"love creating", our imperative

Exploring the evolution of our imperatives at afrolabs

Er, what are imperatives?

Good question, we used to use the word “credo”, until we happened on the idea to call them an “imperative” which has a more appropriate meaning.

Imperative from late Latin imperativus (literally ‘specially ordered’), from imperare ‘to command’, from in- ‘towards’ + parare ‘make ready’.

So, imperatives are like orders, or commands.

But… that means obligation, fear and all that violent behaviour, right?

Possibly, yes, but not for us. Since these have emerged in consultation as things that we collectively aspire to achieve, they are then wonderful challenges, acting to help us keep ourselves accountable.

Think along the lines of the categorical imperative, or as an example “carpe diem”.

Over the past 20 years our imperatives have evolved.

do software right
2004

In 2004 when David & David founded what was to become afrolabs, they did it because they wanted to create jobs in which they wanted to work, a place to “do software right”, and to figure out what that means.

Did you figure it out, doing software right?

Well, the company had a lot of initial success and then encountered the dysfunction in large scale software, leading to wasting our precious lives. We were not doing it right. Burn-out, overtime, and seeing product not get shipped due to contract negotiation.

We realised it was more than just the software, our muse could be destructive. There was scope-creep to our idea of doing it right, it was about us humans too.

never waste a drop of talent
2008

This was a period of recovery, shipping working software weekly and building a base of scrum & XP practices to “never waste a drop of talent” taking care of ourselves and building sustainably.

Iterating on software ensured we were delivering value often and could build almost anything, which got us into the world of start-up development. Here we actually need to have some courage to try things that might fail, that might waste.

unleashing talent… to solve meaningful problems
2012

To embrace this spirit of startup experimentation, raising capital, chasing ideas, we were “unleashing talent…” and soon we needed to focus on what we wanted to do which was “to solve meaningful problems”.

create the world you want to live in
2015

“Create the world” is a strong imperative, but also what we are doing every day. Through our actions, through our products, through our technical and behavioural design decisions.

Tricky! What world do you choose to create… For yourselves? For humanity?

Our answer is “create the world you want to live in”. It may be difficult to know what to want, how to use conscious purpose without wrecking everything, which leads to the nuanced articulation: “create the world you are longing for”.

And then, at the end of 2019 that world started to fall apart. Over the period of the pandemic, many of the worlds we had been longing for disappeared, and other new worlds emerged, software was now more of our world.

We were living in and through virtual worlds in a way that has only been a science fiction dream.

Engineering Kindness
2020

To be able to create a remote world of work that still met our common needs we realised we needed to practice “Engineering Kindness”.

Bringing together Engineering, and Kindness.

Kindness is the process of understanding needs: of customers, creators, products and businesses; and then working creatively and with a generosity of spirit to meet those needs.

Engineering is the process of designing systems to meet criteria, using knowledge of the techniques and technologies.

As everything had changed, we needed to learn how to non-violently communicate, reconnecting with our own needs and the needs of others through our feelings to be able to understand what it was we needed to succeed.

Love creating
2022

When we gathered together in person in 2022, for the first time since the pandemic, we realised what brings us together was to “love creating”.

We long for those times we “love creating”. Finding flow, being present in the now, the war of art, creating the world.

It is a satisfyingly multi-dimensional statement, and we love it. We love creating, we create things we love, our love is creating things.

And we get to use the "L-word" at work, all the time.

“do software right”
“never waste a drop of talent”
“create the world you want to live in,
the world you are longing for”
“engineering kindness”
“love creating”
💖

Have you arrived at the place where you love creating yet?

No, it’s a journey, we’re looking , reflecting, retrospecting and asking ourselves the “love question” along the way.

Growing our practice, noting where we might and do love creating, and helping others do it, is the journey we’re on.

How can I love creating working on this thing?
… maybe that’s what I need to figure out?!

Precisely!

It’s a figuring-out mix of doing software right, creating the world and engineering kindness that leads us to a place where we can love creating. Not perfect, not all the time, but marking moments that sparkle, and trying for more of them.

We’d love to help creating that world with you, together, drop us a line, let’s chat about options.