RWDevCon 2017 Inspiration Talk: New Tricks by James Dempsey

Know When to Go With the Flow

The next meta trick is: know when to go with the flow.

This was originally just called, “go with the flow,” and then I realized that wasn’t what I meant at all, because that meant everything’s fine at all times. But knowing when to go with the flow can be very helpful.

I’ve always loved this quotation from Thomas Jefferson. “In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.”

As I was researching this talk on the Monticello site, it turns out that there’s no evidence that Thomas Jefferson ever said this, which then led me to think about another favorite presidential quote of mine:

Even though Thomas Jefferson may not have said it, I still like the gist. It’s saying that there are some things that are going to change. You might not enjoy the changes, but they’re going to happen. But there are some matters of principle you want to stand firm on.

Moving from iOS 6 to iOS 7, there was a giant change in user interfaces. A lot of work to be done to update your app to use the new human interface guidelines. That is something where you are not going to change that change in style. You’re not going to be the one app that maintains this skeuomorphic look and feel and everybody is so proud of you for holding out.

No. So let’s update our stuff for iOS 7.

Making your app stable and not crash and not be a security risk and behaving well and providing a good experience for your users: those are things where you should be standing on principle.

But every detail in the user interface, in the human interface guidelines … in part, it is matter of style. Clearly, people were able to use iOS devices and apps with the old design, and they’re able to use them with the new design. It is a bit stylistic in that sense.

Know when to let go. Know when to go with the flow.

One More Trick: Positivity

How many folks were at the conference last year? (Show of hands.) Last year I did a talk and I mentioned my dad, who had just had a major medical life event. He was on the road to recovery. A lot of folks have asked me about him and I just want to say: Dad is doing incredibly well. He’s now 91.

Whenever anybody asks him the secret of his longevity, he says, “I think the secret is I keep a positive outlook.”

He never said that in his eighties or in his seventies, though. I don’t know if he’s recently heard it somewhere else, but he is a terribly positive guy.

I think in a lot of ways the way to keep learning new tricks and the way to have the energy to let go of the old and embrace the new, even after you’ve been doing something for a long, long time, is a positive outlook.

It’s this outlook that says: yes, I have this knowledge base and some of it’s going away … but there’s this new thing coming along, and isn’t it exciting that I get to learn it?

I hope that some of those meta tricks will be handy for you. Thank you very much.