Developing Perspective

00:00:00 ◼   ► Hello and welcome to Developing Perspective. Developing Perspective is a podcast discussing

00:00:04 ◼   ► news of node in iOS development, Apple and the like. I'm your host, David Smith. I'm

00:00:08 ◼   ► an independent iOS developer based in Herndon, Virginia. This is show number 53 and today

00:00:12 ◼   ► is Friday, June 9th. Developing Perspective is never longer than 15 minutes, so let's

00:00:17 ◼   ► get started.

00:00:18 ◼   ► All right, so for today's show, I've been wanting to do it for a while, but I was a

00:00:22 ◼   ► little bit intimidated to do. And I was going to write a blog post for a while, then I decided

00:00:26 ◼   ► not to do that. And basically, the topic that I'm going to discuss, kind of as a pastor

00:00:31 ◼   ► of mine used to put it, is this goes from preaching to meddling. And so rather than

00:00:35 ◼   ► just giving, you know, general positive advice, I want to talk about the things at WWDC that

00:00:40 ◼   ► kind of really annoy me, and it's the way that some people act and their just general

00:00:45 ◼   ► lack of self-awareness or concern for those around them. And so it's kind of, the working

00:00:50 ◼   ► title originally was "Don't be a Jerk at WWDC." That's, of course, that's sort of

00:00:56 ◼   ► self-referential in the sense that I'm being a bit of a jerk in doing that, so I

00:00:58 ◼   ► think I'll go over the title of "How to be Polite or Please be Polite at WWDC."

00:01:04 ◼   ► There's a couple of these little pet peeves that I've been going to WWDC for

00:01:08 ◼   ► about three years now, and every time you'd kind of think, "Oh, you know, we're a

00:01:13 ◼   ► bunch of mature adults, you know, who have paid a lot of money and are here in a

00:01:18 ◼   ► professional environment will probably be well behaved.

00:01:21 ◼   ► But every year, I'm proven wrong by that.

00:01:23 ◼   ► And so I just wanted to talk through some of these and just

00:01:27 ◼   ► put it out there.

00:01:28 ◼   ► That hopefully it'll maybe create a discussion or just

00:01:31 ◼   ► give people pause to think about the way they act when

00:01:34 ◼   ► they're at WWDC.

00:01:36 ◼   ► And I know a lot of you won't be at WWDC this year, but

00:01:38 ◼   ► hopefully it's still useful for the years following or

00:01:43 ◼   ► just in general.

00:01:44 ◼   ► So the first thing is there's this fundamental lack of sort of respect I've seen a lot for

00:01:51 ◼   ► that the Apple employees, especially the Apple engineers, are going through a tremendous

00:01:54 ◼   ► amount of effort to put on the event.

00:01:57 ◼   ► I see a lot of people who kind of end up in this feeling of like, "Well, I paid $1,700

00:02:01 ◼   ► to be here, so they all work for me."

00:02:04 ◼   ► It's like, "Well, sort of.

00:02:07 ◼   ► That's vaguely true.

00:02:08 ◼   ► You did pay $1,700 or whatever, plus all the travel to be here."

00:02:12 ◼   ► But really, that's not the way it works.

00:02:17 ◼   ► Most of the people running at WWDC are engineers, just like you.

00:02:20 ◼   ► They're software engineers who are taking, as part of their job, are being told to put

00:02:25 ◼   ► on this event to make our lives better, to show us all the cool stuff and teach us how

00:02:29 ◼   ► to use it best.

00:02:30 ◼   ► And so as a result of that, I really think it's important to be really respectful of

00:02:35 ◼   ► them, to really go out of our way to be appreciative, to be thankful, to be kind to these people

00:02:41 ◼   ► to the effort they're putting in.

00:02:44 ◼   ► And I think that it just works well as a two-way street.

00:02:48 ◼   ► So first thing, this is more of a personal thing,

00:02:52 ◼   ► but I try very hard to say thank you to everybody I can

00:02:55 ◼   ► with an Apple shirt on.

00:02:56 ◼   ► Just be as grateful as you can.

00:02:58 ◼   ► There's gonna be just people doing all kinds

00:03:00 ◼   ► of fairly menial jobs.

00:03:02 ◼   ► And it's like, what does it hurt to say,

00:03:03 ◼   ► hey, thanks, I appreciate it.

00:03:04 ◼   ► I really appreciate you helping monitor this line.

00:03:07 ◼   ► I really help you.

00:03:09 ◼   ► Thanks for doing this, thanks for doing that.

00:03:11 ◼   ► just be appreciative and I feel like it just raises the tone of the event in a way that

00:03:15 ◼   ► is just really nice. But the area that I see this most and that just annoys me the most

00:03:20 ◼   ► every single year is around presentations. So at WWDC, you're going to spend a lot of

00:03:26 ◼   ► time in presentations and the presentations are almost uniformly, except for the keynote,

00:03:31 ◼   ► are put on by Apple engineers at various levels within Apple engineering. And, you know, the

00:03:37 ◼   ► best I understand it, a tremendous amount of effort goes into the preparation for this.

00:03:41 ◼   ► I mean, this is months and months of hard work by these engineers to make a really polished,

00:03:47 ◼   ► sharp presentation. And that shows. I think it has probably the highest level of polish

00:03:52 ◼   ► of any presentations I've seen across the board at conferences. They're all really consistent.

00:03:58 ◼   ► They're all very polished and sort of to the point. You very rarely have weird demo problems

00:04:04 ◼   ► and things. They go out of their way so that you're not sitting there like watching people

00:04:07 ◼   ► you know, type in code and things, it's all really sharp and put together.

00:04:11 ◼   ► And so there's a couple of things that I see every year that drive me crazy

00:04:15 ◼   ► when people are going to these presentations.

00:04:17 ◼   ► And so the first one is people who arrive at the presentation

00:04:23 ◼   ► kind of expecting to just work or do their email or whatever while they're there.

00:04:28 ◼   ► And that's fine. I mean, I totally understand that some people are just kind of there to absorb it.

00:04:33 ◼   ► But if you're one of those people, please don't sit in the front row.

00:04:36 ◼   ► please don't sit in the first, like, third of the auditorium.

00:04:38 ◼   ► Why don't you just go sit in the back?

00:04:40 ◼   ► You'll hear it fine.

00:04:41 ◼   ► You're obviously not looking at it.

00:04:42 ◼   ► You know, there's a big screen if you need to.

00:04:44 ◼   ► Please go sit in the back.

00:04:45 ◼   ► Like, you're being disrespectful to the person who's presenting,

00:04:48 ◼   ► because if they look out into the auditorium,

00:04:51 ◼   ► and it's just like, you're just sitting there hacking away,

00:04:54 ◼   ► you're clearly not paying attention,

00:04:55 ◼   ► that doesn't feel good.

00:04:57 ◼   ► Go sit in the back.

00:04:58 ◼   ► And also, you're distracting all the people around you.

00:05:00 ◼   ► And it's often-- maybe the simplest way to think about it

00:05:03 ◼   ► is if you're sitting in the back row and you're typing away,

00:05:06 ◼   ► maybe you're annoying the people to either side of you,

00:05:10 ◼   ► maybe the person just right in front of you.

00:05:12 ◼   ► But if you do it in the front, everybody behind you can see you.

00:05:14 ◼   ► Your screen's glowing nice and bright, attracting attention,

00:05:17 ◼   ► and just kind of annoying people.

00:05:19 ◼   ► So if you're going to do that, please sit in the back.

00:05:21 ◼   ► That's just common courtesy.

00:05:23 ◼   ► And similarly, if you're going to take notes, which is great,

00:05:26 ◼   ► don't do it on your iPad with the keyboard clicks turned on.

00:05:31 ◼   ► if you can't, you know, it's like, try and be as quiet as you can in that process.

00:05:35 ◼   ► You have no idea how annoying that little keyboard click, you know,

00:05:38 ◼   ► sound that you get from the iPad can be.

00:05:43 ◼   ► If you're going to do it on a keyboard, that's fine. You know, obviously there's a certain amount of

00:05:46 ◼   ► noise involved in typing on a

00:05:48 ◼   ► MacBook Air or something, just sort of be quiet about it, and just be

00:05:51 ◼   ► considerate of those around you.

00:05:53 ◼   ► Treat others as you'd have them treat you, the golden rule. Make sure your phone's on

00:05:57 ◼   ► silent

00:05:57 ◼   ► as generally pretty good, but

00:06:01 ◼   ► Often I hear the other things beyond that are like IRC noises or the number of times I've heard like the Twitterrific or tweetbot refresh sound.

00:06:11 ◼   ► Just kind of, you know, just be considerate and be mindful of those things.

00:06:15 ◼   ► And then the last thing, and this is the most important thing as far as I'm concerned for being respectful to the presenters,

00:06:22 ◼   ► is when the presenter hits the point that's kind of the conclusion,

00:06:27 ◼   ► the number of people I've seen who immediately, noisily, start packing up their bag, get up and leave.

00:06:33 ◼   ► So the person hasn't actually finished, they're just sort of in conclusion,

00:06:36 ◼   ► they've got another maybe 30 seconds, 45 seconds of presentation,

00:06:40 ◼   ► and people are just sort of like, "Oh, I'm done, let's get out of here."

00:06:44 ◼   ► I mean, that's about as rude as you can be.

00:06:46 ◼   ► I mean, you've listened through whatever, the 45 minutes, 50 minutes of good, solid information,

00:06:51 ◼   ► and you don't let the guy finish.

00:06:53 ◼   ► You don't get as many as 30 seconds of conclusion,

00:06:56 ◼   ► and now here's the final thing, and sort of sends you off.

00:07:00 ◼   ► And I mean, that's just rude.

00:07:01 ◼   ► And it just kind of drives me crazy.

00:07:03 ◼   ► And I've seen so many presenters just kind of--

00:07:05 ◼   ► either they never finish.

00:07:07 ◼   ► I've seen in some cases, they just kind of like, oh, I guess

00:07:12 ◼   ► I'm done.

00:07:13 ◼   ► Thanks.

00:07:14 ◼   ► Which is not cool.

00:07:16 ◼   ► Or on the flip side, it's just the people who--

00:07:20 ◼   ► you could tell they really were glad.

00:07:22 ◼   ► you can get really getting into it they're really enjoying the presentation

00:07:24 ◼   ► that might get to kick out the park

00:07:26 ◼   ► scone great and then they can get the industry dejected it's like wait

00:07:30 ◼   ► that anybody care

00:07:31 ◼   ► was leaving

00:07:33 ◼   ► so don't do that

00:07:34 ◼   ► gave me a way for the thirty seconds

00:07:36 ◼   ► italy says you know

00:07:38 ◼   ► thanks and

00:07:39 ◼   ► whatever you know he won't when he gives it gives you know gives you a floor

00:07:43 ◼   ► uh... to leave

00:07:44 ◼   ► you're gonna be waiting in line for the next session no matter what you know

00:07:47 ◼   ► getting out that thirty seconds earlier

00:07:49 ◼   ► is a_t_s_ still been selfish maybe if you're like over on the new

00:07:52 ◼   ► jump the line. It's like, well, it's being a little selfish. And then two, I don't know,

00:07:56 ◼   ► it really doesn't matter. Very rarely do rooms overfill. And if they do, it happens. You'll

00:08:02 ◼   ► catch it on the video, you'll catch it on a repeat. Apple's really good if a room overflows

00:08:07 ◼   ► to then make sure that that presentation is given again later in the week. If it wasn't

00:08:11 ◼   ► originally scheduled, often it'll be shown on the Friday, especially on the Friday afternoon.

00:08:16 ◼   ► So the information isn't going anywhere. So just be respectful of your presenters. They

00:08:20 ◼   ► They really are putting a lot of work into this and I think they deserve that, you know,

00:08:24 ◼   ► that that's the least that they could deserve.

00:08:26 ◼   ► Then a couple of other things, these are more just sort of general rather than being focused

00:08:31 ◼   ► on the presentations themselves, is trash.

00:08:33 ◼   ► Please throw your trash away.

00:08:34 ◼   ► Come on, you're, you know, we're all adults here.

00:08:37 ◼   ► There's trash cans everywhere, but the number of times you'll see people just leaving trash

00:08:41 ◼   ► everywhere, it's just kind of, you know, it's just sad.

00:08:45 ◼   ► It just makes me kind of sad when I see that.

00:08:49 ◼   ► Line etiquette.

00:08:50 ◼   ► a huge amount of time waiting in line at WWDC. That's the way it is. From the keynote on

00:08:56 ◼   ► Monday morning all the way through, you'll spend a lot of time waiting in line or waiting

00:08:59 ◼   ► online if you're from New York, or queuing if you're from Europe. And so basically, it's

00:09:06 ◼   ► a kind of important thing that we actually queue and wait in line, wait online in an

00:09:12 ◼   ► appropriate way. And so there's a couple of things. These are kind of the way I do it

00:09:16 ◼   ► and the way I view waiting in line.

00:09:18 ◼   ► But you-- first, it's like, if you're

00:09:20 ◼   ► holding a spot for somebody, be reasonable on the ratio

00:09:24 ◼   ► of people for whom you are holding that spot,

00:09:27 ◼   ► so that there is nothing worse than you're

00:09:31 ◼   ► all waiting in this huge long line.

00:09:32 ◼   ► And then one guy in front was holding space

00:09:35 ◼   ► for these 10 guys.

00:09:37 ◼   ► It's like, that's not fair.

00:09:38 ◼   ► That doesn't seem fair.

00:09:39 ◼   ► I mean, my own kind of personal rule

00:09:41 ◼   ► is typically kind of like a one to one, maybe a two to one

00:09:45 ◼   ► in terms of like, kind of like the buddy system, like often when I'm, like in the keynote,

00:09:49 ◼   ► I'll often kind of have a buddy or someone who, you know, is like, worked, kind of taking turns,

00:09:53 ◼   ► I'll go to the bathroom, he's waiting for me, you know, we're kind of, we're offsetting each other,

00:09:56 ◼   ► and that seems pretty rare, you know, fair and reasonable. You know, showing up with 10 of your

00:10:01 ◼   ► friends, not really cool. And you know, I think also being, you know, respectful of the people

00:10:05 ◼   ► around you, and this kind of gets into the set, the next topic I wanted to talk about is just kind

00:10:09 ◼   ► of your general interaction, is being respectful of other people's time and being just sort of

00:10:14 ◼   ► mindful of it. Sometimes, you know, being aware that sometimes people are going to want

00:10:18 ◼   ► to chat, and if they are, that's great. I've met a lot of interesting people waiting in

00:10:21 ◼   ► line or talking in general at WWDC. That's part of the fun. That's part of the joy. But

00:10:27 ◼   ► if you're getting to, if someone's sort of sending you the signals of, "Hey, you know,

00:10:30 ◼   ► actually I really don't want to talk," like you say, "Hi," and they say, "Hi," and then

00:10:35 ◼   ► pick up their phone and start working on it, it's like they're saying, "Hey, I'm, you know,

00:10:39 ◼   ► I'm burned out from last night's party.

00:10:41 ◼   ► I'm whatever.

00:10:42 ◼   ► And so I'd rather just chill.

00:10:44 ◼   ► And so just be respectful of that.

00:10:47 ◼   ► Similarly, be very careful about selling your products

00:10:51 ◼   ► in conversation.

00:10:52 ◼   ► And this is something that doesn't happen all the time,

00:10:54 ◼   ► but it happens enough that it kind of--

00:10:56 ◼   ► but it's always kind of annoying when I introduce myself

00:10:57 ◼   ► to someone and it's like, hi, I'm Dave.

00:11:00 ◼   ► And he's like, oh, hey, I'm Bill.

00:11:02 ◼   ► I make this app.

00:11:02 ◼   ► You want to check it out?

00:11:04 ◼   ► It's like, maybe.

00:11:06 ◼   ► Maybe I would actually want to check out your app.

00:11:08 ◼   ► maybe I want to pay you, pay to buy that app.

00:11:11 ◼   ► But diving straight into a sales pitch,

00:11:14 ◼   ► I'm not walking up to you at a booth at a trade show.

00:11:17 ◼   ► I'm just trying to chat.

00:11:19 ◼   ► So if at some point, almost certainly, I'll be like,

00:11:22 ◼   ► hey, what do you do?

00:11:23 ◼   ► That's an opportunity for you to say, hey, this is the app.

00:11:26 ◼   ► I say, you want to check it out?

00:11:27 ◼   ► Oh, sure.

00:11:28 ◼   ► But it's part of the conversation.

00:11:30 ◼   ► I don't want to feel like I'm being sold to just

00:11:32 ◼   ► by saying hi to somebody.

00:11:33 ◼   ► Similarly to that, it's kind of a--

00:11:36 ◼   ► At WWGC you'll run into all these fake famous people or famous internet famous people or

00:11:42 ◼   ► whatever and these are people whose podcasts or blogs you'll read or even Apple people

00:11:47 ◼   ► who are legends in the field or whatever and it's just kind of a funny thing but especially

00:11:54 ◼   ► with them be very respectful of their time and attention and I think you'll have a much

00:11:58 ◼   ► better interaction with them.

00:12:00 ◼   ► my personal way, it's like if I run into somebody who's belong I read or whatever, it's like,

00:12:07 ◼   ► "Hey, I bumped into John Gruber, right?" Someone I actually never met, but it'd be interesting

00:12:12 ◼   ► to meet him and it's like, "Hey John, love your work, really appreciate the efforts you

00:12:16 ◼   ► put into your writing. Thank you." That's kind of my intro. And if he says, "Great,

00:12:22 ◼   ► thanks," that's it. That's the end of the conversation, shake his hand, off I go. If

00:12:27 ◼   ► he's like, "Oh great, yeah, hey, what do you do?" It's like he's in a mood to talk, then

00:12:30 ◼   ► great, but don't assume that you kind of have a right to their attention.

00:12:35 ◼   ► Just because you give them all this time to read their blog, don't feel like you have

00:12:39 ◼   ► an unlimited right to their attention.

00:12:42 ◼   ► They may be really burned out from the conference and talking.

00:12:46 ◼   ► They just need some time.

00:12:47 ◼   ► It's like the last thing they need necessarily is kind of being badgered, and especially

00:12:50 ◼   ► to don't sell to people like that.

00:12:52 ◼   ► That's like the worst thing.

00:12:53 ◼   ► It's like, "Hey, Mr. Gruber.

00:12:55 ◼   ► Hey, check out my app.

00:12:57 ◼   ► It would be great if you featured it on Daring Fireball."

00:12:59 ◼   ► "Dude, chill. You'll be alright."

00:13:02 ◼   ► So that's kind of all the negative things.

00:13:05 ◼   ► A few positive things to hopefully wrap it up on a high note.

00:13:08 ◼   ► So first, don't overdo it. WWDC is incredibly fun.

00:13:11 ◼   ► I mean, this will be my fourth, I believe.

00:13:15 ◼   ► And it's one of the best times of the year you'll have.

00:13:18 ◼   ► Spend a lot of time meeting really interesting people.

00:13:20 ◼   ► You'll learn a ton. You're kind of drinking from a fire hose and it's awesome.

00:13:23 ◼   ► If this is what you enjoy, you're a kid in a candy store.

00:13:28 ◼   ► or if you love Apple technology, if you love programming, it's awesome.

00:13:32 ◼   ► But be careful.

00:13:33 ◼   ► Don't overdo it, especially early on, like Monday night, Tuesday--

00:13:37 ◼   ► especially Monday night parties, Tuesday night parties,

00:13:39 ◼   ► Sunday night parties.

00:13:40 ◼   ► Be careful.

00:13:41 ◼   ► Don't go nuts and ruin the rest of your week by overdoing it early on.

00:13:46 ◼   ► Stay hydrated.

00:13:47 ◼   ► Drink a lot of water.

00:13:49 ◼   ► It's like, keep your energy up.

00:13:50 ◼   ► And just be kind, be respectful, and be polite,

00:13:54 ◼   ► and we will all have an awesome time.

00:13:57 ◼   ► Alright, that's it for today's show. I'll be at WWDC next week, so look out for me.

00:14:01 ◼   ► If you follow me on Twitter, it's probably the easiest way. If you ever want to meet

00:14:04 ◼   ► up, just @ReplyMe and see if we can work something up. I'd love to meet some of the

00:14:08 ◼   ► people who listen to this show, make it a bit more of a dialogue rather than the monologue

00:14:12 ◼   ► it usually is. Otherwise, I hope you guys have a good weekend. Safe travels if you're

00:14:17 ◼   ► going to Dub-Dub. Otherwise, I look forward to talking to you guys next week. Like I said,

00:14:22 ◼   ► I'm going to be doing a bunch of shows.

00:14:24 ◼   ► I'm hoping to do probably maybe even five or six shows next week,

00:14:28 ◼   ► kind of talking about the various parts,

00:14:30 ◼   ► kind of dissecting the keynote and things like that.

00:14:32 ◼   ► I got my new mobile microphone set up, which I'm really excited about.

00:14:35 ◼   ► And as always, if you have any questions, comments, concerns, complaints,

00:14:38 ◼   ► I'm on Twitter, underscore David Smith.

00:14:40 ◼   ► The feed for this podcast is devperspective on Twitter.

00:14:44 ◼   ► And otherwise, happy coding.

00:14:45 ◼   ► And I hope to see you next week.

00:14:47 ◼   ► Bye.