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Blink, Thin Slicing APIs and PDC

  • 아티클

I just got through reading Blink : The Power of Thinking Without Thinking … well, ok I actually listened to it while rocking my baby to sleep…

I thoroughly enjoyed this book…It is chock full of fascinating research that has been done on how people think. One of my career goals was to work with software and people… I have that in spades in my current role. All day long I deal with people about software… but I notice must of my continuing education has been around technology.. I read books\blogs, go to classes, do my own experimentation all to stay up to date on software. But I have been neglecting the other side: people. Got any recommendations for me?

I had a great “thin slicing” moment just the other day. I was reviewing a set of APIs (a task that usually takes 1-2 hours) and I knew from the first few minutes that there was a significant problem with the APIs… but I had to brush that off… I was in the mode of giving concrete, actionable feedback (“change this to an interface”, “consider using a property here”, etc) so there was no room for un-substantiated value judgments that would not “help” the designers of the API address the issue. But this thought kept eating at me, and by the end of the process it was clear.. the problem was these were COM APIs made to look a little managed. It was essentially a .NOT Component in our own framework! I believe that if I had thought about it and not had to justify my opinion with 100 points I would have been able to get to that conclusion much quicker…

You know, at the PDC, maybe we should ask people to turn in session evaluations after the first 3 minutes.. I mean that is all you really need to know if the talk is going to be good right? a thin slice? For that mater, if you are in a talk and after 3 mins you have not been pulled in, leave. Go next door and see if that talk is better! ;-)

Comments

  • Anonymous
    July 15, 2005
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    July 15, 2005
    " For that mater, if you are in a talk and after 3 mins you have not been pulled in, leave. Go next door and see if that talk is better! ;-)"

    This has been my standard operation practice for many years. I have limited time during a conference if something is not pulling me in then I am outta there. Beats falling alseep in a session. Yeah, I have done that before. Would not have been to bad except once I actually snored and another time I was the speaker!



  • Anonymous
    July 15, 2005
    [quote]
    Got any recommendations for me?
    [/quote]

    No. Actaully I believe the use of blog to share experience and thoughts is already good enough for learning how to ways to deal with people. (About software, of course. :) )
  • Anonymous
    July 15, 2005
    [quote]
    You know, at the PDC, maybe we should ask people to turn in session evaluations after the first 3 minutes.. I mean that is all you really need to know if the talk is going to be good right? a thin slice? For that mater, if you are in a talk and after 3 mins you have not been pulled in, leave. Go next door and see if that talk is better! ;-)
    [/quote]
    In this way I hope you won't see some rooms empty while other rooms get overcrowded. <g>

    In fact if I were to attend a event without idea to attend which talk first, I'll go to rooms with most people. And I've seen seminar in the University Open days have this phenomenon - Lecture rooms which can get half filled be filled up quickly, those which don't remains quiet.
  • Anonymous
    July 17, 2005
    True wisdom on the 3 minute rule
  • Anonymous
    July 18, 2005
    If you are one of the many folks that have already registered for the PDC please take the time to complete...
  • Anonymous
    June 12, 2009
    PingBack from http://insomniacuresite.info/story.php?id=1132