Comment by DenisM | Hacker News Reader

Comment by DenisM | Hacker News Reader

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> talk, don’t write” people is based on their inability to logically think through, structure, and communicate their ideas and, instead, would rather connect directly and hope the solution emerges from a conversation.

That is a remarkably direct way to dismiss the value of brainstorming. :)

Also consider that when content is easy to produce and distribute at scale people stop reading with any kind of attention - there’s too much to read and most of it is not targeted (relevant to me), far too generic and shallow in effort to address excessively large audience, and with little back pressure against verbosity. When we talk in person the other person knows that I am targeting the conversation and invest my time to the same extent they do, they will engage much more.

Also consider that often times a discussion will reframe the question rather than provide answer.

Also consider that people are dramatically more candid in person.

I’m wondering what is that nature of your work that none of this surfaced for you?

I don’t think there’s only writing. I agree that brainstorming serves a very important function.

But I’ve never encountered someone trying to brainstorm over email. If I did, I would certainly want to talk, instead.

I was referring to someone saying that said it’s almost always better to talk than write.

Good “content” is very hard to produce. It’s not a commodity. Again, I work in science and tech where truth is difficult and complex and precise. And it’s important to be systematic and correct. It’s not important that we produce content, but that we execute effectively.

I’m usually not tailoring to a single recipient, but trying to write something that’s understood and used by dozens, maybe hundreds or thousands of people.

I agree that there’s a lot of blargh written that’s a waste of time. I’m not proposing to write more crap. My point is that thoughtful prose is frequently the best way to convey an important concept. So I want more well written man pages than people who want to talk to me to explain how to do something.

RTFM is a luxury that we need to invest in, not throw away.

You missed my point.

As a possible reader of your email I’m facing dozens of emails every day, my default reaction is to skip past and “read it later”. Maybe you did put a lot thought into it, how would I ever know? If you show up in person I will know you are invested into it.

Perhaps I missed your point.

I’m kind of lucky to be in the position where if you don’t read my email you will regret it because something bad happens. Or at best you miss out on something cool that would help you.

I expect everyone I send my email to to read it and pay attention to it, or I don’t send it to them.

Also, I’d love to have only dozens of email. I expect me and most of my coworkers go through 50-200 emails per day. And this isn’t a problem. I probably spend about 20 minutes a day, twice a day. And it’s way quicker than talking with everyone I want to talk with.

Maybe you’re working with a scale where it’s even possible to show up in person instead of emailing. But even when I worked in small teams and small companies we emailed a lot. For building software, I want to get stuff written down and iterated on (email, issue trackers, spreadsheets). I don’t want to have errors that come out of primarily verbal conversations.

Fair point. I’m in a position of “creating horizontal influence” and I’m lucky enough to be able to focus on less than a dozen outcomes per quarter, so that colors my perception.

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