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here are my findings from asking lots of researche...
# share-your-work
l
here are my findings from asking lots of researchers the same question: Is your work about "solving hard problems" or "influencing people"? https://www.todepond.com/wikiblogarden/blending/goals/community/
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d
Hi Lu, FWIW, I avoid hard problems like the plague - why would anyone do that to themselves? For me it's about Doing What Has To Be Done, which probably involves influencing people but unlike you I've always been hopeless at that. I always hoped I'd bump into someone good at that who also believed in my vision and could go off and influence on my behalf. So, in conclusion, neither!? Sorry. My work is entirely about "vision, mission, passion, obsession". I can't not do it. The world needs what I've discovered (not invented).
Sort of "Destiny" as in you can't avoid it
You say "No one said they want to influence the general public." - apart from me. Sorry again to be an outlier.
On "Fun" - yes, absolutely. I can't continue unless I'm getting regular shots of joy!
On real world use cases - by far and miles my biggest battle with myself was to stop caring about what others want, or rather what I think they want. To stop categorising into familiar useful buckets. Calling myself a "lab researcher" building "proofs of concept" not products has freed everything up for me so much I'm gutted I didn't do it decades before now.
e
What Duncan wrote 💯
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j
Influencing people seems to me to be a deeply hard problem to solve. My particular technical problem is making hard things easier. I don't know how to draw a line between that and influencing people to perceive those things as less hard.
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d
I aspire to be "imaginative and kind", but fail every day
a
@Duncan Cragg This leaves me with a probing question if you don't mind.. Who are the general public and are you one of them?
@Jason Morris I think being influenced by people is much easier, and then hopefully they reciprocate. I think it's important to recognise that the impact of your work is not something that you do, that's not in your gift. It's what other people do with your work.
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@Alex McLean general public is human beings on the planet as far as I can tell (ask @Lu Wilson!!) - and I'm probably nowhere near normal enough to be one of them in demographic statistical norming terms - I think I'm probably what you young'uns call "neurodivergent" (hence regularly pissing everyone off, apologies in both advance and in retrospect)
I somehow manage to combine two contradictory beliefs in my world view: (1) that technology and humans should work better together, and (2) that I, as a non-representative of most humans, have the solution to that!
a
@Duncan Cragg But that implies you're only making things for statistically average people.. Is that right? Statistically average/neurotypical people are unusual in their own way of course. I think 'general public' is one of those terms which is used a lot and seems innocent but gets deeply problematic when you stare at it.. (Btw I've recently discovered that I'm not a young 'un any more by any measure, as I discovered recently when I realised some FoC people don't necessarily know what a discussion mailing list is, or the cultural significance of ntk.net to the 00's UK tech scene.) Personally I don't like to make tools to solve problems for people, but rather make languages and environments for them to mess with and create their own problems in.
Well maybe it's not so problematic if it just means a non-specialist, but then I think it's better to be clear about what they're not a specialist in, as everyone is a specialist in some things..
b
Share your scrappy fiddles! ...
And if the goal is to “influence people”, there is far too much time spent on the prototyping the thing, and far too little spent on prototyping the communications.
That is a golden insight. Thank you 🤔🤔
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