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Try to find an angle that the listener might find interesting, rather than trying to puff it up to make it sound as cool as possible. For instance: I was work
by Kluny 9y ago
Try to find an angle that the listener might find interesting, rather than trying to puff it up to make it sound as cool as possible.
For instance:
I was working with the development team for Time.com to fix a major security vulnerability. It basically took 3 days of staying up all night debugging and going back and forth with their team, and we finally found it - some dumbass included a javascript library that has a well known bug hidden in a minified mess.
Why is this bad? Namedropping (time.com), puffing it up to sound bigger than it is (debugging something for three days is perfectly normal, if you're staying up all night then it's down to your own poor time management), name calling and blaming others (the dumbass), jargon (javascript library, minified), assuming knowledge that there's no reason for them to have (well-known).
Instead: I got to work with one of our really big clients to figure out a security vulnerability that was really stumping everyone. We spent a couple of days debugging it, so that's probably why I've had my head in a cloud lately because I've just been thinking about it non-stop. In the end, we found a bug hidden in a really big block of third party code that's written in a way that makes it very tough for humans to read it, but luckily it's a known bug that some other company had documented, and someone found a blog post about it that let us connect up the dots. All six of us working on it were really relieved when we figured it out!
Why better - gives credit to others, explains why it was difficult, doesn't use any technical language, leaves openings for more questions (why is the code hard for humans to read? who was the big client?), doesn't try to exaggerate the severity of it.
- tpeo 9y agoI'd go further and say that as long as a person can keep the listener's attention, they won't sound like a douche. It's finding out all the confounding variables which makes them sound annoying (e.g. how close you're to the listener, assuming knowledge, mentioning stuff irrelevant to the story).
- good_vibes 9y agoNoted. This is the kind of answer I was looking for, I'm not too far off the mark. I could do better though. I'm trying to mold myself from the wisdom of this community little by little. I just want to build something of value, that makes life more fulfilling for the people who use my platform. I try not to talk about it unless the conversation drifts towards 'what are you working on?'. At that point, I mention what it is in bare bones terms and that's it. Also I've learned that people react differently based on their feelings about themselves. Talking to people who are happy with themselves, they like to hear more and we go back and forth. Other times, people change the subject to sports or weather.
- Kluny 9y agoRight, so it sounds like the people who are happy with themselves have lots of emotional capacity for being interested in your thing, but other people can't do it so they change to an easier subject. The key is to make it about them. Is your project something they can use in their life? Don't tell them they can use it - ask about the pain points you're trying to solve with your thing, and see if they have those pain points. Make it about them. If it's uber for dogs, the conversation is about their dog. If it's about Jucero for meat, it's about their eating habits. Then you mention that you're working on something that you hope will make x easier for people like them, and leave room for them to ask questions, rather than jumping in with a sales pitch.
- good_vibes 9y agoThanks! This is a good framework for me to use going forward. I want to keep everything casual while collecting valuable feedback/pushback. I learn a lot in casual social settings, the best ideas are useful to people in everyday situations. That's my belief at least.
- alpha_squared 9y agoI love this. It's the only one, of the answers so far, that actually addresses a problem and gives a potential solution. Understandably, without context, the original question is a little vague, but the main takeaway from this response is to practice empathy and understanding that others may come from different backgrounds. The only thing I would add is that I generally try to give a brief overview of something in an ELI5 approach and if they're interested in more then they'll ask questions.