{"id":2467,"date":"2019-03-12T09:13:16","date_gmt":"2019-03-12T13:13:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.soul-repairs.com\/blog\/?p=2467"},"modified":"2019-02-28T17:15:09","modified_gmt":"2019-02-28T22:15:09","slug":"laptop-stickers-these-are-my-nerd-gang-signs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/soul-repairs.com\/blog\/2019\/03\/12\/laptop-stickers-these-are-my-nerd-gang-signs\/","title":{"rendered":"Laptop Stickers: These are My Nerd Gang Signs"},"content":{"rendered":"

I seeeee you!<\/em><\/h2>\n

One of our favorite things to do is to\u00a0observe<\/em> people. You can learn a ton about people by watching them (uh…in a non-creepy way, ideally) and seeing what they display as\u00a0valuable<\/em>. With nerds, one of the best ways to do this\u00a0is to look at their laptops – make and model and operating system, sure, but actually the best source of information is to look at their\u00a0stickers<\/strong>. A laptop is very important among nerds. It is the tool with which they fulfill their purpose, and so it has inherent value. It’s also\u00a0only so big<\/em>, so real estate given to stickers is important<\/em>.\u00a0You can learn a ton about a nerd by the tech\u00a0and things<\/em> they choose to affiliate with.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Examples<\/h2>\n
\"\"
You can tell what a developer cares about and has experience with, and what tools and platforms they love.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
You can bond over a non-coding nerd thing…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
…or a thing that isn’t nerdy at all. What? Nerds like non-nerdy things too!\u00a0<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The etiquette of stickers is pretty close to the etiquette of tattoos – they are publicly visible, so it’s okay to ask about them, but the displayer might get a little awkward if it’s something very meaningful. You also risk nerd disapproval stares if it’s a nerd thing they think you should know. But…generally, you can find common ground, and you can use laptop stickers as a way to understand the things someone is passionate about, the things they advocate for, and the things they love. And…passionate people who love things enough to show that love are the best kind of people<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

People are awesome, and it’s fun to know them better.<\/h2>\n

While studying a few people and their stickers, we realized that laptop stickers are basically the equivalent of\u00a0nerd gang signs<\/em>. Maven or Gradle? Mac or Linux? Suse or Red Hat? Pure Kubernetes, or OpenShift too? Do they like memes? What art style do they like? Witty quotes? Funny TV shows? The Office or Parks and Rec?<\/em><\/p>\n

Enabling Nerd Gang Affiliation<\/h2>\n

If your role includes being a technology evangelist, we\u00a0strongly\u00a0<\/em>suggest that you have stickers available when you’re advocating for cool stuff. People love swag<\/a>.<\/strong> Let the people\u00a0who already love what you’re trying to implement do some of the advocating for you – while also showing off their affiliation with Your Cool Thing. This lets them<\/em> decorate their possibly-boring corporate laptop, and it gives you<\/em>\u00a0nerd-cred certified, mobile advertising for the tech you’re trying to spread the goodness of.<\/p>\n

Usually getting stickers is as easy as asking the sales team of the product. They typically have a bunch, and sometimes they’ll give you hundreds. Sometimes, however, you have to come up with your own, and we’ve found RedBubble.com<\/a> to be the best place to get custom stickers. (We get no money from them, unless you’re from RedBubble and want to give us money! We also definitely accept payment in<\/em> stickers…)<\/p>\n

Then, next time you give a talk or a workshop for Your Cool Thing,\u00a0bring stickers,\u00a0<\/em>and offer them to the people who attend. If no one wants the stickers, you might be selling the wrong thing. Or…you’re selling it badly. That’s okay, this is helpful to know too! Your sticker might also be too\u00a0large, taking up too much valuable laptop real estate (average size for tech is about 2\u2033 x 2\u2033, and for\u00a0Cool Thing I Love\u00a0is about 4\u2033 x 2-3\u2033).<\/p>\n

Community<\/h2>\n

Really, laptop stickers are a way to indicate the communities<\/strong> that people belong to. It’s less about the Sharks vs the Jets<\/a> and more about\u00a0hey you guys I love this so hard that I will tell the world<\/em> – which opens the door for easier connection with the other people who also also<\/em>\u00a0love that thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I seeeee you! One of our favorite things to do is to\u00a0observe people. You can learn a ton about people by watching them (uh…in a non-creepy way, ideally) and seeing what they display as\u00a0valuable. With nerds, one of the best ways to do this\u00a0is to look at their laptops – make and model and operating … <\/p>\n

Read More Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,40,4],"tags":[100,97,55,87,101,51,102,50,44,52,43,99,61,98],"wf_post_folders":[],"coauthors":[26,11],"class_list":["post-2467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community","category-people","category-technology","tag-duck-game","tag-harley-quinn","tag-just-science","tag-kubernetes","tag-linux","tag-mlp","tag-mumford-and-sons","tag-my-little-pony","tag-openshift","tag-pinkie-pie","tag-plan-partners","tag-ron-swanson","tag-song-lyrics-as-wisdom","tag-summer-camp-island"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/soul-repairs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/soul-repairs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/soul-repairs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soul-repairs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soul-repairs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2467"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/soul-repairs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2467\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2654,"href":"https:\/\/soul-repairs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2467\/revisions\/2654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/soul-repairs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soul-repairs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soul-repairs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2467"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soul-repairs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=2467"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soul-repairs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}