Want to be successful? Be inconsistent | Hacker News Reader

Want to be successful? Be inconsistent

joel.is

Unrelated to the article itself: OP, cut down on all the social-share-widget-scroll-js-be-my-friend nonsense on your blog. It's irritating, obnoxious and doesn't make me want to share or retweet or do anything except get the hell off your page.

I've read several of your blog posts and cringe each and every single time. Two scrolling widgets and a popup in the bottom corner as soon as you start to scroll down?

Huffington Post isn't even this bad.

Unfortunately, ranting aside, I'm sure this probably works great and converts much higher than tactfully placed icons. Such is the way of life on the internet I suppose.

If you count the 'Recommended Article' widget that pops in about half way down there's 3 widgets that follow you down. Way too distracting.

I'd like it if the middle column were the only part of the page.

I agree perhaps it's too much.

Interestingly, it looks rather nice, clean and readable (IMO) without everything else (here's a screenshot: http://joelg.cc/KJp5/o). Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure that have everything else there makes a big difference. I could probably remove the ad, but a lot of the rest definitely works, I have some data on it.

Thanks for the heads up though, I think maybe my incremental changes have meant I've gone too far on all this stuff without perhaps realising.

The one-column layout looks great.

I think you can improve things and keep the social integration, though. Right now, it's a three column layout, and the first column is basically empty. Which feels strange. If you move the left-hand icons somewhere else - to the right hand side, or to below the article, and centre the header on the content column, it will make a big difference. The fact that the header doesn't line up with the content really bugs me.

Those are the biggest things to change, but there are some smaller tweaks that would improve it too. The sub-header ("Startups, life, learning and happiness") seems very similar to the little description in the right hand column ("I'm the founder of Buffer..."); so those could be combined (keep the subtitle, and either replace it with the description text or just lose that text). Then the nav bar would come down to be level with the start of the article.

Consistency throughout a design is key. That would be the next thing to tweak for. The Join/RSS/Follow/Subscribe have slightly different callouts - they should be the same. (Or you could go a step farther and lose the callouts all together, which would probably look better.) The necessity of the big blue box explaining about the email service seems dubious ("subscribe via email" effectively says what needs to be said). However, if it stays, it would be nice if it matched the colour scheme better - yes, it's the same blue as elsewhere, but that blue isn't used in the same way anywhere else - if the background was the grey from right above it might match better. Also, just so you know, in Firefox the email field/button is too wide for the column and it's wrapping to two lines. Once we're on colour schemes, the orange of the RSS icon stands out a bit too much in contrast to everything else on the sight. For me, the email box and the RSS icon pop out even more than the header or the content when I look at the page. If all the buttons matched in colour (that silver is good), it would be great.

Also, the social stuff at the bottom of the article feels redundant.

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Anyway, I don't know what data you have on it, but I think that if people are telling you that the design is pushing them away, you should think very carefully about that. IMO, those people are more important than whatever anonymous data points, because they're clearly people who are interested and engaged. If you have to lose one or two tweets in exchange for some loyal followers, that sounds worth it to me.

Be Inconsistent? No. Be able to admit you were wrong and make choices that contradict past believes after learning or observing something new? Yes.

second this. When a change involves breaking your promises to people who genuinely relied on them and will suffer as the result - then you have to make sure that they are at least ok with it by giving them alternative options / compensation.

Its not about to be / or not to be inconsistent. It's about making the right choice given new information as well as considering the net effect of the change.

Accepting the other comments about how perhaps the title could be improved, the basic point is one that I wish would be more widely accepted in political discourse. It seems like whenever a politician changes his mind, he's accused of "flip-flopping", as though always sticking to exactly the same opinions is the most desirable option. But personally, I would not trust anyone who seems to think that they were right about everything the first time, and never needed to learn anything new.

Don't like the title, should probably be more like "Be flexible with your consistency"

You can't be inconsistent and learn say a language (programming or otherwise), or even learn how to be a good entrepreneur, you got to be consistent and keep at it, just be flexible with the information that you receive and be willing to change your ways if you need to.

"When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?" -- John Maynard Keynes, also attributed to Winston Churchill

... that's the take-away from this. There is no way at all we can have opinion X about the future and then stick to it when the future doesn't turn out the way we expected.

It seemed like Bezo's was trying to get at the idea that its okay to revise your thoughts, opinions, course of action, ect. and be open about it. I think he's trying to promote thoughtfulness and contemplation ahead of pure conviction.

I don't think being "inconsistent" in thought is what he's getting at.

This feels like why doing the whole Agile thing is really useful especially for startups: the only thing you know for sure is you're not going to do it right at first so you have to be good about being able to pivot.

What percentage of Buffer revenue is from the Carbon Ads on blog posts like this?

Changing your mind and being inconsistent are not the same thing. Stupid article.

You obviously didn't read the same article that some of us did :S

Your comment obviously adds nothing to the discussion, having no explanation.

You obviously didn't get the same kind of education that some of us did.

Excellent post. Thanks for posting it.

Perhaps a better way to put it is "be consistent in what you do, be inconsistent in where you go."

Being consistent in your actions is of paramount importance if you want to master anything. You have to practice day in and day out.

Being inconsistent in your movements matters because what is around us is in a constant state of motion, and we must learn to dance with it.

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