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What was the primary motivator creating this?

by flockonus 6y ago

chrislan815 6y ago
I'm curious as well. It's an interesting app for sure.
- dijit 6y ago
  Can't speak for everyone but I really dislike that negative feedback is perceived as somehow "unkind". People have no issue saying to others about all the reasons they dislike a person, from it being "too energetic" to "always makes it about themselves". But nobody will correct this behaviour, nobody will even point it out to the person exhibiting the behaviour until it's _extreme_. Part of my psychologists examination of me before (when I burned out) was to collect anonymous feedback from colleagues and friends on how they perceive me- because I had a growing anxiety that I was always somehow the bad guy in most situations. And the feedback- even when anonymous; was surprisingly neutral in tone. Open feedback is a hard problem, we're socially constructed to make people like us, and for that reason we don't want to be the person identifying a flaw or making someone feel bad. But honestly, without some kind of social mirror, how do we even know who we are?
  - LordOfWolves 6y ago
    The last two paragraphs of your experiences ring within me as well. The “power” we give people over our well-being when socially anxious is absolutely unwarranted.
  - MattGaiser 6y ago
    Is it considered unkind or do people just avoid it as some do not react well to it? I avoid giving negative feedback, especially if I need to interact with that person again, as people tend to get defensive and mad at me for giving them it, while they are happy if I praise them. Don't want to deal with that, so everything I say is positive. I don't avoid giving it it out of empathy and consideration, but self interest.
n_david 6y ago
I actually got the idea initially from listening to a podcast called Farnam Street (this episode specifically: https://fs.blog/knowledge-project/adam-robinson-pt2/ https://fs.blog/knowledge-project/adam-robinson-pt2/). The idea is to provide a simple, convenient way for people to give and receive anonymous feedback. I think feedback is very important for growth and to be more self-aware in general, and the barrier to give feedback to somebody is far too high relative to the benefit this feedback could mean to the receiver. The comment by dijit I think sums up my motivation to build this pretty well. To be honest though I don't know if this app solves the problem. The way the app is currently, feedback is initiated by the person seeking feedback, whereas in the examples above it's the feedback giver initiating (or looking for a way to provide) the feedback. There is still value in this case where the feedback seeker initiates the feedback loop I think, but it doesn't quite solve the problem I initially set forth to solve. Maybe that use case can be addressed with further iterations.

What was the primary motivator creating this?

chrislan815 6y ago

I'm curious as well. It's an interesting app for sure.

dijit 6y ago
Can't speak for everyone but I really dislike that negative feedback is perceived as somehow "unkind". People have no issue saying to others about all the reasons they dislike a person, from it being "too energetic" to "always makes it about themselves". But nobody will correct this behaviour, nobody will even point it out to the person exhibiting the behaviour until it's _extreme_. Part of my psychologists examination of me before (when I burned out) was to collect anonymous feedback from colleagues and friends on how they perceive me- because I had a growing anxiety that I was always somehow the bad guy in most situations. And the feedback- even when anonymous; was surprisingly neutral in tone. Open feedback is a hard problem, we're socially constructed to make people like us, and for that reason we don't want to be the person identifying a flaw or making someone feel bad. But honestly, without some kind of social mirror, how do we even know who we are?
- LordOfWolves 6y ago
  The last two paragraphs of your experiences ring within me as well. The “power” we give people over our well-being when socially anxious is absolutely unwarranted.
- MattGaiser 6y ago
  Is it considered unkind or do people just avoid it as some do not react well to it? I avoid giving negative feedback, especially if I need to interact with that person again, as people tend to get defensive and mad at me for giving them it, while they are happy if I praise them. Don't want to deal with that, so everything I say is positive. I don't avoid giving it it out of empathy and consideration, but self interest.

n_david 6y ago

I actually got the idea initially from listening to a podcast called Farnam Street (this episode specifically: https://fs.blog/knowledge-project/adam-robinson-pt2/ https://fs.blog/knowledge-project/adam-robinson-pt2/). The idea is to provide a simple, convenient way for people to give and receive anonymous feedback. I think feedback is very important for growth and to be more self-aware in general, and the barrier to give feedback to somebody is far too high relative to the benefit this feedback could mean to the receiver. The comment by dijit I think sums up my motivation to build this pretty well. To be honest though I don't know if this app solves the problem. The way the app is currently, feedback is initiated by the person seeking feedback, whereas in the examples above it's the feedback giver initiating (or looking for a way to provide) the feedback. There is still value in this case where the feedback seeker initiates the feedback loop I think, but it doesn't quite solve the problem I initially set forth to solve. Maybe that use case can be addressed with further iterations.