Why ncoder?

The time between the years is traditionally the time to reflect. This year, I noticed something that I suspect was there for a while, but only now had the change to surface: I want be a better communicator.

Why? Because communication underlies everything connected to humans. Communication is the basis for collaboration and collaboration is how things get done. I also observed that good communicators tend to be happy and I like being happy.

So how can I become better? What does better even mean? In Uni we learned about the Shannon-Weaver model of communication and while the course quickly progressed towards the more mathematically rigorous aspects of Information Theory, this model stuck with me.

The model describes the flow of information from a source (e.g., my brain) to a destination (your brain). A transmitter converts the information into a signal (text) that is sent to a receiver (your eyes, ears or fingertips) that turns the signal back into information.

Every step loses information and every step adds irrelevant or even distracting information. The process is both lossy and noisy.

Effective transmitters and receivers are characterized by how much information they are able to retain after encoding and decoding the signal, respectively.

I feel I am sufficiently effective as an information receiver. I will write about what I think that means in different contexts at some point in the future.

I know that I am not an effective information transmitter. Part of it is that I often don't know what to share. Are non-original or incomplete thoughts worth sharing?

Then I noticed that I also often don't really know how to get my thoughs into other peoples brains effectively. That frustrates me.

So what can I do to change that? I can practive verbalizing my thoughts. This is what I want to do here.

I am not yet sure about what I want to write about in ncoder. Well, except that post I promised above.

I also do and did not expect anyone to read this. Except maybe my mom.

Hi mom!