4 ms·

Empathy

70 points by ImOssir 13y ago

sdegutis 13y ago
This reminds me a lot of Mattt's other post about empathy[1]. What stuck with me most were two tweets at the end of it: one person said "Why do open-source programmers take things so personally?" to which another replied "because we're all persons". At the time, I was ruining some of my professional relationships over arguments about their open source projects, because I only looked at these from a technical stand-point. Once I started putting myself in their shoes, I stopped criticizing. Instead I tried to be that person who always makes you feel like you can do anything, who always praises and never criticizes, who believes in you and your ideas, because that's the kind of person I look up to. True, I had to ignore some technical deficiencies a few times, but life's too short. Plus, who am I to think I have all the answers? Maybe those technical deficiencies are really innovations in disguise, which I just lack the proper imagination to see properly at this early of a stage? Even more reason to overlook it and be supportive rather than critical. So far it's working out well. My professional relationships are improving, and I feel like much less of a sour-puss than before. But YMMV. [1]: http://mattt.me/2011/empathy-and-open-source/ http://mattt.me/2011/empathy-and-open-source/ EDIT: This is possibly related to my recent burnout which made it a whole lot easier to not really care about technical details and focus a lot more on the relationships and the positives. These two things happened at the same time.
peterwwillis 13y ago
I can't upvote this enough. At the very least, developing cognitive empathy can help you communicate better with people by understanding their emotional state and responding appropriately. But more than that, there's all the positive benefits of applying emotional intelligence to your work and personal life that come from empathizing with people.
sentenza 13y ago
Given the name of the site, I'd like to add an off-topic remark on culturally sensitive naming. Your site is named nshipster, which is fine, unless it will become the name of a product which you would ever want to market in Germany. In public discourse in Germany, the two letters NS are commonly used as shorthand for National Socialism in the historical sense. So if you want to sell, I don't know, your coffee break management app and call it ns-coffee, nobody in Germany will touch it with a ten foot pole. Another two-letter combination for which the same holds (I'd even say it is a lot worse) is KZ. KZ is the everyday stand-in term for concentration camp. So think twice before you name that Kazachstan travel app.
- pretz 13y ago
  The site's name is an Apple/OSX cultural reference. It refers to NeXSTEP: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nextstep http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nextstep In particular, the core classes of Objective-c (and thus Cocoa and Cocoa Touch for iOS) use NS as a prefix: https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/cocoa/reference/foundation/ObjC_classic/_index.html https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/cocoa/...
- bguthrie 13y ago
  NS is a common prefix for Apple-derived ObjectiveC classes. In that context it stands for NextStep, which Apple acquired many years ago. The NSHipster blog is a reference to this usage of NS. I understand that it has extremely negative connotations in Germany, but unfortunately you're going to have to take that up with Apple, not with the blog's author.
  - sentenza 13y ago
    Yes, I know that. Just recently I talked with a friend about just that unfortunate naming decision by NextStep. I also didn't want to directly critique the site owner. I just thought it might make sense to draw some awareness to the issue because non-German speakers have practically no chance of knowing about this pitfall. It's kind of similar to the Chevy Nova situation.
    - philwelch 13y ago
      The "Chevy Nova situation" is an urban legend. http://www.snopes.com/business/misxlate/nova.asp http://www.snopes.com/business/misxlate/nova.asp
      - middus 13y ago
        Alternative: Toyota MR2 in France :).
        peterwwillis 13y ago
lux 13y ago
It seems like an awful lot of our problems could be solved in good part with a little empathy...
kordless 13y ago
Human trust is the result of empathetic proof of work. It takes what is most valuable to you: time.

70 points by ImOssir 13y ago

This reminds me a lot of Mattt's other post about empathy[1]. What stuck with me most were two tweets at the end of it: one person said "Why do open-source programmers take things so personally?" to which another replied "because we're all persons". At the time, I was ruining some of my professional relationships over arguments about their open source projects, because I only looked at these from a technical stand-point. Once I started putting myself in their shoes, I stopped criticizing. Instead I tried to be that person who always makes you feel like you can do anything, who always praises and never criticizes, who believes in you and your ideas, because that's the kind of person I look up to. True, I had to ignore some technical deficiencies a few times, but life's too short. Plus, who am I to think I have all the answers? Maybe those technical deficiencies are really innovations in disguise, which I just lack the proper imagination to see properly at this early of a stage? Even more reason to overlook it and be supportive rather than critical. So far it's working out well. My professional relationships are improving, and I feel like much less of a sour-puss than before. But YMMV. [1]: http://mattt.me/2011/empathy-and-open-source/ http://mattt.me/2011/empathy-and-open-source/ EDIT: This is possibly related to my recent burnout which made it a whole lot easier to not really care about technical details and focus a lot more on the relationships and the positives. These two things happened at the same time.

peterwwillis 13y ago

I can't upvote this enough. At the very least, developing cognitive empathy can help you communicate better with people by understanding their emotional state and responding appropriately. But more than that, there's all the positive benefits of applying emotional intelligence to your work and personal life that come from empathizing with people.

sentenza 13y ago

Given the name of the site, I'd like to add an off-topic remark on culturally sensitive naming. Your site is named nshipster, which is fine, unless it will become the name of a product which you would ever want to market in Germany. In public discourse in Germany, the two letters NS are commonly used as shorthand for National Socialism in the historical sense. So if you want to sell, I don't know, your coffee break management app and call it ns-coffee, nobody in Germany will touch it with a ten foot pole. Another two-letter combination for which the same holds (I'd even say it is a lot worse) is KZ. KZ is the everyday stand-in term for concentration camp. So think twice before you name that Kazachstan travel app.

pretz 13y ago
The site's name is an Apple/OSX cultural reference. It refers to NeXSTEP: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nextstep http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nextstep In particular, the core classes of Objective-c (and thus Cocoa and Cocoa Touch for iOS) use NS as a prefix: https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/cocoa/reference/foundation/ObjC_classic/_index.html https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/cocoa/...
bguthrie 13y ago
NS is a common prefix for Apple-derived ObjectiveC classes. In that context it stands for NextStep, which Apple acquired many years ago. The NSHipster blog is a reference to this usage of NS. I understand that it has extremely negative connotations in Germany, but unfortunately you're going to have to take that up with Apple, not with the blog's author.
- sentenza 13y ago
  Yes, I know that. Just recently I talked with a friend about just that unfortunate naming decision by NextStep. I also didn't want to directly critique the site owner. I just thought it might make sense to draw some awareness to the issue because non-German speakers have practically no chance of knowing about this pitfall. It's kind of similar to the Chevy Nova situation.
  - philwelch 13y ago
    The "Chevy Nova situation" is an urban legend. http://www.snopes.com/business/misxlate/nova.asp http://www.snopes.com/business/misxlate/nova.asp
    - middus 13y ago
      Alternative: Toyota MR2 in France :).
      - peterwwillis 13y ago

lux 13y ago

It seems like an awful lot of our problems could be solved in good part with a little empathy...

kordless 13y ago

Human trust is the result of empathetic proof of work. It takes what is most valuable to you: time.