Journeyman Project Trip 1 United Kingdom
jacquesmattheij.comThat's a pretty brilliant idea!
Sounds like something I'd love to try some day. Of course, two days—or even fourteen days—at a single company isn't enough to get much programming done. So I suspect just trying to do normal programming would not really be in the interest of the companies or me.
However, it sounds like a great chance to share some of my more specialized, esoteric knowledge, like functional programming, FRP, verification or synthesis: things which might be useful for a startup or project, but tend to languish away in research labs or deep inside large corporations.
In the future, if I'm ever in a real position to try this—I guess if I get better known and learn more interesting things to share—I'll definitely consider trying something like this.
Actually you can get an amazing amount done in two days.
For example:
And so on.* A company looking for a prototype of something that they wouldn't otherwise have the capacity to do * Refactors * Code audits * Four eyes or rapid/agile development partner for a staff member * Junior dev mentoring/training on a specifc aspect * Presentation of a technology that might be relevant for which they lack inhouse expertise * And of course simple app dev. Many inhouse tools can be written in just a few hours.
Any of the host companies willing to share details of the projects that were worked on? Quite curious!
Edit: Also wondering about the general experience of getting good work done with someone new to the team/project in just a couple days.
Karl from Conversion Rate Experts here.
We had Jacques, "The Jim Rogers of Tech," (http://www.amazon.com/Adventure-Capitalist-Ultimate-Road-Tri...) for a highly enjoyable two days.
We found him to be intense (on the first day we talked constantly till 9:00 p.m.), wise (he has worked on loads of fascinating projects), trustworthy (he works with many companies at a very high level) and fascinated about everything (he spent five minutes trying to work out how our staircase was made).
We showed Jacques a list of all our challenges and problems, and then for two days we worked through it, asking him for his ideas, resources he knows, etc.. We came away with several pages of useful notes. Since then, he has contacted us several times with further insights he has had.
If you ever get a chance to work with him, I'd highly recommend it.
I wrote up my side of Jacques / The Flying Dutchmans visit here, http://ryanoneill.com/jacques-mattheij/
He was brilliant and very engaging.
if you've ever met Jacques you'll know that he's one of those people who can jump into just about anything and be productive straight away
Any sense of what makes him that way? Is it something you've seen in other people as well? Is it a skill thing or a communication thing?
I think it's a combination of having a broad range of skills, experience and not being at all afraid to call bullshit bullshit. He's polite but focusses on getting stuff done and not the minutiae. If you have the opportunity to work with him, take it!
I certainly agree! Some of his publicised projects, including this one, have been major motivators for me.
Haha, I'm gratified to be described as a 'young person' in the Granttree section... TERRIBLE photo of Swombat, though. :D
Thank you for that comment. It would be amazing to see the connections between his hosts and their HN accounts (if any).
Although swombat's account lists his real name, I would never have made the connection. Putting a face on some of the more notorious (in a good way! ;-p) accounts on this site would be .. interesting.
No hat! Who is that man?
Once again you've inspired me! (First time was your posts about getting started in consulting. Very helpful!) What a great idea.
Edit: Whoa, brain is spinning, ideas are mixing. James Altucher (Choose Yourself, author) gives away ideas to network, create value, and ultimately generates business as a result. Something is coming alive in my head. Cool.
I have to admit I'm a little sad this article wasn't referring to the adventure game series The Journeyman Project: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Journeyman_Project
My first thought as well. I'm pretty sure that was the first CD-ROM we bought for our Mac IIvx.
Great idea. Kudos for going through with it, and then taking the time to write it up!