Episode 316 | Chris Ferdinandi - Idea to Living Thing

Guest:

Chris Ferdinandi

@ChrisFerdinandi

Chris Ferdinandi talks with Dave Rael about teaching and learning, self-discovery, JavaScript, and delivering value

Chris Ferdinandi helps people learn vanilla JavaScript. His JavaScript plugins are used by organizations like Apple, Harvard Business School, and CNN. After years of struggling with hostile web forums, bad documentation, and incomplete tutorials, he now helps beginners learn JavaScript faster and easier. He love pirates, puppies, and Pixar movies, and lives near horse farms in rural Massachusetts. He runs Go Make Things with Bailey Puppy, a lab-mix from Tennessee.

Chapters: 2:04 - Dave introduces the show and Chris Ferdinandi5:03 - Comparing JavaScript to snowboarding - learning stages, competence, and Harry Potter illustrations9:40 - Chris's journey through human resources, web design, blogging ,and software development12:57 - How teaching career development turned into creating software15:53 - Designers and developers19:03 - Chris's human resources blog20:54 - Common images regarding software developers and designers22:17 - The virtue of shipping and the value of growth24:33 - The things that "light Chris up"26:52 - The ways Chris educates on https://gomakethings.com/33:31 - Chris's book recommendation36:32 - Chris's story of failure - spending time on a career that failed to fulfill, agreeing to a job based on the suggestion that things might change43:59 - Chris's top 3 tips for delivering more value47:07 - Keeping up with Chris

Resources: Go Make Things - Chris's website Chris's JavaScript Guides Chris's Courses CSS-Tricks Shawn Wildermuth on Developer On Fire Amy Hoy Mozilla Developer Network Wes Bos Jonathan Stark on Developer On Fire Jonathan Stark's Website Garr Reynolds: "Presentation Zen" | Talks at Google Ditching Hourly - Jonathan Stark's Podcast The Dance - Tony Arata Kalzumeus Software

Chris's book recommendation: Design Is a Job - Mike Monteiro Hourly Billing Is Nuts - Jonathan Stark Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery (2nd Edition) (Voices That Matter) - Garr Reynolds

Chris's top 3 tips for delivering more value: Talk to users and more uses and, if possible, observe people using what you've built Ask a lot of questions, especially about why people do things Focus on business outcomes and results over technologies