Driving Technical Change

Why Does It Work?

There’s a meme that comes from the Bible, “You can never be a prophet in your hometown.” Basically, the gist of it is that when you have an important but perhaps controversial truth, the people who remember you were that kid who dipped Missy Funderman’s pigtail in an inkwell won’t listen. So, to be believed, respected, and followed, you have to preach outside of where you grew up.

The same concept holds true at work. You co-workers probably still talk about that time, two weeks in on the job, when you pushed a bug through to production and brought the whole system down. Every time you suggest something and someone wants to block it, they can bring that up and take you down a few pegs.

In any case, familiarity breeds contempt, ...