Technical Empathy
Our collective superpower gives us a communication advantage.
2026
2025
2024
How Empathy Drove Grace Hopper's Software Development
In 1949, Grace Hopper had a challenge [1]. Her checkbook had been out of balance for three months and she couldn't figure out why. It’s not that Grace was bad with numbers. Quite the contrary. She was a brilliant…
How Starling Behavior is the Key to Understanding Empathy
Empathy isn’t simply an innate ability. It’s a system. A complex dynamic adaptive system, to be precise. And these types of systems play by a different set of rules. We can’t design them from the top down. We can’t map…
Empathy Opportunities for Software Developers
Empathy is essential to effective collaboration. Throughout the course of our day-to-day work, there are many opportunities to use empathy to improve our code quality and collaboration. The trick is knowing what to look…
2023
Unlearning the Empathy Stereotype
The notion that we can step into another person’s experience and use intuition alone to understand them isn’t helpful — it’s hubris. I know because I used to be that person. I used to feel like empathy was my superpower…
Evaluating Your Empathy Effectiveness
Operating with empathy brings many benefits. However, benefits are inherently lagging indicators. It can take a long time to observe their effects, especially if we are in a relationship where there is an existing…
A Short History of the 'Soft Skill' vs. 'Hard Skill' Divide (and Why It's a Farce)
"Soft" and "hard" skills are typically pitted as opposites, but history shows they're not. This cultural categorization captured my curiosity years ago, and when I wrote about how the technical/non-technical divide…
Empathy-Driven Error Messages
When we think about empathy, we often think about synchronous interactions between two individuals, such as a face-to-face conversation. But these aren’t the only opportunities for empathy, particularly while we’re…
Computing Metaphors and Human Emotion
In 1946, John von Neumann and his wife, Klara, successfully upgraded ENIAC to enable stored-program computing. This machine, programmed and operated by an amazing team of women, kicked off the modern computer age, making…
2022
Empathy Is a Technical Skill
") Implementing empathy from colloquial, cliché advice can inadvertently lead us away from our desired outcomes. Instead of seeing empathy as simple or a superpower, it's time we embrace empathy as a technical skill…
Empathy System Architecture
Using Empathy System Architecture, we can map out the fundamental skills required for effective empathy. Software System Architecture helps us identify the fundamental structures and relationships within a software system. Empathy can be approached the same way.
2021
It's Time for Pragmatic Empathy
When David Thomas and Andrew Hunt published the 20th-anniversary edition of their seminal work, The Pragmatic Programmer, I was honored to be asked to provide a review and humbled when my quote was selected for the back…
Our Brains are Like Software, Not Hardware
Instead of thinking of the brain as hardware, it might be more useful to think of it as software.
Defining Empathy Is Like Nailing Jell-O to a Wall
I thought I understood empathy...until I started writing a book about it. Chances are, empathy doesn't mean what you think it means, either.
Empathy-Driven Development Defined
Empathy is an important technical skill that can drive the decisions developers make when they code. How can we make the practice of applying empathy throughout a codebase concrete? It starts with defining the practice.
2017
2016
Technical? Non-Technical? Both!
Eight years ago, I went to my high-school reunion. I had worked successfully in the field of sales and marketing since graduation. I had started my own consultancy when I was twenty-four which helped clients with sales…
Bridging the Technical/Non-Technical Divide
Eight years ago, I went to my high school reunion. I had worked successfully in the field of sales and marketing since graduation. I had started my own consultancy when I was twenty-four which helped clients with sales and developing their “brand voice.” I was the human voice behind businesses large and small. At the time I loved my job and had no plans on leaving my industry. At the reunion, I looked around, and after the mandatory mingling that comes with being a social butterfly, I locked eyes with someone I recognized. He was leaning against the bar, drinking a soda, and looking utterly uncomfortable. Yep. That was none other than M. Scott Ford.
You Are Not Your Stereotype
Stereotype threat is especially pervasive in technology. For women, this manifests as the “girls are bad at math” stereotype. For men, it's more often “you have no social skills.”
Communication Is Just As Important As Code
I had the pleasure of keynoting at Ruby Nation where I expanded on one of the core values at Corgibytes: Communication Is Just As Important As Code. This post is pretty much a transcript of my talk. I got great feedback and am looking forward to presenting on this topic more.
Building Software with the Empathy Spectrum
If we want our developers to have more empathy for our customers, we as employers need to have more empathy for developers. We need to cast off the stereotype of good developers being only those people who are emotionless, data-driven, Spock-like caricatures, and embrace the fact that as humans, we all experience emotion.
How Empathy Driven Development is Transforming The Tech Industry
When we put empathy at the center of our technology, human connection becomes stronger. Infusing empathy throughout your organization and development strategy can have profound positive impacts on customer loyalty, employee retention, and vendor service.