This is great.<p>I've been thinking a lot lately about how important it is to have someone who makes other people important on a team. I've seen a lot of pseudo-teams where everyone is trying to slay their own dragons.<p>It's hard to be the guide, though. Some people don't think they need help. Selfishness can be the norm, so people don't learn to accept help. Fake sincerity makes it hard to make genuine connections.<p>The most difficult part of trying to focus on others, for me, is that people still heap things onto my plate. No one makes time for being a guide or a leader for ICs. Managers seem to be too busy in meetings to focus on people.<p>Is it feasible to find jobs where this sort of attitude is taken seriously?
This is pretty misguided, if benightedly well-intentioned. People working on commercial software projects are ultimately hewing wood and drawing water, albeit with tools perhaps less clumsy and random than axes and buckets, but your project will not be more civilized for having heroes. Quite the opposite. Heroes are a sign of dysfunction and exploitation.<p>Lest I be accused of objecting to the mere frame of this blog post, I'll say that this post is little more than a regurgitation of numerous corporate training grafts I've been subjected to. By all means, encourage and aid your co-workers to become a bit-driving John Henry. Let their hearts die out in confusion over self-actualization and ROI. What are they but wielders of less-clumsy-and-random axes and buckets, after all?<p>Better by far than playing Yoda, would be to find solidarity with your fellow less-clumsy-and-random axe and bucket wielders. Consider clearly what you are doing, why, and <i>cui bono</i>.
Yeah well the thing is Gandalf’s quite a hero though. The article doesn’t say “be the Samwise Gamegee”, or “be the r2d2”.<p>Cause these guys, despite having their own fanbase of introverts don’t get half the recognition they deserve.<p>Helping others is a fine narrative, just make sure you’re the hero in that story, otherwise you won’t get the credit for your achievements…
This is an incoherent argument that misunderstands the nature of heroism.<p>Heroism is an ongoing personal journey, for those who choose it. Heroism supports community by definition. There is no choice you must make between “being a hero” and helping others.<p>Most screeds against heroism are, I suspect, really about the author wanting to justify his own passivity.
> Every juicy problem has three layers. It starts with a practical need, turns into an emotional desire, and is topped with a captivating narrative.<p>Stopped reading there. Reads like an article from a magazine. It started that way too but I decided to give it a chance.<p>This sort of thing should have its own genre called "Random profound junk for dummies", though I am not married to the name. I am sure there is a single word that means the exact same thing
There is an image of features and benefits in the middle of the article. When I read it, it reminds me these landings with bullet points from "benefits" column: Get more done, Focus on what matters most, Start saving time today, No commitment, Stay on track. This is exactly what makes me confused about what the product is and why I would need it. But if you replace it with items from "features" columns, it becomes much clearer: A to-do list, With priorities, Simple setup, Cancel anytime, Has status updates. If I get it right, the author suggests providing benefits instead of features. Well, this doesn't work for me and for many others, based on previous discussions about vague marketing points like "start being effective today" and similar formulas. They could mean anything, and your problem structure may not match it. E.g. you need tags on your existing todos badly and the product doesn't have them. How could it make you more effective today?
Good points. But it feels like someone who isn't able to contribute to engineering trying really hard to justify a higher salary on some purely functional level. And not that marketing isn't critical, but the article is overselling it.
Kathy Sierra's "Creating Passionate Users" blog really launched that idea that people want to be the hero of their story, at least for product design. The idea that users want to feel good about themselves, and the job of your software is to get them from "oh no, a problem -- I suck!" to "wow, I am kicking ass!" as quickly as possible.<p>Much of management is creating environments where this happens: commit code on your first day, instant feedback for your commits, supporting people to create success themselves rather than rely on you to save the day, etc.
I'm going to be a bit ornery about this one...<p>Putting content in a Why, How, What? (Simon S. framework) ex post facto - like this one does with the three layer problem will write mba textbooks for ages...<p>No, there are heroes... they just don't wear VP capes.<p>Great products are all of these things innately, not through manufacture. The base is emotional relief that your customer isn't alone in experiencing a problem - it is finally solved - and they evangelize to others that they are now 'healed.'