The Try-Hard & The Practitioner

Two Types Of Personas Based On Visibility VS Expertise

Two Types Of Personas

We can generally find two types of people in many industries, hobbies, and professions. Those who like to talk about what they are doing; the try-hards. And the ones who are doing it; the practitioners.

The try-hards are very much into discussing tools, gears, and trivial stuff around the particular craft, profession, or hobby. You can take fitness or photography as examples. Hobbies where you can find people geeking out on the fancy tools and gears without needing to spend an hour working out or making photo shoots.

The ones who focus on DOING are different from the ones you notice. They tend to work and study in silence.

The funny part is that practitioners deep down in doing the work, taking programming, for example, have the most negligible visibility in the community. Those with the most visibility in the community and their organization need more expertise.

The tricky situation here is that the try-hards visible in the community, among stakeholders in the organization, and in front of managers and executives tend to be viewed as experts.

Sometimes, this can have problematic consequences. A try-hard persona put in an expert position, usually earned through years of practice in that field, can be hazardous for the team. But also for the try-hards career in the end.

From Visibility To Teaching

In the modern tech community, much of what is happening on tech Twitter is about visibility. It’s all about being noticed and heard and tweeting and sharing about the work. After all, this is what Twitter is made for.

You can read opinions on which programming language is the hottest, which framework is currently in the top 5, and so on. Very click-friendly.

Don’t get me wrong. I have learned a lot from my Twitter friends, and there is great content out there for anyone who wants to learn to code and start a career in tech.

But teaching is one thing. Visibility for visibility’s sake is another. Being a beginner is risky since you are exposed to noise and information overload. So knowing a bit about the different personas in this industry can be helpful if you want to accelerate your learning.

In the corporate world, you can find hard-working fellows who seem to be everywhere and are being noticed. They are doing much of the talking and playing the corporate game well. With good intentions and all but with the risk of missing out on the basics, the fundamentals.

And in tech, knowing the fundamentals is vital. I’ve learned that the hard way.

I reflected on my journey and how I have tried to make myself visible in the tech space. Sharing my learning journey in public and putting the advice I got from others into practice. That you don’t exist if you don’t share your work.

I learned that visibility as a try-hard and sharing your learnings are two different things.

Teaching about your insights and sharing your work can accelerate your learning in tech. But trying to get likes on a click-bate post will only make you visible for the moment and eventually expose your need for more expertise.

How Do You Want To Position Yourself?

Finally, software engineering requires continuous practice, short learning loops, and incremental deliveries.

Many of us are involved in the corporate world and have evolved and adapted the engineering culture through decades of failed projects and deliveries. And much of this is due to a need for clarification on how you get complex things done meaningfully. Corporate machinery missed the principles that a learning society is based on.

How to truly be nimble.

I like to see it as a stance and how you position yourself in a digital world, where you thrive by continuous practice, tinkering, learning, and sharing without shortcuts.

We cannot buy a certificate and claim to be an expert.

We need practice.

They are doing the work. Often it’s boring. Sometimes it’s fun. But mostly, it requires us to work in silence.

It is separated from the noise.