The most important lesson I have learned in 2013 is that I won't change anything by writing critical blog posts and talking to like-minded people. Fostering the "we vs. them," we who are right vs. them idiots sentiment is ineffective, even destructive. To be able to achieve anything, I have to talk to the people with opposite opinions and understand them. They are rarely ***holes and typically have good reasons for their opinions. Only by understanding those reasons and the background, history, and emotions they stem from - and hopefully helping the "opponents" understand some of my reasons and context - we can find a common ground and common goals that we can build upon to go further - perhaps not in harmony but still together rather than against each other.

Talking to people is difficult. Having my dearly hold beliefs exposed to discussion and criticism is painful. Trying to find a common ground with people with totally different needs, experiences, and ideas about the best way to do software development in a particular context is challenging. But only by doing so, and by being open to changing my own stance, I can hope to influence the stance of other "stakeholders" and thus bring a positive change to a project or organization.

Side note: It's funny that the more I learn about IT the more I realize that the main challenges and solutions we encounter are not about technology, but about the fundamentally human in us. Also the approach advocated here - seeking understanding and respect in spite of disagreement instead of the radically adversarial "we vs. them" thinking - is crucial not just for IT, but also for building a better society. So far it unfortunately seems that politicians - especially in the US but not just there - tend to prefer the wrong approach. And also the willingness to expose one's beliefs to discussion and the openness to change are important not only for talking to people, but for being able to keep developing mentally and spiritually, as put so well by M. Scott Peck in The Road Less Traveled.

I'd like to thank to Markus Krüger for showing me the power of talking to people and to Marshall B. Rosenberg's Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life for being so inspirational on this path.

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