
The Importance of Giving a Damn (in people and software) - danilocampos
http://blog.danilocampos.com/2010/10/04/the-importance-of-giving-a-damn/
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edw519
Nice post.

I've always thought that the people who gave a damn were the ones who
instinctively understood that energy given is not energy given away. It's
energy given _and_ kept.

Those who appear to not give a damn are the ones who think that if you expend
energy on your customers, you lose that energy and become weaker. Ironically,
they become weaker by _not_ expending that energy.

A programmer going the extra mile by writing great customer facing software is
like lighting a candle lighting another candle. At the moment they touch,
_both_ become brighter and then you have twice the light.

Thanks for the great examples. I love Zappos and hipmunk, too.

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antareus
It feels like there is something pressing against me when I give a damn. I
mean, the result is appreciated, but I feel like the culture around me hates
me for being willing to make the sacrifice necessary to get there.

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danilocampos
There _is_ something pressing against you. The apathy of everyone else around
you. Few things are more painful than being around people whose give a damn
isn't aligned with your own. You'll spend a lot of time advocating things that
seem alien at worst and wasteful and best.

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antareus
This sounds like the story of my life. The best way to deal with it is
to...leave?

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danilocampos
It may be. I can only speak for my experience. For me, being around people who
don't share my values is utterly draining. Time you could be spending making
magic happen gets spent on convincing other people that magic is worth
something. It can be exhausting.

You absorb the energy of the people around you. And if the people around you
fail to give a damn about the things you care about, you run the risk of
losing own energy for it, too.

I don't, in the end, know the best solution for your case. But whatever you
do, protect that spark that makes everyone look at you like an ear is growing
out of your forehead.

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bobds
One thing I like about Hipmunk's interface is that it doesn't need two extra
clicks to make the calendar inputs appear.

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sdfjkl
Same reason Apple's products are loved so much by their users - made with
keeping the users in mind, not the shareholders.

Not that Apple's shareholders have any reason to complain.

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danilocampos
I challenged myself to write this without touching Apple but I agree entirely.

Apple gives a damn about the user experience from the very moment you walk
into an Apple Store, and it continues through opening the box and first-run of
your hardware, all the way to your day-to-day usage.

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dbingham
They do and always have. But the problem with them giving a damn is that they
have a certain type of user in mind. And to give a good user experience to
that user, they need the control.

If you happen to be the type of user who wants maximum control in your hands,
and not in Apple's, then Apple's giving a damn has a negative impact on you.

It's why I stopped using Apple after growing up using their stuff and switched
to running linux on PC hardware. I wanted my control back from Apple.

And since Linux is open source, I get the benefit of having control and having
a product (software at least) made by people who give a damn!

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sunkencity
Nice post, but I wish hipmunk gave a damn about graphic design and had an
excellent designer touch-up that eyesore of vector illustration and the poorly
anti-aliased text of "flight search", or maybe it's an intentional statement -
we care so much about good search that we don't care about design.

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kn0thing
I'll gladly send you the .eps of the hipmunk if you'd like to un-eyesore it.

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scottyallen
Now that's throwing down the gauntlet:)

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yewweitan
Total agree, giving a damn is probably the best filter ever. Of course, the
converse can be applied effectively too; not giving a damn to things that
you're not willing to invest wholehearted in, streamlining your productivity
instead of trying to give a damn with everything.

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brudgers
"Design like you give a damn" - Cameron Sinclair

<http://www.ted.com/speakers/cameron_sinclair.html>

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zackattack
i have been impressed by your blog/comments, etc. what are you working
on/where do you work at?

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danilocampos
That's very kind of you, thanks.

Right now I'm learning Rails, along with Ruby, to work on a web app I've been
imagining. I spent a decent chunk of time on iPhone development but always
felt the gap in not knowing how to do server-side stuff.

I love making things for other people to use. That's the thing I have, since
childhood, given a damn about, and why I learned how to program. I'm a product
manager at Aurora Feint these days, but I often miss being more hands-on.

I also consult on mobile UX when I've got time – and will consider writing iOS
code for the right clients.

I'll be at Startup School – if you're attending, it'd be great to meet up.
(That goes for anyone else going, too!)

