Opinionated

Most people are complacent. Sheep, even.

If you are not consciously examining your skills and deliberately improving on them regularly, you are a sheep, whether you know it or not.

For example, when I interview people that could be writing code for me, I am not primarily looking for what language they know, and what libraries they have experience with. I want to know two things or there is no point in further conversation; can you think? and what conscious action do you take to make yourself a better coder?

These principles apply to everyone though, regardless of what field you are in. A depressingly small number of people ever make it past the first of the four stages of competence¹ and thus never strive to improve themselves. They learn enough that they think they know what they are doing, and then bumble along for a few decades.

If a developer isn’t reading blogs, reading other people’s code, experimenting with new technology on side projects, extending their knowledge of ‘solved’ problems and known paradigms, then what profession are they in exactly? Would you be comfortable going to a physician if you learned they hadn’t read any new findings in years? Would you use a tax lawyer who didn’t know this years tax code?

This applies to people attempting to do startups, and VCs as well. The landscape for startups is changing constantly. The principles remain the same; new discoveries lead to ‘obvious’ adjacent discoveries that fuel the next space of interest. The new area of discovery opened up is arguably inevitable, someone else either has already or will shortly see the same new possibility. The specifics of how you implement the many different levels of going from awareness of opportunity to exploiting it as a money making business and are essentially infinite in variability from our limited vantage point.

A staggering number of ‘entrepreneurs’, the majority of what I run across on the web, are pursuing ‘startups’ that demonstrate they are either not really entrepreneurs or don’t really understand the meaning of a startup. Jolie O’dell skewered this rather nicely awhile back². Beyond her observations, too many people are either not actually putting the effort or risk out, or are pursuing an idea that won’t scale. This to me demonstrates a fundamental lack of awareness.

Similarly the VC game is shifting very rapidly right now. VCs are having to become more entrepreneurial. This is a very natural progression of things, it makes sense that things will not remain bankerly as fire-eating entrepreneurs become Angels and VCs later in life and apply their impatience with crap to that world. Technical and economic realities are shifting too. I’ve heard several very smart investors³ point out that the balance of power has now shifted to the entrepreneur, especially in the web/software side of the equation where you can iterate on an idea for almost no money.

If you are a designer you sure as heck better be aware how rapidly everything about your job is changing. The metaphors, the tool stack, the input to the process and the expected output. All different today than 24 months ago in my world.

Advertising? Media? Publishing? Yea, wake up.

There are many other people in your field. Anywhere from dozens to millions depending upon your level of expertise and specialization. And they’re all out to eat your lunch. They’re also all adding to the common pool of knowledge. If you aren’t actively seeking out what they are discovering, iterating on and improving, you are wasting your fucking time.

What are you doing to learn more about your field?

What are you doing to learn something random that will spark a discovery that will benefit you, your field and progress in general?

Update 12/5/2010: Yes, this is a bit harsh. It is a rant, written at midnight at the end of a long week at the end of a long year. What brings me to want to rant is that as various commenters pointed out this is not rocket science, it is ‘obvious’, it has been understood for thousands of years. This should be something every child is taught by 8th grade and a fundamental part of our cultural zeitgeist, and that it is not was pissing me off. It was cathartic for me, and I’m glad to have sparked some thought and discussion.