Episode Notes

Autodesk's Kean Walmsley (@keanw) on prioritizing fun, freedom, and flexibility, traveling and working around the world with family, blogging, teaching, remote work, and the post-COVID world.

Kean Walmsley works at Autodesk Research, based in Neuchâtel, Switzerland.

Kean joined Autodesk in 1995 and has worked in a number of Autodesk offices around the world – in the UK, the US, India and Switzerland – and in a number of roles, both technical and management-focused. He spent several years working in the Autodesk Developer Network and four years as a Software Architect for the AutoCAD product line.

In 2006 Kean started his popular Through the Interface blog, through which he enjoys a regular dialog with software developers working with Autodesk technologies. He also uses the blog to share his research into how Autodesk technologies connect with emerging industry trends, such as reality capture, natural user interfaces, virtual reality, and the internet of things.

Kean holds a Masters degree in European Computer Science from the University of Kent at Canterbury, as well as a License d’Informatique from l'Université de Paris-Sud. Outside work – aside from spending time with his family – Kean tries hard to play sport on a daily basis, whether indoor hockey, football or (on winter weekends) snowboarding.

Connect with Kean on LinkedIn, Twitter (@keanw) & About.me/keanw.

Favorite quotes

• "You can do good in the world and make a difference to people without blindly chasing your vision."
• "It's mostly about enjoyment and less about having a goal in mind."
• "I'm very happy that I did start the blog. It, for sure, from my perspective, has led to me having the freedom to make these changes and to do what I do now."
• "In the course of teaching you deepen your understanding of things, of lots of things. And there is this feedback loop that you create when you're seeing people progress, and you're really getting a genuine sense that you're helping people."
• "Fun is an ultimate driving force for me. I do want to have fun at work on a regular basis."
• "It is true that things will be different, but I I'm mostly just seeing the positive aspects for the moment."

Links

• Transcript
• Through the Interface (Kean's blog)
• Boules and pétanque (french games)
• Functional programming
• Dasher 360
• Internet of Things
• Generative design (concept)
• Kettlebell snatch
• This is Love (podcast)
• One in a million (podcast episode)
• Something large and wild (podcast episode)
• Bill & Ted (TV series) - "Be excellent to each other"
• Between the Lines with Shaan Hurley (blog)

Books

• Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker

Programming languages

• DesignScript
• Miranda
• Haskell
• F#
• TypeScript
• JavaScript

People mentioned

• Shaan Hurley
• Robert Aish
• Jeff Kowalski
• Amar Hanspal
• Dave Turner
• Azam Khan
• Simon Breslav
• Ian Banks
• Neal Stephenson
• Alastair Reynolds
• Ken MacLeod
• Elon Musk
• Bill Gates
• Alvaro Pickmans
• Jacob Small
• Adam Menges
• Tatjana Dzambazova

Notes

• Intro. [1:11]
• Kean Walmsley. [2:20]
• Blogging. [9:26]
• How did blogging change your career? [14:48]
• 3 posts per week. [16:50]
• Building your audience. [18:41]
• Francophilia. [23:38]
• Programming languages. [25:05]
• Teaching - How did you get started teaching and what do you get from it? [27:33]
• Working around the world. [30:54]
• What's been hard? [33:49]
• The 3 Fs. [35:32]
• Remote work. [36:51]
• Sports. [38:20]
• COVID-19. [39:36]
• 6-month family world trip. [41:45]
• 15 countries. [47:58]
• The post-COVID world. [54:02]
• Going virtual - what's lost? [57:11]
• Telecommuting. [59:12]
• Connect with Kean (@keanw). [1:02:08]
• Projects. [1:03:00]
• Is your life simple? [1:07:42]
• What could be easier? [1:08:33]
• Daily habits. [1:09:52]
• Meditation. [1:10:55]
• Hobbies. [1:12:06]
• Books & science-fiction. [1:13:38]
• Podcasts. [1:15:39]
• Creativity. [1:17:57]
• Deliberate practice. [1:19:47]
• Distractions. [1:21:25]
• Email. [1:21:44]
• Success. [1:23:03]
• Role models. [1:24:44]
• Someone successful. [1:26:03]
• A message to the world. [1:27:55]
• $100 or less. [1:30:31]
• Apps. [1:31:18]
• Questions from the internet. [1:32:00]
• Nono's motivation to do Getting Simple. [1:35:56]

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Theme and exit songs, Sleep and A Loop to Kill For, by Steve Combs under CC BY 4.0. Algorithms by Chad Crouch.