By Taylor Hawkes on April 17, 2012
Technology Sucks, I want to be a Carpenter and build chairs for a living, but Im not- I’m a tech geek. This became official a few Fridays ago, when after a long day of work (programming) all I wanted to do was go home and work on my Facebook App. Alright, technology is not all bad, that is after all how I make a living.
To kick the blog of I wanted to talk about who to trust with your technology needs. There seems to be this notion of the “cool” tech guy. He is artistic, hip, outgoing, tightly dressed , strangely confident and awkwardly handsome behind those square glasses . Apple likes this guy, because he always got a mac. I would be hesitant to do business with this guy, and certainly would not higher him to write any applications. Here is the thing with the “cool” tech guys – they suck at technology. Generally the “cool” tech guy is a graphic designer or occasionally an entrepreneur type that walked through a few java tutorials and managed to get a simple app running. Don’t make the mistake of thinking graphic designers understand technology – these folks are artist , some really amazing artists. The fact of the matter is, that older, zit covered, high paints, ameba type character with a slight case of social anxiety probably know his stuff. A solid understanding of technology comes from years of writing code, browsing forums and avoiding girls at all costs. These geeks work with the analytic side of their brain all day and although we don’t like to admit it, coding does not and should not take that much creativity, but rather a robust knowledge base and tons of practice.
Once again the secret lies in years of hard work and practice. Contrary to what the big boys like Bill Gates , Mark Zuckerberg and Craig Newmark (Craigslist) would like you to believe, their success did not come so much from creativity or innovation, their definitive edge came from writing more lines of code than 99% of other programmers. With such fluency in the skill, they were the first be to fill the gaping opportunities of their time. I do not want to underestimate the value of idealism, but so often businesses and individuals failures comes from over valuing an idea and undervaluing execution. I put a lot of weight on execution. I don’t know of any business that has some sort of “secret sauce” it’s just executing a bunch of moving parts better than anyone else, there success almost always seems to come from trial and error. Anyways there is my thought of the day – I got to get back to work.