Probably I'm a "products person"

Burcu Dogan — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 21:47:19 +0000

It all started when I was younger, almost 15 years ago. As a rebellious child, I decided to publish my own newspaper to share my opinions about products I use daily. I wrote critics, future notes and reviews almost about everything — from plugs to kitchen tools. Reviewing was boring, but manufacturing was very costly, and my cheap implementations would be looking very ugly. So, I gave up fast.

I was introduced to programming and computing technology very long time ago. I was pushed to it and fascinated by the flow of bits and bytes. But everything was embodied in 1996, the day I met the Web. Finally there was an easy and cheap way to distribute products. And to be able to ship products, I had to learn programming. This is how I started.

Now as a professional, I still couldn’t understand why I’m not also responsible for budget, strategy, concept, ux et al as a developer. I’m a products person, I want to code for beautiful products to change mindsets and push the limits for more market visibility. I’m driven by breakthrough concepts, user interaction improvement, performance, cognition and reasoning. If you cant convince me, I perform bad. To be honest, I’m not sure this is how a developer should act but this is my formula. My time is valuable and if you want me to invest it in your project, you have to convince me. I never remember myself applying for a company to work on a product I dont believe that I can dedicate myself to.

Most probably this makes me an inefficient developer. I get angry when we don’t make enough revenue and we ship features that turns into invisible toys that 80% doesnt even use. I find myself crazily analysing the logs where available and trying to understand how users think.

Now ask me how many companies I started. Actual the number is “one” — the sector was totally out of technology business. We had great recognition from major industry players in the USA and our main service was quite profitable for college students. I made some huge mistakes in the past two years with losing the entrepreneurship I have inside. Now I decided to be a half entrepreneur and half time&energy investor.

Why should developers blog?

Burcu Dogan — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 08:57:17 +0000

If I make an statistical study out of my friends and colleges who are developers, I can barely can say 10% of them are blogging. Is blogging a nightmare, a time waster, a cheap-seat show where bloggers act like significant people for them? I don’t know. I have one prediction: They don’t like writing. These people are tech savvy, they are not like my mother who doesn’t know how to publish on Web. They have sufficient writing capabilities their readers won’t complain about. They have weekends off and most of them are single.

I started my Internet fanaticism with writing in 1996-97. But releasing my first personal took another 10 years to happen, just a few years ago in 2006. Since I started to blog technically in a more personal area, my life changed fast. I have met dozens of people regardless of geological distances, interchanged great amount of knowledge, made friends, found people who can challenge me and found jobs. Besides these benefits, I have other reasons to blog technically:

1. It’s natural: You have passion for technology

You don’t have to have a reason. This should be very natural. If you are passionate about technology, you are also passionate about the trends in tech. Blogging is the top of the game since 2002-2003. Regretting the fashions won’t make you a cooler person. Early adoption gives a better impression. Running a blog and not making money out of it gives me one obvious signal: I’m passionate about what I’m doing, this is not just a job to earn my life.

2. Self promotion

Isn’t it obvious? Nowadays if you are not on the Web, you are nowhere. You will at least have a personal space to introduce yourself to the world of networks. It’s good because you can find others who are interested in similar technologies and are passionate for similar concepts.

3. Self improvement

How could writing improve my own abilities? It’s usually being asked. Being socially active is the best thing to find more people who can challenge your existing capabilities. I understand you were the smartest of your family, you had great marks at high school, was a top student at college and now a superstar employee. But due to the existence of your blog, everyday you have replies back to you from smarter people around to remind you are still a beginner. This is a great opportunity to see there are no limits and you are never done.

On the other hand, your blog serves as a timeline which captures your interests, technical knowledge and other capabilities. You can easily review yourself by taking a look at your older posts.

4. Sharing Knowledge

And obviously, sharing knowledge has its factor. It’s common for others to struggle where you went down. You may like to share an exceptional bug, a trick to make things work, a newly released product, methodologies, stories, experiences and reviews.