
# Building your own digital garden

I've found [[building stuff|building]] [[My Digital Garden (Home)|my own]] [[digital garden|digital garden]] to be an enormously rewarding experience.

**If you're interested in building your own, please [[Contacting me|let me know]]!**

As a starter, I've actually [[open-source|open-sourced]] the [[the source code of this website|code behind my own website]] - but I know this requires a decent amount of technical proficiency to navigate.

So, I'm considering making a beginner-friendly tutorial / guide / course for people who are interested in building their own digital gardens.

(Should I? Well, I'm [[minimum viable product|testing the waters]] - which is why you should [[Contacting me|tell me if you're interested]]!)

Riduce


**Riduce** is an [[open-source|open-source]] [[JavaScript|JavaScript]]/[[TypeScript|TypeScript]] [[state management|state management]] library that I've written and published - [source code available here](https://github.com/richardcrng/riduce), with [a separate documentation website](https://riduce.richard.ng).

I use it in parts of this website, e.g. [to manage search state in every garden note](https://github.com/richardcrng/richard.ng/blob/main/components/GardenNote/GardenNote.tsx).

The main purpose of this note is to demonstrate privacy features.

You'll be able to see this note in the [[open-source|open-source]] codebase for this site if you [[example private note|look under the hood of how I built it]], but it doesn't get rendered into a website page by [[Next.js|Next.js]] because I haven't set the [[YAML|YAML]] frontmatter appropriately.


# Side projects

I'm a big believer in the value of side projects.

Some of my current side-projects are:
- some [[open-source|open-source]] libraries (check out my [personal](https://github.com/richardcrng) [[GitHub|GitHub]])
- planting seeds in [[My Digital Garden (Home)|my own]] [[digital garden|digital garden]] (hello visitor!)
- building [[Included M|Included M]]


# `this.techStack()`

I've [[open-source|open-sourced]] the source code for this website, available on [[GitHub|GitHub]] at [richardcrng/richard.ng](https://github.com/richardcrng/richard.ng).

Here's a table of technologies and tools used:

| Technology / tool | Use |
| --- | --- |
| [[React\|React]] | User interface  |
| [[Next.js\|Next.js]] | Server-side generation of static pages |
| [[TypeScript\|TypeScript]] | Static typing (and generally better [[developer experience\|developer experience]] than JavaScript) |
| [[Riduce\|Riduce]] | State management |
| [[markdown\|Markdown]] | Writing notes for the digital garden |
| [[Notion\|Notion]] | Writing content for vanilla site pages |
| [`react-notion`](https://github.com/splitbee/react-notion) | Rendering Notion content into React | 
| [[Obsidian\|Obsidian]] | Authoring [[markdown\|markdown]] notes with great [[bi-directional linking\|bi-directional linking]] support |
| [[Vercel\|Vercel]] | Deployment |



# Open Source

I try to **open-source** (e.g. making source code publicly available) my work whenever possible, for a few reasons:

1. *Culture* - the culture of open-source appeals to me (building off others' work, letting others build on your work)
2. *Visibility* - open-sourcing work makes it easier for your work to get noticed (related to [[learning in public|learning in public]])
3. *Accessibility* - I'm not in the business of jealously guarding what I've learned; I actively enjoy [[education|educating others]] and promoting [[diversity and inclusion|openness]]

In that spirit, [[the source code of this website|the code for this website]] is actually entirely open-source!

I also have a small but growing note on the technologies, libraries and tools [[website tech stack|that I used to build this site]].

10,000 Hours with Reid Hoffman: What I Learned

accepting an error rate as a cost of speed

the importance of spending time with great people that you can learn from


A fascinating piece by [[Ben Casnocha|Ben Casnocha]] about his time as [[Reid Hoffman|Reid Hoffman]]'s Chief of Staff - I particularly loved the idea of [[Accepting an error rate as a cost of speed|accepting an error rate as a cost of speed]].

It also makes me think of [[the importance of spending time with great people that you can learn from|the importance of spending time with great people that you can learn from]].



# @richardcrng

`@richardcrng` is the handle I use for most things: [[GitHub|GitHub]], [[LinkedIn|LinkedIn]] and [[Twitter|Twitter]].

(But I really liked the domain name `richard.ng`, so...)


# Accepting an error rate as a cost of speed

A wonderful quote from [[10,000 Hours with Reid Hoffman - What I Learned|10,000 Hours with Reid Hoffman: What I Learned]]:

> If you move quickly, there’ll be mistakes borne of haste. If you’re a manager and care seriously about speed, you’ll need to tell your people you’re wiling to accept the tradeoffs. Reid did this with me. We agreed I was going to make judgment calls on a range of issues on his behalf without checking with him. He told me, “In order to move fast, I expect you’ll make some foot faults. I’m okay with an error rate of 10-20% — times when I would have made a different decision in a given situation – if it means you can move fast.”

Speaks to my [[impatience for change|impatience for change]] and is a counterpoint against [[Chesterton's fence|Chesterton's fence]]!

Andy Matushak's Working Notes


[[Andy Matuschak|Andy]]'s Working Notes was the first [[digital garden|digital garden]] that I can remember encountering - and they blew me away.

I can highly recommend getting lost in them.


# Andy Raskin

Andy Raskin's writings have profoundly changed the way that I think about storytelling.

Two articles he's done which are great:
- [[Andy Raskin's The Greatest Sales Deck I've Ever Seen|The Greatest Sales Deck I've Ever Seen]]
- [[Andy Raskin's The Best Sales Pitch I've Seen All Year|The Best Sales Pitch I've Seen All Year]]

Andy Raskin - The Greatest Sales Pitch I've Seen All Year


This is a really great piece by [[Andy Raskin|Andy Raskin]] on [[storytelling|storytelling]], following on from his earlier piece ([[Andy Raskin's The Greatest Sales Deck I've Ever Seen|The Greatest Sales Deck I've Ever Seen]]).

It's[readable here](https://medium.com/the-mission/the-best-sales-pitch-ive-seen-all-year-7fa92afaa248).

It outlines the following framework:
1. Start with a big, undeniable change that creates stakes
2. Name the enemy
3. Tease the “Promised Land”
4. Position capabilities as “magic” for slaying “monsters”
5. Present your best evidence


Andy Raskin - The Greatest Sales Deck I've Ever Seen


This is a really great piece by [[Andy Raskin|Andy Raskin]], [readable here](https://medium.com/the-mission/the-greatest-sales-deck-ive-ever-seen-4f4ef3391ba0), on [[storytelling|storytelling]] and pitching.

He outlines the following framework:
1. Name a Big, Relevant Change in the World
2. Show There’ll Be Winners and Losers
3. Tease the Promised Land
4. Introduce Features as “Magic Gifts” for Overcoming Obstacles to the Promised Land
5. Present Evidence that You Can Make the Story Come True


Ben Casnocha


Partner at Village Global and author of [[10,000 Hours with Reid Hoffman - What I Learned|10,000 Hours with Reid Hoffman: What I Learned]]


# Black Codher

Website: [https://blackcodher.com/](https://blackcodher.com/)

Brexitland: Identity, Diversity and the Reshaping of British Politics

Bruno Arine's digital garden


I am a big fan of the way that Bruno introduces [his digital garden](https://notes.brunoarine.com/):

> Brains should be public domain. Our ideas derive from other people’s ideas, which derive from yet others’ ideas, and so on. [Every useful idea is a remix](https://notes.brunoarine.com/posts/20200924182258-every_useful_idea_is_a_remix/). The creative process doesn’t begin with a blank slate, and this is why neither the corpus of human knowledge nor none of its building blocks should be kept private. Thus, I am publishing online my **digital garden** of personal notes.

> This website is supposed to be a work in progress for as long as I live. It is my online second brain, an ever-changing garden of highly interconnected nodes that mimics the topology of relevant ideas in my mind.

This speaks to some thoughts I have on [[a digital garden as a second brain|a digital garden as a second brain]].

Building a Second Brain


**Building a Second Brain** is a course by [[Forte Labs|Forte Labs]] (which can be found [here](https://www.buildingasecondbrain.com/)).


# CBT and me

A few years ago, I underwent a course of **Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)** and have become firmly of the opinion that, in an ideal world, most people would be accessing and undergoing therapy.

Things I learned about include my tendency towards [[black and white thinking|black and white thinking]] and my [[perfectionism|perfectionism]].


# Capture things in your digital garden before linking away to them

Often, I'll find that I mention an organisation, idea or book in a way where I would have historically linked directly to some external reference point ([[Twitter|Twitter]]/[[LinkedIn|LinkedIn]]/[[Wikipedia|Wikipedia]] etc), for people to read more.

In my digital garden, I'm preferring to try to capture this as a note first (e.g. I've done it above with Twitter, LinkedIn and Wikipedia), although I will intend to ultimately link from there to the external resource.

I'm preferring to capture it as a note first because it makes my notes more future-proof - if I want to add some thoughts on said organisation/person/book, I can do this and have it automatically plugged in / linked to my other notes via [[bi-directional linking|bi-directional linking]].

Chesterton's fence


I interpret Chesterton's fence as a cautionary warning about change and reform, but one which I don't necessarily get along with.

It's attributed to G.K. Chesterton (reputedly [a polymath](https://fs.blog/2020/03/chestertons-fence/), although I know little about the person myself).

> There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, "I don't see the use of this; let us clear it away." To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: "If you don't see the use of it, I certainly won't let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.

It's a principle which has been cited in [legal workplaces](https://abovethelaw.com/2014/01/the-fallacy-of-chestertons-fence/?rf=1) and [software development](https://josephwoodward.co.uk/2020/04/software-the-chestertons-fence-principle) to caution against change.

Concerningly to me, it has sometimes become shortened to and cited as ["Don't ever take a fence down until you know the reason it was put up."](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/599983-don-t-ever-take-a-fence-down-until-you-know-the)

I definitely see and understand the point being made here - as humans/reformers, we're fallible and have imperfect knowledge. We don't necessarily have the full context of why something is in place, and by taking it down we might trigger [[unintended consequences|unintended consequences]]. 

However, I'm also concerned about the blocking potential of Chesterton's fence (particularly in the simplified misquote).

Sometimes, it might be impossible to establish with any sort of reasonable certainty *why* a policy, process or practice has been put down - lost in the midst of time. The simplified version of Chesterton's fence would mean that these policies must be maintained in perpetuity. This seems to me to be *obviously ludicrous*.

This intuition is pretty primitive for me, but if I have to try to provide some motivating example - consider how a [[bad actor|bad actor]] might use it to protect a pet policy once implemented. They would *deliberately destroy all documentation about the reasoning for said policy*, so that nobody could ever in future discover why this policy was enacted, and therefore be unable to change it.

Let's throw out the simplified misquote of Chesterton and try to consider his point in a charitable and generous reading. The requirement is not that reformers need to know the exact historical reasons for a metaphorical fence being in place; the requirement is that the reformer should be able to articulate at least one use of the fence before they take it down.

This still seems overly restrictive - because conditions change. Something might have had use in the past - but because conditions have changed, it no longer has any use, such that even the most sympathetic reformer can't articulate any current uses of the fence. Such a fence *should* be able to be taken down.

Let's try to be more generous. Maybe Chesterton actually means that the requirement should be that reformers should at least try to discover the historical rationale for the policy being in place before they reform it. Maybe they can't find the rationale, or maybe they find it and it's no longer relevant or valid - what matters is that they've made a [[good faith|good faith]] attempt to try to find the historical reasoning before they go on to reform it.

I'm still worried about the potential that this has to block the removal of actively harmful policies for an unnecessarily long period of time.

I suppose whether or not you think Chesterton's fence is a good principle is in part to do with the strength of your general small-c [[conservatism|conservatism]]. I guess this shows that I'm not particularly conservative.

(If you are interested in how Chesterton's fence can impact public policy: [Chesterton's fence seems to have been cited by at least some opponents of same-sex marriage](https://str.typepad.com/weblog/2015/06/advice-from-chesterton-dont-take-down-the-fence-until-you-know-why-its-there.html).)


# Code Your Future

Website: [https://codeyourfuture.io](https://codeyourfuture.io)


# Contacting me

You've got different avenues for contacting me:
- [[my Twitter|my Twitter]]
- [[my email|my email]]




# Demonstrating a garden changing over time

[[digital garden|Digital gardens]] are all about change, in my book.

This is very different to a traditional blog post which is by and large assumed to be unyielding and static.

As I'm building my digital garden, I'm trying to design ways to clearly demonstrate the evolution of notes, e.g.:
- [[GitHub|GitHub]] contribution-style heatmaps to show activity
- changelog of recent [[git|git commits]]

(and I'm finding these things enormously [[satisfying to build|building stuff]])

Digital Garden Terms of Service


I really like a lot of the spirit (and content!) [[Shawn Wang|Shawn]]'s Digital Garden Terms of Service.

I think 'Terms of Service' is maybe a little too formal as a term, hence why I'm trying out [[digital garden - field guide for visitors|'Field Guide']] in my own equivalent that I'm developing.




# Don't overthink what you're writing

My normal writing process involves lots of thought and backspacing ("oh that actually could be worded better").

When I'm writing my digital garden, I'm actively trying to avoid backspacing - seeing it as a random dump of ideas in my head, almost like stream of consciousness.

This makes it less reader friendly (hence the need for a [[digital garden - field guide for visitors|field guide]], probably) but it's actually quite a nice writing experience.

So, is it selfish? Undoubtedly - but [[digital garden motivations|I'm doing this mostly for myself]], anyway, so that seems totally appropriate in this instance.


# Eschewing the evergreen

[[evergreen notes|Evergreen notes]] are an appealing concept.

I deliberately work under a "non-evergreen" mindset, though (which I think is more to do with terminology of 'evergreen' rather than the actual definition).

For me, the term 'evergreen' has connotations of 'should always be green (i.e. full of vitality and bloom)', whereas my digital garden is explicitly [[publicising unfinished notes|full of things which are short stubs]].

This is important for me to consciously adopt as a principle because it overcomes my [[perfectionism]].

[[Maggie Appleton|Maggie Appleton]] has [a taxonomy of notes](https://maggieappleton.com/evergreens):
- seedlings
- budding
- evergreen

which I'm attracted to, partly because it could also serve a nice way of [[declaring epistemic status and effort in a digital garden|declaring epistemic status and effort]] for each note, as suggested in [[Shawn Wang|Shawn Wang]]'s [[Digital Garden Terms of Service|Digital Garden Terms of Service]] (which I'm intending to base [[digital garden - field guide for visitors|my own garden field guide]] off).

(It's also, clearly, a lovely thematic fit with 'digital garden' and 'evergreen' notes!)

capturing things in my digital garden before I link away to them


# Everything that could be a note should be a note

Whilst I'm in the early stages of developing [[My Digital Garden (Home)|my own]] [[digital garden|digital garden]], I'm erring on the side of creating more notes than I need.

(I am leaving a lot of placeholder notes lying around as well.)

This is because:
- I want to feel as uninhibited as possible when writing the notes - it's a good feeling!
- I want to [[drawing connections|draw connections]] and that feels easier with more notes
- Frankly, I think it makes for a prettier [[graphing your digital garden|graph]]

So, I'm adopting the dictum that **everything that could be a note should be a note**.

But what *could* be a note? I'm [[What will you encounter in my digital garden？|developing thoughts on that]].

A related principle I'm testing out is [[Capture things in your digital garden before linking away to them|capturing things in my digital garden before I link away to them]].


# Generalism and me

I consider myself quite a bit of a [[generalism|generalist]].

But, similar terms I *wouldn't* ascribe to myself:
- *jack-of-all-trades* - connatations of being mediocre at everything (demeaning)
- *polymath* - connations of being exceptional at everything (arrogant)

(although if somebody wanted to call me a polymath, I'd be flattered and take the compliment...)

I consider myself a generalist because I've found that I've done a wide range of things [[my career path|in my career]] [[side projects|and my side projects]]:
- [[storytelling|storytelling]]
- [[writing|writing]]
- [[public speaking|public speaking]]
- [[coding|coding]]

and I enjoy all of them (and consider myself above-average in all of them, too).

It's one of the reasons why I chose to study [[PPE|PPE]] as a degree - my favourite subject at school was actually [[mathematics|maths]], but I wasn't sure I loved it enough to study *just* maths for three/four years - I knew that variety was valuable to me.


# GitHub

GitHub is where I host lots of my code (as is industry-standard), [[@richardcrng|@richardcrng]].

I remember finding [[git|git]] quite difficult to learn when I first started - nobody explained the mental model to me and it's not obvious to work out - but I think I've developed quite a good one now.

Head Hand Heart: The Struggle for Dignity and Status in the 21st Century


Written by [[David Goodhart|David Goodhart]].

One of the most compelling non-fiction books I've read. Notes to come at some point.


# Included M

Included M is something I'm working on in affiliation with [[Included VC|Included VC]].

It's got a user experience which draws inspiration from [[Quantic|Quantic]].

The [[GitHub|GitHub]] repository is [here](https://github.com/richardcrng/included-m).


# Included VC

Included VC is a programme aimed at increasing [[diversity and inclusion|diversity]] in [[venture capital|venture capital]].


# Increase your probability of a lucky bet by taking more bets

This is a thought which has been planted / nurtured from a few different sources:

- [[Reid Hoffman|Reid Hoffman]]'s *[[The Startup of You|The Startup of You]]*
- the notion of [[person-luck|person-luck]] (or 'who-luck') from [[Stephen Millard|Stephen Millard]] (co-founder of [[Included VC|Included VC]])
- [[the fund returner mental model|the fund returner mental model]]

## From *[[The Startup of You|The Startup of You]]*:

> It’s easy in hindsight to attribute breakthrough career opportunities to a master plan. “And then, since I knew Nancy would be crucial to my success, I decided to randomly bump into her at a party.… ” Yeah, right. What more often happens is that you stumble upon the person or idea without specifically intending to. The key, then, is to raise the likelihood that you stumble upon something valuable—namely, by courting good randomness and seeing the opportunities that reveal themselves.

> As entrepreneur Bo Peabody says, “The best way to ensure that lucky things happen is to make sure a lot of things happen.” Make things happen, and in the long run, you’ll design your own serendipity, and make your own opportunities.



Maggie Appleton's Brief History & Ethos of the Digital Garden


If you're looking to get started in understanding [[digital garden|digital gardening]], [this piece](https://maggieappleton.com/garden-history) by Maggie is an *extraordinarily* good piece.

If you just enjoy lovely and thoughtful prose _and_ illustrations, I also recommend that you read it!

For me, here are some of the thoughts that stick with me:

1. In a way, digital gardens are reclaiming a philosophy of the early web. Scrappy, unfinished, not necessarily worrying about it being beautiful - more a "here is my own piece of the web", a marker of territory and identity.
2. Digital gardens are on-trend! Lots of really interesting people are looking at them, which is maybe a sign that [[Building your own digital garden|you should be, too]]

Maggie Appleton's Digital Garden


[[Maggie Appleton|Maggie]]'s [[digital garden|digital garden]] is *beautiful* - which is unsurprising perhaps given her illustration background.

I also love how she's categorised her notes into a taxonomy depending on how cultivated they are. I'm currently deliberately [[Eschewing the evergreen|eschewing the 'evergreen' label]], but the categorisation / labelling is likely something I will return to.

Maggie Appleton's Digital Gardeners repository


Has a nice list of resources.

Looks like she accepts pull requests - add yourself! (I will do this soon, I hope)

Maggie Appleton's Short History of Bi-Directional Links


[[Maggie Appleton|Maggie Appleton]] has pulled together a wonderful brief history of bi-directional links ([viewable here](https://maggieappleton.com/bidirectionals)).

Main takeaways for me:
- bi-directionality isn't a *new* concept (see Project Xanadu)...
- ... but it might be idea whose time has come

Michael Sandel


Michael Sandel is one of the people I admire most - as an [[education|educator]], a [[philosophy|philosopher]] and a [[citizenship|citizen]].

## As an educator

He is a remarkable educator, as you can see (and benefit from) in his Harvard MOOC *[[Michael Sandel's Justice MOOC|Justice: what's the right thing to do?]]*:
- a fantastic practitioner of the [[Socratic method|Socratic method]]
- a generous ability to draw out wisdom from *anything* which a student says
- delivering with wonder and awe even theories he disagrees with

It is that exact MOOC which originally made me consider studying [[philosophy|philosophy]] (ultimately leading me onto studying [[PPE|PPE]] at [[the University of Oxford|Oxford]]).

## As a philosopher

I'm becoming [[changing opinions|increasingly persuaded by]] ideas of [[communitarianism|communitarianism]], of which Sandel is a leading proponent.

I remember coming across one of his papers whilst doing some library reading in my undergraduate degree. At the time, I felt a lot of affinity with [[Rawlsian liberalism|Rawlsian liberalism]] - an idea which Sandel himself had delivered so compellingly in his [[Michael Sandel's Justice MOOC|Justice MOOC]]! - and yet, [in this paper](), he was critiquing it:

> What is denied to the unencumbered self is the possibility of membership in any community bound by moral ties antecedent to choice; [s]he cannot belong to any community where the self *itself* could be at stake.

At the time, I remember reading this and feeling both perplexed and resentful that this philosopher role model of mine could stake out a stance against the [[political philosophy|political philosophy]] of John Rawls, which spoke to me so strongly - particularly doing so in a way that I couldn't understand, intuit or articulate.

Revisiting it now, several years later, I am struck by my totally opposite reaction - I am profoundly struck:
- I am personally quite affected by this sensation of having been on a rather large political journey
- I think the point itself is rather profound - both as a critque of [[Rawlsian liberalism|Rawlsian liberalsim]] but also as a general point on [[identity|identity]]
- most of all, he diagnoses a society plagued by contemporary individualism - and in coming to see he is right, I realise how deep some of our social ills are


lots of the stuff in this garden is incomplete

look at other digital gardens that have inspired me


# Welcome to my Digital Garden!

This is the home page for my [[digital garden|digital garden]] - thanks for visiting!

## What's a digital garden?

If you're not familiar with the idea of a digital garden, I recommend you start with [[Maggie Appleton's Brief History & Ethos of the Digital Garden|this lovely illustrated guide]] by [[Maggie Appleton|Maggie Appleton]].

As you're exploring, please take caution - [[What will you encounter in my digital garden？|lots of the stuff in this garden is incomplete]]! (I am working on a [[digital garden - field guide for visitors|field guide]], but it is - perhaps ironically? - not finished.)

## Where should I visit?

A good place to start might be reading about [[digital garden motivations|my broad motivations/goals]] for this space.

You should also [[digital gardens that I like|look at other digital gardens that have inspired me]].

More broadly though, I encourage you to just wander through it - let [[serendipity|serendipity]] take hold!

## How did you (or how can I) build this?
- [[website tech stack|My digital garden tech stack]]
- [[Building your own digital garden|Building your own digital garden]]

tacitly encouraged by Teach First marketing


# My Teach First experience

I think Teach First is doing a really great thing and I know lots of people who've had incredible experiences with it.

For me, it wasn't great - although I'm certainly glad I tried and it proved an important catalyst in the [[my career path|eccentric career route that I've taken]].

I would say that there was a damaging interaction between two things:
1. My youthful tendencies towards [[idealism|idealism]] and an [[impatience for change|impatience for change]]
2. A [[hero complex|hero complex]] which was [[the Teach First hero complex|tacitly encouraged by Teach First marketing]]




I'm working on something related for you!


# My digital garden workflow

This will be a note about how I build this digital garden (which is slightly distinct from [[website tech stack|a list of technologies]] - more process driven).

If you're interested in building your own, [[Building your own digital garden|I'm working on something related for you!]]




# Notion

I use [Notion](https://notion.so) for notes and productivity.

It's a very different note-taking style to [[Obsidian|Obsidian]] and [[digital garden|digital gardening]] - more structured.

Things I really like about Notion:
- a lovely frictionless writing experience
- rollup properties on relations between tables
- nesting pages arbitrarily deep

Now Teach


Now Teach was set up by the British journalist [[Lucy Kellaway|Lucy Kellaway]] (who wrote some great columns in the [[Financial Times|FT]] about the experience).

why I use Obsidian for personal note-taking


# Obsidian

[Obsidian](https://obsidian.md) is what I use to author the notes in my digital garden.

You can read more about my choice here: [[Why I use Obsidian for personal note-taking|why I use Obsidian for personal note-taking]].

I like Obsidian because it lets me write notes in [[markdown|markdown]], keep them locally and version control through [[GitHub|GitHub]].


# Philosophy, Politics and Economics

I studied PPE at Oxford.

I think that the UK has a bit of a problematic relationship with the PPE degree, mostly through politics - e.g. [this Guardian article](https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/feb/23/ppe-oxford-university-degree-that-rules-britain) really drives it home in the opening passages.

It's been famously critiqued by Dominic Cummings in [one of his blog posts](https://dominiccummings.com/the-odyssean-project-2/):

> Courses such as Politics, Philosophy and Economics (and economics in general) do not train political leaders well. They encourage superficial bluffing, misplaced confidence (e.g. many graduates leave with little or no idea about fundamental issues concerning mathematical models of the economy (cf. p.21-5 & 214-229)), and they do not train people to make decisions in complex organisations.

I do actually think it's a good degree, though... (and will write more on this later)


# Produce half-baked notes

In the early stages of my digital garden, I'm leaving a lot of notes that are incredibly half-baked - to be generous!

Lots of them are actually placeholder notes. (See: [[What will you encounter in my digital garden？|my ontology of digital garden notes]])

This helps me [[drawing connections|draw connections]] more easily, which is a very satisfying endeavour - just spew the notes out as atoms, and focus on the connections rather than the atoms themselves.

Quantic


Quantic offers a mobile-first MBA. I enrolled because I was pretty curious about what this offered as a learning experience.

I think the tech isn't massively sophisticated, but I was pretty impressed with how engaging it was as an experience, particularly because it wasn't much more than a textbook - albeit one broken down into small chunks with frequent interaction, but relatively simplistic interaction.

I ended up withdrawing because I didn't have enough time with everything else I was doing (e.g. building an interactive mobile-first learning experience of my own with [[Included M|Included M]]!).

Range, by David Epstein


I consistently recommend **Range** as a book to people, and have done multiple book clubs on it with people - I think it has a lot of important lessons for people at all stages of career, especially if you identify as a bit of a [[generalism|generalist]].


# React

I love writing React (especially with [[TypeScript|TypeScript]]).

It's my go-to for any [[side projects|side projects]] that I work on.


# Reflections on building my digital garden

I'm having some interesting thoughts (or thoughts I find interesting at least) on [[philosophy of the digital garden|the philosophy of]] [[digital garden|digital gardens]] - how to best construct them etc.


# Reid Hoffman

Someone whose books I have enjoyed a lot, in particular [[The Startup of You|The Startup of You]].

There's a fascinating piece, [[10,000 Hours with Reid Hoffman - What I Learned|10,000 Hours with Reid Hoffman]], which is written by Reid's former Chief of Staff and co-author, [[Ben Casnocha|Ben Casnocha]].

Reid originally has a [background in philosophy](https://www.wired.co.uk/article/reid-hoffman-network-philosopher) - [[PPE|kinda like me]]! - so I also am positively predisposed to him for that.

RemNote


RemNote looks interesting because it combines [[bi-directional linking|bi-directional]] note-taking with [[spaced repetition|spaced repetition]].

Similar to [[Roam Research|Roam Research]] in vibe, but committed to an always-free version.

Roam Research


Popular - but would prefer to have more control over my notes (e.g. to version control in git).


the future of skills is not just technical

it is likely that your industry / role of choice is going to be significantly affected by technology

that they and coders are two different species of people


# Should you learn how to code?

I'm sometimes asked about [[how to learn how to code|the best ways to learn how to code]].

But, of course, there's a prior question - *should* I learn how to code? - which I am asked about *less*.

Some things that fly around in this debate:
- [[software is eating the world|the observable growth of tech and predicted mass-displacement via automation]] (and therefore learn how to code or get eaten)
- [[no code|no code tools]] which mean it's not necessary to learn how to code

Some things which I think need articulating more:
- [[skills for the future|the future of skills is not just technical]] - it's also deeply human and interpersonal skills
- [[building stuff|coding is fun]]! There are, imo, good intrinsic reasons to learn.

My general opinion is:
- almost everybody *could* learn how to code
- I can't reasonably give a blanket answer as to whether a given person *should* learn how to code
- but I think the answer is *plausibly, yes, it would be a worthwhile investment for you to learn at least **some** coding* for a significant proportion of people.

Why? Well, no matter what you want to do, [[software is eating the world|it is likely that your industry / role of choice is going to be significantly affected by technology]].

*Some* competency in coding - even if slight - can do someone a world of good in confidence because it can go some way to removing the perception [[the self-perception barrier to learning coding|that they and coders are two different species of people]].

Teach First


Teach First is the British equivalent of [[Teach For America|Teach for America]]:
- takes university graduates (and some career-changers - although not as purpose-built for late career changers as [[Now Teach|Now Teach]])
- places them in a school serving a socioeconomically deprived community for 2 years

[[My Teach First experience|I was a Teach First participant]], teaching [[mathematics|secondary maths]] in a comprehensive school in Walsall.

Teach For America

The Startup Of You

increasing your probability of having made a lucky bet by taking more bets


A pretty good book which has planted ideas of:
- [[Increase your probability of a lucky bet by taking more bets|increasing your probability of having made a lucky bet by taking more bets]]
- [[permanent beta|treating your career as permanent beta]]

The Tyranny of Merit


Similar themes covered here by [[Michael Sandel]] to the ones covered by [[David Goodhart]] in [[Head Hand Heart]].


# Tiago Forte

Tiago Forte is the founder of [[Forte Labs|Forte Labs]], who I happen to think looks a lot like Elon Musk.

Anyway, you can find Tiago on Twitter [here](https://twitter.com/fortelabs).

Tom Critchlow's wikifolder


What I love about Tom's [wikifolder digital garden](https://tomcritchlow.com/wiki/pedagogy/) is how wide-ranging it is: from pedagogy, to cooking, to poetry.


# TypeScript

I love TypeScript, and hope that I never have to write plain [[JavaScript|JavaScript]] again.

I love TypeScript for:
- code autocomplete, massively speeds up my development
- catching my silly errors
- positive feedback! great buzz from fixing type errors

all the thoughts swirling around in my head


# What will you encounter in my digital garden?

It's easy to get lost in my digital garden. I'm working on a [[digital garden - field guide for visitors|field guide]], but in the interim, here's some intel on what you can expect.

Explicitly, you will see the following:
- fragmented thoughts that are not well-formed
- tentative opinions that [[changing opinions|could get radically changed]]
- passages of text that are randomly incomplete
- links to random notes that don't exist, [[example private note|like this example private note]]

Some notes will be about ideas on wide-ranging topics - from tech, to politics, to the totally humdrum.

Some will be autobiographical notes - deep navel gazing with a side of stream-of-consciousness.

Some will be about organisations and people, although this will be:
- only organisations and people who have a public profile
- generally only organisations and people that I have (and can express) positive opinions about (or can be politely constructive about)

It's basically [[a digital garden as a second brain|all the thoughts swirling around in my head]].


# Why I use Obsidian for personal note-taking

There are lots of [[notetaking tools|notetaking tools]] and [[personal knowledge management|personal knowledge management]] systems out there.

I've chosen [[Obsidian|Obsidian]] for [[My Digital Garden (Home)|my digital garden]] - most of the notes you see here are written in the Obsidian desktop app.

However, I have also considered each of the following:
- [[Notion|Notion]] (although I don't use it for my digital garden, I use it in other ways in [[website tech stack|building this personal site]])
- [[RemNote|RemNote]]
- [[Roam Research|Roam Research]]

and thought I would articulate why I've ended up choosing Obsidian.

## 1. Obsidian is local-first

This, for me, is the ultimate killer feature that leads me to Obsidian (although there are other supporting reasons below).

With Obsidian, my notes are just local [[markdown|markdown]] files on my computer, which I can do anything with.

### I can *opt-in* to syncing...
- I could sync them between machines via some cloud storage e.g. Google Drive (I don't)
- I could store them in a [[GitHub|GitHub]] repo (I do - along with [[website tech stack|the rest of this website's source code]])

### ... and maintain the peace-of-mind of full file control
Since my files are fully local, I don't have to worry about them:
- being stuck behind a paywall if pricing plans change
- being inaccessible if some other company's servers go down

## 2. Obsidian is git-friendly

As a consequence of being local-first, Obsidian is [[git|git]]-friendly - which means that I can [[version control|version control]] my notes and use the [[GitHub|GitHub]] API.

## 3. Obsidian is just markdown

Because Obsidian is just [[markdown|markdown]], my notes are:
- easy to write and author
- pluggable into an existing markdown ecosystem



# YAML

I'm quite interested in YAML as an authoring tool for interactive content (stemming from my interests in [[education]], [[technology]] and [[edtech|edtech]]).

This is something I'm looking into with [[Included M]], for example.


# Zettelkasten

Introductory article [here](https://leananki.com/zettelkasten-method-smart-notes/)


# A digital garden as a second brain

Some people write about digital gardens as second brains, e.g. Bruno Arine explicitly introduces [[Bruno Arine's digital garden|his digital garden]] as an "online second brain".

[[My Digital Garden (Home)|My own digital garden]] isn't my second brain - yet. There's still lots I need to add to it. But I am intending it to hold lots of my thoughts.

For those interested more in the idea of notetaking and 'second brains' [[Tiago Forte|Tiago Forte]]'s [[Forte Labs|Forte Labs]] has a course: [[Building a Second Brain|Building a Second Brain]].


# Bi-directional linking

Bi-directional linking is a way of building richer relationships between notes and documents such that, when A links to B, B notes A as a 'backlink'.

For example, you will see at the foot of this note a series of 'backlinks' - these are the different notes that link to this note. (Maybe you came to this note from one of them!)

[[Maggie Appleton|Maggie Appleton]] (of course) has [[Maggie Appleton's Short History of Bi-Directional Links|a typically lovely illustrated note]] which is well worth a read.


# Black and white thinking

Black and white thinking is a pattern of thought where you reduce a complex and nuanced situation into a false binary between two extremes.

It's a pattern that [[CBT and me|I've learned that I can fall into]].


# Building stuff

I really like building stuff.

I find it very motivating when you do something which has concrete outputs - the satisfying ability to be able to point at something and think "I did that! I built that! This thing wouldn't exist without me!"

I've realised that this is possibly something missing from the debate on [[Should you learn how to code？|learning how to code]] - yes, it's a skill which can get you a great career with a good salary, but _it's also just fun to build stuff_!


# Career narratives

A career narrative has emerged for me, not by design, in "[[technology|tech]], [[education|education]], startups and [[diversity and inclusion|D&I]]".

I write about this elsewhere on my site.


# Changing opinions

It sometimes seems to me that Western culture doesn't easily permit people to change their opinions.

This is harmful, I think - when people have problematic opinions, we should make it easy for them to change them and not previous things looming over them (versus making them double-down defensively).

(N.B. this is focused on changing opinions vs recanting behaviour - when you have committed acts of harm against people, that's different to "I had a silly opinion and now I've changed it")




# Communitarianism

As a [[political philosophy]], I've moved towards communitarianism from a more conventionally [[Rawlsian liberalism|liberal]] position.

'Brief History & Ethos of the Digital Garden'

I'm developing my own personal philosophy


# Digital Gardens

I'm [[changing opinions|coming to think]] that a digital garden is best understood through a *philosophy* rather than through *artefacts* or *process*.

Whilst [[philosophy of the digital garden|I'm developing my own personal philosophy]], I think there are commonalities across [[digital gardens that I like|other digital gardens]]:

1. **Dynamic, not static**. A digital garden should evolve and grow over time: write, revisit, edit.
2.  **Through the rabbit hole**. Visitors should be able to get lost ([and tweet about enjoying this as an experience!](https://twitter.com/BrunoArine/status/1330874011870523395)).
3.  **Above all, personal**. This is like Orwell's [sixth rule of the English language](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_and_the_English_Language#Remedy_of_Six_Rules): you should sooner break any of the earlier guidelines than do something which feels inauthentic to yourself.

This leads to things like:
- [[publicising unfinished notes|explicitly unfinished notes]] - a digital garden is in [[permanent beta|permanent beta]]
- [[bi-directional linking|bi-directionality]] to create the rabbit hole

[[Maggie Appleton|Maggie Appleton]] has some really excellent resources and thought-pieces on digital gardening:
1. The best place to start is her [[Maggie Appleton's Brief History & Ethos of the Digital Garden|'Brief History & Ethos of the Digital Garden']]
2. A follow-up list of resources for the interested is her [[Maggie Appleton's Digital Gardeners repository|digital gardeners repository]]



# Digital Garden - Field Guide for Visitors

This digital garden is probably unlike most things you've visited on the web:
- it's not primarily been built for an audience
- it includes lots of content that is subject to high change

I don't expect it to be user friendly for people who aren't myself.

At some point, when it's more developed, I'll try to give a more useful field guide (and it will live here!).

Until then, a good starting point might be [[Shawn Wang|Shawn Wang]]'s [[Digital Garden Terms of Service|Digital Garden Terms of Service]]


# Why am I building a digital garden?

Mostly, I'm building a digital garden bcause [[building stuff|I think it'll be fun to build]]!

It's also something which I'm finding liberates me a lot from my [[perfectionism|perfectionist tendencies]].

I'm [[Reflections on building my digital garden|learning a lot as I'm doing it]].

I'm enjoying [[drawing connections|making connections]] between lots of things (and satisfying the [[Generalism and me|generalist in me]]).

I've been inspired by ideas of [[Zettelkasten|Zettelkasten]].

I'm trying to increase my [[serendipity|serendipity]].


# Digital Gardens that I like

Here is a non-exhaustive list of [[digital garden|digital gardens]] that I like.

They're not all done in the same way (which is part of the charm!):

- [[Andy Matuschak|Andy Matuschak]]'s [[Andy Matuschak's Working Notes|Working Notes]]
- [[Maggie Appleton|Maggie Appleton]]'s [[Maggie Appleton's Digital Garden|Digital Garden]]
- [[Tom Critchlow|Tom Critchlow]]'s [[Tom Critchlow's wikifolder|wikifolder]]
- Bruno Arine's [[Bruno Arine's digital garden|digital garden]]

and are inspiration for [[philosophy of the digital garden|my own digital garden philosophy]].


# Diversity and inclusion

Things I do in the area:
- Teacher training for [[Code Your Future]]
- Mentoring and teaching for [[Black Codher]]


Edtech is a fun area that I've fallen into quite a lot by chance.

You can read about this more in [[my career path|my career path thoughts]].


# Evergreen notes

A concept written about with great eloquence by [[Andy Matuschak|Andy Matuschak]] ([here](https://notes.andymatuschak.org/Evergreen_notes)) and illustrated beautifully by [[Maggie Appleton|Maggie Appleton]] ([here](https://maggieappleton.com/evergreens)).

The basic summary from Andy:

> _Evergreen notes_ are written and organized to evolve, contribute, and accumulate over time, across projects.



# Generalism

Generalism is an area of great interest to me - partly because it personally resonates, in that [[Generalism and me|I consider myself a generalist]].

[[Range, by David Epstein|Range]] is a related book I've recommended to many.


# Graphing your digital garden

One of the most satisfying things about making a [[digital garden]] with [[bi-directional linking|bi-directional links]] is the pretty graph you get out of it (e.g. [view my graph](https://richard.ng/graph)).

I am certain this benefits me in terms of personal satisfaction (it definitely activates the part of my brain that likes [[building stuff|building stuff]]).

I am not yet certain that this actually helps me produce e.g. novel ideas or connections, but maybe it does? Let's see.


# Higher education

I have a growing scepticism on higher education as a mass-vehicle.

This is informed by:
- my time at [[WhiteHat|WhiteHat]]
- books like *[[Head Hand Heart|Head Hand Heart]]* by David Goodhart
- an emerging [[communitarianism|communitarian]] [[political philosophy|political philosophy]]


# Impatience for change

One of my double-edged qualities is an impatience for change that I have.

It means that, for example, I can probably fall victim to the mistake warned about in [[Chesterton's fence|Chesterton's fence]].

It's difficult, though - because I'm a very [[on being opinionated|opinionated]] [[conviction|conviction]]-driven person. If I believe that something needs changing, I believe it very strongly.

It's one of the reasons why I favour [[startups|startups]] - I am a bit [[my allergy to bureaucracy|allergic to bureaucracy]].


# Investing in your professional network

My relationship with 'networking' - as word and a concept - has evolved quite a lot.

Originally, I was repelled by the word and everything I thought it stood for:
- it seemed to run counter to ideas of [[meritocracy|meritocracy]] - all about playing a game on [[person-luck|knowing the right people]] rather than actually being the best
- it seemed dehumanising and inauthentic - talking to someone not out of any genuine interest in them, but out of a hope that they will be useful to you in some way

I've [[changing opinions|come to view]] it rather differently. I still think the word 'networking' has some unpleasant connotations, but I have a pretty positive relationship with the concept of 'investing in your professional network' - both _growing_ and _deepening_ it.

I view growing my network as being part of an [[permanent beta|ongoing endeavour]] in [[finding your tribe|finding my tribe]] - it's an empowering act of discovery, expression and connection.


# Learning in public

**Learning in public** is about publicising what you are learning, as you are learning it.

Most people find it counter-intuitive. I think the rationale is often along the lines of:

1. if you are in-the-process of learning something, you are imperfect at it
2. it hurts you if other people learn your imperfections about something
3. therefore, you hurt yourself by publicising your learning

I think these are outweighed by the following considerations:

- we're never finished learning, so if you never learn in public, you never share anything...
- relatedly, the alternative to learning in public is often absence of public presence - i.e. demonstration of zero competencies as opposed to demonstration of partial competencies
- sharing things helps to e.g. gather feedback and build public presence

There are some other thoughts shared e.g. in [Andy Matuschak's 'Work with the garage door up'](https://notes.andymatuschak.org/About_these_notes?stackedNotes=z21cgR9K3UcQ5a7yPsj2RUim3oM2TzdBByZu)



# Markdown

Markdown is a lovely syntax for composing documents.

If you're used to [[WYSIWIG|WYSIWIG]] editors, push yourself out of your comfort zone and learn Markdown. (It's not that hard!)

It works great with [[GitHub|GitHub]], [[Obsidian|Obsidian]] and [[Notion|Notion]].


# Meritocracy

Meritocracy seems at first like it should be an obviously uncontroversial thing. As noted by people like [[David Goodhart|David Goodhart]] (in *[[Head Hand Heart|Head Hand Heart]]*) and [[Michael Sandel|Michael Sandel]] (in *[[The Tyranny of Merit]]*), it's a concept embraced by both the political left and right - although they might dispute the content of the definition, they agree that it is desirable.

It had never occurred to me that meritocracy could be a controversial thing until I read these two aforementioned books ([[Head Hand Heart|Head Hand Heart]] and [[The Tyranny of Merit|The Tyranny of Merit]]), and I am now [[increasingly thinking|increasingly thinkign]] that it is a problematic ideal.

My Twitter


I'm not massively active on Twitter, but I will check mentions.


# My allergy to bureaucracy

I have a deep instinctive allergy to bureacracy. It's related to my [[impatience for change|impatience for change]].

I don't think this allergy is a good thing (are allergies ever a good thing?) - I note it as a weakness that I hope to be more mindful of.


# Personal career narrative

This is a personal [[career narratives|career narrative]].

My career path has been an eclectic one.

You can see how I tell the story [elsewhere on this site](https://richard.ng/work) but a lot of things have happened to me [[serendipity|by accident]].

Here's an informal sketch of how it happened:
- by nature, I was a [[generalism|generalist]] at school
- I decided that [[PPE|PPE]] was a natural extension of this as a generalist
- I originally thought that [[traditional career paths|consulting]] would be a suitable extension of this
- but realised my passion for [[education|education]] and ended up doing [[Teach First|Teach First]]
- discovered that the state school system is maybe not the place for me and fell into [[edtech|edtech]]
- ended up in a niche in [[software engineering education|coding education]] and [[startups|startups]]

My email


# My political philosophy

I would describe myself as a [[social liberalism|socially liberal]] [[communitarianism|communitarian]], perhaps.


# No-code

No code is sometimes set up in opposition to [[Should you learn how to code？|learning how to code]] - *oh, who needs coding, it's no code that's the future!*

I don't think they're opposed, though.

I write code and [[software engineering education|help others to learn how to code]], find both of those things rewarding and meaningful, *and* I really enjoy using certain no-code tools.

No code tools I love:
- [[Notion|Notion]] - great for flexible and visually appealing content and data organisation (it plays a role in [[website tech stack|how I build this personal website]])
- [[Airtable|Airtable]] - great for quick and easy structured databases

But coding is how I get the fine-grained control of what I want to make happen.

I think part of the appeal of no-code is that [[the self-perception barrier to learning coding|learning how to code seems scary]] to a lot of people. But, actually, if you can follow the logic of a no-code tool, you can [[how to learn how to code|learn how to code]]!


# Note-taking tools

- [[Notion|Notion]]
- [[Obsidian|Obsidian]]
- [[RemNote|RemNote]]
- [[Roam Research|Roam Research]]


# Perfectionism

I used to think that perfectionism was about "always sweating the small details on everything" - which I didn't identify with at all; I have a very strongly internalised sense of [[the Pareto principle|the Pareto principle]]. (Either I care about something a lot, or I don't really care about it at all.)

However, I've since readjusted my notion of the word to encompass 'high standards (in a way that can be unhelpful)', which ([[CBT and me|as I learned through CBT]]) is something which *does* apply to me.

It's actually one of the things I'm finding most liberating about curating [[My Digital Garden (Home)|this digital garden of mine]] - it's maybe the first time that I've felt really licensed to just throw stuff at the wall and not worry about it being amazing.


# Permanent Beta

**Permanent beta** is a term from [[Reid Hoffman|Reid Hoffman]] and [[Ben Casnocha]]'s co-authored book, *[[The Startup of You|The Startup Of You]]*.

They use it as a dictum to continued personal growth and change:

> _We are all works in progress._ It doesn’t matter whether you are a recent graduate, a seasoned professional, or a reinventing yourself mid-career. Great people, like great companies, are always evolving. They’re never finished and never fully developed. Each day presents an opportunity to learn more, do more, grow more. Permanent beta is a lifelong commitment to continuous personal growth. It is the mindset of every entrepreneur of life.

> Finished ought to be an F-word for all of us. We are all works in progress. Each day presents an opportunity to learn more, do more, be more, grow more in our lives and careers. Keeping your career in permanent beta forces you to acknowledge that you have bugs, that there’s new development to do on yourself, that you will need to adapt and evolve. But it’s still a mind-set brimming with optimism because it celebrates the fact that you have the power to improve yourself and, as important, improve the world around you.


# Person-luck

Person-luck is about 'getting lucky' in a specific way - by knowing the right people.

This has an empowering and disempowering interpretation.

The disempowering interpretation: the world is driven by [[nepotism vs networking|nepotism]], where the rich and powerful favour their friends. It's unfair and stacked against you. You should give up.

The empowering interpretation: you can *make yourself more lucky* by [[investing in your professional network|connecting with more people]].

I tend to prefer the empowering interpretation.


Everything that could be a note should be a note

Happily leave things which are half-baked


# My philosophy of digital gardens

I think a [[digital garden|digital garden]] is a very personal endeavour - everyone will have different motivations for it (e.g. [[digital garden motivations|here are mine]]).

In the process of creating [[My Digital Garden (Home)|mine]], I'm forming some principles / guidelines for myself that feel right.

- [[Don't overthink what you're writing|Don't overthink what you're writing]]
- [[Produce half-baked notes|Happily leave things which are half-baked]]
- [[Demonstrating a garden changing over time|Demonstrate change]]
- [[Eschewing the evergreen|Eschewing the evergreen]]
- [[Everything that could be a note should be a note|Everything that could be a note should be a note]]


# Political philosophy

Political philosophy is one of the things I most enjoyed studying in my [[PPE|PPE degree]].

I've been on a journey:
- libertarian instincts as a 16/17 year old
- leaning into [[Rawlsian liberalism|conventional (Rawlsian) liberalism]] late in uni
- more recently heading towards [[communitarianism|communitarianism]]

See [[my political philosophy|my political philosophy]].


# Scaling impact

- One of my main motivators is [[impact on society as a personal motivation|positively impacting society]] (particularly in fields of [[education|education]] and [[diversity and inclusion|D&I]])
- I'm very interested in the intersection of 'social impact' and 'scalable business models'

It's not, though, an 'optimise for overal magnitude of impact' sort of thing - as a rudimentary and simplified example, I'd >10x prefer to improve the lives of 7,000 people by 10% than to improve the lives of 7 billion people by 0.001% even though a narrowly arithmetic view would suggest my 10x preference ought to go in the other direction.

It's something like "make a (positive and) meaningful difference to the lives as many as possible" for me, I think.


# Serendipity

I try to cultivate serendipity.

One of the ways I'm trying to do that is through [[serendipity slots|serendipity slots]].


# Serendipity slots

in short - check out [my calendly link](https://calendly.com/richard-ng/serendipity-slots)



software engineering vs software development


# Software engineering

Related things to discuss:
- [[software engineering vs software development|software engineering vs software development]]
- [[software engineering vs coding|software engineering vs coding]]


# Software engineering education

I've [[my career path|ended up falling into]] a niche of coding education thanks to my experience in [[education|education]] and [[edtech|edtech]].

In the field, I've observed that there aren't many people who can straddle these two dual fields of software engineering and education to be genuinely good coding educators.

Just as [[software engineering|software engineering]] is a craft, [[teaching as a craft|so is teaching]] - and there isn't necessarily loads of overlap between the two.

It's a big problem because it plays into the  [[impostor syndrome|impostor syndrome]] and [[diversity and inclusion|diversity problems]] in tech - where novices ascribe difficulty to [[the self-perception barrier to learning coding|"I don't have the right brain for this"]] when the biggest contributor might actually be poor advice / materials / guides.



# Startups

What I love about startups is [[impatience for change|how quickly things change]], and being able to be hands-on in [[building stuff|building stuff]].


# Storytelling

I think storytelling is an incredibly valuable skill which often does not get sufficiently nurtured.

[[Andy Raskin|Andy Raskin]]'s writings on storytelling have been profoundly influential on me.


# The Teach First hero complex

These thoughts reflect my personal experience - not one that is necessarily standard for all people (and, at a cursory glance now, looks like it might apply less to [[Teach First|Teach First]] in the current day than it did [[My Teach First experience|when I did Teach First]]).

Essentially, I think that there were a few things that I didn't do well when I was doing Teach First:
- I was too [[idealism|idealistic]]
- I was too much of a [[perfectionism|perfectionist]]
- I had a lot of [[black and white thinking|black and white thinking]]

So I definitely take responsibility for my shortcomings in all of those things.

I think I wasn't *helped* by a latent [[hero complex|hero complex]] which, at the very least, Teach First didn't *discourage* - and I would say, actively *encouraged* - in their marketing.

I went into my school with a (faulty) narrative running through my head that *I* was *single-handedly* going to *change the lives* of the kids, and pull them out of socioeconomic disadvantage into meteoric success (by which I probably had in mind a [[knowledge worker|knowledge worker]]'s image of [[conventional success|conventional success]] - [[higher education|university]] then a [[traditional career paths|traditional career path]]).

I see now that this was extraordinarily unhelpful.

I wish that I'd been more [[humility|humble]], and more critical of [[the fetishisation of knowledge work|the fetishisation of knowledge work]].


# The fetishisation of knowledge work

As a relatively conventional [[knowledge worker|knowledge worker]] myself, I'm going on an interesting journey in considering whether it's overly-fetishised by society.

It's a thought planted by readings like:
- [[Head Hand Heart|Head Hand Heart]] by [[David Goodhart|David Goodhart]]
- [[The Tyranny of Merit|The Tyranny of Merit]] by [[Michael Sandel|Michael Sandel]]
- [[Brexitland|Brexitland]] by Maria Sobolewska and Robert Ford

Some things that I *don't* believe:
- knowledge work is of no value
- knowledge work is intrinsically snobbish
- knowledge work ought not to be a source of pride to people

But I am considering whether, as a *society*, we are overly tilted towards a position where knowledge workers monopolise social esteem.

Increase your probability of a lucky bet by taking more bets

I try to cast my net wide with connections I make and people that I support


# The fund returner mental model

One of the interesting ways in which [[Included VC|Included VC]] has shaped me is how I now apply the [[venture capital|VC]] ideas 'fund returners' as a more general mental model in other parts of my life - like projects and people.

For example, on people - [[investing in your professional network|I try to cast my net wide with connections I make and people that I support]].

- Lots of these will probably not go anywhere or lead to any significant gain for myself. That's okay! I've helped someone and had a nice conversation, hopefully?
- A small fraction of these will hopefully have outsized and disproportionate impact - enough to potentially justify, by themselves, the time investment made in connecting more widely with a bunch of people

Related: [[Increase your probability of a lucky bet by taking more bets|Increase your probability of a lucky bet by taking more bets]].

# The self-perception barrier to learning coding

There is notoriously a big [[impostor syndrome|impostor syndrom]] problem amongst those who are learning how to code - and so an even bigger amongst those who don't even try to learn how to code.

This is also a problem when it comes to [[diversity and inclusion|diversity]] in tech.

I have some lived experience on this. Before I started learning, I think I had the mental picture of [[black and white thinking|two types of people]]:
1. coders: someone like Mark Zuckerberg (a straight white geeky male who has been hacking away since they were about 11)
2. non-coders: normal people; the rest of us

However, through [[serendipity|sheer chance]], I discovered that learning to code is much more accessible than I had thought.



The source code of this website


The source code for this website is viewable on [[GitHub|GitHub]] - [view here](https://github.com/richardcrng/richard.ng)!


# Traditional career paths

There seem to be essentially 4 traditional career paths for [[higher education|graduates]]:

1. Consulting
2. Banking
3. Law
4. Accounting

with Recruitment also popping up as a very-present option.

Partly through confirmation bias of my own path, I've come to believe that there is significantly under-represented opportunity available in [[technology|tech]] and [[startups|startups]] for graduates.

(Although I am also increasingly sceptical on [[higher education|higher education]] as a mass-vehicle)

I apply the fund returner mental model to how I think about projects and people


# Venture Capital

I was one of the inaugural Fellows of [[Included VC|Included VC]] (and am now alumni, I guess, if that's the term? I still describe myself as a Fellow although I don't know if that's technically accurate...).

My interest in VC stems from:
- love of [[startups|startups]] (specifically early-stage)
- an interest in [[scaling impact|scaling my impact]]

I've also found that it has provided me with some interesting mental models that I now apply to other parts of my life - for example, [[the fund returner mental model|I apply the fund returner mental model to how I think about projects and people]].

Richard Ng

Open Source