One thing about humans is that we’re really good at habituating. It doesn’t take long for something new to become normal. This really came to mind last month when I presented a pair of talks at the DevConf.cz conference in Brno, Czech Republic.

One of my talks was a 25-minute presentation on project management in community projects. As I was putting the talk together, I started thinking “this is a nothingburger.” Twenty-five minutes isn’t enough to give any useful depth of information. So all I’m doing is giving a basic description of my job.

As it turns out, “nothingburger” was the exact hunger level of the audience. When I asked the room, only three people or so said they were professional project or program managers. An intro-level talk was exactly the right target. Doing the work every day, I forgot that it’s not everyday for other people. Even people who do related work might find something worthwhile out of it.

l should have known better. Even in my own company, I’m the only program manager who works directly in upstream projects. The rest are focused on the company’s products. Unless they served in my role previously, the people on my team don’t necessarily know how my job is different from theirs.

I left DevConf.cz feeling inspired to seize the momentum and keep moving on some things I’ve wanted to do. And it’s a good reminder to myself and others that we’re not the best judges of what others will find interesting.