
Do Things, Tell People. - hebejebelus
http://carl.flax.ie/dothingstellpeople.html
======
hebejebelus
Author here. This is why I think every programmer should have at least these
two things: a twitter account, and a github account. A github account to
publish what you do, and a twitter account to tell people. You can do this
sort of thing from anywhere with an internet connection, and it's free and
easy. (I also think every programmer should have business cards. Can't be
contacted if nobody has your email address).

~~~
daenz
I would question the need for a twitter account. I see programmers with
twitter accounts, and it seems like they invest so much more effort to
maintain it (retweets, circle-jerking, etc) than they get out of it. A github
account should do just fine...if people like you, they follow you and/or your
projects.

~~~
pagekalisedown
Also, if you're not very good (you're still kinda green) why advertise it?

Once something is out there, you can never take it back.

~~~
jwwest
I don't think you can really grow or develop your skills in a vacuum. We
should encourage people to put their work out in the open. And discourage the
negative ego talk that's so prevalent in our communities.

~~~
16s
Very true! We can all learn from each other regardless of our level of
experience. No one person knows everything. There's nothing wrong with making
a mistake and learning from that and nothing wrong with others knowing that
you have the balls to make a public mistake. No one will know your name
otherwise.

Edit: Your comment reminds me of over-hearing a man make fun of another man
who had asked a question in a forum. The irony of this was that he was sitting
in the corner of a dark, smoky bar at night while making fun of another man
_who had the balls_ to ask a question in a public forum during the light of
day. No one knows the guy who was making fun because he himself was too afraid
to ask questions and always thought that someone like himself would criticize
him as he criticized others. Technology could use less negative egos!

------
akkartik
It's easy to forget today, but this was how academia began 350 years ago.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Society>

~~~
derrida
What was there before the Royal Society? There were still universities, wasn't
that 'Academia'? Or is there a specific meaning to the word 'academia' I don't
know?

~~~
akkartik
There was teaching, yes, but there wasn't modern, peer-reviewed research. Even
Newton spent half his lifetime as an alchemist. It just wasn't that clear that
science was the more fruitful endeavor.

I'm not claiming the Royal Society 'invented' peer-reviewed science. It wasn't
a dramatic moment of epiphany, just a gradually growing insight that spread
through society. And the Royal Society was at its forefront.

------
tathagatadg
"Do Things, Tell People" == "Show HN: .*"

I'm sure most of the folks here enjoy the" Show HN:" posts the most - just
like github has become the standard for putting your code out there, wish
there was a dotcloud/heroku/appengine like standard that would provide a "Cool
projects" feed to discover and get inspiration from. Ideally an integration of
= "github + dotcloud + Show HN: feed" is what I long for - "Do things, Tell
people" and get inspired from others in the network!

~~~
revorad
Not sure if this fits the bill but I'm building <http://swym.me> for a similar
purpose.

~~~
follower
I'm interested to see your Swym project in relation to a side-project of mine
called Labradoc.

Where Swym seems to be focused on the "short form", Labradoc is more "long
form".

Here's an example of my current projects & notes:
<http://www.labradoc.com/i/follower>

My main interest is ongoing project development logs but I have had people
mention they would be interested in a way to "follow" developers which Swym
seems to cover in an interesting way.

------
peeps502
From my experience (non-technical), it's more about who you know rather than
what you do. But, people don't know you unless you do something. It's a
vicious circle.

~~~
nrp
That's not really a vicious circle. People not knowing you shouldn't prevent
you from trying to do something.

Do something cool and show it to an online community related to whatever you
did, or even Hacker News or Reddit if it has general appeal. If it isn't cool
enough to impress them, you'll generally at least get some feedback with which
you can make your next attempt better.

If you keep at it and care enough to improve, people will start to know you.

------
shashashasha
Reminds me of Derek Powazek's strategy: "Make something great. Tell people
about it. Do it again." <http://powazek.com/posts/2090>

Great to frame that more in the context of "personal brands" vs "not SEO".

------
karterk
I think what you are trying to say invariably translates to people learning to
enjoy the process and journey rather than the destination.

You have to do things because you really like doing them and hence you
somewhat abstract yourself away from the actual results.

------
ladon86
Didn't you guys already visit Game Closure? I think I remember seeing you at
AOL over the summer. Congrats to both of you on securing great positions - the
way you've presented yourselves definitely makes you easy to hire.

~~~
tkazec
You remember correctly! If you don't mind me asking, who were you with? I
(their 15 year old intern) was there from August-November and got to know the
place pretty well :)

------
Kiro
This is what I don't like about the startup community. I love making things
but hate talking about them.

Of course I want my startup to get publicity, I just don't want my name
attached to it. Solution?

~~~
corford
I think either find a cofounder who can handle the social/promotion side for
you or give up the idea of running your own startup and instead get in early
as a dev for someone else's.

I have just quit my job to work full time on an idea I have (still very early
stages atm so nothing public right now) but I'm the same as you i.e. self
promotion doesn't come easily or naturally (frankly I hate it!).

But... I've accepted that if I want this to go anywhere I'm going to have to
work on the self promotion side and somehow learn to be comfortable with it.
In the last month I've created a twitter account (still learning the ropes on
that) and a github account and I'm also thinking about how I could run a small
blog (but I'm only going to do this if I think I've got enough worthwhile
things to say - there's nothing worse than a neglected blog with boring
content!).

I find all this social stuff a bit scary (and a potentially large time sink)
but there's no way around it if you want to get your idea out there, make
connections and get noticed.

One plus, as a single founder working in isolation at the moment, is that
developing the social side a bit will help keep me honest and motivated
because working in a vacuum isn't easy (or healthy).

~~~
corford
Something else I forgot which I'm going to try: use something like meetup.com
to find a few startup groups in your vicinity and go to one or two. I think it
will help break the taboo a bit and make it easier in the future to talk to
strangers about your idea (face to face or online).

------
halayli
in summary, toot your own horn

~~~
jasonshen
Not quite. To continue this analogy:

In summary, write songs worth tooting and then make sure to actually toot your
horn.

------
orlandob
This is massively inspiring to me. This article is now hanging on my cubicle
wall. Thank you, Carl.

~~~
hebejebelus
I'm really glad that you thought it so good! :)

