Increase Your LUCK Surface Area: Learn-in-Public And Networking

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what is up it's Sunday January 5th 2025 I'm obviously not commuting um but I have a topic that was submitted on Tik Tok I don't have a video for tomorrow's commute yet so I figured I'd get to recording this I try my best to do these in the car so it's not extra time for me but I'll probably do a an edited version of this one too on dev leader because I think it's a good topic but um someone had uh commented on a video and uh in a rare occurrence had a genuine question that I thought would be helpful instead of just trying to be a troll which is uh the more common thing that I see on Tik Tok and other platforms but the question was around um learning in public because that's what the the short video was on um and their

focus their curiosity was like okay so number one how do I get people to actually like see or like engage with the things that I'm trying to be learning in public about and then the second part to their question was like and how do I translate that into like job opportunities and so I thought this is a really good question it's probably something that um a lot of people are wondering especially if they're new or early in their career um and I wanted to walk through that so just a reminder just like in this example someone had posted a comment with a question I am happy to answer stuff if you do it directly on these videos it makes it super easy for me to find otherwise look for Dev leader on social media send me a message write a comment happy to go through

it um a recent example someone on LinkedIn sent me a message and I was able to respond to a career kind of situation they have going on um and it makes it really easy for you to write more detail so then I can respond a little bit less uh like generically I suppose so um yeah I think the the final reminder before I get into the topic is that on Mondays so if you're watching this it would be if you're watching this the day it's released um tonight so Mondays at 700 p.m. Pacific uh I do have a live stream on my main Dev leader Channel check that out it's topics just like this um and I write them in my newsletter so weekly.

Dev L.C you don't even have to subscribe to it if you just want to see what the topic is it's most likely going to be the newsletter issue except this week that one's a little different but most of the time that's what it is okay so learning in public uh my response to this person was that I think that there's a couple of different goals that see like get a little bit conflated and I would rather people don't get dog hair in their eye but um I'd rather people approach them uh separately um there's I I hate buzzwords like Synergy but I think there's Synergy between these goals um but there are things I would look at differently just because you you have to approach them slightly different and they have different uh benefits but they are both helpful so I wanted to focus on

the first part first and the second part second so the first part was about getting visibility into the stuff that you're trying to learn in public about so they were saying like should I just like post it on LinkedIn um and kind of like I like I don't really know what to do beyond that so um the example that I have from my own experience is actually Dev leader itself which is my main Channel my main sort of personal brand and Dev leader actually started in 2013 because uh when I was had transitioned into a manager role and was trying to like realize like okay I think I have to start doing things a little bit differently um because as someone that was you know fresh at of University 2012 been managing for a little bit and realized like I'm not like actually doing this

well I said okay like I need to start learning I need to like pick up on resources and I said I'm going to start kind of documenting my journey and write about it so I can help other people as I'm trying to learn through it and that's what Dev leader was it was my blog to write about my transition into Engineering Management from an IC um so um I and I've talked about this before but like I feel like I kind of this up and it's because in hindsight like I think I was focused on the wrong things my goal initially was like I'm going to learn in public right this is a way that I can exercise this stuff I can talk to other people about it get the feedback and so on so forth but what happened was that I started focusing on

the wrong thing which was like no one's seeing the content I'm making and then I ended up giving up so it had been a few months of uh writing blog articles on dev leader before I was like this takes a lot of time and like what's the the point but I missed the point right so that's why I wanted to talk about this more specifically because I think there are a lot of benefits to learning in public and when I responded to this person on Tik Tok the first thing I said was okay let's let's forget the actual like networking effect or the fact that it's like in public in the first place um I think depending on the person this isn't going to be the same for everyone so if this doesn't align with you like you can just park this this tip for

now um but for some people they're looking for some other motivating factor right so they might you know started 2025 and they're like okay I really want to I want to pick up on JavaScript I want to learn a framework I want to work with databases more and you're like cool I'll start that on Monday and then Monday comes you're like H okay like no like later this week I'll make some time and we know how this goes right so for some people this opportunity to learn in public could be something that giv them a little bit of an extra push a little bit of accountability um not necessarily like I said for some people it might not but I think for some people that is a thing I've seen just as a side note I've seen people do this with um what do they

call it 75 hard if I don't know if you've heard of this but it's like a kind of like a lifestyle kind of thing and you do like 75 days and there's all these strict requirements and I know individuals that said like I'm going to start posting this stuff to social media and then I think that they started to really like the account accountability that came along with social media now you can say that's good or bad but I think for different people they find different motivators and if that's something that they really enjoyed doing cool so when it comes to learning in public again the public part aside you may find that this gives you some type of accountability and actually gets you to go practice these things to learn that's part one part two is that you can take advantage of this fact

that you have other people that aren't in your current Network right you might look around the room this room's pretty empty and you're like I don't have people to give me feedback I'm not working somewhere yet I can't get feedback from my colleagues like I don't I don't have like a lot of friends that program or do development so like I can't really get feedback you it's kind of isolating so you create the network right so you post stuff to social media about what you're learning sort of your takeaways your observations and that way you can try to get some conversation going with people that will become part of your network okay and again I think some people missed the mark on this I've made a couple of videos on code commute for this where I think people do the wrong thing where uh they

start to try and say well if I'm posting stuff on social media I need to become an authority on the topic so I will present my findings and my learnings as if I am an authority I am an expert that way people will follow me that way people will engage with me because I'm the authority on it but the reality is like you're literally not you're literally just learning it and there's nothing wrong with that so instead of going into it as hm how do I become a thought leader a content creator some like an expert who can talk about this stuff don't like it's just it's not it's just not the thing to do and that could it could happen over time and that's great but the goal that you want to set out for yourself I would say is to focus on just

going through the learning opportunities sharing those learning opportunities and your takeaways and then getting people to be able to comment and and give you different perspective maybe they're saying yep that seems um you know very much like what my expectations were or they might say hey I actually think that you could approach us a different way here are some other insights with the internet always comes people that are going to try to pick things apart so this will help you with uh getting some thicker skin but I think it really helps when you position yourself as hey I'm just learning when you do the opposite and you say hey look I'm an expert or you kind of masquerade this way you will find that people pick you apart very fast because they will see through the right they're like nah like that's not going to

fly and unfortunately because it's the internet people be a little bit rude so I think that other sort of effect here where you have this network where people it's almost like um maybe another analogies like having a code review right it doesn't have to be code per se but if you think about a code review you have your colleagues your peers being able to review your code give you feedback this is a similar thing where you have people in a network that you're creating give you feedback about the things you're learning so I think that's a really cool opportunity and can really in my opinion really help you with the learning process it just gives you a bunch of different perspective the third part on this that I wanted to mention is that this is a really good opportunity I don't even know the right

word for this but like it's like it's a soft skill it's communication and it's practicing taking your ideas that you believe you understand and explaining them in a different way this is such an undervalued skill I wish I could explain how important this is in a more clear way but like this ability to take technical Concepts in whatever domain whatever Niche whatever text stack whatever it is and talk about them in a way that's like here's my understanding of it going to explain this to a different audience can be tremendously valuable um like I said I don't really have a good way to explain how important this is but it comes up all the time in in real work if you think about working with non-technical stakeholders you might have a project manager product manager your engineering manager you might have people on different teams

that are also software Engineers but they don't understand anything about the the area of work that you're doing if you have ways to explain technical Concepts in ways that they will understand your ability to communicate and work effectively together will Skyrocket okay so this is an opportunity to practice that it's an opportunity to practice clear writing depending on how you want to do your learning in public maybe you want to make videos like this right this takes no effort I ended up investing into a a nicer camera a little wireless mic set up you can just use your phone phones are awesome I'm a assuming you're you might even be watching this on a phone based on the demographics I have you're probably watching it on a phone but um the barrier to entry to doing this stuff is super low so go go learn

about um how to use uh you know how you want to use JavaScript and interact with postgress cool go learn about that and then go record a little video of yourself with the your top takeaways from doing that in some exercise you did okay now what happens well you might say okay well who's going to watch that you might not get a lot of traction right away and that's fine but something else that you can do this is a little bit of a plug for the thing that I'm building but it's totally free so I feel like I'm not being a A scammy salesperson here because you don't have to pay a dime but the software that I'm creating called brand ghost allows you to take content that you want to post and you can cross poost it to all your social platforms totally for

free so this person on Tik Tok was asking about hey should I just post this to link in that could work but you could also just take the same thing and post it to Twitter threads Blue Sky depending on what it is to Instagram Facebook like to to wherever post to Tumblr I I do get people that message me on tumblers it's weird um but um the point here is that you can use something like brand ghost just to kind of maximize your reach with that um and then the other thing that I mention in this person this will segue over to the second half of this conversation but um the other part was that like if you want more people to see the stuff that you're talking about uh in like on especially on written platforms like they're primarily written like LinkedIn uh Twitter

uh threads blue sky like you need to be engaging with other people so we'll talk about that more in the networking part after um but the point is that if you're just trying to get more visibility into the topics you're you're learning about and writing about or creating videos on then sharing it out to more social can help Okay so again your goal with this is not to say o how do I get the most followers ever like for what it doesn't it doesn't really matter because your goal at this point is to try you know continuing your learning and making sure you can get the feedback we don't want to conflate this with the second part which is how is that going to translate into job opportunities so try not to get these things confused so hopefully that first part helps I highly recommend

that if you have the capacity for it I think learning in public is a great opportunity um I have said this before but like I really wish I didn't have a 10-year break between 2013 and 2023 when I started doing this more seriously um like it actually it feels like stupid that I stopped that's how I would phrase it I feel like I made a very stupid decision and not continuing and taking a literal 10 year Break um so anyway I would recommend it if you have the capacity for it for and I know for some people like you might have even I don't even know what I'm going to title this video but you might have seen the title or like started watching the beginning or like I don't care about learning in public it's not for everyone and that's okay but I think

that if this is something that will help motivate you to get through the learning it can be great the second part to what this person was asking about was like how do I like translate that learning in public to job opportunities and I think where probably some people get confused about this is like okay well if I post stuff on social media that's more eyes therefore more recruiters are going to reach out to me therefore I'm going to get more job opportunities and like like yes and no um the way that I explained this in the response that I made to this person was that uh it's it's almost like the same reason if you're trying to create content my suggestion to you personally is like don't just try to see like how do I make every video a viral video because not every video

is going to be viral if every single person that made content every video was viral like that doesn't really make sense there's too many videos for every video to be viral just doesn't work that way so instead I would say like treat it as a sustainable thing that has value that's how I approach content I like this video I'm making right now I'm not spending what will probably be 20 to 25 minutes recording a video and being like hell yeah this is going to get 10 million views I'm going to get a Lamborghini like no it's just I hope this is helpful and I hope more people will come back and engage and we can keep the conversation going it's a sustainable thing that I hope continues to grow and that's how I would approach networking for the reason of being able to you know

uh enhance your surface area for job opportunities I also mention of this person that um like I you some people might not know who this is if you're like a C or. Net Creator and you pay attention to social media you probably know who Scott Hanselman is uh he's a VP at Microsoft um I think in specifically in developer relations uh I'm not sure the exact um organization but something like that and Scott is a huge like Tech Creator um super cool guy and one of the things that he talks about that I really appreciate is uh he talks about like luck and it sounds kind of funny but when we talk about lock it'ss this idea where you could have opportunities that present themselves but you are not prepared for them right so if you have a really amazing opportunity but you're not prepared

for it that actually doesn't feel lucky right that feels unlucky like just to give you a terrible this is a good example I'm thinking off the top of my head imagine you had a winning lottery ticket okay but you like aren't prepared somehow you can't get it turned in on time because you're on a um I don't know you're on a camping trip or something for a month in the wilderness and like now you I don't know how lottery tickets actually work maybe this is a terrible example but like you lose the opportunity to turn it in and win your you know hundred million that doesn't feel very lucky does it so uh it's about creating uh these chances but also being prepared for them so I like to think of it more like a surface area kind of thing and I think about networking

that way too so it's not that by networking you magically just get this opportunity and like oh great like I'm posting stuff on social media therefore jobs just keep piling in like no um but if you approach networking in a way that is sustainable that's uh what's the word I want like it's not meaningful I mean I want it to be meaningful thoughtful intentional intentional is a word if you approach it sustainably intentionally you're curious right so you start talking with people from different companies maybe you're interested in you're engaging with their content you could send the messages um like ask questions and and get their feedback on stuff like this is such a cool opportunity to increase the surface area for your luck okay so you might be hearing this and going well that's going to like that's not going to get me a

job in a week or in a month and yeah like I'm not saying it's going to but I think it's a long-term strategic thing that you can and should invest into that's networking um another sort of uh example I gave when I was responding to this person on Tik Tok was that some of these things are like they're valuable things you should be doing over time and I think we have this like skewed like misconception that like things happen immediately like and that's just maybe part of how we live our lives but what I said to this uh to this person cuz I love going to the gym was like it's not like you're going to go to the gym for a week and then have like a 400 lb bench press there might be some people that do right I am certainly not one

of those people and it's like some things take a long time and it doesn't mean that they're not worth pursuing or that there's no value in doing them but some things do take time and we should like sort of pursue them and there's things along the way part of the journey that are very valuable and I really think that networking intentionally is a is a perfect example of this so um posting stuff online can be helpful but I don't think that posting just your learning and public stuff and then sitting back and say oh like the recruiters are now you know they're spamming me with all these job applications I don't think that's really the the goal or whatever that's going to happen instead you might be getting people engaging with your content and they might be dirting you or cheering you on for learning

about these things where are they working right like you could message them and say hey thanks for the feedback on that like do you have any other thoughts or like do you do you see like stuff like this in your work and like be genuine it's not about like I don't want you to like go like watch this video and say okay like how do I find AI agents to go message people and spam them and send all this stuff out and get my resume out there no um have intentional meaningful curious conversations actually get to meet people and work with them when I say work with them I mean like it like through conversations like go back and forth have conversations learn things and you will find that by doing this over time you build up a network you might have people that go

hey like I see Nick talks about this kind of concept or topic a lot hm like he seems to actually be picking up on this stuff and I know that Nick is a junior in this space but I actually know about a job opportunity because someone else in my network posted it I should send this over to Nick or maybe I actually know the hiring manager over there or one of the engineers that works there maybe I should connect these people now you're creating more surface area for luck right so it sounds and I I I realize how it sounds so just bear with me I know it sounds like this is going to take a lot of effort and it's slow yeah it does take a lot of effort and yeah it's not fast but it can lead to really cool opportunities I am

convinced I will say this I am convinced that by being able to post things online this absolutely helped me when I was transitioning into my current role and the reason I feel that way is because I know that my manager and my skip level manager have seen the content I post online they know how I think through things how I talk about things and if that's a proxy to what I'm actually like in reality and as long as I'm posting genuine things they're like hey okay well we see what this Nick guy is like okay doesn't mean it's a shoe in but at least they have a really good understanding of what I'm like so that's one part um I make courses for Nick chaps on dome train right Nick was able to see me putting out content I was only on YouTube for like

3 four months and Nick chaps has reached out to me and I'm I'm totally transparent about this I don't think that I'm doing something that's amazing or that other people can't do it's in my case it wasn't learning in public right this is me trying to educate people but the point is that when you start creating these opportunities like you're posting content you're trying to network with people you are just building up more surface area the final thing just to bring up Scott Hanselman again like I wouldn't have had that opportunity to interview Scott Hanselman if I wasn't creating content and seeing that Scott Hanselman is also very much online and then being like I'm just going to reach out to him like I this is me networking I'm just going to reach out start a conversation and I ask like hey would you be

open to me interviewing you right like so we create these opportunities so I'll kind of wrap it up here but those are the two major questions that this person had which was like if I'm learning in public how do I get more people to see it how do I approach that um I'm not sure if I said it exact L but um I might have skipped over it but Micro blogging doesn't have to be a WordPress site I think there's like hash node dev.to you could use medium there's a few others that are like this go go write up your learnings um you could make a GitHub repo and post markdown like lots of options for that and then share it on social media you can use something like brand ghost which is totally free to post across different platforms get your stuff out there

and that's going to get more eyes and hopefully have more conversations about what you're learning about then the second part is just being intentional about your networking so that might take a longer time but I honestly think that the value and being intentional about your networking is worth it so many people just don't do that second part I get tons of people that just send me a resume and they say please refer me to a job at Microsoft no um I don't know you I don't have time to read through your resume like the no it's just it's just not happening not because I don't want to help people but like this is the wrong approach okay so be intentional about your networking and it will take time but there's value in doing it hopefully that was helpful just a reminder live stream 700 p.m.

Pacific on Mondays on my Dev leader main YouTube channel I hope to see you there take care