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> It’s not complicated but it requires not being terrified of assertiveness and confrontation from the top down. It requires the professional communication sk

> It’s not complicated but it requires not being terrified of assertiveness and confrontation from the top down. It requires the professional communication skills that are not taught in a STEM education. That's why this is all so difficult: we are not taught how to communicate effectively with one another, and the entire tech landscape has poor communicators misinforming and misleading one another.

geraldhh 3y ago
Statements of poor communication always make me wonder if the shirky principle might be part of the problem
- bsenftner 3y ago
  I do not believe so. This lack of communication skills is also due to a lack of recognition of the value good communications engenders. An undergraduate business school education pragmatically touches on professional communications, but only as far as how to motivate and control people, not how to effectively communicate - as in a shared synchronization of understanding, which is what professional communications is all about. Colleges of communications teach professional communications as their foundation, before the various media majors one graduates within. The more I look at the levels of communications in general within society, our civilization has not yet recognized how critical communications are to every aspect of life, not just business and careers. Good communications are like fire, capable of destroying and capable of being the foundation greater things are built, and the lack of this recognition amazes me.
  - geraldhh 3y ago
    the recognition is definitively there, in ppl, but lacking in most organizations esp. industries. interesting if endeavors with nlp and llm's can help to spread nuance or commodify motivation and control.
    - bsenftner 3y ago
      Interesting, as that is what my current work is all about: integrating LLMs into ordinary software people use everyday, and those LLMs serve multiple purposes: a) they know the software they are integrated and can offer support in how to use the software, b) a 'psychologist AI' looks at what the user is doing and makes an assessment of how well they understand both the software they are using and the content of their use of the software, that assessment is used to modify the amount of help and the language used when helping, c) both the assessment from b and the content from whatever they are authoring is used to generate an expert in the subject matter of their content, whom is then available in a chat interface with access to rewrite the content the user is authoring upon their request. And d) when a "completed" document is viewed (not in an editor) a slightly different expert is generated based on the context of the document, whom is available for extended Q&A of that document and it's subject. I'm calling this work 'human comprehension support'.
Aeolun 3y ago
I think well communicated terrible ideas are still terrible.
- BeetleB 3y ago
  Good communication doesn't consist of stating tautologies.
- deckard1 3y ago
  yes, but the Senior Principle Staff Engineer that has two whole years of experience doesn't know the difference.
austin-cheney 3y ago
That cannot be over-stated enough. I learned my communication skills in the military while building my software career. Those worlds are so incredibly different that I have spent most of my professional life lost. On one hand my expectations for excellence in software are alien to my peers who just want to complete a JIRA task by any means possible. Yes, it is possible to deliver superior results for an entire day's effort in about 2 hours provided you aren't framed by all kinds of institutional roadblocks and unnecessary abstractions. I am scared to death to actually communicate my opinions regarding software because people tend to whine about how hard life is. For this reason I have abandoned my JavaScript career. Then on the military side I have to unlearn the high agreeableness that is so necessary for not getting fired in software. By high agreeableness I mean keeping your opinions to yourself, not voicing concerns, treating everything with kid gloves, and making everything as easy as possible. The military side is a much safer environment that expects brutal honesty. Nobody there believes themselves to be god's gift to the universe and they are always in a learning mode, which means they are coach-able and will not whine about corrections and mentorship.
- Solvency 3y ago
  [dead]
- bsenftner 3y ago
  Although I do not have military experience, I've spent some time writing software deployed to military security clients, and my interactions with technical armed forces staff has had remarkably good communications. To the degree it changed my attitude about the armed forces in a significant positive direction, and not just the tech side.
- geraldhh 3y ago
  > The military side is a much safer environment that expects brutal honesty. sounds refreshing but debatable whether an environment of honest brutality can be considered safe
  - austin-cheney 3y ago

geraldhh 3y ago

Statements of poor communication always make me wonder if the shirky principle might be part of the problem

bsenftner 3y ago
I do not believe so. This lack of communication skills is also due to a lack of recognition of the value good communications engenders. An undergraduate business school education pragmatically touches on professional communications, but only as far as how to motivate and control people, not how to effectively communicate - as in a shared synchronization of understanding, which is what professional communications is all about. Colleges of communications teach professional communications as their foundation, before the various media majors one graduates within. The more I look at the levels of communications in general within society, our civilization has not yet recognized how critical communications are to every aspect of life, not just business and careers. Good communications are like fire, capable of destroying and capable of being the foundation greater things are built, and the lack of this recognition amazes me.
- geraldhh 3y ago
  the recognition is definitively there, in ppl, but lacking in most organizations esp. industries. interesting if endeavors with nlp and llm's can help to spread nuance or commodify motivation and control.
  - bsenftner 3y ago
    Interesting, as that is what my current work is all about: integrating LLMs into ordinary software people use everyday, and those LLMs serve multiple purposes: a) they know the software they are integrated and can offer support in how to use the software, b) a 'psychologist AI' looks at what the user is doing and makes an assessment of how well they understand both the software they are using and the content of their use of the software, that assessment is used to modify the amount of help and the language used when helping, c) both the assessment from b and the content from whatever they are authoring is used to generate an expert in the subject matter of their content, whom is then available in a chat interface with access to rewrite the content the user is authoring upon their request. And d) when a "completed" document is viewed (not in an editor) a slightly different expert is generated based on the context of the document, whom is available for extended Q&A of that document and it's subject. I'm calling this work 'human comprehension support'.

Aeolun 3y ago

I think well communicated terrible ideas are still terrible.

BeetleB 3y ago
Good communication doesn't consist of stating tautologies.
deckard1 3y ago
yes, but the Senior Principle Staff Engineer that has two whole years of experience doesn't know the difference.

austin-cheney 3y ago

That cannot be over-stated enough. I learned my communication skills in the military while building my software career. Those worlds are so incredibly different that I have spent most of my professional life lost. On one hand my expectations for excellence in software are alien to my peers who just want to complete a JIRA task by any means possible. Yes, it is possible to deliver superior results for an entire day's effort in about 2 hours provided you aren't framed by all kinds of institutional roadblocks and unnecessary abstractions. I am scared to death to actually communicate my opinions regarding software because people tend to whine about how hard life is. For this reason I have abandoned my JavaScript career. Then on the military side I have to unlearn the high agreeableness that is so necessary for not getting fired in software. By high agreeableness I mean keeping your opinions to yourself, not voicing concerns, treating everything with kid gloves, and making everything as easy as possible. The military side is a much safer environment that expects brutal honesty. Nobody there believes themselves to be god's gift to the universe and they are always in a learning mode, which means they are coach-able and will not whine about corrections and mentorship.

Solvency 3y ago
[dead]
bsenftner 3y ago
Although I do not have military experience, I've spent some time writing software deployed to military security clients, and my interactions with technical armed forces staff has had remarkably good communications. To the degree it changed my attitude about the armed forces in a significant positive direction, and not just the tech side.
geraldhh 3y ago
> The military side is a much safer environment that expects brutal honesty. sounds refreshing but debatable whether an environment of honest brutality can be considered safe
- austin-cheney 3y ago