and watch their face. oddly, it’s a good way of bypassing the hate and figuring out how things actually work

anthrocypher,
@anthrocypher@hachyderm.io avatar

@kellogh this is absolutely dastardly and I love it.

grimalkina, to random
@grimalkina@mastodon.social avatar

The difference between conversations with the psych scientists on LinkedIn and the software folks on mastodon is a perfect model of the theoretical divides I point to in my paper (with good and bad on both sides). Our mental models truly find life in the social landscapes we create.

anthrocypher,
@anthrocypher@hachyderm.io avatar

@grimalkina “Our mental models truly find life in the social landscapes we create.”

Damn, yup.

One of the things that lives rent-free in my head is that any individual’s knowledge and skill is cultivated through interpersonal experiences, and most orgs rely on that without ever being able to perceive it, at their peril. And dammit, they don’t need to leave it working well up to chance!

What are some major differences you see in these conversations?

grimalkina, to random
@grimalkina@mastodon.social avatar

I have ✨ a new preprint ✨ to share!!

This is a scientific review paper which seeks to provide a map, an entry point, and a call to action for improving the lives of the people who create software:

"Psychological Affordances Can Provide a Missing Explanatory Layer for Why Interventions to Improve Developer Experience Take Hold or Fail"

You can download it free and open access here:

https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/qz43x

anthrocypher,
@anthrocypher@hachyderm.io avatar

@grimalkina @hazelweakly @CSLee @sashag @gvwilson @mhoye @danilo @amcasari @KFosterMarks Thank you for climbing so many mountains to get here. We’re all better for it. ❤️

danilo, to VisionPro
@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

People ragging on Apple for charging $200 for the case really missing the point here

There’s no universe where the case is even necessary because that shit is never leaving my house

anthrocypher,
@anthrocypher@hachyderm.io avatar

@grimalkina @danilo there’s a whole sci-fi short story to be written here meditating on how we mold ourselves so our tools can better use us

kellogh, to random
@kellogh@hachyderm.io avatar

over the years, a lot of my mentoring has been around managing change, especially coaching engineers into understanding the values of their org so they can succeed, or to predict if they’ll be valuable at some new job. imo if you understand how to navigate change, you should feel obligated to share that with others. it’s probably the single biggest way to have an impact

anthrocypher,
@anthrocypher@hachyderm.io avatar

@kellogh there’s a whole consulting angle here being brought by engineering orgs to be, like, a change management coach for ICs. Your desire to help people and the org’s desire to use them like cogs or manage them out would, frankly, often be at odds but if you thought you could navigate that (and actually help the ICs despite) well, you’d have a compelling offering

anthrocypher, to random
@anthrocypher@hachyderm.io avatar

So much of humanization, or lack thereof, in our systems come down to whether the things people tell us about their own lived experience are deemed valid data.

anthrocypher, to random
@anthrocypher@hachyderm.io avatar

I've had so many thoughts since seeing this earlier this week.

It's completely true, and I think it's bad that it's true.

When orgs don't create good shared, working definitions and words are arbitrary moving targets, everyone runs around spending indiscriminate cycles, dollars, and energy hoping it'll accidentally yet happily propel them in the right direction.

It creates burnout, wasted runway, blown budgets. Ask me how I know.

anthrocypher,
@anthrocypher@hachyderm.io avatar

As I was saying just the other day, Etienne Wenger told us in Communities of Practice that meaning is negotiated as a shared group process. And I observed orgs are mostly skipping that step.

https://hachyderm.io/@anthrocypher/111684150155989067

DevRel is one of the worst defined disciplines in the modern business world.

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