Template for Impactful Ideas | Hacker News Reader

Template for Impactful Ideas

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75 pointsKentBeck12 comments

I'm sad that people don't do much of public reflection on how they managed to get where they are (how they moved things where these things are). Contrary they make up appealing stories (which sometimes becomes a part of idea becoming impactful) hiding real mechanics. I appreciate your kind of openess. Thanks for sharing. What you described is aligned with my observations and I hope it will save some time of rediscovering things which work. For example I could not accept repeating, pitching same idea again and again (though some people say that repetition is what works). After reading about your experience it will be easier for me to get there.

Pro tip when offering pro tips (stolen from Andrew Carnegie) begin by telling me why I should listen to your pro tip.

Pretend I’ve never hear of you and don’t know if you’ve ever accomplished anything meaningful. Assume that I’ll take one look, not recognize your name and go away unless you give me a reason to stay.

A lot of advice from successful people is tainted by survivorship bias. So the fact that the advice comes from a successful person isn’t sufficient to determine that it’s good advice.

Maybe we should demand that all advice undergo a large sample size double-blind study before it reaches our eyeballs. Only those pieces of advice with p values under 5% are fit for consumption.

Why should I listen to you?

Seriously, thank you for that feedback. While the current generation of developers has heard of my work, they don't necessarily associate it with me. Establishing credibility would amplify what I say.

Different strokes for different folks. Kent Beck is a very well-known programmer and likely needs no introduction. If he started every article on his personal blog regaling readers with his accomplishments, it might not be received as well as you suggest.

Plus he does do this eventually - shouting out JUnit and Extreme Programming. I didn’t know who he was, tbf

> Before I go into detail, let me first say that one difference between success and failure turning an idea into impact is work. Lots and lots of work.

… because ideas don’t execute themselves

Hence arguably “impactful ideas” is a misnomer here, because it’s rarely the ideas themselves that are impactful (and you are rarely the first to have them), but what you make based on them.

Idk I’d disagree - see the part about “when someone repeats my idea to someone else with referencing me, I’ve won”. There is indeed a lot of work involved, but the author is trying to create memetic value here, not some software or particular product. Imo.

I can tell this guy walks the walk because midway through the essay I went, “Haha nice; he’s doing it right now—that’s so meta” and then sure enough the conclusion bore this out.

Very helpful - thank you!

Others in the comments: I also like this post from the OP - https://medium.com/@kentbeck_7670/fast-slow-in-3x-explore-ex...

Step 1: put your content behind a paywall!!

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