With those little takeaways in between like talking to users first to understand their requirements, building an mvp and shipping it as early as possible I was half expecting the article ending with the kind of startup lessons/wisdom you typically see here on HN.
But I'm really glad it wasnt. Not everything has to have a grand lesson or takeaway. I enjoyed reading your once in a lifetime experience.
Interesting! The article talks mostly about how this all worked, but rarely about what was actually discussed. Which opinions of the party do you like or support?
Are there any other countries in the world that use a different wiki than Wikipedia as their main wiki, except for those where Wikipedia is banned? Korea seems like the only one.
> ... and to find out whether things like this happen in other countries as well.
I didn't DM anyone, and I didn't run the campaign, but there happened to be the John Edwards campaign HQ near me so I walked inside and said I could help do their IT, next day I was a full-on volunteer.
They took me to Charleston for a rally (which was cool cuz I never been) and even got me a jacket with my name and the campaign logo on it. Was pretty nifty at the time.
Few months later they hired me and sent me to New Hampshire for the primary.
Wasn't long after that that we were no longer in the running, but was great experience.
Highly recommend more young people attempt cold walk-ins/calls/DMs like this article mentions.
I don't like that particular presidential candidate but this was an interesting read. Thanks for the insight into the details of a campaign like this. I like your writing style.
the technical part was interesting but im not sure this is a candidate I'd want to be associated with publicly....i guess most English speakers just see "oh cool a candidate in a country i have parasocial relationship with through consumer pop culture" and not the horrific ugly side of Korean politics and some of its candidates, Lee in particular.
People are knee-jerking at “anti-feminism” part of Lee which I admit would look pretty off-putting to anyone who is not familiar with what’s going in South Korea.
“Feminism” in Korea has taken on a different meaning sadly. I’ve commented in HN before at how abhorrent women’s right has been in Korea, especially up to my mother’s generation. It really has drastically improved last 20 years. However, many young men feel like the pendulum has swung too much to the other direction. Society still expects men to do “manly things” (mandatory army service, physical labour etc) but girls around their age get policy benefits instead. I’m not going to into whether this feeling is justified or not. But wanted to point out most don’t want women’s right to regress to their mom’s generation. They just want to feel like they are treated equally in society.
I wish there was a repository of "cold DM" stories like this to help inspire younger folks that you can "just do things."
My own story:
- helped found my college paintball club (Rutgers University)
- that became our college paintball team (where we played other schools)
- graduate
- had a real job (involving LOTS of database work)
- find out that year after I left, the team go to go to paintball World Cup (and I was mad/envious that I didn't get to go)
- quit my job
- wanted to go to World Cup and only person I knew was the head of the college league so DM'ed him asking if he needed help with the college event. He replies that he actually needs help with a player database and asks if I know databases? (I do)
- Go to world cup, love it, keep working on the player database
- Three years later I'm the General Manager of the pro-paintball league (I was 26!)
People would often ask me, at the time, if this was my dream job. I would often answer "Calling it my 'dream job' would imply I knew it existed as an option to dream about. I just emailed a guy and one thing led to another and here I am"
27 comments
[ 0.21 ms ] story [ 55.9 ms ] threadThank you for sharing this short time of your (development) life, including all the reasons and logic on why and how.
With those little takeaways in between like talking to users first to understand their requirements, building an mvp and shipping it as early as possible I was half expecting the article ending with the kind of startup lessons/wisdom you typically see here on HN.
But I'm really glad it wasnt. Not everything has to have a grand lesson or takeaway. I enjoyed reading your once in a lifetime experience.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Jun-seok
Are there any other countries in the world that use a different wiki than Wikipedia as their main wiki, except for those where Wikipedia is banned? Korea seems like the only one.
I didn't DM anyone, and I didn't run the campaign, but there happened to be the John Edwards campaign HQ near me so I walked inside and said I could help do their IT, next day I was a full-on volunteer.
They took me to Charleston for a rally (which was cool cuz I never been) and even got me a jacket with my name and the campaign logo on it. Was pretty nifty at the time.
Few months later they hired me and sent me to New Hampshire for the primary.
Wasn't long after that that we were no longer in the running, but was great experience.
Highly recommend more young people attempt cold walk-ins/calls/DMs like this article mentions.
“Feminism” in Korea has taken on a different meaning sadly. I’ve commented in HN before at how abhorrent women’s right has been in Korea, especially up to my mother’s generation. It really has drastically improved last 20 years. However, many young men feel like the pendulum has swung too much to the other direction. Society still expects men to do “manly things” (mandatory army service, physical labour etc) but girls around their age get policy benefits instead. I’m not going to into whether this feeling is justified or not. But wanted to point out most don’t want women’s right to regress to their mom’s generation. They just want to feel like they are treated equally in society.
Commentors here are not from Korea, so maybe we should refrain from commenting about policy of a given candidate?
I really enjoyed your story, about how much tech can achieve. Technology really is a multiplier of effort. Amazing story.
My own story:
- helped found my college paintball club (Rutgers University)
- that became our college paintball team (where we played other schools)
- graduate
- had a real job (involving LOTS of database work)
- find out that year after I left, the team go to go to paintball World Cup (and I was mad/envious that I didn't get to go)
- quit my job
- wanted to go to World Cup and only person I knew was the head of the college league so DM'ed him asking if he needed help with the college event. He replies that he actually needs help with a player database and asks if I know databases? (I do)
- Go to world cup, love it, keep working on the player database
- Three years later I'm the General Manager of the pro-paintball league (I was 26!)
People would often ask me, at the time, if this was my dream job. I would often answer "Calling it my 'dream job' would imply I knew it existed as an option to dream about. I just emailed a guy and one thing led to another and here I am"