Communication
They can’t hear you on mute.
Quote category eight in the Desktop Don Reference (DDR) is about Communication. I wrote the original DDR in 2003. I added a new category called Communication in 2023. I originally predicted that I wouldn’t need to change the DDR as the categories and quotes felt like enough. I was wrong. However, I did put the following note at the end of the DDR for a reason.
Note: If I could predict the future, I wouldn’t need to work.
This was the the last line of the Desktop Don Reference for the first 20 years. This will remain the last line for the next 20. I cannot predict the future, so please don’t ask me for lottery ticket numbers. If the Giants are playing the Patriots in the Super Bowl, the Giants always win. Then again, past results may not predict future performance. But I will always root for the Giants.
Communication
Why did I add a new category after 20 years? Simple. It’s because I kept saying the same three things over and over again and I hadn’t written them down.
They can’t hear you on mute.
I gave a talk with the quote above as the title in 2017 at the Open Source Strategy Forum in New York City. In the talk, I explained many of the things I had to learn as a developer in a Financial Services company to take an open source project from day one on GitHub to eventual success. Years later, I would revisit this topic again in a keynote talk titled “Surviving Open Source”. I wrote a follow up blog for that.
What does it mean to me?
I was on mute for the first 20 years of my career. I didn’t realize I was on mute. I was reasonably well known in the Tech Division of the Financial Services company I worked in. After several years of preparing presentations and giving internal talks, I started blogging on corporate blogging platforms. This helped build my brand internally. I did not blog publicly. I did not use social media. I didn’t give a public talk until 2010, when I finally felt I had something worth talking about. Outside I was not known at all.
I needed to build confidence. I started blogging publicly in August, 2017. This absolutely terrified me. I made a public commitment on Twitter soon after I started blogging that I would write at least a blog per month. This was my way of forcefully smashing the mute button. I stuck with that commitment for several years, until I felt it was no longer necessary. Including this blog, I have written nine blogs in the past two weeks, and 204 blogs in the past seven years. I have successfully taken myself off of mute. I am happier now that I have stopped leaving myself on mute.
Find a medium you are comfortable with in order to make your stories come alive and persist. Eventually you will feel more comfortable letting go of the safety of the mute button.
Docendo discimus.
My good friend Chandra Guntur taught me this Latin saying right before I gave a talk at QCon New York in 2017. If you look at his Twitter bio, which I linked on his name here, you need to do two things. Read his motto and click the follow button!
What does it mean to me?
This latin phrase means “By teaching, we learn”. I am a teacher. I enjoy teaching. When I’m blogging, I’m usually teaching something. Every time I teach something, I have to spend time researching and learning how best to communicate what I am learning to my audience.
When we really want to learn something, the best way is to teach it.
There’s a blog for that.
Once I broke the mute button, and started blogging, something magical happened. Instead of repeating the same stories explaining something to hundreds of people, I could just simply say to someone “There’s a blog for that.”
What does it mean to me?
Write the $h!t that you know down! Share it! Tell people about it! Share it again!
When we die, everything we know disappears with us, unless we write it down. Make sure if you have something important you want to say and share with your family, friends, and colleagues that you write it down and let them know that “There’s a blog for that.”
The peace of mind and tranquility that comes after the immense amount of stress and terror of writing that first blog or article that you put your name is an overwhelmingly positive feeling.
Still not convinced you have anything useful enough to write about? Then you need to read this.
Just do it. Do it a hundred times, and you will get better. Your future you will thank you.
That’s all for Communication, and the DDR
I hope you enjoyed the read. This is the end of the DDR category series. I hope the Desktop Don Reference is useful to you in some way.
If you haven’t already, you can read about categories one through seven: Simplicity , Quality , Process, Time, Teamwork, Education and The Future.
Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed the series!
I am the creator of and committer for the Eclipse Collections OSS project, which is managed at the Eclipse Foundation. Eclipse Collections is open for contributions.
