The Importance of Other Stuff

There haven't been a lot of updates around here, lately, and for that I apologize.

Ya see, I've been busy. I won't go into the specifics. I'll only say that I haven't been poking at computers that much this month because I've been doing Other Stuff.

Given the fast and ever-changing nature of this business, it can be very easy to get caught up trying to keep up with everything. There's always a new technology, a new product, or even just a new version of existing products. There's also all of the tech that one doesn't know anything about, but would be very useful to know.

That's just it, though. Nobody can keep up with it all; there's just too much. A long time ago (get off my lawn!), I concluded that I would commit as little as possible to memory. I focus on the overall patterns, but the specifics tend to be ephemeral, obsolete before you ever get to use them again. If I do memorize something, it is because I use it all of the time. The most important thing I've learned is how to find the answer quickly, even when I've already answered that particular question. (Putting it in a blog doesn't hurt, either.)

There's just so much more to the world. It is a shame to miss it.

Well hey, maybe you're young, and hungry, and this is all you want to do. Okay, that's your call, but you're limiting yourself in the long run. Not just in a "there's more to life" kind of way, but professionally.

You see, all of this tech is about people. Not as "lusers", but as people. The most successful technology isn't the "cool" technology, it's the tools which help people do what people have always done: talk to other people.

They say that a business is about the people. That isn't entirely true. If it were, then we'd still have huge secretarial pools. It is about the interactions between those people. Outside of improving the overall process, the boss isn't interested in what tools you used to get those numbers, only that you got those numbers and they are correct.

There's an attitude among too many of the people in this field that users are stupid. Worse still are the ones who believe that their success in this field translates to success in other fields. The one commonality among them is that they don't do anything else. They don't leave their comfort zones, they forget what it is like to be the least knowledgeable person in the room.

That's why it is important to do Other Stuff.