Friday, May 10, 2013

The Myth of the Genius Programmer

I liked this talk, though it was difficult for me to follow without slides or pictures.

This talk is relevant to me, because I have been experiencing this for the last several years in different companies I've been working for. I think there are no people who can and do know everything. We should not consider ourselves geniuses and make our colleagues feel underestimated. I think we should help others and ask for help whenever we need.

So there's no geniuses.
It's our natural instinct to try and want to be a genius, but we should fight that and actually try to collaborate as much as we can, early, often.
Don't be afraid of collaboration.
And pay attention to what your tools are doing to you and the people you work with, 'cause they do affect your collaborative behavior.
And finally, make sure you're paying attention to when you collaborate: not too early, not too late. There's a critical sweet spot for success in collaboration.
And of course, there's actually a secret to all this that you probably shouldn't share outside of this room, but believe it or not, if you actually do all these things, people will think you're a genius. Because it's not the typical thing that people do - people don't make themselves vulnerable, they're not open to influence.

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