Why I Write

TL;DR: because I like it, but that’s not the only reason.

It is, of course, first and foremost, the desire to share my experience and the search for the right word. That was the initial impulse, two years ago. Then, over time, I realized that the words carried weight, prompting me at the same time to better define my goals.

So here are (at least) three reasons why I write.

A Matter of Intellectual Hygiene

I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.

This quote from Flannery O’Connor perfectly captures my primary motivation: I write first and foremost for myself, because I feel the need to.

I often have an intuitive understanding of things. Unfortunately, intuition isn’t something you can share, and it can play tricks on us. Putting it down on paper forces you to structure it, identify cause-and-effect relationships, get back to the essence of an idea, and thus understand it a little better.

Einstein said: “If you can’t explain a concept to a six-year-old, you don’t understand it well enough.” From experience, you have to revisit an idea often to make it simple without distorting it. Simple, not simplistic. The prospect of being read spurs you on and encourages you to make that extra effort.

To be clear, unambiguous, and thorough: that is my primary goal. This often leads me to expand my knowledge and, at times, to realize that my understanding is flawed. Writing is thus an opportunity to engage in a dialogue with oneself, that is, as Montaigne put it, to “think against oneself.”

Writing to Connect

For over two years now, I’ve been posting weekly on LinkedIn, once a week. After a year, the first “LinkedIn clients” started to reach out: by that I mean people who’ve been reading my posts for a while and realize that my writing resonates with their company’s situation. Interestingly, these people aren’t always part of my network; sometimes they’ve never even liked, let alone commented on, any of my posts. And yet, they read my work 🙏

In any case, the great benefit of this approach to finding my future clients, beyond signing contracts directly with them, is that the leads come to me almost fully qualified. Expressing my thoughts explicitly through my posts weeds out organizations that don’t share my perspective and brings me closer to the ones I’m looking for. All that’s left is to work out the details of how we’ll collaborate, but, overall, mismatches are rare.

Anecdote: During a recent discussion with a prospect, I mentioned the need to “lay a solid technical foundation to reach the MVP while creating as little technical debt as possible.” He replied, “Ah, you’re talking about building a Walking Skeleton? I read your article on the subject.” That’s encouraging and will make our future work easier. It seems, then, that my articles help educate my readers (some say “evangelize”), proving in the process that an engagement sometimes begins even before you meet the client.

Writing to Educate

For the past few months, I’ve been contacted by startup CEOs who are taking the initiative to avoid accumulating too much technical debt. My role, then, is to train the existing teams and advise them on laying a solid foundation before writing any more code. This involves, in particular, anticipating the issue of modularity, establishing an architecture that leaves the door open for future changes, and implementing an effective and pragmatic testing strategy early on. All of these elements fall under the term Walking Skeleton.

Requests for remedial action (in “firefighter mode”: “Help, everything’s on fire”) aren’t going to stop anytime soon, and once again, no guilt or judgment: companies are doing their best, each has its own story, and surviving past five years is already an achievement. But these new requests for preventive action prove that the message is getting through to CEOs: technical debt is a business issue.