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The Tribe effect in the tech industry

Cédric Spalvieri on March 22, 2018

This post was originally published in french on my blog skwi.fr. Man is by nature a social animal — Aristotle As human beings, we are driven by...
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Ben Halpern

This is something I think about a lot in our choice to segment this website. It's called DEV, but we're constantly trying to figure out what that means in the healthiest, most inclusive way. Without being so broad that the content trends towards the mean of general "tech" or even broader.

Really nice post.

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Cédric Spalvieri

Thank you !

Communities like DEV.to are IMO a good way to have an impact on the different groups that revolves around development and make them blend with each others.

Seeing the concerns and struggles of others is the best way to walk in their shoes.

This requires being careful of respect between these groups but so far you seem to manage it quite well 👍

Keep up the good work !

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edA‑qa mort‑ora‑y

I'd say dev.to is for developers: anybody involved in the development of software. This necessarily includes the programmers, administrators, graphic artics, community managers, and virtually anybody inside a software company.

Consider these example topics, would they belong here?

  • How I revamped our API docs to reduce support questions
  • Using the Git-Plugin I rebuilt our Photoshop workflow directly through GitHub
  • The challenge of a sales guy selling technical development tools
  • HR's ingenious solution to making our remote devs feel like part of the team
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Stefan Dorresteijn

I think tribalism is one of the largest issues facing the world today. It definitely reaches into software development as well, which is why setting aside your ego is one of the most important steps to take in becoming a more dynamic programmer and person.

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David Israwi

Very interesting! The first example that came to my mind when reading your article was our preference for Javascript libraries, lol.

In your opinion, how can we remove or alleviate the cons of this type of behavior once it is already established in an environment (e.g. workspace, college,...)?

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Cédric Spalvieri

Trick question.

First of all, I think this is a job done best from someone outside of the established groups. Any one belonging to a group would too easily be dismissed by the other group.

I see 2 key actions than can have a positive impact :

  • mix group individuals in order to make people understand the view of others
  • try to discourage segmenting behavior, may it be just for fun.

If your already part of a group, the good news is you are aware of it, so you can try to identify in your own behavior how you act in a segmenting way, and adjust it, leading by the example.

There is no silver bullet, but trying to understand people's feeling is a good start.

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Meeta - 개발자포트폴리오

I've recognized the "Tribe Effect" for a long time, but I couldn't have behaved without "Tribe Feeling" so far. Your post reminds me it again and warn me not to behave with "Tribe Feeling".

If u don’t mind I’d like to translate ur post in Korean and post it on my blog(blog.meeta.io).

By the way, thx for nice post!! ;)

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Cédric Spalvieri

Thanks ! I don't mind at all, I'll be flattered.

If you can please link back to either this post or the original one I wrote in french (on skwi.fr).

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rhymes

Being kind is definitely one of the must of life in general :-)

Well written!

So... tabs or spaces :D ?

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Cédric Spalvieri

Thanks for your comment, but now I terribly regret not having thought of the tab and space strife :D

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edA‑qa mort‑ora‑y

The divisions that develop between teams hurts development significantly. It's what I talk about in my presenation on "The Key to UX is collaboration".

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Neeraj Sharma

Hi Cedric,
Nicely written post. Pretty informative!