paul ford, aka @ftrain: talent is what annoys you [firstmark's design driven]
TRANSCRIPT
WHAT IS TALENT?Paul Ford / [email protected] / @ftrain
…other talents✦ The sciences
✦ Sculpture
✦ Photography
✦ Conceptual art
✦ Music, dance, theater
✦ Athletics
“Power or ability of mind or body viewed as something divinely entrusted to a person for use and improvement: considered either as one organic whole or as consisting of a number of distinct faculties”—OED
So talent is…✦ God-given?
✦ Product of 10,000 hours?
✦ Human capital?
✦ The product of hard work?
✦ The product of genetics?
✦ The product of maternal narcissism?
Novels
Books
Short stories
Sitcoms
Movies
Keynote presentations
Apps
Web pages
Consumer software
Apple pies
“No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.”—Martha Graham
“For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have.”—Ira Glass
Talent is…
…the demonstrated ability of an individual, when they perceive errors
of form, to take specific actions to correct those errors.
Writing
Bad paragraphs, lazy endings
Terrible plots, weak characters, loose ends
Inconsistent style
“I could do better”
Engineering
Runs slow
Poorly structured code with bad indentation, not modular
No tests
“Could be better”
Design
Lack of underlying system or grid
Lazy color choices
Bad type, feels “incomplete”
Clearly derivative, “just not good enough”
Product Management
No clear user
Broken user flows; design and tech not working together
Useless MVP
The big question:
how does your writing influence your coding?
How does your coding influence your writing?