JoelLindow

Reflect: Empathetic Programing

-- What role does empathy play in your life and how has it helped you?
From team building to management to non-profit efforts, empathy has helped me achieve remarkable outcomes for myself and for others. I was raised to be more sensitive to other peoples feelings and thoughts than my own. Becasue of this, I've been labeled as a good "people reader" in many previous jobs and assigned positions. This skill allows me to not only gather information from teammates, target customers, and those instructing me but also to draw out the information needed to leave individuls in a more satisfactory state of existence by the time the project or interaction is complete. Empathy is a HUGE part of achieving productive collaboration, even with those who might not desire to collaborate in a traditional sense.
    
How does empathy help you build better software?
Plain and simple, if you can't understand what it's like to live in the shoes of your end user you can never provide a software experi