Little Did I Know

Little Did I Know

Over the weekend I found myself thinking back to DDDOutback at Nindigully Pub in Tallon, still one of the best tech conferences I’ve attended.

The strongest thread running through every talk wasn’t tooling, frameworks, or architecture. It was people. The shared message was clear: we need to talk more with each other.

And the conference itself practised what it preached. There were campfire chats in the evenings, and the group was small enough that real conversations happened in the breaks. It wasn’t just content delivered from the stage, it was connection.

Funny thing is, I originally chose a career in computers because I thought it meant talking less to people. Little did I know.

That irony is even sharper today with Generative AI. To get good outcomes, we don’t just type prompts, we communicate. We translate ideas, explain context, and shape thoughts into words that a model can work with. In many ways, the skill of “talking to people” has become the skill of “talking to machines,” and they reward clarity, nuance, and empathy just as much.

Maybe that’s the lesson: whether it’s at a conference or at a keyboard, progress starts with how well we can express ourselves.